The moment you all have been waiting for...

Dear Family,

I dont have enough time to even right a fraction of what great things happened this week. Miracles without end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So i will start with the story of our baptism this week because you all got pictures, but now you need the story behind it!

So bianca is her name! She is a doll. Remember Claudia who got baptized 2 weeks ago.. Yeah they are like best friends. So what happened was Bianca sat in on ALL the lessons with her friend Claudia. But she never showed much interest. But when she came to the baptism about 2 weeks ago she got super excited to be baptized too.. Even beyond that she got super excited to serve a mission. haha WOW. So after claudias baptism we started focusing on her and reviewing all the lessons and she was solid! Well this week we had a lot of divisions because we hosted all the sister leaders on all the islands in our house... crazy stuff. But we were on divisions on monday night when i got the bad news that bianca did not want to get baptized anymore! I was super sad and a little angry that i wasnt there.... But she said that she wants to wait until december because it was the month of chirsts birth and that is when her boyfriend will be in town and he will be able to see her... all sorts of excuses. But the sisters just invited her to pray and ask Heavenly Father. So on Wednesday the miracles happened. We just walk into the lesson with Bianca and ask to start with a prayer... I didnt know what to say so we just pray and we wait... and we wait... and we wait.. and then Bianca says. ^Sister, dont worry, i will get baptized... On the 14th. I know it is the right thing to do.^ I just looked at my comp in awe. The lord is truly doing his work. We had a Leadership council and then Zone conference and only could speak with her on the phone... but it wasnt our words that changed her. The spirit of the Lord answered her prayers and her doubts.

Then the day of baptism was also a little crazy too. She comes with a lot of fear on her face. She told us that she didnt know if she will be able to live this gospel... So we had about 5 minutes before her baptism and she almost bailed out... but we talked about the gospel and how it is a circle. a lot of people picture baptism as the end... it is just the beginning. It is the beginning to a life as a disciple of Christ. So we reminded her of repentance. At the end of the baptism she gives her testimony of the gospel and how it is a circle... faith, repentance, baptism, the sacrament, the gift of the holy ghost... and MORE FAITH. i was a proud little missionary hearing those words come out of her mouth. She will be a great missionary one day. 

So other miracles... I FINALLY realized what it means to have the Lord go before us and behind us and the right hand and on the left and all that... i think its D and C 84.88 But anyway... The lord truly prepares people. We have an old man... (my dream is to baptize an old person) getting baptized this week. He just said to us... Sisters.. i think i am prepared this week. Soooo happy. He has been going through a lot because his girlfriend for about 20 years left him. He is reading and praying and came to church and he knows what he wants. It is super fun to teach him because he participates so much. I am excited.. his name is fernando. But yeah... the Lord is before us. I have started to say in contacts... ^we have a message from the Lord for you.^and it is true! they feel as if the lord answered their prayers with us and we can see it in their eyes. so many people are prepared as we have the faith to find.

Ok so the interview with elder dyches was incredible... something cool is that he took a picture of my feet because i have really bad tan lines and he thought it was awesome. so now i can say a general authority took a picture of my feet. Also he examined my planner and i got an A+ woot woot! He and his Wife truly answered a lot of my questions i had about how to become a better missionary and about challenges i am having on a mission. I am sooo excited to get to work and resolve these problems and find others to resolve. Progress rocks! haha But Also during the interview he asked amazing inspired quesitons that truly helped me think of what i feel about my savior. I know he lives. 

So many other amazing things...but as i said. i cant put it into words. haha But i am pretty sure miracles are going to keep coming.

Sister Johnson

Interview with Elder Dyches

Dear Families,

I was delighted to have had the opportunity to meet with several missionaries during our recent mission tour just 3 days ago in the Cape Verde Praia Mission.  This companionship is just doing outstanding, exercising great faith and diligence in fulfilling their purpose each and every day.  These Sister Trainer Leaders   are excellent leaders and truly lead by example and love.  They both have a special light they radiate to all.  These sisters both got matching shoes just for the Mission Leadership Council; how can you tell?

I thank you deeply for your personal faith and support of this great work, as you “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men”.

All the very Best,

 

Elder Timothy J. Dyches

Europe Area Presidency, Second Counselor

tim.dyches@ldschurch.org

Great experiences

Dear Family,

So many great experiences this week. I really enjoyed all the great things I learned and it was a little hard to endure to the end...but we did it and we reached a lot of our goals!!! We set a goal to get the standard of excellance this week for member present lessons. We have been without a ward mission leader for more than a month now and without him it has been quite difficult to plan well with members. So we had to really crack down and work hard. But we went to our most powerful resource... RECENT CONVERTS! They did a fantastic job and we made our goal. This week we have mission leadership council and also multi zone conference so it will be crazy! BUT next week our goal is to break the record of lessons taught in one week! I love goals. But yes about it being super crazy this week.. We have a MISSION TOUR. I am super excited. We are receiving Elder Dykes from the seventy. I am super excited to meet him and hear from him and receive some great spiritual upliftance. I also was asked last week to be one of 3 missionaries from the zone to be interviewed by Elder dykes about HOW the Atonement of Jesus Christ has effected, or is effecting my Testimony! What an inspired question. I have been really pondering and thinking about this... and to say the least i am super nervous. haha but i know the spirit will guide my words and it will be fine. But i have learned a lot about two words.. The atonement and testimony. 

I felt like i needed to understand better two words to answer that question. Atonement and Testimony. I studied some about testimony today and found that there is a basic to our testimony and then we can build on those basics. And also that we have to act to grow this testimony. The atonement helps us act. The atonement to me is love. It is pure love of christ that he could endure through the suffering for all of us. I love the atonement and i am so grateful for the love i am learning to have for the people i serve. At first i just wanted to come to the mission to learn for myself. But i see as i apply the atonement the only way to get a better testimony is to serve others. Christ constantly looked outward. We must also look outward to develop our testimonies. I love this gospel. 

Anyway this week we have been talking to a lot of people we live in one zone of our area. One night we go to teach someone else in the zone but they were not there.. we then walk over to the other side of road where we had other investigators and we see they are smoking, knowing the word of wisdom we were pretty sad. They all looked very guilty and we asked if we could share a message with them. They said yes and we shared the message of the atonement. We talked about how they have the opportunity to repent and how they need to make a decision in their lives. it was super powerful. They all committed to come to church and asked that we pass by and go with them. I felt the spirit... but then sunday comes and none of them are in their houses when we pass by to go to church! I love agency. It is a great gift... I just wish sometimes people would use their agency in a better way. But we will pass by this week and help them understand better the importance of going to church. But the other person in that zone has a smoking problem as well and wants to stop sooo bad. So he has committed to walking around with a book of mormon in his hand and every time he has the desire he has to read first. I love the power of the book of mormon and i am excited to see what happens. i will keep everyone posted.

I guess i cant really remember any cool stories now...but they really did happen. I think they were mostly with my studies and our practices in companion study and how we feel we are being taught a lot of things about how to help our investigators. Now we just need to have faith that it will happen and that they will use thier agency to chose the right! I love you all.

Also This week as well we will be more diligent. We are doing a covenant that if we can stay together one more transfer we will not come back for lunch but instead pack a lunch each day and also that we will leave at 5 pm on preparation days. We have started the lunch thing and it is working wonderfully. we live so far away from our area that we just dont want to have to come back to the house...so we arent. and we walk and walk and find more people to teach this way. and dont have to walk home and waste an hour! but we will start today with pday stuff and hopefully get what we wish which is the blessings of staying together for christmas. Haha... but the Lords will be done 

Love

Sister Johnson

Do you know God?

Dear Family,

This weeks email will be about a few tiny experiences that i had this week that i just have to share with you all. The subject line is my favorite story so i will save it until the end.

But first a funny story. Dont get mad... just love the people but this one just made me really laugh. So yesterday we left the house and made the trek to our area. As we were almost to the house of our appointment there was a few men walking in our direction. They didnt look very happy so i tried to go off to the side of the road to avoid them... but i didnt do it fast enough because one of them sticks out his foot as i am passing by and trips me. yeah.. odd. But instead of getting mad i was actually quite pleased that i didnt fall on my face and i caught myself. My comp just looks back and then looks at me and asks, ^did he just trip you.^ and i was like ^yeah^... haha but it happens you know. So we just kept walking and laughing about it the whole day. What a random thing. 

But moving on... You know how it was halloween on saturday. Well it seemed to last a really long time here. Because on sunday after church we saw a bunch of people in masks still. We asked them why they are still dressed up and they said it was because it is halloween... We were like ^no that was yesterday.^ Well. I think they were all a little confused. So i will be interested to see if we still have people dressed up today but i hope not. 

Ok so enough with the funny stories. Now for the good stuff! This week i had a great interview with my president of the mission. It was super inspiring. I learned a lot and got more excited about my purpose. I asked after the interview, my presidents wife, what she does to endure to the end. Her answer was great. She said that we have to give it all to the Lord. We have to leave it all in his hands. With every calling that we might have, being a mom, a dad, a mission president, a missionary, a primary president, whatever it may be... we will see that we need to leave it to the Lord and do his will. I loved that answer. I want to increase my trust in the Lord and leave it to him while doing my very very best to continue. And that can be discouraging haha.. because we are SO far away from where we can and need to be, But guess what! That is why we have the spirit. We have the Holy ghost to give us a hug and let us know we are doing a great job and also give us more desire to do even better and not make us dwell on how far we are but help us to do things one by one and get better and better. 

So this week we also had the great baptism of our investigator Claudia. Her sister decided last minute not to get baptized. It was super sad.... super sad. BUT then i realized that i need to be grateful for what we do have. A daughter of god just got baptized and gained a chance to enter into the reino celestial! The celestial kingdom. WHAT BLESSING. So we decided to be grateful instead of sad.... Yay! Choosing to be grateful makes things so much for happy.

Last but not least. Sooo we were at the house of a new investigator who has a million neices and nephews. they were all messing with us and our hair and faces and everything the whole lessons but it was fine. Toward the end i put my hand on the table and the little girl.. i think she is like 6 or 7 puts her hand on my hand and looks me in the eyes and ask, ^Do you know God^ i almost cried. She was asking if we knew heavenly father. and i thought about the answer for a minute... Yes. I do. I do know who my Heavenly Father is and he knows me. It is my goal to come to know him even more and more. And these people just want to get to know him as well. We have been talking a lot about the BOM this week because me and my comp will give a training to the zone tomorrow about it. And we saw how it is truly through the book of mormon that we get this Vertical relationship with our heavenly father. that and prayer. I do know him and he know me. I love you all! thanks for all you do for me and the prayers.

Love sister Johnson 

Will we go to battle?

Ok this will be quick,

I cant really think of what happened this week... Just that i had a division and my area is crazy awesome! But ok let me think...

monday. Pday was awesome we went to socapeda where all they have is awesome africa things and i got some stuff. i love this place. I saw a tshirt that says africa power and i think i might need to go back and buy it. haha

tuesday. We had a great district meeting with our district leader who got emergency transferred to the island of maio. he is training and its just him and his companion in maio. Super awesome! White wash!

wednesday. We got a new district leader who is also training and white washing. Great changes. We are excited for the zone this month we are seeing some great miracles.

thursay. We are doing a division with the other sisters. Their area is SUPER big... well i mean its not like the biggest but i was walking a lot more than i was used to. haha but it was cool because we got to talk to a family who was really interested. His wife didnt want to sit with us but then we invited super nicely and finally she did and we shared the restoration with them. they both committed to read and pray! i am excited for the sisters to have such a great family! i hope they progress. We also miraculously got our goal that day even when nothing really happened until after 6. there can be miracles! always!

Friday. I am back in my area again and it was nice... there was just a lot of wild things going on and it was hard to get a lesson but again.. nothing happened until 6 and we still got our goal! yay! Heavenly Father is super great.

Saturday. We took our investigators to a baptismal service and they loved it. now they want to serve missions. haha but first they need to be baptized. So we are working with them for this week. they are sisters and then the other is a friend. but the friend wont be baptized until november. she still need to be taught a lot of things! But they are great and we hope they can do it. the other goal we had for saturday fell through... again. She is going through a lot of doubts and worried that if after baptism she might break a commandment. But that is the joy of repentance right?? Yes! We all get to repent so we are working with her on that. I know repentance is realy. we just have to take the first steps.

Ok so Sunday. We also saw miracles because nothing happened until after 6! hahaha wow. so i am learning hard core patience and patience in trying to follow the holy ghost to know where to go and not get discouraged during the day when nothing seems to go thorugh. i know that it is always possible to get our goals even when we have to patient for them to happen.

And today is a great monday! I studied the stripling warriors today and how helaman asks them, Therefore what say ye my sons, will we go to battle? i love that question. i think of it being the question from our Lord and Savior for each of us each day. Will we go to battle. And as we are like these stripling warriors.. and obey with exactness and have FAITH we will not perish. i love the scriptures and i love this gospel. it is our game plan... I know that as we live the gospel we will have happiness and peace and recieve all our blessings of eternal life in the world to come

Love sister johnson