Early Christmas presents

I LOVE Christmas!! A couple of weeks ago the zone leaders called to say that the Christmas Conference would be in Versailles!!!!! You can imagine how happy I was!! Being back in Versailles!! You bet I hurry and made some calls so I could see my favorite family! The train ride to Versailles was soo surreal because I always hoped to go back but never knew if I would but then thinking that Versailles is our mission hub I knew I would be there eventually! I was soo happy! I was able to see all of my old companions and sooo many of my mission friends! It was super spiritual and I learned a lot but man it was sooo fun! We were given the direction to do a caroling porting to be able to teach the gospel... ME AND SINGING???? There is a reason why ALL of my companions don’t volunteer us to sing at anything. I may have cried a little thinking about having a sing on the doorstep of strangers in French. The whole conference was just so great! I LOVED being back in Versailles! We did a white elephant Christmas gift exchange and everyone was supposed to bring something spiritually uplifting and a good gift.... I GOT A MENS TIE! So you know me and my gift exchanging... I went around to all of the tables and examined everyone’s gifts and then worked my magic and left with a beautiful notebook hand designed by one of my sister friends and definitely upgraded from the tie I would just end up sending to some elder!

Emily with Souer Denning (MTC companion)

Emily with Souer Hunsaker and Melville

Christmas Conference

Emily's friends from the MTC Elder Neilson and Elder Cramer

Emily with Soeur Poznanski

Emily with the sisters from her MTC district

Almost the whole MTC district reunited

After the conference was even better! I saw my GRENIER Family!! 2/4 at least! Soeur Grenier and Raphael came and got me and my companion from the conference and we were able to just chat like old times! She even gave me a little Christmas gift of fancy chocolates in a pretty bag! It was the greatest day of my life! I really just love that family!

This week was a problem with my eye. As many of you know I have reeeeeally bad eyes. Like glasses when I was 2 and contacts when I was 6 bad. Well I tend to use the same pair of contacts for a long time and this time was like 5 months long and so my right eye got all infected and turned all pink. Everyone kept asking if I had pink eye and I just said no I just have an eye that is pink. Finally my companion convinced me that I needed to swallow my pride and wear my glasses for a few days to let my eye heal. So that means not making an eye contact with people on the street because I didn’t want people to see my eye or glasses. It wasn’t too bad and after a few days and a fresh pair of contacts I was able to see again!

Our Portuguese family is back! We decided to pass by their house and it was pretty obvious they were back because there house was like the only house in Cholet with Christmas lights fully decked all in front! So we sang and fixed another rdv! They even came to church all together with their daughter and granddaughter! It was a Christmas miracle!

This past week has been so great! I have watched Joy to the World quite a few times but it never gets old! I love being able to share this spirit of Christ with people and remind them why we have noel!

Thank you all for your love and support and for your prayers!

Have a wonderful Christmas and a terrific new year’s!

Love,

Soeur Emily Johns

Found a gameboy from the 80's

Thithanh made a sign, everyday I love you

Cleaning fr Poussards house

Christmas Seashells

Making Christmas gifts

Amis all around!

I LOVE Christmas! Ever since I was a little kid I have always loved Christmas waaay more than my birthday, waaay more than when marathons of Boy Meets World were on, waay more than when I got to stay up late. I just really have always loved Christmas! Then I went on a mission and won’t be able to be with my family for Christmas which I thought would be a bummer and it still is in a way but really now I realize that I am just going to be with my family in Cholet and let me tell you, it is a GREAT family! But once again I am getting waaay too ahead of myself!

So I passed the last few days with Sœur Horn very well! We had lunches and dinners with some of our favorite people in Cholet and just had a great time together! Having a companion that is ending her mission is a lot harder than having a companion that is just ending their time with you. With all of my other companions I have known that I will see them around the mission but knowing that I won’t see Sœur Horn until I am home is not too great. On Tuesday night it was nice because we had our last meal with ThiThanh and she took us to lunch which is like a cross between zupas and golden corral! It was fun and then after we came back and had hot chocolate and watched Mr. Krueger’s Christmas! It was the perfect last evening together!

Then we had to Wake up at like 5 to head to Paris! It was a LONG train ride, but beautiful! Being with all of the other missionaries in Paris was so fun! I just love my mission and really every time we are in big groups of missionaries it is just like a big reunion of all the people that I love! I was able to see Sœur Stahly and so many of my friends! Also with all of the next incoming missionaries I was able to meet three missionaries that went to the Madrid MTC that met my sister Jennifer! It was sooo cool because they had pictures with her and just loved her and really made the world that much smaller! It makes me even more excited for the Christmas conference tomorrow where I will be able to see so many more missionaries and being back in Versailles will just be the greatest!

After passing a lot of time with my friends I took Sœur Hill back to Cholet with me! She started her mission in a really small ville and now will be ending her mission in a similar place! She trained my MTC companion Sœur Denning so it is a lot of fun to be with her and she is such a good missionary! She just spent the last 8 months in Paris so coming to Cholet is a bit of a change for her but she will love it eventually just like I did! We quickly have been going to work and we have been able to see some little miracles already! Also I am a runner again and running at 6:30 in the cold dark is a little hard but worth it! Thank you to my running companions.

On Saturday night was our ward Christmas party! AKA the event of the year! The building was all decorated and everyone was just so happy! The coolest part was that there were 20 nonmembers there that were all invited by the missionaries and members of the ward! Cholet is a small ward and so to have so many nonmembers there at the activity is a huge deal! It was such a fun night and really kicked off the Christmas celebrations!

Christmas is next week and this Sunday is our exceptional Sunday! We have fancy invites to give to people and everything! It is going to be a reunion especially focused on Christ for Christmas and to help everyone remember why we have Christmas! We are excited!!

I know that I say this every week but I really just LOVE being a missionary! I am cold a lot and tired and I get disappointed but then a little miracle happens and it ALL becomes worth it and I quickly forget everything else that was hard and not fun. I really feel SO Lucky to be able to be a missionary at this time of the year!

Thank you everyone for all of your love and support! It really means to world to me!

Love,

Sœur Emily Johns

Gifts

Happy Birthday to Me!! It isn’t my birthday??? I am getting gifts... MUST BE CHRISTMAS or my mission birthday!! Either way, I ACCEPT! Okay so I just reread that and I sound like Eloise at Christmastime and then I remembered that I am a missionary and working on being selfless so let’s restart!

Cholet is becoming pretty!!! It hasn’t quite earned having its own postcards yet but one day I know it will! But until then it is Christmas and the whole town is decked out in lights and pretty things! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas and people are just happy and I KNOW that it is because everyone is remembering Christ and that makes people happy! Cholet being pretty makes me love it here even more!

On Tuesday we had our final district meeting of the transfer which means... PICTURE TIME!! I have LOVED my district and really feel soo lucky to have always been in a good district and surrounded by amazing missionaries! The Chinese elders are both leaving and going back up to Paris and Soeur Horn goes home on Wednesday! So my new district is going to be quite different! Also on Tuesday we found out that our cat with ThiThanh died... It was a sad day. I thought cats have 9 lives so maybe she was on her last one!

As of today Soeur Horn has 2 days left and we have 12 days until Christmas!! The FINAL countdown is here!! I am excited for Soeur Horn to be with her family but boy am I going to miss her! She has been really good to me the past three months! But since my companion is leaving... I AM GETTING A NEW COMPANION!! Her name is Soeur Hill and she has I think two transfers left! She trained my MTC companion Soeur Denning so I have heard good things about her! I am excited to have her as my companion!!

So as a missionary we don’t only focus on baptism. We are really here to help everyone become closer to Christ. That means non members, less active members and members. Really our objective is to help people. So we have spent a lot of time teaching people who are no longer active in the church and to help them in any way that we can. WELL yesterday two women who haven’t been inside the church for SEVERAL years came to sacrament!! It was a Christmas miracle! It was really cool and people just welcomed them. That is something I really like about the ward here is that no matter if you are a member, ami or less active you are going to be loved and welcomed like you are their family! Perks of Cholet!

Okay so onto the gift part... On Tuesday it was my 8 month mark as a missionary. So a wonderful couple in the ward got me a present! A nutella cookbook!! Happy Birthday to me! Man has the time gone by and I can’t believe that I am nearing my halfway mark! Also my Christmas package from my family arrived. Pre-wrapped gifts and all! Our Christmas tree is filling up nicely and I love Christmas! But really I love it because of Christ! We have been able to share the DVD Joy to the World with people and it reminds me what the true meaning of Christmas is. I am so lucky to be a missionary right now and share Christ with everyone that I meet! I love being a missionary!

Remember that week that we met a ton of Muslim men?? I don’t remember if I included that or not but anyway there was a week that every time we got on a bus or at the bus stop Muslim men would talk to us. Bad combination because we don’t contact men or Muslims.... BUT we ended up meeting up with a set of Muslim missionaries a little bit later because they had some questions and it was really nice. Well this past week we met up with them again and this time we swapped books!! We got them each a Book of Mormon in Arabic and they gave us the Qur'an in English!! Another great gift! It was really cool because we are both curious about the others religions and so we just asked one another questions and we were able to teach them a bit about who we are! I love making friends!!

Thank you ALL for your prayers and support! I am definitely feeling the love and appreciate you all! I am soo happy and soo blessed!!

Love,

Sœur Emily Johns

Artwork that Emily's companion has done for her

Getting Colder. She said right after this picture it went to -2.5

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

Holidays!

So because France doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving it has been Christmas season since October and at first I was a little bummed and not willing to celebrate it until AFTER Thanksgiving... BUT then this week happened! In the mall that we do our grocery shopping EVERYTHING was decked out in Christmas decor and I just got soo excited and knocked the scrooge out of me and now I am embracing Christmas before Thanksgiving! Like making a countdown to Christmas chain!! But don’t worry we are fulllllly celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday with our zone of missionaries in Nantes! I can’t wait and we get the day off until the evening!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE Holidays! It doesn’t even really make me that sad that there isn’t snow because Cholet is cold without it!

This past week was a good one! Do you remember that week that we met a couple of Americans???? Well this week we met up with our American friend Diane at a Cafe and just chatted! She is super cool and it was great just having a normal conversation with an American from NYC! She even gave us work out videos... INSANITY here I come!!

Christmas Sunday and the Primary program Sunday are my FAVORITE Sundays ever!!! And guess which one was yesterday!!!!???? PRIMARY!! It is just as cute and entertaining in French as it is in English! Also it doesn’t hurt when the French little kids are just sooo funny! We had a ward repas after and our American cookies were a BIG hit! SO cooking skills coming back??

For district meeting this week we had a Chinese meal... having the Mandarin elders in our district definitely make for an exciting meal. I am still not fully aware of what we ate but it was fun! I really like my district and have been blessed throughout my mission with being surrounded by the coolest missionaries!!

Remember our Portuguese family?? So they LOVED, LOVED Church and turns out they went and got their daughter and granddaughter and drove by our Church (office building with rented space) and were soo happy and proud to show them where they went! So when we stopped by last week the daughter and granddaughter had already watched the Restoration Movie so when we gave them a book of Mormon they were even more excited!! Our Portuguese family just got bigger!!

As of today I am not longer the only Johns sister on a mission! Jennifer is officially in Madrid as a missionary!! I love being a missionary and am sooo happy for her to now have this experience herself!!

Thank you all for the love and support and have a GRRRREAT Thanksgiving!!

I love you all,

Sœur Emily Johns