Bonjouuuuur!
Well. This is it. Today I send home my last email as a missionary. And all my mission I've thought that this would be a great rambling email.
So what does a returning missionary have to say before we leave the field, leave the ranks and put our plaque down?
This work is true.
This Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. I have seen the way mankind runs things and it is imperfect and flawed. But this church is perfect. It is perfectly organized and perfectly ordained to help us to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. How merciful our Father is to let us be a part of this perfect organization on earth in order to prepare us for the eternities of heaven. I can testify that the Lord is truly at the head of this Church and that He leads it in these latter-days.
Miracles are real. I see them every week and in every person I have met who has opened their heart to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If we really want to be happy, we need simply to live His will; to follow our Savior with all our heart, nothing held back. Every single time I've followed the Spirit I have been happy. And not only happy, but blown away by the MIRACLES that we can invite into our lives as soon as we decide to let them come.
My mission has been almost nothing I expected. To be honest, I think that many of the things I was hoping for my mission back when I was a young naive little pre-missionary haven't really happened. But how grateful I am for that. How grateful I am that His ways are not our ways and that His thoughts are not our thoughts. They are higher, they are mightier, they are sweeter.
I love you all endlessly. Thank you to each and every one of you for who you are and who you have helped me and encouraged me to become.
This past week was incredible again. Two of our amis told us they have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Another family I've known for over a year now is finally going to get married and are talking about the temple endlessly. We have another week full of lesson after lesson after lesson ahead of us. The work continues and keeps on skyrocketing over in our happy little corner of the island in a corner of the world.
I don't know how to summarize an ending to a year and a half of the most blessed times of my life in this email. So voila.
I wouldn't change a thing. It breaks my heart to leave and then fills it back up to know I will be in the arms of my sweet family in one short week's time.
I love you all. I love the Lord. I love this work.
Soeur Evans
