This week has too many themes

Carnival

House got flooded

Hill we climb everyday...just kidding kinda

Africa

Children of our pesquistador

 Baptism of Willy

Hello Everyone!

I spend tooo much time on thinking of a subject every time i go to do the email so i just gave up again. This week has too many themes so i had to make it very general! I will start with the Baptism of Willy! WILLY. haha he is super awesome. So he is in the other sisters area but remember when we were in a triple for about 4 weeks in december and january? Well we had the opportunity to teach willy a couple of times! And we loved teaching him. He is one of those solid investigators with a lot of questions. and he loves to read and is already finished Alma! and in his interview apparently he was showing our District leader some scriptures and stuff. haha i guess he is teaching us :) But he was blessed enough to get baptized in the ocean! We didnt have water in the church so he had to get baptized in the ocean! I am really happy for the other sisters and for willy! Finally. :)

The next is our week was a little crazy! The first part was pretty normal except we couldnºt find our baptism. So we had Romario marked to be baptized the 21st of Fev. We had a great lesson with him last saturday... he came to church on sunday! And then when we went to his house to meet him on monday he was sleeping. So we re-marked for the next day and he wasnt there! I cannot tell you how many times we passed by this week! It was ALOT. haha but he was never there!!! So we got really smart and tried looking for him in other places. We went to a house where a bunch of people hang out and looked for him there a lot of times too. We also called his friend, tony, about every single day and asked if Romario was with him. He never was. We checked by the beach to see if he was training there. Every time a lesson fell through we said a prayer trying to find Romario! Well this lasted the entire week!! We didnt find Romario, he missed his interview and then finally Saturday morning we see him walking into a house. So we follow him in there and idk what happened... i guess we were in a different part of the house but when we asked where he was after about 2 minutes of looking, he had already lefted "agora mesmo" or "just then"... hahahah "WHAT?" So then we go to our next appointment and come back after and we finally... FINALLY find him! he is sitting in chair with a lot of his friends. We asked to talk to him and ask if he really wants to keep talking to us. We are pretty sure he was avoiding us all week... haha but when we talked to him a little bit and told him about how baptism will change his life and about his potential as a son of god he was completely different.

So a little about the Romario before this week. He was cool, interessted. Wanted to get baptized... kind of. He was the type of investigator we had to pass by every sunday to go to church. Well after we didnt see him for a week, a miracle happened. Yesterday for church we passed by and he was already ready and almost out the door. He said he didnt need us to pass by anymore. And he basically chose his own date on Saturday for the 28th of Fev. And then he was interviewed by the district leader for his baptismal interview and before it he was asking alll sorts of questions and it was kind of funny, he was all nervous about it. And he never asks questions! He is completely changed. I guess it was that week of not talking to us maybe... haha

But really to me this shows that the Lord works in mysterious ways! It is incredible to see the difference in people. We tried so hard to look for him and talk to him and we did all we could. And the lord saw that. And then when we finally found him it was time to find him and he was ready. Even more ready than he was before... Also he had this earring in his ear that he was sooo attached too. After the law of chastity lesson he told us he would take it out later... wellll haha he didnt. But then once we found him again and talked again about the commandments he took it right out and gave it to us! The power of the atonement is real. it changes people completely. 

So also this week... our house flooded. It was a thursday. It was an emotional day. and at the end of the day we had a pretty cool experience. We felt like we needed to walk to a house that we knew our investigator would not be there because they were out of town but we followed the prompting and walked. We also knew we would have to run home to be home by 9. But we just felt right. So we kept walking and then a guy stopped us. He was super interested when we talked to him. He said he went to church a lot of times in the past and has all the books.. the Book of mormon and doctrine and covenants and things like that. We decided we needed to contact him and then we started to run home pretty happy we had followed the prompting. We made it to the house by 9! on the dot! and then we see that water is coming from the stairs... and then we walk up the stairs and see it is coming from our house. A thing in the bathroom had broken completely! it was spewing water out! And our floor had about an inch or two.... So we get brooms and start sweeping. haha it was awful... but at the same time pretty funny. We just had this awesome spiritual faith building experience and then we get rewarding with a flooded house. haha but that is ok! :) We finally sweeped all the water out and then called our land lord guy and they got it fixed in a few days! So we have water that works now... but sad story-- our hot water doesnt work any more so showers arent as pleasant. Oh and one more thing as well. We get a call from our investigator who we planned to get baptized this next week and she tells us she will be out of town for more than a month. :( So all sorts of great things happened that night.

Well! That is all :) Just know that i love you all! I love is here in cabo verde! And i realized something today. The atonement is for everyone. it is for everyone! And when we think of people in that way it really changes things for me. The atoning power and enabling power is for everyone and everyone can change and become like our Heavenly Father. :) It helps me love others even more.

Sister Johnson

Hola

Carnival

Barco again

Roberto is awesome

Hola!

This week was amazing! SOOO amazing! First off i want to thank my mom for sending packages! I FINALLY got them :) i would say it was a valentines day gift! And then also i got some letters from Becca and Kyleigh! Thank you SO much! My teammates a great i hope they read this some how. I dont have thier emails but i finally got the letter you all sent in novemeber i think. Thank you! And also another letter from a friend from school! James Bahiti. Thank you! and also the Hutchinsons! thank you so much. Nice to get handwritten letters ;)

But that wasnt the only reason this week was amazing... Stenio got baptized! YESSSSSS: finally. So the story on stenio begins when he shows up at church because a friend invited him and he said he wanted to change his life. Wow. The Lord had really been preparing him. I think i mentioned stenio last week a little bit. he is super solid. So funny and goofy. But this is what happened this week... So we go to Sao Vicente for a zone conference and cant meet with him for two days. But we call him on the phone and follow up a little bit for the 2-3 days we were out of town. He said all is good. But he finally called his mom who lives in Praia i think and she said he cant get baptized... Well stenio is 19 so it is totally up to him. But his mom was really against it. She said he was already baptized into the catholic church when he was a baby and it would be disrespectful for his family that helped with all that when he was born. I didnt really get the whole story but needless to say Stenio was basically crying on the phone when he told us. And that kind of took away the excitement he had about being baptized. So we finally make it back to Santo Antao.. which is another story...  but anyway we make it back and meet Stenio at the caixe (where the boats are) to have him meet our district leader and have his interview. Well stenio shows up super late because he slept in so they didnt have time for the interview. So we had to do it on skype later that day. Well skype decided not to work... but dont worry.. a lot of prayers and finally it worked. Then all was good. Only thing is stenio really needed to decide what he was going to do. So he had all these tests for school so we couldnt meet with him until a day before baptism. And that lesson was really important. The spirit was really strong too. We invited Stenio to pray that night and really think about his decision tomorrow so that he could feel prepared. 

The next day he told us he woke up feeling so much better about baptism and excited again. And his baptism was amazing! He bore his testimony after and i could feel how much it meant to him to have everything in the past just washed away. Like a burden he didnt even realize he had was just gone. Well that isnt the best part even.. the next day when he recieved the gift of the holy ghost the blessing after was incredible! We had been talking about a mission for stenio and asked him to think about it. Well in the blessing it said something a long the lines of "When you serve a mission... " I just got a huge smile on my face after that. and then the blessing continued and said that he will have an eternal family and be a great leader in the church. I was beaming! That is what it is all about. Of course stenio still needs to work and grow and learn. But baptism is the door.. There is a path after that of enduring to the end and it is so great to see that the people who are baptized are then continuing on that path and not stopping. Endure to the temple :) i like to say :) It is great to give this vision to our investigators. 

So that is stenio! Incredible. 

Next we had zone conference the beginning of last week. I just want to say a few things i learned in that. Incredbile... We talked about the Plan of Salvation. I learned a lot. One thing i want to share is about our potenital as children of god! So we talked about the plan god presented when we were in the pre-mortal life! And how satan wanted to make sure we all got back to god and wanted to take away agency. The thing about that plan is.. we didnt only want to return and live with god again... the plan was for us to return and BE like him. We can really become like our heavenly father. Think about that. It is incredible. We can be as he is and live as he lives. That is why it is essential to live on this earth and have our agency so that we can choose to follow the laws given to us and grow, GROW, and become like our savior :) I just love that! We are here to learn and progress. Never stop progressing. Continue to learn and grow and study. The oil in our lamps is the things we know. :) And also! It is all possible because of our savior Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life and atoned for our sins so that we could learn and grow and someday return to live with our Heavenly father. There is so much i need to learn about the Atonement but know that i know my Savior Lives. He was our savior before this life, he is our savior now, and he will continue to be our savior after this life, beckoning to us to join him in the kingdom of our father!

Love

Sister Johnson

Ola Familia e Amigos

Ola Familia e Amigos!

Como vai?! Tudo bem! Entao... Donºt worry i wont write in portuguese... that would take to long and no one would understand except the people who speak portuguese and maybe the spanish speakers could pick up on a few things. I had a humbling experience with the language this week.. Haha.. you know how last week or two weeks ago i was all feeling good about it? Yeah well this week I was called to humility. haha Well kinda. But I know all my ability to do anything here on the mission is because of my Savior Jesus Christ and the enabling power of his atonement! All i have are gifts from god. I have been very blessed and i need to be better at recognizing him in every way. Being grateful. Like mom said a few weeks ago in her letter. Thanks mom!

Ok so about that experience. So i was feeling good about the language right? Well yesterday in church the bishop asks me two seconds before Sacrament meeting to give a talk :) hahaha i mean i knew these types of things happened on the mission but i didnt think they would really happen. It wasnt that bad though. it was on the Day of the Lord. Or the Sabbath day. So i focused on the Sacrament and my testimony of the Sabbath day and as missionaries do i invited us to think of the people who arent there and invite them to come next week. But really our number in sacrament meeting has been really down these past few weeks because of carnival. People party all night saturday and just dont wake up on sunday. But that really is no excuse! That is not conversion either. So we are trying to work on that. Church attendance is vital!

So this week we met a new investigator. He is the son of one of our investigators and he is awesome! This family we have been teaching is a mom and her son, Elvin. So we met her other son this week and his name is ... wait for it... ElviS.. haha funny they are so close in names and so close in personality too! It is great. So elvis studies in Sao Vicente. He is super smart. He is 18 and already almost done with his first year at the university! That never happens in cabo verde. haha people here and lucky to graduate when they are 18 or 19. It is like a HUGE accomplishment if a person isnt held back... but anyway so elvis is super smart. He came her for holidays and we taught him the first 3 lessons. He is so solid! He just sat there sooo into it. he asked all the right questions... Where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going after this life. When we taught the plan of salvation he was so into it and so excited to pray to know if it was true! He was a ray of sunshine to our kind of stormy week. The only thing with elvis is he doensnºt live in our area so we had to give him as a reference to the elders! So they have a baptism coming up pretty soon with him. he is solid. It was funny, when we left we said "Bye Elvis, See you in the Celestial Kingdom" haha he laughed really hard... but honestly that will probably be the next time we see him. He wont be back to santo antao until august. Hey, who knows, maybe i will be here too :) haha

So yes this week was kind of a downer! We have so many people who have this great potential but things keep happening. For example, Elvisºs mom got a new job in interior so she wont be back for 2 months... ugh. And then another solid person got a new job and she is working on sundays now instead of having work only on monday through friday! ugh. And then all the people who seem great dont come to church!

Church... We ask people to do three things. Pray, Read the Book of mormon, and COME TO CHURCH. If they only read and pray they are doing 2/3rds of what they need to do and therefore they fail! Church is so important and people cannot get baptized until they come to church. They cannot open the door to the celestial kingdom unless they are baptized. All we teach them is to get people to that point. Yes it sounds a little weird, maybe selfish... but we cant have eternal life if we are not baptized by the proper authority like christ was baptized. 2 Nephi 31: 10-11 i think. Baptism. It is the way by which we NEED to enter. And so that is our purpose. To invite others to come unto christ and they cant do that if they are not baptized. Anyway i know that it is a process. But i was feeling a little awkward at times inviting people to be baptized or to keep reminding people about the date they have. but i cant have fear inviting them to make one of the best decisions of their life.

I love this work and this gospel! The gospel is simple people. Faith, repentance, BATISMO, receive the gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end. Endure to the temple and then to the end. I also have realized that baptism is the door, but there is a path that leads to the temple that is so sweet :) The temple should be the goal as well. Not just the baptism... but the temple :) I love you all! Keep being great missionaries.

Love Sister Johnson

Transfers

Guess who companionship is Not getting transferred

We liked to have fun waiting for the computer

Hola Familia e Amigos!

Well one more transfer happened yesterday! And to my great joy Sister Zimbelman and I are staying together here in the best place on earth! Porto Novo!!! I just love this area. I feel like i will be one of those missionaries who will serve here for about 7 or 8 months and then get transfered and then return to finish my mission here... I can hope. I just love this area soooooo much. It is perfect. 

Ok so this week was good... yeah pretty good. Do not have any complaints. I finished my 12 week training finallly! Yayyyy! One more hour of teaching every day! That is such a blessing ;)

Ok so I am proud of our ward now. Yesterday they presented the ward mission plan. It was perfect. They finally addressed a few things sister zimbelman and i have been trying to bring up with our ward mission leader for a while now! But they addressed it and it was fabulous. They said they are really going to help us have Member present lessons. And not just any member.. but members that will really be a good friend and watchman for our investigator. They way they are going to do this is we bring the names up in correlation with the ward mission leader... he will bring them up in ward council and the various quorems and classes will talk about who in their groups will be good to be an amigo! YESS. Perfect :) Now it just has to happen! So we will make sure to follow up. 

So some miracles this week. One is Milene. She was the girl who got baptized my very first week! Well after that she disapperared and when we tried to talk to her again she said she didnt like us and didnt want to talk to us again... I dont know what happened. Well this week we walked by her cousins house and she was there. We started to talk a little.. and she just came out with "when can we talk again"... Ummmm... AS soon as possible. hahah so we marked with her and we had a great first lesson again and she prayed to never miss church again. that was a miracle. She completely changed. I hope it continues this way and she continues to have this same desire. 

The next is Romina and her sister Antonita. Wow... So we met Romina in a lesson with another investigatore. She just kinda happened to show up. We marked with her after the lesson and when we had a lesson with her later in the week it was solid! Her sister was in and out of the lesson because of her son was acting up but at the end they BOTH accepted a Book of mormon and would start to read it. And Romina accepted a date to be baptized too :) So then the next few days we meet with them again. And THEY READ. Boy did they read and study. They had a ton of questions for us and it was a great lesson. They are super interested. Antonita is already in 2 nephi and she only had 2 or 3 days! I was so happy and amazed. And also she remembered the story line really well too.

The next one is about Stenio! Wow... So he is super funny. He is like this small little young man.. kinda nerdy but in a good way. He loves Basketball so we obviously needed to talk to him because of that. I dont know how to describe him but he is just super goofy it is great! But anyway we havent had time to talk with him for a while because he has eye problems and had treatment on another island for a while. We were pretty bumbed out because he is super solid. So i fasted for him this week... And it was amazing to see the results. On Saturdayafternoon we found him and he said he wont have treatment for about 3 weeks until holidays for Carnival! Carnival is in like 3 weeks i think. We were so happy... and i think he was too. We told him we would mark to meet with him in church the next day. He came to church and after church we asked him How it was... and he said the best thing ever.. "I feel like a different person". I just was filled with joy! He really is a different person. Especially after we taught the Word of Wisdom he has improved so much. He has such a desire to have the holy ghost and he realizes what a great gift this is. And he really wants to keep changing and getting better. He also said he feels more love in his family. His dad died when he was young because of an alcohol addiction and he says that was super super hard. But now he feels more love for his mom and everything! It is great to see his confidence too. He is saying no to his friends when they do things they shouldnt be doing. Solid.

So those are a couple miracles this week. This transfer is going to be a great one! Oh and one last thing that ties all these miracles together... THE BOOK OF MORMON. Each one of these people are reading the book of mormon and each one of them is changing their lives. I have seen the power of this book more than ever on my mission. It is proof of this church of this gospel! It is the words of God. And we can really answer the questions of the soul when we read this book. I will open up any page and find answers to my questions about an investigator. I wont even know i was looking for it but i will find it. And that is really the power of the holy ghost that comes when we open the Book of Mormon. Please read it daily. It is the proof, the evidence and the answer to allllll questions. I have a testimony of this book and i know it is true. I have read it, pondered, and asked god if it was true and he responded. He will do that for anyone who really asks with faith and real intent to act after they ask! 

I love you all.

Sister Johnson