My Cape Verde Mission: Ok so this week was great

Ola!

Ok so this week was great! I only have like 20 minutes to email at this time because this place closes but i will email back a little later in the day. probably in like 3 hours... for those of you reading this in real time.

But for those of you who arenºt here is my weekly update.

So this week was good. a lot of lessons were falling through in the beginning of the week which was hard to cope with. we were so excited for all these investigators and we could never meet with them. but one thing i really noticed was every time we had something fall through i felt like we were where we were supposed to be and we were able to talk to someone else we needed to talk to us.

For example... one day we had the bishop teaching with us. which was great. One thing we are really trying to work on as a companionship is really use the members more. my 12 weeks booklet really emphasized working with the members last week. this is so huge and so important. they really are the way that the work is going to go forward. so it was a big plus having the bishop sacrifice sometime to teach with us. So we had this lesson with a recent convert. but he wasnºt there... so as we were walking to our alternative appointment the bishop asked if we could stop at another less actives house. they are an old couple we had just met a day before. they have work every sunday so they do not go to church. this is a problem for a lot of the people here. but this couple has a goal to go to the temple so they need to make sure they are going to church and partaking of the sacrament. so anyway they were home and we ended up having a lesson with them...

now i will pause the story there as i talk about what we did before this lesson. WE had a district meeting. and in this district meeting we talked about the importance of revelation through church attendence and how we teach people how important church attendence really is! so we did some practices and learned a lot from them...

well now back to the story... we walk into the lesson with the less active couple and we end up teaching almost the same exact lesson we had practiced in district meeting a few hours before. it went so well. and guess what is even better... they still had excuses about work and things when we left.. but this sunday.. THEY WERE IN CHURCH. TOGETHER. not just the wife. this really made me feel so great. and they stayed for all three meetings. i hope the spirit sparked a change in them.

something i have learned is church attendance and partaking of the sacrament, more importantly, is soooooo important. and we need to do a better job as missionaries of getting this importance across to our members and our investigators. i have been amazed at how much stronger i feel the spirit and how much stronger i appreciate the atonement of Jesus Christ when i take the sacrament on my mission. i really do feel the forgiving power and also the enabling power of the atonement. And also something super cool is the sacrament is renewing the covenants we make at baptism. so it is like baptism all over again.

I would call this week the rescue because we talked to a lot of less active members and met with a lot of them. if we could just get the less actives back to church we would have a ward so big we would need to split! And one way to do this is by sharing the importance of the sacrament and having them remember how they felt when they were baptized and that they can feel this SAME renewal as they partake of the sacrament. i just love this fact.

I love you all.

So glad to hear bama won... and also i am SOOOO sorry Whitney.. i mean sister johnson 2... and Dad about your birthdays. I promise i remembered... but then happen to forget while i emailed. so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to both of you. I love you both so much :)

love

sister johnson