Birthday gifts & Baptisms!

This week was definitely filled with lots of surprises. The transfer ended this past week so I knew I was most likely going to get a new companion. What I didn't know was that I was going to get a called to train a new missionary... I just got finished being trained so that was the last thing on my mind. So my new companion is fresh off the plane from the MTC! Let's just say if I don't get the "gift of tongues" pretty soon here we might be having some problems.. Haha. She actually took a little French in High School so she can pretty much already speak better than me. I can understand a little better because I am more used to the accent here so I told her that we will just have to work as I team... I will listen and translate what people are saying and she can respond back to them! It's going to be a little difficult at first but I know being forced to speak is really going to help me learn French quicker. So I think it's one of those things that you don't realize the blessing of it until after. Let's just say that these next two transfers are going to be quite the adventure!

So for my birthday this year I went into Paris to pick up my new companion! My birthday gift this year was Soeur Witham. She is from Provo, Utah and we are pretty sure we played softball against each other in High School. Small world! She is super sweet and really excited about missionary work. I think we are going to end up getting along really well! We came back to Lille, dropped off her luggage and I took her to visit a member in Ward. For dinner we went to this Italian restaurant that I have been really wanting to eat at since I got to Lille. I got a big margarita pizza for dinner! Ideally, a home cooked meal from my mother would have been preferred but since that wasn't really an option, I thought a margarita pizza was the next best thing! Afterwards, we came back and had chocolate cake for dessert. This was definitely a birthday different from any other I have ever had... But hey I got to spend my birthday in Paris so that's a birthday present within itself!

Birthday dinner!

Before Soeur North left we were able to have our baptism for the 14 & 11 year old that we have been teaching. It was such a great day because they have been wanting to be baptized for awhile. They come from a part member family but the whole family ended up coming to the baptism so that was awesome! They are the typical cute French family so we always love going to their house. Plus, they literally live 3 minutes from the Belgium border so she always has the best chocolate for us. Let's just say I am excited we get to teach them the "after baptism" lessons too :)

Baptism for Lucile & Alex!

I took Soeur Witham out contacting for the first time! I was a little nervous because I didn't know exactly how it was going to go. It actually made me even more excited for this transfer because we were able to see a couple miracles! Our miracle of the day was this girl named Tiffanie. We started talking to her about the ways we find peace and joy in our lives. She immediately let us know that she doesn't believe in God and that she wasn't interested. We kept talking to her and asked her what the goal of this life is for her. She explained that she just wants to be a good person and so one of the things she does is humanitarian work. I assured her that she definitely seems like a good person to me! We explained that Christ was a perfect example of how to be a good person and that we can follow his teachings and example. We ended up praying with her and afterwards talking with her for quite a bit longer. At the end of our conversation I asked if there would be another time we can meet with her and talk more and she said yes! We said a lot of things that I don't remember because now looking back all I can remember is how poor our French was but how she could still feel the spirit. It didn't matter what we said because it's not us that does the teaching. Our responsibilities as missionaries is to just be willing to open our mouths so that the spirit can do the teaching. Afterwards, we both looked at each other in shock and said, "That was a miracle that she understood us because that French was horrible... Haha." It was such a great testimony builder of teaching with the spirit. It brought me a lot of reassurance to know that as long I am willing to open my mouth the spirit will fill it and touch the hearts of people. They probably won't remember/understand what I said but they will always remember what they felt! Church is true. Have a wonderful week!

Love, Soeur Johnson