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
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