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

Ninajua Mungu anatupenda

Bonjour!  Je part dans une semaine!  Seven days from now I will be arriving in Canada, I can't believe it.  I could not be more excited to begin doing my part in the Lord's work there.

Nina furaha sana sana sana!  Elder Zocca has been teaching me Swahili this week whenever we have a few free minutes and that's just my favorite (hence my subject line).  I love language so much.  I think about Chase a lot when I get so excited about language and its cultural implications (also because Swahili is very different from French but it's similar to Arabic).  I can bear my testimony in Swahili and say who I am and what my purpose is, along with making some VERY basic conversation.  Turns out that, yes, "Jambo" means "Hi", but "Jamba" means "Fart"....so let's think about that in terms of Jamba Juice.  I've been laughing about it for days.  So that's a fun side project. 

I've had a bit of an epiphany since being here concerning the differences between love and trust. Everyone in this world deserves my love, that is part of striving to be like Christ.  No one has to "earn" my love.  However, it is not commanded that I trust others with myself.  I trust God wholeheartedly and beyond that, I choose whom to trust based off righteous judgement.  Makes me think of 2 Nephi 4:34 (and the JST of Matt 7:1).  Fouts and I talked about this a lot and realized that if I have the spirit with me, the Lord will aid me in guiding me away from people who would do me harm--this is not because he does not love them, or because he loves me more than them, it is because he does not trust them with me.  Therefore, it follows that it would not make sense for me to trust just anyone with myself.  I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else, but it's been a big deal to me.  I think it is liberating to think of loving everyone as different from trusting everyone.  It frees me to love unconditionally the way the Savior does.

Epiphany number two is shorter.  We had a man come in and ask our district how the MTC could be less stressful without losing its effectiveness and we talked to him for a while about which things stress us out most and honestly it was really helpful just talking about it and realizing that we really have mostly the same concerns (no alone time, language difficulty, feeling less spiritual than everyone else, the food gives you diarrhea, etc.) and then when he was leaving he said something that I just loved-- "Putting unrealistic expectations on yourself is a form of arrogance" - Cecil Clark.  I don't think he was trying to blow minds but if he was, he succeeded.  And I'm pretty sure I've even heard similar things before, but it's never seemed as applicable as it does now.  It's like every Taylor Swift song, you don't really love it until it applies to your life and then suddenly it's your favorite song and you realize that Taylor Swift is the smartest human ever. :)

I've talked a little bit about my teachers and how much I love them (they're really the best), but I also wanted to tell y'all about Sister Waldron.  She isn't actually my teacher, but she helps out in our class a lot.  She reminds me so much of my sisters, it is such a tender mercy.  She is a living angel in my life.  

I know that one reason people don't come on missions is because they tell themselves "a mission just isn't for me".  I'm trying to think of how to say this the way I want it to come out...I believe that missions are truly not right for some people.  If you talk to your bishop and he says, yeah, you should probably stay home, then you should probably do that.  However, I also think that every single person in this world has reason to think "a mission just isn't for me."  Everything about this is against the natural man, having those thoughts just makes you a person.  Being here requires you to trust the Lord more than yourself, and that's so much of what makes it amazing.  A mission isn't for anyone--without the Lord.  With Him by your side, all things are possible and being on a mission is such an incredible blessing.  I am so happy, it's crazy. 

In my letter to the branch president this week, I included a story I also want to share here:  Before I left, everyone kept asking me if I was excited and telling me they were so excited for me, and that's normal and I appreciated it.  However, it was kind of stressing me out.  About a week before I left, I was in church and a little girl named Paige to whom I feel very close approached me and asked me if I was scared.  I started crying a little bit (very natural for me) and she hugged me and I said "Yeah, I'm really scared."  Reflecting on that experience now, it's interesting the way my perspective has changed.  I am still scared to go to Canada because this work is so important and I feel that responsibility, but I am so much more scared of not going.  I don't know if that makes sense.  I am scared of not being where I am now, I know this is exactly where I need to be and this is what I need to be doing.  I am scared of not being in Canada in a week and a half-- it is finally real to me and I could not be more excited.  There is nowhere else I would rather be.

Last Tuesday, Marcus B Nash of the seventy gave the devotional and a motif of his talk was "Don't hold anything back from the Lord."  I've thought about that a lot.  I think there is divinity in being called somewhere far from where I live.  I know I will face rejection every day, but I need not fear because I am doing the Lord's work--and because I'll most likely never see those people again!  It's awesome!  I have no reason to hold anything back.  I know that everyone on Earth now chose God's plan, once.  I will give everything I have to give them the opportunity to choose it again.

To anyone reading this of a different faith:  If you have any desire at all to know more about God's loving plan for you, contact the missionaries. In Carlsbad, their number is 760-613-9148. My focus is on the people in Montréal, but there are missionaries near you who would love nothing more than to teach you what we know.  This gospel makes me happy every day, and God wants so much for you to have that same happiness.

I am so so so happy, and I love you all so much!  Please keep writing me, and if you've been thinking about writing me but haven't yet, do it now! dearelder.com

The church is true, God loves us more than we can comprehend. Souvenez-vous qui vous êtes.
 ---

Soeur Lonas

"I'm sorry we're embarrassing, but would you like a donut?"

That's my impression of Canada based on what the Canadians here say about it.  And maybe that makes it sound like I don't like Canada but I actually already really love it!  And I haven't even gotten there yet.  I'll be flying out two weeks from today.

So, that's crazy, I've been here for almost a month and I only have two weeks left.  The MTC is really amazing, I'm so happy I get to be here for as long as I do.  I am learning so much all the time and I am so happy.  There are things about myself that I didn't even realized were crooked until the MTC started straightening them out.  I am so grateful to be here.  I feel like everyone should spend a good six weeks in the MTC just to prepare for life.

This email might be kind of short because I forgot my journal where I write down stuff I want to write home about (oops) but that'll probably just mean next week's letter is both longer and more meaningful.  Like, I know I had spiritual epiphany things I wanted to share with y'all this week but can't remember what they were at the moment.  So next week's letter will be AWESOME, and I think this one will be good, too, it'll just be a little more scattered.

The gospel is really, really cool.  And really, really true.  I think a lot of the time we know that and feel good about knowing it but forget that knowing it requires us to do something about it.  This gospel is a gospel of love and peace and joy and it's also a gospel of work.  Even if you only have a particle of faith, it is required that you exercise that faith.  And then it grows.  And soon you have all this faith and you don't even know what to do with it so I'll tell you what to do with it: ACT on it.  SHARE it.  I promise you that you will feel so much joy when you do.

I love all my companions, I love that because of weird district things I have three of them hahaha.  Soeur Fouts and I have so much in common and she says things every day that I know I need to hear, it is absolutely by design that everything worked out the way it did.  It's going to be really hard leaving without her.  She is a blessing in my life in so many ways.  New York is very lucky to be getting her.  There's a really cute picture of us that I'll try and send next week but I don't remember who's camera it's on.  Just know for now: we're adorable.

Cruz and Torres and I started teaching a real investigator this week (like a real live unbaptized person) and that's way cool and way scary.  Oh, and we're teaching him in English, which it turns out is wayyyyy harder than teaching in French.  No language barrier excuses anymore.  His name is Johnathon and we've only taught him once but it was an amazing experience talking to him about faith (another set of missionaries taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation before they left the MTC, but he's way confused about a lot of it) and sharing personal experiences with him about times when our faith has been tested or we've felt the spirit or both.  There are many things that were wonderful about that hour, but one of the many was how much closer it brought me and my companions.  We don't usually get to tell personal experiences in that much detail just because it takes too long to try and get the words out in French.  It was really good.

There are going to be a ton of apostles here this week because a ton of new mission presidents are being trained here right now.  We're excited about it.  They're making a really big deal about always being on your best behavior because you never know when the prophet might be watching you.  It's good times, the devotional tonight promises to be a good one.

OH! Happy Father's Day to my wonderful father and to my three brothers!  You are all fantastic dads, keep up the good work, your children love you and so do I!  You are an example to me all the time of the kind of father I want to have for my children one day!

Also I saw Hannah and Abby at the temple grounds on Sunday, which was super weird but also really good!  I was so happy I got to see them!  And I found out Brendan Anderson is serving in my home ward, which just makes me so happy!  The ward is lucky to have him.  AND Norris comes into the MTC tomorrow!! So, good BYU times all around!

Speaking of people coming into the MTC, ONE MORE WEEK, EMMA!  I was so nervous and now I don't even remember why.  The MTC is just so good.

And this still stands: if you're reading this, I want you to write me. 

Souvenez-vous qui vous êtes!  That's basically my motto all the time, now.  

I love you all so much!

Soeur Lonas