Ola-a lot of traveling

Ola!

This week was a lot of traveling.! Finally on friday morning we got to porto novo! And then it was work work work... and now on monday we get a little time to relax and prepare for a great week! So my new companion is Sister Kohlert. She is from Lindon, UT. She is super cute and fun! We are going to have a great time together! She is being patient with herself and the language which is good. But she is amazing at the language already! It is amazing to see the gift of tongues in action. Only 6 weeks of ever hearing portuguese and here people are teaching other about the gospel, how to pray, and baring testimony very powerfully. During a contact on the street we were talking to people and i looked to Sister kohlert and gave her that "say something" look and she started baring her testimony and she simply said " I know that jesus christ lives" and the spirit was so strong i started to get tears in my eyes. The people we contacted stopped with there excuses to and said "we will go to church." We also marked to pass by them another day as well. Sadly they didnt actually come to church... how quickly people forget how they feel... but we will follow up with them. Moral of the story is that it is amazing how simply and powerfully a testimony of the savior can be.

So after a lot of travels we made it back to our house... it wasnt as much as a disaster as it was before. So that is a plus! haha But we got some things set up and got right to planning and looking through our new area book! We have so many awesome people in the new area! The other sisters were so lucky. I am super excited to work over there. There are also ALOT of members too! So a lot of references! I got the chance to spend a few hours with the sister training leaders in sao vincente before i got on my flight and they are opening a new area. I got to see how they did things with this new area. And they looked for ways to serve, contacted the world, and asked for references from everyone! So that is our goal for this week. Ask for references from everyone!

With one of our new investigators we got someone who will be baptized this week. It is actually a family pretty much! A mom and her daughter! They are super adorable. We got to talk to them a few times this week and they are super excited for baptism! We went by their house to pick them up for church and they were already on their way. It was so good to see. We didnt have to wake anyone up or invite them to show up late, they were already on thier way and they made it there even before a lot of the members :) 

speaking of church! It was AMAZING yesterday! I know it was the work of the Lord to bring elders here to porto novo! Yesterday 5 of the investigators sister zimbelman and i had in the other area came to church. We had been teaching some of them for months and they didnt come. But they came yesterday and it was soooo goooo to see them. They all looked so happy to be there too! Also another miracle.. one of these investigators named Anna. I think i talked about her a long time ago. Well Sis Zimbelman and i never really said good bye to her. So as i was sitting in relief society one of the members tells me to come to the door. I open up the door and there stand Anna! I dont know why put i just started crying. It is amazing the love you develop for these people. She is an eternal friend. And i know she will get baptized one day! I just hope it is while i am here. She has a lot of fears but she came to church yesterday and that was huge! i know the elders will take care of her! Also with church we had NINE investigators! Some of them were investigators that i thought were members but apparently they are not. haha. So with this new area we got some people we got to baptize! 

We also have another goal for baptism. His name is Adilson. We have lessons with him in english because he likes to speak english. Sister kohlert was happy about that and she shared a story in the lesson that was really special. Adilson doesnt see why he needs to be baptized again if he was already baptized in the catholic church! Well we have talked about this doubt a lot. Finally we just said he needs to decide if the book of mormon is true or not. Because if the book of mormon is true than joseph smith was a prophet and he had the power and authortity to baptize and now others in the church have this authority! Simple. All questions can be answered with the book of mormon. i know that book is true. And it has power.

I love you all

Sister Johnson

Cool subject

Dear everyone,

Yes! i finally have a cool subject... Because this week is CRAZY! hahaha so as you all know that this week was transfers... let me start with describing a few things so everyone can understand. So in my area of porto novo we have 2 sets of sisters. So 4 missionaries. The other sisters live in a different zone and they work in the south part of porto novo. I work in the north part and we have a different house. This house is amazing. the best house in the mission really. It has hot water-- no houses have hot water. It has great water pressure too! It is just super booji! And another thing about the Ward... we have a LOT and i mean a LOT of prospective elders. So all guys who want to teach with us... but they cant unless we have another women... and NO women will teach with us. So that has been a big problem. and also with these 2 areas... we are divided by one road. and in both of our areas we have big ribieras... or these big ditches that seperate zones.

Ok now that you all understand let me talk about transfers! So sister zimbelman and i recieved a call on saturday night... not expecting a call a day early but it was president. eeek! Well we knew we wouldnt stay together for one more transfer but we didnt know what would happen. So sister zimbelman finds out first she is getting sent to Fogo to be a sister training leader! Totally saw that coming. She is awesome!! And then i get the phone and president tells me i am TRAINING... An american! Sister Colhert... i think. something like that. BUT wait! That wasnt all. He also said i will be moving to the other sisters house that night because we are recieving elders in porto novo. We recieved one of the former assitentes to the president and he is white washing the area so that they can work with elders! yup... so... I had about one night and a day to move out of my house. Well let me tell you about the others sisters house... NO HOT WATER... i will try not to cry. and also no water pressure... and also... they dont have enough furniture so i am using boxes for my clothes. oh my goodness. haha so right now the house is a disaster completely because they had this one room... called the cave of wonders that had all sorts of trash. so we had to clean it out to use as a study room for one of us... and let me tell you it was a cave of wonders. haha so the house has all sorts of crazy stuff. and you know how it is when things just are not tidy... you feel stress. imagine my stress level right now. haha dont even worry. 

Ok so the elderes are taking part of my area. And i am half white wasing and training at the same time as i will be taking part of the sisters area. WAHOO. I was soooooo excited when i got the call... NOT! That is a lie... i was pretty upset. My idea of these next transfers was to stay in my pretty little area and enjoy my pretty little house and have a new comp and work things out and just stay in my comfort zone. That is NOT what the lord had in store... and i didnt have faith because really when i got the call i didnt think it was what the lord had in store and something was messed up. So saturday night i prayed a Lot. a lot a lot a lot. i dont think i slept more than 2 hours. ha

Oh and the new areas are split up by the riberias... ok now you all know.

Anyway. I was pretty upset saturday night. I did not feel a desire to be in the others sisters house. i love them, but we are so different and do things so differently. And that house is just always not clean so we are definitley going to organize some things. but i just knew it would be a lot of work. and with training too. i wanted to help my greenie feel comfortable and not stressed out like i was feeling. So i knew we had been talking a lot about desires and faith this week and we talked about the atonement in district meeting and how we have to help our investigators understand the atonement so that they will have this desire to keep the commandements. So we taught this a lot this week. i even noticed how the spirit was helping me understand the atonement better as we taught about it. And as i was pouting about transfers i remembered what i had been teaching the investigators is exactly what i needed right then. I need to change my desires, my attitude and keep the commandments or the committments that the lord had given me. And i need to trust in the atonement. As i said it is amazing how we can truly change our desires as we use christ... i prayed a lot that in the morning i would feel peace and an excitement to take on this adventure. And you know what... i changed. I can honestly say now i am excited. i KNOW it will be so hard. haah but this is how i am going to change and be the missionary the lord needs me to be. we change in difficult times. So i am ready and excited! Right now i am with another sister on a different island as she waits for her companion to get here. it will be fun to teach in her area for a few days. i leave to santiago, praia in a few days to pick up my greenie\daughter... and we will hopefully get back to our area on saturday or friday!

And funny story about all this... the elderes zone leaders picked me up from the boat place to take me to my new sister for a few days. and we accidentely left my bag in the taxi... yeah... i know. So we prayed. haha and laughed really hard. and hoped the taxi guy would come back. so we about stopped every taxi asking if anyone knew a guy who lived in a certain zone. we didnt ask him his name! next time we will! Always ask the taxi drivers their name and always contact everyone! lesson learned. oh... we got the bag back because he happened to return. The lord is watching over us. And also a funny story about this week... i heard a spanish guy speaking on a television ( i swear i was not watching it... but it was on.. soo... ) Anyway i saw this spanish guy and he had portuguese subtitles. The first thing i thought was "the poor guy needs subtitles because he has speach problems" hahahah and then i realized he wasnt speaking portuguese...hahaha as missionaries in cabo verde we are just so used to hearing creole and pretending we can understand everything everyone is saying... But yeah whitney... spanish people have speach problems. 

Love Sister Johnson

Great birthday week

Dear Familia e Amigos,

Ola! First of all thank you to everyone who wished me happy birthday! It was a great day! We had divisons that day so i was with one of our sister training leaders Sister Ellsworth! It was great and i learned a lot from her. And she is great at inventing foods so she made brownies for us! Also the other sisters made me a cake. My favorite cake in cabo verde... Chocolate and orange! Hmm hmm good! I have a picture but yet again the computer to send pics is not exactly working so i cant send it. :( hopefully next week! But yes it was very good! Cant complain :) Only that i feel a lot older now. It is quite sad.

So this week! Divisions was amazing. I learned a lot from our sister training leaders. So yes divisions was amazing! Sister Ellsworth taught me a lot. Sometimes i get a little discouraged because they are so amazing, and then there is me. But i guess i have to remember this is why they are the leaders. Maybe one day i can be a great missionary like they are. Study and prayer! This week we also had a zone meeting in sao vicente! It was a great zone meeting! We talked about faith. So last week we got a letter from president and he expressed how he felt about the month of february. We didnt reach our goal for baptisms... we werenºt even really close actually. So he said he really prayed and thought about it. And he said that he feels as if we are being very obedient. we are one of the most obedient group of this mission. but he said we lack desire and faith! That took us a little by surprise. Me at least. So this past week was a lot of self evaluating on my faith and desires. i have realized a lot of things about myself that i didnt see before. It is amazing how the Lord works.

But this week i realized that i need to increase my faith and one way for me to do that is to trust in the Lord more. I have been studying in Alma about the boss missionaries in those chapters. Ammon, Alma, Amuleque, Aaron... so on. And i just finished one of the stories about how the people of anti-nefi-lehis had buried their weapons of war but the laminites were coming to war against them. They decided they would rather die righteous than to take up arms. Wow the faith! They knew the Lord would keep his promises unto them as they kept their covenants. So as the laminites were coming upon them with their weapons they prayed. Well there were a few that were killed... but then eventually the laminites realized that they were not going to fight back and their hearts were softened. They stopped warring against them. And many of them were converted to the lord and repented of their sins. I love the end of this chapter as it says the lord works by his own means to bring about his purposes... something a long those lines. It is Alma chapter 24:27... But wow! This hit me. This is the Work of the Lord we are doing here in Cabo verde. The work of the lord we are doing throughout the world. It is His work. And he will work by his means to bring about this great work! He has given me the great opportunity to be a representitive of him and to work in this part of the world. But i need to Trust in him fully and realize he is doing his work. I trust in myself too much sometimes. And then i get discouraged or upset because i cant do all i want to do on my own. But there is good news. I am not alone. i am never alone, i never was, and never will be! This is the work of the lord and i have seen his hand in this work. it is amazing the transformation in peoples lives. Always a miracle. God is a god of miracles! :) So to increase my faith i need to change who i am trusting in. And that is in the Lord! I know he is hastening his work.

I love the scriptures so much and the great stories they have! I have read the book of mormon many times but just now... as i read in portuguese, am i starting to get the story and get excited. I am even at the point where i am not sure what happens next and i get excited to read every morning... maybe that is because it is in portuguese and it feels different! But also one thing that has helped is having a blank copy! So i dont see my notes ahead of time and i can make new notes and get new revelation. I think that would be a great idea if some of you want to read the book of mormon again! Get a new copy and start reading. It is very exciting :)

I am so grateful for this work! We had some great lessons this week. We started talking to a family. They are not married, but the wife is super super interested. The husband has cheio (a lot) of work but we are still going to pray that everytime we meet he is there! And their kids are always super excited too! I love families. 

Love you all!

Sister Johnson

Already a great week?

Ola familia e amigos!

I have to be honest there was a little sarcasm in that subject... hahaha :) Let me tell you why! So a quick review of this week... it was pretty rough. Pretty really rough. So today i am going to write about a few things i just love about cabo verde and a few things that are weird but awesome at the same time... maybe i will mention why it was so rough at the end!

But to start off... Today we went to Interior... or being... The country side of Santo Antao! We got permission from president to drive up to the mountains and see what everyone is talking about. Here in porto novo it is really dry and brown. But up in Interior it is amazingly green! It was sooooo beautiful! We have pictures but we will have to send those next week because the computer isnt working with pics today! But it was amazing... But it was also super super hard. The member who was with us kinda underestimated how long it would take it get there and get back. We decided to take a car up there and then walk back. But on the way back we realized it would take much longer than we thought... So we decided to take some detours through the rocky parts of the trail... Well as we all know.. Stick to the path! Because right then we started to see a car come by that could have given us a ride back down... Well we still had hope and kept walking... before we knew it another car came by. But we werent on the path so it didnt see us. Then before we know it ANOTHER car came by. So in total 3 cars. Three options to get us to our destination much faster and we were off the path so we missed it... See where i am going with this? :) Well when we finally get on the path there are no more cars going in our direction. so we end up having to walk the whole way back. 

So what i have learned from today is that it is very important to stay on the path. It was faster for us to go off a little ways and not have to walk the long way... but before we knew it there was another car going by. An easier option. In life we really need to stay on the path. Keep doing the things that the Lord wants us to do even if at times it seems longer or harder. We need to keep walking this path and he will guide us and make the path light. Those cars came by. He sent three cars! But we werent on the path to recieve the blessings. The Lord will always send the blessings, but we need to be doing his will, keep the commandments so that we can recieve them. Always do the will of the lord and we will be blessed. :)

Well dont worry we got back home safe and sound. Just a little late! So my hair isnt going to be braided all cute this week which kind of is sad. But it is ok because we also found these Aloe Vera plants on the way back to our house and we put some aloe vera in my hair! Everyone has been telling me to do that so i finally did it. i hope it works! haha~

So this leads me into telling the things i love about cabo verde. They are so useful. Haha They use all sorts of plants and things they have to live! Like Aloe Vera! Also there are cute little kids who see my companion--( sees white) And they call out "Bonjour". hahaha little kids always think we are from France.. it is kinda cute. So we have started to pretend we can speak france :) Then they go silent. hahaha. 

Also i love that everyone here seems to know exactly how i should do my hair! They are always giving me tips. And if i braid my hair by myself they get super surprised and ask "Who braided your hair".. Itºs funny. Also i love when people think i am from the Island of Fogo... umm idk why. but thats cool!

People here are super nice! super friendly. We always go down the street saying bon dia, boa tarde, boa noite. to EVERYONE! Always. haha And they are so friendly and even say it back. They also seem to think they are not Africans. I love this part. They are Cabo Verdianos! Not africanos :) They eat everything... and i mean everything WITH RICE. And they seem to think things like rice pudding... or sweet rice is really nasty. They eat alot of beans too. All sorts of types of beans. I dont know the name of half of them. And they also eat pork... but we are not allowed to eat pork. We dont know where it comes from... haha and if you saw it you would understand. Apparantly the water in Santo antao is cleaner than all the other islands, but i have also heard all the islands say that...except bravo... apparantly that water is different. 

Well here is just a few great things i love about cabo verde! This place is awesome and i cant wait for you all to see the photos we took today. This place is beautiful as well! We even got to see the other side of the island today. If you look up Lombo de figuiera and see how far away it is from Porto novo that is how long we walked... :) Love you all! 

Oh... and this week was rough because a lot of compromissos fell. But in the end i feel like we invited and that is good. We are here to invite. now the trick is to follow up really well so our investigators realize the importance of our invitations! 

Love

Sister Johnson