Blessed to be a Missionary in Cabo Verde

Dear Family!

I love you all! This week i was thinking one night walking back from a great lesson and about to enter the house how amazingly blessed we are as missionaries here in Cabo Verde. I seriously LOVE it here. And sometimes it is hard, but man this week i have seen the lord is blessing us in amazing ways. For example, we have the best investigators in the world right now! Let me tell you about a few of them.

This upcoming week we have 3 baptisms of amazing people. The first two are anilton and rosilene. They are brother and sister. Anilton was really one of those who was searching for the truth. He found us. haha So one day we were talking to our investigators on the bridge... its a place everyone hangs out. And we were inviting them to come to church and they didnt want to come so we kept trying different ways... well i guess this all was for anilton because the whole time he was sitting next to us and looking in and trying to listen to what we were saying. At the end we asked him what his name was.. didnt think much of it and just invited him to church and went about our way. Well luckily the lord gave us another chance because one hour later we were walking down the street and saw him again and he stopped us and asked if we wanted to meet his mom and see his house. So we did and had a lesson with his mother, him, and his sister Rosi! And after that i think we have stopped by everyday for about a month and they are super prepared. They accepted a date for baptism no problem. And by the second visit, anilton already said who he wanted to baptize him. hahaha 

They are really growing. They both had problems with coffee which was hard, but eventually they stopped. Anilton came up to me one day at church and said, "i did something bad today... i drank coffee." He looked sooo sad. So sister kohlert and i just said "how do you feel" and he said "bad" and we said "will you do it again" and he said "no" After that he hasnt drinken since!!

The next person is Maria! She will also be baptized this saturday. She was a great one. She also found us. haha She came to church because a member invited her. She was really searching for the truth. At first she was a little skeptical and said we could only come by once a week... but after a few lessons we are coming by everyday now. haha i love how people change :) She is super adorable and has a little daughter. She has her own house, which she is really proud of and just loves her life now! She had no problems. Just a boyfriend... but we are starting to teach him this week! Maybe theyll become a cute married couple! i would love that. :)

But the greatest miracle ever this week was Romilton! He is also a seeker of truth. we showed up at his house to teach his brothers but he is the one who is continually showing interest. He has come to church two weeks in a row. By himself too! I think that would be hard for me. Not knowing anyone but the missionaries and showing up at church. But the ward members have welcomed him in so that is good. But Romilton was taught the word of wisdom his first visit with us because we were teaching his family. Poor guy... he didnt even get the plan of salvation first. But he said there was no way he would ever be able to stop drinking coffee. he said he has tried once and by 10 o clock he has a migraine. So that was discouraging. So we started from the beginning with him and went back through the lessons. We had a great lesson with him on the power of prayer and the book of mormon and he said he would try not to drink coffee.. TRY. haha Well so we called every morning to see if he was drinking and after two days he didnt pick up the phone. So we saw it as bad news. The next lesson with him he told us he didnt even have  desire to stop... he liked it too much. Without a desire that makes things a little difficult. So we told him to pray for a desire. And during the closing prayer he asked for a desire and after that the miracle happned. The next days we were out of town for zone conference (which was AMAZING by the way... we talked a lot about laws and ordinances and the importance of this lesson for our investigators to see beyond baptism)... but anyway i was going through a rough time so i decided to fast. And i fast for romilton. And other things as well, but i focused on him. And well.... fasting is so powerful. 

The next lessons we didnt even start out by asking how coffee was. we just went into teaching the gospel of jesus christ and focusing on repentance. HE is the one who brought up in the middle how he hasnt had coffee since that day he asked for a desire to stop and he hasnt even felt a headache!!! WOW! Not even a headache! He used to be physically unable to do anything and now... nothing. I was sooooooo happy. Sister Kohlert and i were skipping out the door. hahaha 

But i know miracles happen and i am so grateful for the power of fasting and prayer! It is real. We have the great opportunity no matter who we are, or where we live... to PRAY. And communicate with god. our father in heaven. i love this opportunity and i know it is so powerful.

Keep praying always! :) I love you family! I know this church is true and the gospel of jesus christ is on the earth today in its fulness! Fica drete! 

Sister Johnson 

Going Fishing

Easy Fishing:)

Megan is in the mission field (friend from HS)

Yesterday was awesome

Dear fam and amigos.

this week was good... but... YESTERDAY WAS AWESOME. So you all remember Seirgio??? So we FINALLY found him! yayayayaay. i will tell the craziness of the story now. :)

haha so yesterday as we are going to pick up some people for church we are kinda late... like always. But we really tried this time so it wasnt that bad. But we are literally almost running to this persons house who said they would go to church they just wanted us to pick them up. So we are two thrids of the way there when we see... who do you know... SEIRGIO. so i didnt write about him last week because we didnt find him... he was NO WHERE to be found. so it was a miracle to see him before church... but i was like "are you kidding me... right now? Right when we are so late" But we stopped... we had to. And we told him pretty forcefully that he HAD to be in his house at 7 o clock for us to pass by. We made some changes in the schedule so that we could pass by. he laughed a little but said ok. So them we get to church and are so super excited to teach him AT 7... well... being cabo verde... you know whats going to happen. 

It turns out we see him at 6. But we had a super important lesson at 6 and told him that he needed to be in his house at 7 and he said ok. So we walk literally 3 steps over to our next appointment which was super close to where he was at and knock on the door. Well.. our super important lesson didnt want to talk at that time so we remarked with her. :( But then we got excited and realized we could talk to seirgio early. So we go over to where he was at... 3 steps ago and he is not there anymore. no where to be found. I have no idea how! it was weird. 

So then we make our way to our alternative plan just praying that he will be there at 7. So one hour later at 7 we show up to his house. and guess what. Seirgio is not there. Ele nao ta! ugh.... so we are devastated. obviously. so we do some searching! he cant have gone far. we end up talking to a menos ativa and helping her see the importance of church. Then we make our way back to seirgios house and just the wife is there. LIKE ALWAYS. So we just say that we are going to have a lesson with her. We didnt really plan much but it is amazing how the spirit works. Sister kohlert shared some scriptures in mosiah 26 about the power of prayers of family members and invited irene to pray for seirgio that he can leave alcohol behind. We ended the lesson and right as we said amen... literally... SIERGIO walks in. he books it to his room but we saw him haaha. so we tell him he needs to come in there and we are going to talk to him. He then leaves and says he needs to go to the store... but we follow him and he finally agrees to sit down and talk to us. he likes to joke around a lot. haha but once we get back to the house... IRENE is GONE. What? it was literally 3 minutes after. So she is no where to be found. which is terrible because we cant teach a man without another women about 18 years. SOOOOO.... we pray pray pray in our hearts and tell seirgio he has to stay there. Luckily we had a member with us and we told him he can be the babysitter as we go. so we dont go very far because we know that weird things happen. And we ask if anyone has seen irene. finally someone says she went to buy something from the store really fast and and she will be back. So we wait outside the door. no one could go out or in to that house without our permission. hahah just kidding... kinda.  PS... the stores are all super close that is why we waited. 

So then finally irene comes down the street and we are able to start the lesson. I had to take a couple breaths and pray within my heart for the spirit really hard at that time. But we ended up having a great lesson on the word of wisdom! We used the plan of salvation to show him the importance of keeping the laws of god. He knows his drinking problme is really hurting his family and he knows he needs to change. So he committed to live it. now he has a reason. It is a commandment of god! So we made some plans and he suggested some ways as well and now for the follow up. This is going to a patience tester for me. But Preach my gospel gives some great ideas about how to overcome addictions and we are studying and using that. WE just have to show a lot of love. But fom last night i really thought about how even if he is a little crazy and has this problem, he is a child of god and together--as his sisters-- we are going to help him. The love we feel for people is incredible on the mission. And i truly love this family and cant wait to see them in the temple together someday because that is the lords goal. And they can do it! Because of the Atonement. So Irene has problems with coffee too so this will be a great thing for them both.

And i cant let them go through this alone. So you know what i did... I gave up something too. So here in cabo verde we have this amazing thing called bolacha! it means cookie... but they are super different than cookies. They are SOOOO good. So i eat them everyday all day... without fail. Well... i can see how maybe i am addicted to those things. They are like all i buy because they are super cheap and a simple sncak to have every day. with some peanut butter they are divine. BUT... i see how this is hard for sergio and a couple of our other investigators are having real problems with coffee so... I gave up bolachas!!!!! pray for me. 

haha but i could see today as i did groceries that it will be hard but so worth it. Everytime i have the desire to eat a bolacha... because sister kohlert still eats them... i think of sergio and others that probably have the same desire to break the word of wisdome. but i cant make excuses i have to overcome. And they will to! So we are doing this together. :)

I love this work. i love you all. always read the scirptures. i have had a big testimony builder this week of how we can ready ANY passage of sciprture and the spirit can teach us exactly what we need to learn. I love you all. And i hope like Alma we will never tire of doing the work and keep enduring to the end :) He could not rest. Alma 43:1-2

Love Sister Johnson 

Great to see my family

Dear Family,

It was great to see you all yesterday! It was a little weird too i must admit. i see now that i will definitely be an awkward returned missionary... but that is good. haha it was just a little strange talking to you all and it went by so fast.. haha but then again it was completely normal. just like old times. :) Dad used the same joke he used last year with whitney... "i hope you guys call home for fathers day" haha. good one dad. 

I really do love you all so much. I hope you are seeing your own testimonies grow each day as i see mine. I am so blessed with the opportunity to serve a mission. the growth we recieve is like nothing else! 

This week was great as always. we are really teaching a lot of great people. We are teaching people we love coming to church and that is the best situation. Because at times the hardest obstacle is getting people to church. We talked to one of our favorite people Maria yesterday right after skype. She came to church and expressed to us how amazing and relieved she feels after words. She prayed and thanked heavenly father for the opportunity to be part of this church :) haha she is really progressing toward baptism! She has been having problems with her boyfriend. they were living together but a few months ago he started leaving every weeked. soon to be found out she discovered he has been cheating on her. she says that gave her some tough times that she wanted to move away. Then when she came to church she felt like a different person and wasnt so depressed. She is really changing. We focus a lot on how she is a daughter of god and she always has a big smile on her face. I guess it was a blessing in disguise but the boyfriend does not live there anymore.

The next is elsa. She is also a mom with boyfriend problems. We still havent met the guy even though he lives there apparently. but she came to church and after church she said she was a completely different person. She was super excited to learn more and we talked about the plan of salvation. I think the plan shows the importance of the sabbath day! What really matters on our path to the celestial kingdom? NOT cleaning clothes on sunday or going to work or doing groceries... It is the sabbath day. It is such a blessing to be able to rest and remember our savior on this special day and recieve the blessings througohout the week.

i have seen the blessings of this day in the peoples lives we teach and i know it really is a commandment of god. i am so grateful for the example of my little brothers. aaron and micah. who have shown me the importance of keeping this sacred commandment. It is so vital to take the sacrament each sunday so that we can always be prepared and recieve the spirit and be renewed. I love the renewal of taking the sacrament each week. elsa recieved the blessings as she went to church yesterday and really feels renewed :)

So do any of you have questions about cabo verde? i realized as we talked yesterday that you all probably dont understand a lot of what goes on here... hahahaha it is sooo different then what people imagine. but it is amazing. so ask away if you have any questions and i will try to answer any of them i can. For example skype yesterday was in a little store of someone from nigeria.. thank goodness he speaked english. the camera was set up with tape :) and... yeah! I was just so grateful for the opportunity to skype because we could actually talk to you guys and see you. we thought during the week we would just have to call on a telefone! 

Some great things that happened this week is we went to sao vicente! i love and hate that place at the same time. haha it is just the barco is super rough sometimes. this time we found a secret place on the boat that doesnt have a bunch of wind! it was awesome. but we have to get on the boat first to get it. Also we had a great training from our leaders and set some great goals to work with our members. they are going to have to be super excited about missionary work. i hope you member missionaries are excited about missionary work. it really is the best way to gain a better testimony and conversion. so many times in the scriptures we see what people do after they recieve a forgiveness of their sins... they PREACH. For example.. enos.. he prayed for the welfare of his people and then his faith became unshaken... i love that word unshaken. another example is alma the younger and how he went out helping and trying to undo some wrongs he caused. alma the older is an example to now that i think about it. and also zeezrom.. that wicked lawyer guy! he preached after... chapter 15 or 16 of alma if i remember correctly. check it out! So if we want better conversion we should try to share this work with everyone :) 

So.... yeah. about the working with members. we are going to train them on Revelation through prayer. it is better in portuguese.... Revelacao por meio de oracao. It rhymns. Anyway... to perfect our prayers is a great challenge :) 

and blessing!

love you all

Sister johnson

Patient

Ola! Tudo fiche?

I hope everyone is having a great week! We had some great experiencias this week. Let me start with the follow up with one of the familias that i wrote about last week. Sergio and Irene... They are awesome. So we went by their house during this week and taught the restauration again for Sergio. He understood and acted like he already believed all these things were true. Then we followed up on how the plans for marriage were going.... NONE. they had done nothing and sergio was still saying how it would be too soon. Well... idk.. i feel like i have changed a little (or a lot) on my mission, but i wasnt going to let that one slide with a nice loving answer that i think might have come in the begginning of my mission. But dont worry, the spirit was still there. But i asked them how long they have been together... 30 years they said... almost 31... Then sister kohlert, sister cardoso, and i started to say that that was high time to start worrying about marriage and that it is not "too soon." We got pretty direct saying that the time would never come to have a huge party or all these big things they want because they arent keeping a commandment of god and they wont be blessed with those things. And then i think he finally understood or changed... or idk, but then we said that we gave them one month to get married and it takes one month to fill out the papers. Then sergio said "it doesnt even take that long." To our surprise!!! IT DOESNT?? Well then... they better get going! haha so he said on monday... after the weekend.. which is today.. he would go take out the papers and start them so that they can get married! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS! We are following up on that tomorrow and i sure hope it happens! I just remember getting so passionate in that lesson and afterwords i was beyond excited! The best part is after sergio said that we all went silent for a little bit... and then he broke the silence and said "Yay.." haha kinda sarcastically but we always say "yay" so i think he was making fun of us but it was funny. 

Anyway so that is the story with Sergio and irene. i will try to give little updates each week.

Next is why i put patience on the subject... Well i have realized this week that is a huge weakness of mine. But i always had in my mind that patience was just waiting... well yeah kind of but it is so much more than that. It isnt just waiting things out. But it is enduring through the trials with a good attitude. At times i think i have patience with things but i will see that really i just complain and complain and then when it is finally over i feel good about myself because i didnt give up working or something. But that isnt patience. I cant complain during the hard times! And it all starts with thougths too. I was readying in Mosiah 4:30! We need to watch our thoughts during these times when we need to have patience and that will affect our actions. I have had times here these last few weeks where i have needed to have patience but i havent. So this week in district meeting we really talked about this attribute of christ and i have decided to really watch my thougths and not be negative about things that happen.. it could always be worse. And it isnt even that bad. I am so lucky to be here in cabo verde, healthy, and everything else! So you all check with me on that... i hope i can say that i have been patient during my afflictions :) And i challange all of us to be patient with ourselves, our family, and others, and most of all with the lord and his timing :)

So another thing i need to be patient with... THE HEAT. Ya´ll have NO idea. hahah it is so hot. They call it the heat from africa... The wind is like blowing hot firing air in your face. And the sun... oh the sun! I want to know if there is such a thing as a reverse tan when i get home. I cant even describe how hot it is...but i will say that when i get out of the shower and put on my clothes... it is like my clothes just got out of the dryer.. So i am living in a human drying machine. hahaha love africa.

So i think that is about it. Great week! We also had a baptism of the sweetest girl. Silene! I love her soooo much! :) And her smile afterwards was one for the books. i love being around people who just get it. She has been waiting so long to be baptized and now she finally is and hse is great. She has a goal to finish the book of mormon now and we are going to help her achieve it. :)

Love Sister Johnson

Transfer week, I am staying in Santo

So what another week! GUESS WHAT??? I am staying in Santo antao one more transfer baby!! Didnt i tell you i would basically stay here all my mission?? I am hoping for one more to be honest. I hope i spend half my mission here. It is the best island. And the hottest too.... It is getting SUPER hot here. Like i touch my skin and it is like a stove top its so hot. You can imagine it is pretty uncomfortable but  as long as we have lessons and people offer their house to us out of the shade maybe it will be fine. Maybe we can use it as an excuse too... look SUPER hot and exhausted and then they will just have to let us in :)

Haha so anyway yes... not much happened with transfers. Just 2 elders from our district went home... and then one of the girls in our house is training miss Megan Eliason in Monte Sossego, Mindelo. So i will get to see her for zone conference and i am sooooo pumped! She is going to be great :) And then the other sister in our house is getting a mini missionary. So we will see how this goes. Probably will be in a triple for a little bit. haha 

So this week i finally finished the Book of Mormon in PT... it was a blessing :) I know it took me forever but i didnt start until like halfway through the second transfer... but i finished and it love it even more in Portuguese... 

So next cool thing that happened this week is that we found 3 new families!!! Families are SOOO hard to find here. Nobody wants to learn as a family... its like ... " if my sons wants to talk to you he can, but we wont." Or... " my wife can but i wont." So yeah... but this week we got a family that has been antigo investigator for like ever. The mom is Irene... (they arent married, but no one is so no surprise.) And her boyfriend for 35 or so years... Sergio! Irene is amazing. She always wants to go to church and she has the BIGGEST desire to be baptized but she cant because she isnt living the law of chasity and her boyfreind doesnt want to get married. So we have kinda just told her to keep coming to church and we love her but she isnt progressing so we havent taught her. So we decided to try and teach her husband but he is super flaky and never showed up to our lessons. So they got dropped. The thing is... All their kids except like 2 are members as well. But only the sweet young women, elga, is active. So we passed by this week and found another one of thier kids, Elvis! He is a menos ativo... so we started talking to him and he seemed pretty solid. So during the lesson guess who walks in... SERGIO! We tell him to sit down. he is a little drunk, not completely, but we could smell alcohol. But we end up having a great lesson about marriage! They want a big party... well sergio does... irene just wants to get married. But we made the suggestion that they can get married super cheap with some close friends and not much there and then they can do a party when they have the money. He seemed like that was a good idea. So we just bore our testimonies and marked another day to talk and invited them to church. Well Turns out... SERGIO came to church also!!! It was great. and he even stayed all 3 hours. And then after church we had marked with him and he actually showed up... completely sober this time. He is really changing. 

So that was a great thing to see. He says we are just like the other missionaries trying to get them married, but we told him it is because it is something he has to do and he knows it. He really does know it. And he is starting to admit that they need to make plans. So we gave them a calander and told them to start saving up so that they can start the papers. little by little. But the best thing about all of this is seeing ireneºs face during the lessons. She is beaming. She was about ready to leave him so that she could get baptized, but she is so happy to see he is actually thinking about it. We told them they need to start praying together and reading together too. Irene doesnt read so it will be great if sergio starts reading the BOM with her. We have high hopes for this family! They are great. And i can see changes. The next step is getting sergio to stop drinking. But that is going to happen too!

So the next family is someone who came to church last week. And they just showed up. So we started teaching the whole family. We walked up to the door two nights ago to see how thye were doing because we were in the area and we heard one of the sons say "BATISMO" in a loud voice... and then they started talking about how they were going to church the next day. haha we couldnt knock on the door after that. so we waiting about 5 minutes until we stopped giggling with joy! I love seeing our investigators excited. haha 

The next family is awesome too... but the wife has fears of marriage because her parents marriage was not good. But she knows its a commandment so we will get there :) Focus on the doctrine.

I know this church is true and is changing lives. And i know when we make inspired goals in our lives the lord is going to help us. WE all can make goals and see the effects. We need to counsel with the lord as we make these goals for our lives as well :)

So yeah.. i think that is all i have. Oh wait... One more thing not so great about this week but that will show how the lord works in amazing ways. Last week as i read emails i skimmed over a bunch but remember reading about a verse in my Dads email. 1 Nephi 15:27. I didnt think much of it until during this week we had a lot of disappointments. Here in Cabo Verde there are ALOT of menos ativos... less atives. And on our way to church i remember passing by 5 of them... each of which had no desire to show up to church. some of them even lied to us by saying they were coming late. Well that hurt my heart a lot. And then all of our appointments fell through the next day. And for the first time in my misison i didnt feel like talking to anyway. No one. I didnt even have the desire to say hi in the street. Because i just felt like everyone is so wicked and they wont listen anyway... i dont know... it was rough. But then the next day during studies i had the feeling to look up that scirpture and remember my dads letter. In that scirpture we see that Lehi focused on the tree and the fruit, jesus and his atonement and not on the bad filthliness. This was perfect for me at this time. I had been focusing on the bad things, the filthiness and forgetting all the good. There really is so much good as we find it. Good in every day if we look for it. So i made the decision to look for the good. I know that Christ lives. HE is here. Ele esta aqui. And he loves us. I know as i focus on him all will be better and my mission will be full of more joy.

Love

Sister Johnson