TEXTING

I don’t know what it was like to be a missionary before cell phones came out but I can say that I LOVE to text!! Maybe I am just a normal 21 year old girl in 2014 but man is texting great and texting as a missionary EVEN BETTER!!

This week has been the most successful number wise of my mission. And it ALL pretty much came from our little cell phone and the amazing function it has to text.

I have been sick for the past couple of weeks and this last week has been the worst for my cough. On Sunday evening I couldn’t talk to people because all I did was cough and so I decided to text every name in the phone that I didn’t know to see if they are interested in seeing us and learning about the gospel. Well little did I know... PEOPLE RESPONDED!!! Some just to say that they aren’t interested and some wanted to meet us. So we quickly fixed several rendezvous with people that we don’t know except for the name. I knew it would be a very interesting week...

On Monday evening we had a little FHE with a family from Congo and Martinique that we have been seeing. The dad is the one that attacked me and Soeur Tane with the bis but turns out he is really cool. We shook hands with him promising to come to church. His name is Frederique and he had met with the elders in the south of France A LOT but maybe this time is right for him.

Right after that we did our first texting RDV. It was with someone in the phone named Gwenael. We had her meet us at the metro stop near her apartment because I would just get lost trying to find it on my own. Well we find this TINY little lady and introduced ourselves as the sisters. She responded with I AM REALLY CONFUSED. She thought we were the bon soeures AKA NUNS. Whelp sorry to disappoint but she let us come anyway. She had made a dinner to go with her lint thing of not eating meat. It was pretty good but she was VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY interesting. She had a cross burned into her wrist that she said came from God and she doesn’t like our church building because the spires look like it is stabbing heaven.... But she is super nice and even lets homeless men stay in her apartment. Not exactly sure when we will be seeing her again!

One of the responders to our message was named Hadieb, a man and Muslim. So two strikes against what we can teach as sister missionaries. He got a little bit obsessive before we even fixed the RDV. I explained that the elders would meet him at the church and he seemed fine until he called 23 times in 3 days.... So thanks to the elders leaving a message on his phone... HE HAS STOPPED!

So that was our first interesting experiences from a man this week but certainly not the last. There is a recent convert here named Marco... He is from Macedonia and has this really cool mafia accent when he speaks French. It only makes it better than he always talks with his right hand motioning from his mouth to the air just like you would assume. Well for whatever reason I was honored by a prayer from him. He is SUPER cool and I love him but when the elders forwarded me the text from him... I didn’t quite understand. For those that don’t speak French it is just a bunch of nice words strung together to make a prayer. I asked him about it yesterday at church and he just told me to never ask why and that I am a fille sympa! So I will just accept it with thanks!

Since I have been sick for quite some time and it makes teaching a bit difficult because I am just coughing the WHOLE time... I finally have taken some medicine. And my medicine I mean EVERYONE AND ANYONE just keeps giving me whatever medicine they have in their apartment and wait for me to take it. I have no idea what I have drank or swallowed and it might counter balance one another but I think I am getting better. The best is when ThiThanh called me this week and heard that I was coughing and the next day I received in my mailbox cough syrup and cough drops from ThiThanh with explicit directions of not eating the cough drops like candy and to only take the syrup every 6 hours. So many people have my back and I will be healed in no time!

On Thursday we had a FULL day of texting RDVs. It all started in the morning with LO... SO when we found LO in our phone we were imagining a little Asian girl and that is definitely NOT what we got. Lo is like 25 and 6'4 and a black man... Also he kind of said that he will be praying to God to let me marry him... and he has sent several texts since that RDV asking me to go to dinner with him and to come over... So we will see what the elders can do with this one. We also saw Grace from Congo and Christelle from Vietnam. On Thursday our bus also broke down in the middle of a one car wide street for about 30 minutes. It was pretty exciting because all the cars behind us had to strategically figure out how to back up and out one by one!

Friday we went to Le Mans! We had zone conference and ALL of my companions still in the mission were there; sadly a photo was not taken because I was too busy talking to everyone that I love! We learned lots and lots including that we will be doing Easter Contacting and Porting. Just like at Christmas except this time we don’t have to sing and accept chocolate from strangers!

On Saturday was the relief society birthday party! With some of the different cultures in the ward and in the church the theme was cultural diversity! It was decorated with things from all around the world and different food and talents! We made pancakes and pbj sandwiches and did the pledge of allegiance which I may have forgotten GO AMERICA! It was really fun to learn about different cultures and to appreciate them more!

All in all this was a great week! We had lots of sun and lots of hail. Lots of solid new people and lots of people that we have now deleted their numbers. We found 6 new amis and had 5 amis at church!! Pretty exciting and it all just came from finally talking to the numbers in the phone we see all the time. Moral of this week is that often times we think we have already talked to everyone we know about the gospel and tried to share with people but really it may just not have been the right time and the next person that meets with the missionaries may be someone that you see ALL the time and have already talked to. You never know!

I LOVE being a missionary! I say it all the time but it is really the best and I am sooo happy ALL THE TIME!

Thank you for your love and support and your prayers!

Love,

Soeur Emily Johns