A Valentine's Miracle

Bonjour family and friends!!

This week started off by going to Paris to do exchanges with our sister training leaders! They are both amazing missionaries and good friends. In the past, when I have gone to Paris, we have had meetings and I have never actually been able to really hit the streets of Paris and go contacting. This time we were able to go out and share our testimonies with the people of Paris! There are so many people everywhere and everyone is super busy. It is quite different than Luxembourg! We spent Valentine's Day, in the "City of love", trying to spread the Savior's love. It will definitely be a Valentine's Day that I will always remember. I went out contacting with Sœur Marshall and we had such a cool miracle together. 

Enjoying the view of Paris!!

We started off by praying to know where to go. We both felt that we should go down the same road and so we went! We walked down the road for a little bit but everyone that we talked with wasn't interested. Then we looked ahead of us and didn't even see anyone on the road. We were like, "We just walked down the only road in Paris without people!" We decided to keep going though because we both felt that was the street we needed to go down. A couple minutes later we walked by a restaurant and saw a super cute, young french girl just standing there, obviously waiting for her Valentine's date! We decided to start talking with her and she ended up being so receptive! Soeur Marshall started testifying about the restoration and this girl listened really intently. She actually seemed genuinely interested and she asked us a lot of great questions. Her date ended up coming when we were still talking with her but he stood behind us and waited patiently until we finished talking and had said a prayer together. The spirit is always so strong when talking about the restoration. There is no doubt that she was who we needed to find that night! Hopefully, they will be able to see her again. Finding that one person, always makes it easy to forget about all the people that said no before. It also was a good reminder that if we receive spiritual promptings or answers, we should make sure to have patience and trust that it is what Heavenly Father wants us to do. If we would have turned around, we would have never had this awesome miracle! President Monson has a great quote about acting on promptings, "In the performance of our responsibilities, I have learned that when we heed a silent prompting and act upon it without delay, our Heavenly Father will guide our footsteps and bless our lives and the lives of others. I know of no experience more sweet or feeling more precious than to heed a prompting only to discover that the Lord has answered another person’s prayer through you.” We were definitely guided to speak with her that night!

Celebrating 15 months as missionaries

We had another amazing experience. We were in Metz, France for district meeting and we were heading back to Luxembourg. We were waiting for our train and the person standing next to us turn toward us and said, "Are you mormons?" We started talking with her and we learned that she actually lives in Lille, France (my first area) and she has a cousin that is member in California. She told us the conversion story of her cousin. She said the missionaries came to her house to teach her dad but her cousin was there and ended up listening too. Her dad stop taking lessons from the missionaries but her cousin continued and was eventually baptized. We talked a little bit more and asked why they were all the way in Metz, France if they lived in Lille. We found out that they were actually in Metz for a funeral because one of their family members died. They were at the train station because they were getting on the train to go to the funeral service. She then started to ask us questions about what we believe about death and if there is an after life. We pulled out the Book of Mormon and read Alma 40:11 to explain what happens after death. When they saw the Book of Mormon they said, "Hey we have one of those at our house!" We were able to testify that families are forever and that they would see their loved one again. We were in the middle of a crazy train station but the spirit was so strong. Tears flowed to her eyes as we testified and there is no doubt that she felt the spirit as well. We got so caught up in talking that we didn't even notice that the train was actually 20 Minutes late! If the train wouldn't have been late, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to teach them a little bit about the plan of salvation. What a tender mercy! I love those moments where it is so obvious that the Lord's hand is in our work.

Every week I find more and more reasons to be grateful. Heavenly Father has been really good to me! Church is true. Have a great week! 

Love, Sœur Johnson