Bonjour de Bordeaux!

Hi everyone! I want to start off this email with a big thank you to all of you that wished me a Happy Birthday in one fashion or another. I know that I am loved and it really made my day yesterday when I was able to read all of the cards you all compiled. It was pretty sweet. It was a reminder too of how many wonderful people I am surrounded by in my life. I truly am immensely blessed. 

Elder Johnson requested skinny ties so he would not stick out.  So I sent him this one.  

Not really sure what he is unhappy about…lol

Reading ALL of his cards.  Thanks everyone.

MON ANNIVERSAIRE 

Well! Elder Karrais and I are lucky enough to have our birthdays super close together so we were able to celebrate at the same time. I didn't really tell too many members that it was my birthday because that is kind of weird and attention driven but when they did find out a lot of RDVs got set to go eat with them either this week or next week :) Woot woot. BUT to celebrate in the mean time, we went out to a nice restaurant with the other elders today... OH and Justine and Sarah made us birthday cakes! 

They were really good. Kind of like a giant brownie. However, we found out that someone had been eating off of them. We were kind of bugged or whatever and we were still talking in the hallway and then this kid walks by with a huge handful AND mouthful of cake. hahaha.. Oh dear. Our mouths just dropped but we weren't mad because the kid who had done it has autism. Just got to laugh things off like that. HAHA

OH! And President and Sister Roney gave me a call to tell me happy birthday, which made my day. President said, "You've done your job." And I asked, “what was my job?” and then he said, "Survive for twenty years!" haha. 

My birthday has been wonderful... so again, thank you!

AMIS

So! We were able to teach more this week than the previous weeks, which is always nice. However, we have had to pass two of our amis. It is kind of a bummer but at least they are still being taught. It is just kind of sad when you get so excited to teach people and then they have to get passed.

We met this SUPER cool Chinese girl named Lisha. She is a student here and is super open and wants to learn more. We had a great lesson with her and she said they she felt good. But then we got a text from her telling us that she prefers the principles of another group and that she can't see us anymore. But se told her to pray and really think about still taking the lessons. I think that it will all work out. Just pray really hard for her. 

OH! And we had a cool miracle this week. We had a woman come up to us and say to us: "Tell me what I need to learn, teach me about Jesus!" haha. Hashtag every missionaries dream eva. She was super cool and funny. We taught her in between two appointments we had and it went really well. When things happen like that I always know that God is preparing people to become closer to Him. He is always preparing people to learn more. 

LES AUTRES CHOSES

We were able to do garden work this week.:D  It took me back to Bergerac ;). It was nice to get to do some service. It kind of feels like therapy sometimes doing service where you can see all the progress you are making, instant progress, the type of progress that you rarely see in missionary work. It was a good service session.

I've been studying patience a lot. And something that I found that is really cool is a scripture in Romans. I think something that I need to work on is seeing how trials and hard things happen and how they can help me. But this scripture reminded me of that. It says: 

Romans 5:3:  And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; 

What a cool scripture! We should be glory in tribulations knowing how much we are going to learn from them. Thank Heavenly Father for the difficulties in your life and you will endure them much happier, easier and with a wider perspective!

I love you all! 

Avec Amour,

Elder Johnson

Hiya!

Hey everyone! Goodness how time flies! I've been in Bordeaux for three weeks already! Weeks just come and go. Sometimes I wish time would slow down a little. 

Anyway! About my week! :)

EXCHANGES

So! I went on a TON of exchanges this week.. One was planned and the others were all on the spot decided. My first exchange was with Elder Miner. We stayed in Talence and didn't have a ton of stuff planned before so we had a LOT of time for contacting. We had been contacting for about 45 minutes when I felt like we needed to go pass this member. So we are walking towards this members house and this woman comes up to us and asks "Vous êtes les mormons?" (You're the Mormons?) And we say yes and I'm thinking, "YES! This is why we came to see this member, so we could meet this lady." But then she is like.. I need you to pray for me... so I can win the lottery because I need to have lots of money to be happy.... (Face palm). So, my hopes and dreams were a little dashed. haha We did pray for her that she could be happy. 

One exchange we also visited some super cool members, because we are still trying to get to know the entire ward. It was too bad that Elder Karras wasn't with me because we got fed so many treats. haha. The members in this ward LOVE the missionaries. LOVE THEM. It is pretty impressive. 

OTHER EXCHANGES

SO the day after I had my exchange with Elder Miner, Elder Karras got REALLY sick and we had to stay in all day. We called this mission nurse and she said we couldn't go out for a long time. So I just read my scriptures, caught up in my journal, cleaned the whole apartment, and wrote a few letters. You really can only read your scriptures for so long consecutively before everything starts running together and your brain turns into spiritual mush. So, the Zone Leaders and the Lormont Elders were kind enough to do splits/exchanges with our equip so we didn't lose any of our RDVs. It was really nice of them. And I stayed sane. Elder Karras ended up being sick for about three days. We did get to go to church though. I was glad he could get out because I think apartment fever was starting to set in. lol

NOS AMIS

We taught a few times this week and the lessons were pretty good! We taught Manu about the Plan of Salvation. He really is searching for direction in his life and knows that he needs to put God first but he isn't quite willing to do it. 

We also taught Mathieu, which went really well. He said that everything we have taught him makes sense and that he is starting to "understand" the importance of what we are teaching. 

AUTRES CHOSES

So, the girl who found my wallet told me that she was a little busy this last week... she was on vacation. BUT! Hopefully within these next few weeks we can get a RDV with her.

Vickie, the lady who asked us if we were from Utah, is going on vacation this week but she really wants to come to church the week after this one. I really feel like she has a lot of potential. Elder Andersen gave us statistics of people who were baptized and the top three characteristics were: People in a period of change (just moved, lost a loved one, etc) have friends or connections with the church, and are around 18-24 and she is all three of them! So! I'm excited.

Oh... something else we ate, HORSE! We saw it in the store and it was only 3 euros so I was like. Yes, I must try this. And it was pretty good. I actually liked it. It tasted like deer meat but less gamey and more tender. 

Elder Karras' Birthdy is the the 7th of August and mine on the 3^rd, so we are hoping that lots of members will shower us in birthday love :) haha

Anyway! I know that this work could not possibly work if it wasn't the work of the Lord. He lives. He loves us. And He wants us to be happy. 

I love you!

Une Autre Semaine Passé

Bonjour tout le monde! We had an awesome week in Talence! Lots of stuff going on! Working hard, looking for more people to teach!

LA FÊTE NATIONALE 

So! Last Monday was Bastille Day! It was super fun. President was super nice and said that we could stay out until midnight if we had members take us home. So, in the evening we went with the Sister Training Leaders (Sœur Luthi and Sœur Bailey) and some members from the Ward. We ate at the Chinese food place and walked around centre ville Bordeaux, ate some ice cream and then headed to Park Peixotto for the firework show. 

 

The park was so packed but it was still really fun. I was expecting to not enjoy the fireworks so much just because the fireworks at the ranch are super awesome but I was really impressed! There was music and a light show.

The next day we got to sleep in a little too! Which was nice, but I woke up at 6:30 and had to force myself to go back to sleep. lol

LE TRAVAIL MISSIONNAIRE

We doubled the lessons and contacts we had this week! That was pretty cool. I mean, it wasn't a ton but it was nice to see that we are starting to get established in Talence and understanding how things work here.

We are still looking for more people to teach! A cool little miracle that happened: there was this woman that was walking by us and I felt that I should talk to her but she walked by too fast and I was like ... NOOO. 

But then when we got on our tram, she sat down next to us and said "Hey! Are you from Utah?!" haha It was super cool. She is from Singapore and in France studying French. She told us that she was Baptist and that she is just going to a church here because she said she knows she needs to go to church. We got her number and are going to meet with her sometime this week! I'm excited. I could see her becoming one of our amies. 

CONFÉRENCE DU ZONE 

We had Zone Conference in Pau this Monday. That is why I didn't email. Pau is a beautiful city. It is about 2 hours south eastish of Bordeaux. This Conference was super awesome because president Roney did interviews, which are always my favorite. I could just sit in front of him and ask him questions for hours. He is so inspiring.  

The conference was a very spiritual one too. We talked a lot about the Elder Andersen conference and how we need to continue to make ourselves better. The Lord has given us many miracles in the mission this past month and to continue to have miracles we must continue to improve ourselves. We had a mission wide baptism of 22 people on the same day. 22! 

It is wonderful to see the work hastening in the land of France :) 

I know that the Lord has His hand in this work, and that if we trust Him and follow His commandments, we cannot fail. It is His work.

That's about it for this week! 

I love you and pray for you often!

Que Dieu vous bénisse! 

Elder Johnson

PS... we overflowed the baptismal font.