Snow, A week in Lyon and a Baby!

Hello everyone. This email, may be a bit shorter than others just because I'm typing on a French keyboard and it is probably the worst invention to man. You have to shift to use the period and the “q” is where the “a” should be. I'm really close to just screaming at the top of my lungs and karate chopping the computer in half.

Aside from this stupid computer, this week has been pretty darn good! Super, super, 

super cold but really good.

 SNOW

It snowed going to Lyon, like a lot! We had to stay in Toulouse for a night and we all slept horribly because their windows were huge and they let a ton of light in and the apartment next to us was having a crazy loud party. When we all woke up, Elder Berry said... "Ah, it is snowing, I'm going back to bed." and I thought he was just quoting a movie or something but then I look outside like five minutes later and it actually was snowing.  And all of the French people starting melting and freaking out because they don't usually get snow. I thought it was rather nice... but they don't really like it. Probably because they just aren't used to it. 

 Luckily it melted pretty quickly otherwise missionary work would have been hard. I’m glad their isn't snow in our missions everyday like some places. It was a pleasant surprise. It also snowed a little bit in Lyon but just flurries. It was really, really cold. I thought I was going to die at how cold it was. The temp wasn't even that could but the wind was wicked. 

LYON

First off, I spent the entire week in Lyon! It was both good and bad. Good because I love Lyon and les Lyonnais but bad because we weren't able to teach our amis all week AND because we had to eat out like everyday and that gets really expensive. Normally when you go to get a bleu, you leave Lyon on Thursday. But I can't complain: Lyon is so awesome and with all of that extra time I was able to go see Rachelle! She is doing so well! She is currently preparing to go to the temple! March 23 will mark her being a member for one year. 

Visit with Rachelle

I wasn’t able to see Annick which was sad. She had to work. Rachelle told me she isn't doing so well. She hasn't come to church in a long time and she is sick from stress because her son that is in Africa has been in danger a lot recently. So, please keep them in your prayers. It makes me really sad to hear that she isn't doing so well. It must be so hard to have a child on another continent. I just hope that she realizes she needs to trust God and go to church too. Whenever trials come, that is the most important time to go to church and to put God first. 

We got into Lyon Tuesday with all of the other trainers. We were taken out to dinner to this super good Pizza place by the zone leaders. It was so much fun to be there with all of the other trainers. It was kind of like a mini vacation.... lol. Except, as fun as the mini vacation was, I was so ready to go back to Périgueux and start doing work! It makes you crazy not being able to do missionary work in your sector. 

Elder Johnson with Elder Acheson his "baby" or "bleus"

Wednesday rolled around and that is when we got our bleus (the baby that I referenced in the subject line) aka new missionary in the field, a greeny. I have never been so nervous on my mission until that moment! All of the trainers are sitting on one side of the chapel and all of the bleus on the other!  It was really an awesome experience! I literally was about to fly out of my chair whenever a bleu went up to read their assignment. President makes them like a mini mission call for them to read to open in front of everyone and then everyone freaks out when they read it, lol. 

Trainers with their their bleus

There are actually two sisters (literal sisters) that are serving to together! One of the sister's is training the other one... Whenever she read her call like everyone in the chapel starting crying, especially president Roney. It was an interesting thing to witness. I was just thinking the whole time how cool of a story that will be for their families in the future. Pretty sick. 

The two sisters.  The younger one has been in the mission field for some time.
The older just arrived.  The younger sister will now be her trainer.  What are the odds ?

Thursday we did a LOT of contacting... the bleus did their legality that day. Apparently their flight coming here got cancelled so they missed their normal legality appointment and that is why we stayed in Lyon for so long. Friday was kind of the same thing. We had some stuff to do, we sang in the gare with all of the missionaries. That was so fun. So many people stopped and listened. I was surprised. We sang "Families Can Be Together  Forever" and totally sang about temple marriages to a bunch of random French people. I loved it. 

MON BEBE 

SO! My "son" as the mission calls it (my bleu) His named Elder Acheson. He is from Provo, Utah. He is super cool. I love him already. He French is impressive and all of the members seem to really like him. We are going to have a great transfer together, I just know it. It is weird being a trainer. It is kind of stressful but I like it. I think back to when I started my mission and how hard and weird and interesting and exciting it was. 

Elder Acheson

That is it for this week! I love you all: 

Love;

Elder Johnson

PS: FUNNY STORY

So, we walk into church this Sunday and there is a missionary in there that I don't recognize! I have no idea who this guy is, so I go up and start speaking to him in French and he has a weird English accent. Turns out that he had just got home from his mission in Provo. He was having a super hard time speaking French. It was really funny. Apparently he came to Périgueux to meet with the stake president to get released... Voila