Death Hike 2015

Ok, so I'm really sorry I didn't say my PDay was going to be different this week, but now you know!  It was because we were going to all go down to Montreal as a district and the train doesn't run on Mondays so we requested to have our PDay changed.  That was approved, and then we realized it was going to be super expensive for us all to take the train down there and then we would have had to buy food and stuff so we decided to do an activity just here in Terrebonne.
And that is how it came to pass that I am sitting in the church emailing right now with dead bugs in my hair, completely muddy, and 30+ mosquito bites (that is not an exaggeration).

Dad would have loved this hike we just did.  We got lost, we fell in the mud, some people lost shoes, everyone lost pride.  It was good.  I just reached into my pocket and found a small frog.  This is not a joke.  Really, Dad prepared me very well for my mission.  

Tender mercy of the week:  Shake It Off was playing in Walmart when we went grocery shopping :)  best day ever.

Potential missionaries: please read D&C 4 and know that it is directed at you.

I'm starting a new series called #unexpectedmissionarysideeffects

1) I no longer have any self control at all when it comes to food.  Sister Schmuhl and I really have to keep each other in check.  I'm blaming it on stress.

2) I wake up at 4am every day and can't get back to sleep.  

Some of my bites are on my fingers and they're making it kind of hard to type so this'll be a shorter email.

The gospel is amazing.  Watching people discover Jesus Christ is my new favorite activity.  The gospel changes lives. I just really love being a missionary.  I love Terrebonne.  We were warned that we wouldn't see any success in this area, and we chose to just ignore that and move forward -- I am so grateful we did.  We're already seeing so much potential for this area.  I'm so excited for our ward.

I love you all!!

Souvenez-vous qui vous etes :)

Soeur Lonas

Hope -- continued

Ok, so as you all know if you've been reading my blog, hope has been on my mind a lot recently.  And after that email I sent about it before (two weeks ago?) I asked my trainer whether or not it is a commandment to have hope and she didn't know but it sparked some really wonderful conversations.  So hope has been a general theme of my journal entries and our spiritual thoughts with members, and I've done some studying to find out whether or not it is a commandment--nothing really intense, which is probably why I hadn't found a very direct answer.  Then my mom sent me this email last week and it was just the coolest because I hadn't even told her that it was a question I'd specifically had but she sent me this quote:

"Hope is a gift of the Spirit.  It is a hope that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection, we shall be raised unto life eternal and this because of our faith in the Savior. This kind of hope is both a principle of promise as well as a commandment, and, as with all commandments, we have the responsibility to make it an active part of our lives and overcome the temptation to lose hope. Hope in our Heavenly Father’s merciful plan of happiness leads to peace,  mercy, rejoicing,  and gladness. The hope of salvation is like a protective helmet; it is the foundation of our faith and an anchor to our souls."   --- Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 2008

And that was just one of the coolest things I have ever read.  I'm guessing my mom didn't feel like she was sending me that out of any huge spiritual prompting, but I know it was by the spirit that she did choose to send me that particular quote.  It answered my pretty specific question exactly.  The gospel is the coolest.   Having hope is a commandment from God.  God loves us so much.

On the note of commandments, it is a commandment to be perfect.  We know that this is impossible because we are imperfect beings--which is why we are given the gifts we are given, that we may be made perfect through repentance by the power of the Holy Ghost and through our Savior Jesus Christ.  We can absolutely be perfect, if we allow him to help us get better every day.  It is not unrealistic to strive for perfection, because it's all about trying to be better every day.  It is not good enough to be "good enough".  You are an example to many more people than you could possibly know; be a good one.

Oh and by the way, this was an amazing week in every way.  We've had some car trouble, Sister Schmuhl got sick, I've had an issue with my eyes and have been wearing my glasses for five days (don't worry, mom, it's just about better), and we walked 8 miles one day to get to a dinner appointment, but we were BUSY this week teaching less active members and investigators and we saw so many miracles.  The gift of tongues is real.  It is impossible to learn a language this fast without some serious help from God.

And I'm SO happy to be serving my mission somewhere where bisous are a thing! That's the thing where everyone greets each other by kissing both cheeks -- we only do it with the women because we're missionaries and all but man, it's so fun.  It makes me feel so European and happy and cultural.  It's awesome.  I love Quebec.

Quick fun fact about my ward:  they haven't had a baptism in two years, and the last couple of converts they have had either moved or went inactive.  Don't worry, there are about to be big changes.  But that's where we're at right now.  Please pray for the ward missionary leadership.

To the YW in my home ward:
Being a young woman is really hard.  I don't think I realized it was hard until I was about 17 but all of it was hard.  I didn't know it was hard because I was too relaxed about my own life, specifically in my relationship with God and with Jesus Christ.  It is not enough to sit back as a spectator in your own life.  Act, do not wait to be acted upon.  Protect your virtue and your testimony with everything you have.  God will help you if you let Him.  Pray for His help every day.  Strengthen yourself before you need the strength, because I promise you that you will need it.  I love you, as do your leaders and your parents, and, most of all, your Father in Heaven.

Being a missionary is just my favorite thing!  I've never been so happy. 
I love you all,
Souvenez-vous qui vous êtes,
♥ Soeur Lonas

We will present ourselves at 8:00!

Okay, so this week was way better.  First, funny story.  The other day, Sister Schmuhl and I were trying to set up an appointment with this family, so we call them and the dad answers and he just has this THICK Quoi accent, so we ask if we can come over,  and he said a ton of stuff really fast, so we're trying super hard to understand but I really wasn't getting much of anything at all and then he suddenly stops talking and we weren't sure if he'd ended with a question or what, and Schmuhl and I were just looking at each other with wide eyes for like 10 seconds and then she goes "OKAY BYE" and he goes "Oui d'accord, bye bye"  and we hung up and we were quiet for like two minutes and then she goes "Well.  I got 'presenter'" and I said "And I got 'a huit heures'" and then we were quiet again and she goes "Ok. We will present ourselves at 8 o'clock!" hahaha and we totally did and we still don't know if they were expecting us at that time or not!! So many funny times.  It was great.

Also, I've been out for two months today!  So that's insane.  That means I only have 16 months left to convert all the Canadians and do everything I can to prepare the Terrebonne ward for the coming of Christ.  Ugh.  So much to do, so little time!

I love morning studies.  So much.  The scriptures are just my favorite.  Please read them.  They will, in a very real way, answer all the questions you have about anything.  Also, spoiler alert: you learned all the answers in Primary.  It is necessary that we relearn lessons over and over again and we are always learning new things and knowledge and learning are absolutely divinely instituted.  Needing to relearn is a gift from God.

I don't even know what else to say.  I love teaching, I love contacting.  This week has been so much better and I don't even know why, we didn't have any more "success" than last week.  Actually, I do know why, it's because I'm learning more and more how to rely on the spirit and trust God and counsel with my companion and pray more sincerely and seek guidance in the scriptures and allow the Spirit to work on me: all good things.

I love you all!
Souvenez-vous qui vous êtes. Toujours, toujours, toujours.
Also, dearelder is still a good thing.

Hope

It was a hard week.  I learned so much about humility and about hope.

For about a year now, I've worn a ring on my finger that says "hope" in really small letters and I never take it off and I love it (it was from Abby, thanks, homegirl).  On Saturday I looked at it and it was truly like I was seeing it for the first time.  The word "hope" means something entirely different when you`re in a situation that makes having hope a challenge.  Now I continue to wear it every day, but with real purpose.  I wear it because I need the reminder to have hope.  

I really debated whether or not to write about the fact that it was a hard week, especially when I was feeling so down, but now that I do feel so much more light and hope, I feel good sharing about it.  At first, it was kind of fun getting doors slammed in my face and getting yelled at because it`s like "Hey, I'm a real missionary!" but let me tell ya, it gets old real quick.  Even when we could get appointments this week, we would show up and no one would be home, or, worse, they would get quiet as we walked up to the door and pretend not to be home.  By the way, this is including members in the ward.  It was really hard.  We prayed a lot.

Things really turned around when Sister Schmuhl (Yes, I spelled her name wrong last week.  Oops.) and I started praying more specifically.  Every time we go anywhere, we say a prayer before we get out of the car (standard practice) but a couple of days ago, we had a dinner appointment with a less active ward member that we were really excited about and it was pouring rain so we ran out of the car and into the apartment building and buzzed her number.  No answer.  We called her.  No answer.  We called her again.  No answer.  Then we decided to stop calling cause we didn`t want to seem super weird when she realized she had 100 missed calls from us, but we didn`t know what else to do.  We had confirmed our appointment with her only thirty minutes earlier and we were still being faced with the same feeling of rejection we had felt all week long.  Then Sister Schmuhl realized we hadn`t prayed before getting out the car because we had been too distracted by the rain.  We stood there, dripping wet, in between the two doors leading outside and into the building and prayed specifically that she would call us back.  And she did, as soon as we closed our prayer.  It was a miracle.  God answers our prayers.  The church is true.  It was an awesome dinner appointment.

Since that experience Saturday night, things have really started looking up.  Please don`t forget to talk to God every day.

In funnier news, they really do eat everything here with maple syrup.  It`s hilarious, but if you laugh they look at you weird.  My favorite is under-ripe watermelon with maple syrup.  And the Canadians that always told me their soda was better and I thought they were being obnoxious--they were totes right.  

This girl told me this week that I reminded her of a Disney princess and before I could pull a Juliette Wardle and say "WHICH ONE?!?!" she said "Just like, all the blonde ones" so that was a highlight of this week.  

Also, sometimes I'm amazed with myself at how well I can communicate in French here and then I'm chastised for my pride and can`t understand anything at all for a while haha, but it's so good, I'm learning so much.  It's all a process, and it gradually gets easier :)

Toujours, souvenez-vous qui vous êtes.

I love you all bunches and bunches!

Kirk out.

We're not in Kansas anymore. ...(ok, I never was)

Unless Kansas is hot and humid and infested by IOUS's (insects of unusual size).

So I'm serving in Terrebonne and contrary to my introduction, it is gorgeous here.  Everyone is very French-Canadian.  We do have a car, which is SUPER nice, because our area is so spread out.  It's rural-ish, we're about an hour out of Montréal.  Sidewalks don't exist here, it makes all the residential streets with the cute little European-looking houses so pretty.

We live with the sisters who serve in Mascouche and all four of us flushed in, it's been really hard getting everything organized.  Also my trainer has served her entire mission (10 months)  in Kirkland which is 100% English speaking so we're both struggling with the language, but it's so fun!  Truly, when you're called here, it should say you're called to teach in Québécois, not French. They can understand me when I speak French, but it's really hard for me to understand them with their crazy accent.  OH!  And my trainer is Soeur Shmuhl (sh-myool), and she's awesome.  We kept meaning to take a picture to send home but we always looked hot and sweaty and it just didn't happen.  Hahaha hopefully we'll take a picture this week when we either look better or lose some of our pride.  Whichever comes first.

The ward members are all so nice!! They have a good time laughing at our French haha. We bore our testimonies in church yesterday and there was one man who just couldn't stop laughing during my testimony and I still don't know what I said that was so funny!  Oh well!

We had a total miracle on Thursday when we went to dinner with a member family, they invited their neighbour and we taught her the whole restoration.  She was so into it and just kept saying (in French) "Yeah that's true" and "I always knew there was something missing".  It was so amazing.  The Lord truly does prepare people for us if we're just willing to open our mouths and share his gospel.  It was such a miracle, how spiritually prepared she was.  She and her daughter are both excited to learn more.

The Mascouche sisters replaced Shannon Perdue so I totally got to see her on Wednesday and then promptly moved into her apartment haha.  One of the greatest adventures has been exploring all the weird stuff the last sisters left behind--I blame Shannon. :)

I am so happy here, I love meeting people and teaching lessons! I love when little Québécois children ask me to say things and then die laughing at my attempts!  I love the missionary schedule, even though it's really hard sometimes!  I love Sister Shmuhl!  I love Terrebonne!  Most of all, I love Jesus Christ and his gospel.  I am a happy camper.

I love you all

Souvenez-vous qui vous êtes.

Soeur Lonas

P.S. Poutine is disgusting.

CANADA!

MADE IT!  Walking out of the airport after getting our visas was like getting a hot, wet slap in the face.  Humidity, man.  I'm in the mission home, my president and his wife are wonderful, they made us an amazing dinner and I'm waiting now for my first interview with President Patrick.  I finally made it to Canada!!  I am so incredibly grateful.  It was a very long day, but I am so happy.  I love it here!!

T minus 16 hours.... and bats.

T minus 16 hours.  I am so excited to share this perfect gospel.

Not much has happened since I last wrote, but I did realize that I forgot last time to include that we had to move the Tuesday before last just because they were moving all the sisters into a nicer, newly renovated building, and then two days later they held a last minute meeting with only the sisters and told us they found bats in the new building and we all had to move again haha. I thought they were kidding and then they weren't and it was soooo funny!  So, sisters were all excused from our next block of classes and we had to move immediately.  We went from building 3, to 17, to 5 in two days.  Good times!  Also then it turned out that the room where they found the bats was on our floor, two doors down from us.  SOOO funny hahaha :)  and they're still working on getting the bats out.

Saying goodbye to teachers has been so hard, and I'm really not looking forward to leaving Soeur Fouts.  I love her so much, it is absolutely by design that we got to spend these last four weeks together.  And Elder Zocca is the only one in our district not going to our mission, we can't even really talk about saying goodbye to him because we all get emotional.  Who would have thought I would ever be sad about leaving the MTC.

Emma came this week, that has been so happy!  I'm pretty sure my district is pretty annoyed with me ("EMMA IS COMING TO THE MTC NEXT WEEK/TOMORROW/TODAY!") mais c'est la vie :) I absolutely loved getting to see her, and we've gotten to chat a little bit before going to bed because our rooms are in the same building.  She's a little bit skeptical when I tell her that the MTC is my favorite place in the world, but it's only a matter of time until she understands.  I love Emma, I love the MTC, her being here is just all of my favorite things ♥ 

I have really been so happy here.  People keep asking me, "If you had to pick one thing you learned while in the MTC, what would it be?" and honestly there's so much...but I think how to rely on the Lord.  I always find myself thinking "This would be so much easier if only ________" and then I realize that, wait, maybe this is one of those times when they talk about having to rely on the Lord because you don't have any of the things you would normally turn to.  Making it a habit to turn to God first is one of the best things you can do.  Develop your relationship with Him so it is the most important one in your life. 

Be bold in sharing this gospel.  You have nothing to lose that is worth having and everything to gain.  The good news of this gospel is that Christ made the perfect atonement, and that is for everyone.  Not only those who you think are ready. 

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

I love you all so much, please keep me in your prayers as I transition from MTC to Montréal.

Souvenez-vous qui vous êtes.

Soeur Lonas