Casamento

Dear familia e amigos....

the subject means marriage!!! i will start with how today we went to mark the marriage date of zaza and patrick. they will get married next week. july 9. WE are super excited for them and zaza was smiling so big!!! She has a dress and everything and her little ring that she wears. i am so excited for them.

but it was a struggle. last monday we went to mark and we know how they got in a fight and apparently the marriage was off... well then we just told them to pray... read... talk. haha and they worked it out. so the next day patrick calls us at the end of our studies and says he is ready to mark casamento. so we go to their house and walk to the registro... but it was just patrick. so obviously we need both of them but zaza went to her sisters house and didnt bring her cell phone. so we call the sister... too late tho because zaza already left. so we get a taxi and go find zaza as patrick waits in the registro. we find her by luck on the street and she finds a kind lady to take her son.. diogo ( he is the funniest little 1 year old ever )... and then we make our way to registro. we think all is ready... but no! the license... or ID of patrick is wrong. it says he was born in praia but he was born in fogo.... ugh!! haha who makes that mistake. so that day we couldnt. the next day he gets things figured out and we finally go today to get it done! yaya! no problems simple. even though they said they would meet us there at 10:30 and dont show up until 12:15... cabo verde time. no problem.

so next thing about this week is that it was good and the only things i can really remember are funny stories. so let me begin. on wednesday i made these awesome tacos. all by hand! they were legit and super good. i think i got to excited and ate way to much though. because during the whole day i felt super sick. i just kept going though because i didnt wanna go home... pride in me made me stay out. but during the lessons i was just praying i wouldnt throw up. and i was praying for faith too. and the wholde day we were blessed with lessons to! So then finally at the end of the day we make our way home and we have this big hill before our house. i just told myself to make it up the hill and past this group of people... well.. the lord had another plan. i threw up about 5 times... nasty i know... right next to this house. i felt so bad. but they were SO nice. they told me to drink water and dont worry about it. they even tried to speak some english to me. haha but we couldnt just let them go with out a present of that scene. so we gave them book of mormons because they were so nice and they took them and the guy even wanted to shake my hand full of throw up. i shook my head but he insisted... so yeah. cabo verde. haha but extra great contacts with book of mormons! baptisms!!! haha

Next we had 2 divisions... they were great. i learned a lot about faith overcomes fear on these divisions. i know that as we have faith.. even when we are feeling down we can overcome.

next is vitor and erika. another couple. they are preparing for marriage! but vitor has Word of Wisdom problems. BUT he has dropped everything except maria joanna. i think you can figure that one out...

So we are having problems with investigators in church. every single one of our other key indicators were met last week... miracle. except people in church. SO we made some plans. we talked about the importance of the sacrament. so we are going to have our people write on cards a question they have... and then they have to seek an answer in sacrament meeting. i think this will be an invite for our members as well. a lot of people show up to church after the sacrament is passed. we need to make it a priority to prepare ourselves for sacrament. like grandma said in my letter this week :)

Next is the sketchy bread place we eat at.... This place is awesome! So we walk into a store... but instead of buying at the store we go to these stairs that our like corridor stairs of a prison tower and we walk up to the top. there is a small whole in the wall where we can ask for bread while they are having meetings and it just is super funny to me... or when they dont have meeting we walk into the room and just buy it there. but it is the BEST bread i have had. especially with butter. and we are their favorite costomoers. they are muslims. haha i just love them. we cant teach them but they like to hear about what we do and our message as we come and buy their bread. its like 25 cents for a huge thing. IN LOVE.  creepy place... but so worth it.

Love you all :)

Sister johnson

Family

Dear Familia,

I read a great talk today about how we are all part of the family of the lord! it was from conference from april! We FINALLY got the liahona for that month. yayaya! hah it is beautiful and i am super excited to read it... although it is all in portuguese it will just be great language study :) But yeah... for this cause i just said dear family because we are all family and i love you all. Even though i think some of you are busy.. i have been getting less and less emails. i think that is how the mission goes. but just know i do love you all and whatever difficulty you are passing through, know that the lord loves you and that we are children of god. and we are here to be like him... and he is perfect. so his hope for us is to be perfect!

So this week i will do a day by day looking through my planner trying to remember what really even happened. haha. so here we go.

Segunda feira- monday: it was pday. i emailed you guys... i got some time to do my hair. i have some sweat awesome braids now. but still no pics. sorry. next week. and then we taught 5 whole lessons. which is super hard on pday but we did it! i was pretty happy with that day :)

terca feira- tuesday: another day of miracles. We showed up to the house of one of the people who is trying to get married and they are going strong. family council and prayer and reading the book of mormon together really helps! But then today we passed by and we were going to pay for their marriage... because the mission can do that here now... and they got in a fight yesterday. ugh... they are so up and down! and we asked.. how long have you been together... 5 years.. and have you had hard times... yes.. then what does a paper that says you are married and keeping a commandment really change! Ugh... like if you live with someone forever... basically married... what does marriage change. i guess it changes a lot because it is super hard for people here to do it. the funny thing is that they will talk about it today and change their mind tomorrow. i just can see that satan is really trying to make them not get married and putting their minds through all sorts of problems. but we really focused on how the gospel of jesus christ will help them have a strong marriage always. So i hope they recognize that and use the principles we have taught them to have faith in the lord and what he has planned for them.

 anyway.. also terca feira we were with Sister Mathews.. the Presidents wife! she walked around and taught with us. portuguese is hard for her, but she is amazing. we were teaching another couple who wnats to get married and she bore a great testimony of her marriage and i think it helped them see it is possible. i love listening to sister mathews testimony. she is amazing. She also gave us a reference that day that turned into a miracle.. but i will touch on that later.

quarta -- wednesday. 

Normal day. We had a meeting with the zone leaders and district leaders. our zone is doing good and achieving our goal of baptisms this month. it really is a miracle. we just need to be better as a mision i think of getting people to church! i think this will be my mission question. HOW CAN WE GET PESQUISADORES NA IGREJA.

Quinta-- thursday.

i had my first division as sister training leader. It was a littler... weird. because the sister i did it with is siter gates and she is about to go home. this is her last transfer but still during the transfer she said she learned a lot. she actually told me she was a little discouraged being with me because she said she still has so much to work on. but i told her something that i think i needed to hear too... is that the lord sent us to these areas because there is someone here who needs us.. and the lord trusts us to be who we are and do our best. he will do the rest. i know this is true!!! 

Sexta feira- friday

We had a meeting with our whole zone! i called it the faca meeting. haha but it was a faca of love. haha but really we went in that meeting and watched a lot of a talk elder holland gave at the mtc. I learned a lot! i wish i got that at the mtc. but i know i need to be a better teacher. Elder holland talked about the importance of our studies. i always thought we got up in the morning and excersized and took a shower because we cant get fat... NO... haha it is because we need to prepare to recieve revelation through our studies. and also the importance of comp study as well. These people deserve my best! so i need to learn to be a better teacher and a more consecrated missionary! but it was great. oh and a faca is like a lecture... haha

sabado. 

Tons of lessons... super tires.

domingo

Great day at church and amazing day of ward council. our ward is amazing! haha and we finally got the 1st and 2nd councilor in the bishopric. but also this day was the 21st! and 21 is my favorite number and something great always happens on the 21 of june. last year i was stuck in a cave! But this year we contacted that reference of sister mathews and it is a inacitve family of like 12 people! all baptized and were preparing to go the temple. i dont know what happened but we got there yesterday and they treated us like queens and said they just needed the sisters to show up and they want to come back to church. i dont know their needs still.. but they have a great desire to change. all of them... almost all.. were just gathered in thier living room and we were sitting together talking about how the restauration changed their lives. i cant wait to see them all come back. we also talked about how one can make the difference. i think the young daughter is ready to make the change the most but i know her example will be a great difference for the family.

ok so isso.. love you all!

maybe one more thing... i Know this stuff is true. i know that as we keep the commandments we are blessed even at times we have to go through hard times, but it is for our growth.

Sister Johnson

In the spirit world

Dear Familia,

First off.... MY companion is hilarious!!!! We have laughed so many times and already had some amazing experiences together. she is just what i need at this time in my mission. i am amazed. haha sister coelho. it means rabbit. but the funny thing is she doesnt like vegetables... so i am the one who eats the carrots for her. She speaks english super well. So she is helping me a lot with portuguese. she is getting me to speak like a portuguesa and not a braziliara. so that is exciting! they have super formal amazing accents.

Next off... our house. they girls in my house are super great too. they know how to cook really well and are super supportive when i tried to experient this week and make something cabo verdian.... i didnt turn out great but they all suffered through and ate it! And no worries... i have already cleaned to kitchen as my first project of cleaning the house. it is a wonderland in there now. i think next project is the laundry room but we will see.

haha but we had amazing number this week. Mainly with teaching A LOT of lessons and getting A LOT of references. we contacted 23 this week and still have more to go! So we are super excited about that. that is one thing my comp is teaching me... ask for references. everyone knows at least one perosn who is ready for the gospel so it has been good to ask and recieve haha

Ok so next is The sister training leader responsibilities. Whitney gave me some great advice... i need to love them and show them we care. then they can open up to us and tell us what they need. We have amazing sisters here in praia. They are all different with different trials but i am amazed by their power and strength. So i think mostly they will be teaching me. but one thing we really want to focus on is showing them our love. we start divisions this week and we want to invite them all to focus on the restauration and also this new thing we have is 10 3 3 1. it is 10 contacts a day, 3 lessons a day, 3 recieved references and 1 lesson taught in the house of a member. when we got this challenge from president i was a little worried.... i dont think i really have ever taught many lessons in a members house. so i didnt think that would happen. BUT... faith is huge because i have seen it happen each day. it really is beneficial working with the recent converts who have family members in their house interested and getting other members involved really strengthens the ward.

Our bishop by the way is awesome. i felt like i was in america in word counsel yesterday! they really got it together. Now we have to be prepared when we walk into that meeting to be able to tell the ward what we need. haha

The next thing is about our pesq.. investigators. SO.... haha i have never had so many people cry in lessons! hah but it is all good. So we are trying realy hard to help these two families get married. they are both a mom and a dad with one kid and the moms are pregnant. Maybe this is the reason for the tears... idk. But they were both all set and ready for marriage...well at least it was on the agenda... last week. but at the end of this week both of the women told us in tears they didnt want to marry the guy and that they want to leave. What. So we testified on the importance of families a lot. And that with marriage the key is to draw closer to god and remember that they both have the same goals on the things that matter. maybe one is really bad at washing the dishes, but at least they both have the same goal to get to the temple. So that was a trial. i was about to tell the women to just leave and make it on their own.. women power... haha but really we need to work out our problems together. they both have so much time living together.. marriage isnt that different. and with the church and the gospel, the home will be a heaven on earth. i am so grateful for my parents and the example they have set. i use you two as an example in my lessons to help people see that it is possible to have a happy marriage!

So i put the subject as in the spirit world because that is our saying for...we are out of it. hahaah so we have been in the spirit world a lot!

Some funny stories. My great roomies made a basketball hoop for me.. see pic. i cried of joy.

next is that i got my hair done! the person who was going to do it wasnt at home when we passed by.. but like when a lesson falls through you go to plan b. and when plan b falls through you go to contacts! so we contacted some people in the street to do my hair. it was great.

Love you all!

Sister Johnson

Transfers

Heyooo,

Oh my goodness! So yall.. idk what just happened but... i am in PRAIA. I left paradise :( i am SOOOO sad to leave santo antao. That place was ON POINT for reallll. I am super sad to be leaving it. Sister Kohlert will do great work there with her new companion. a weird thing though.. they took out the elders and put the sisters there. So sister kohlert will basically white wash my old area with her new companion. It is funny. her new comp is the one i switched with really. i am with her old comp... SISTER COELHO... She is portuguesa and speaks english like a boss. i hope my portuguese will get like hecka better. it BETTER. haha i will esforcar. So also just a little detail.. Sister coelho is sister training leader... so yes. that means that i am a sister training leader now.

UMMMM yeah... i know right. Sister Training Leader... question mark.

So like let me tell the story. So like saturday we were at the church after a zone meeting we had and we get this call from president. he taks to sister kohlert and she gives me the sign that says ^sister j... youre gone^so i knew it was coming. i was basically crying on the phone to president. So then he said you will be going to praia and your companion will be sister training leader... So here i am thinking cool. she will be sister training leader and i will just be here companion! haha i didnt get the point that i was sister training leader.

so i go to praia and everything and then i get in the bus with the Assitents and they are telling me how cool it is that i will be doing trainings in zone meettings and all that. so i was like what (question mark) And then they were like yeah... and i was like i thought only my companion was sister training leader. well they told me that was not true. i then realized... oh crap. hahaha so that is cool! Didnt really know but know and i am scared out of my skirt to be honest.

But it will be fine.

The sad part is we left sergio and irene. Ohhh my goodness sergio was not good that day... he was pretty drunk so i dont think he remembered much. but then my dear irene was bawling. then i couldnt hold it in and started crying a lot too. they are going to be fine with the other sisters but that was hard to leave such an amazing family who are going to be all i white... temple white one day!

But the ward gave a great goodbye. they all seem to love me a lot more that i am leaving... hahaha just kidding. kinda... but i do love all of them and we had great times.

The new advetures in praia have began. there is such a steriotype about praia. it is where people get robbed and it is where people get burnt by the hot sun... and all sorts of terrible things. hahaha but all the people who serve here love it and i know i will. i was so against it. but i know we are going to do great things and get these numbers up. i was honestly super super surprised about the number difference.... like i was in the PROMISED LAND. haha but everyone says here is the promised land but in reality i was in the true promised land. but no worries. me and sister coelho are going to make this the promised land. even with our extra duties. being sister leader in praia is like assitent to the president sister... hahahah it is so funny. but apparently we get a lot of surprises. and you all know i am NO good with surprised. i loved being succluded in my little island and now i am with all the action. i am going to have to keep the patience and keep the focus and stay obedient and you know... all the good stuff. but prayers are going to be so needed right now. i know the atonement is real. i know i have felt so much peace while i even feel like outside of myself. but all will work out. uncomfortablness is like what gives us chance to change.

happy anniversary mommy and daddy. i love you!

Love Sister johnson

 

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