My boyfriend Lee!

As a missionary we promise that we will leave all worldly affairs behind and really give our time and attention to the mission. I was all down for that because I didn’t have a boyfriend at home, I knew my family would be fine and school would be there when I get back. Well that ALLLL changed. Meet Lee:

Lee is my new boyfriend and I expect that we will have a long and happy Relationship up until I leave Cholet. Who is Lee you may ask??? He is our Australian GPS for the car! We just discovered him and the American guy was too robotic, the English guy was just too posh and the French guy I don’t speak French well enough to understand. So Lee it is! It makes driving so much more fun when I have the nice Australian accented Young man telling me where to go! We have a great Relationship because even when I ignore him and try to do my own thing he quickly has another plan to guide me in the right direction! I love him!

Thanksgiving was this week!!! Spending all of these American holidays in France makes the holidays less exciting but a whole different type of fun! So our whole zone met up in Nantes on Thanksgiving and we had a big feast! It was a BYOT bring your own turkey but we forgot so us and the zone leaders walked for an hour to find a chicken. France doesn’t really do turkey except for sliced meat so a nice roasted rotisserie chicken did the job! It was yummy! Each companionship brought something and our trying to do candied sweet potatoes didn’t work out the way we thought. An American recipe without American ingredients turns out differently so it ended up being a melted marshmallow, buttery sweet thing but everyone loved it! I will send Thanksgiving pics next week!

Right after our feast we started exchanges! I have done all 5 of my transfers with Sœur Hoover as my STL and in my zone! I was her very first exchange as an STL and her very last! She dies next week with my companion! Do you all remember my last exchange with her...? I try to forget being left in a Paris Metro my first week in France all alone but it is still in my mémoire! Good thing Cholet doesn’t have a metro because we were able to stay together the whole time! We even drove the car to ensure we wouldn’t be separated! I Love that sister and it was sooo nice being able to do another exchange with her! She saw me when I first became a missionary and now that I am at 8 months she can hopefully see a change!

But the second the exchange ended and Sœur Horn and I were back... THE day after Thanksgiving... WE DECORATED!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas soooo much and for some reason our apartment has lots of stuff so we went to town! N'Sync Christmas??? I found some potpourri and tried to make it... I didn’t really read the instructions but I just thought if I boiled it then it would make the apartment smell nice and cinnamonny like Christmas... well then I got really into cleaning and forgot about it and forgot to add water so I ended up making the apartment smell a lot like smoke and not so much like Christmas! I hope Sœur Horn lets me try it again before she leaves!

On Saturday Cholet welcomed another member into the ward! Etienne got baptized!! He wasn’t our ami necessarily but seeing him get baptized was beautiful Cholet is just gaining more and more members and there was even an article in the paper about the Church buying land to make a chapel. Not sure how they got that info because it isn’t official but soon they will need their own!

After the baptism we were driving home with ThiThah and she quickly stopped the car and turned on the hazard lights and jumped out of the car. There was a little white dead kitten on the side of the road and she wanted to save it. Well it wasn’t dead and ThiThanh did save it. She rushed to the store and got a baby bottle and some milk and together we nursed it back to health! She is an angel! We named the kitten Sophie and I HATE cats but love this one!!

As of Today I have exactly 10 months left on my mission. I don’t know where the time has gone but I have loved every minute of it. I am so excited every day to just be alive and happy! I love this time I have in my life and am very grateful for all that I am being blessed with!

Thank you everyone for all of the love and support!!

Love,

Sœur Emily Johns 

Pancake party

Emily, her companion, and Moran and Simon