Ups and Downs of the mission

Dear Family,

I love the ups and downs of the mission! Today was transfer day. New transfer but luckily no new things on my side of the island! haha Sister Coelho and i are staying together one more! Which is good because i still have a lot to learn in portuguese and in my teaching skills. SO happy. And we have some marriages to take care of and some people to be baptized. it will be a great transfer. The one sister in our house got moved to another area in the zone and the other sister in our house is training a new missionary from the US. haha... So pumped. I will trade name tags with sister coelho and i will be from cabo verde and not know how to speak english.. just portuguese and creole and sister coelho will be sister johnson from alaska!!! We are going to try to make her believe it for one week. Just one. But i am so excited! This should be a test for my Portuguese and creole abilities. hahaha... poor americana sister.

But yeah. Dont worry i will be a nice cabe verdiana! So this week was pretty normal... nothing great. Just a lot of patience testers. We are having a lot of solid people to teach but after a week or so they stop being solid and just get annoying and stop keeping commitments. I think someone else is trying to follow up faster than we are. But this is the Lords work so We will win!! We are learning the importance of daily follow up with these people. Whether it is from us... or from the members! So we are giving the members the list of invites from our planner.. the one that says the actions before baptism and they have to go there during the week to follow up with the investigators and read the book of mormon with them. Our part now is to follow up with the members. haha

The investigators that are being more chato... (annoying) are Erika and Vitor. I love them... but the week was so up and down. We get there monday and ask about preparations for the wedding this week and they are like without faith that it will happen. they keep saying how they want to get baptized first. So we go through the baptismal interview questions and they are so excited, acting as if they are so prepared until... we ask about the law of chastity! they are just not taking it seriously! The law of chastity is one of the most important commandments and everyone.. i literally mean everyone but members of the church.. maybe... break it! It has become something totally normal for me... but it shouldnt be! So we bore strong testimony of the importance of this commandment and we started to see some changes. The best part of this lesson though was the member. The lord works in mysterious ways because i am like the sister in charge of the telephone in our companionship because i talk really fast on the cell phone and dont waste many minutes... so i was calling our member Nunu who already taught erika and vitor with us and we got all planned that he would teach with us. Well then i started thinking it was weird how he said he didnt know where they lived... but he had already taught with us. So he keeps calling saying how he is lost. so finally we give the phone to erika and she explains to him. Then we wait outside and he says he is wearing a yellow shirt.... turns out it wasnt the right Nuno... At least he was a member though. haha and i think less active but it was gods plan that he showed up because he was amazing in the lesson!! He made them commit to be married and baptized haha it was great. But then they got lazy again during the week and wouldnt go to the records place to get a drivers license thingy to even have the documents to get baptized. So we were going to mark the marriage today, but we go last night to the house and they say they have something ^more important to do^... SO i guess eternal life is less important... but as i said...

I am learning patience.

And i love them... SO MUCH. i think that i why i get so disappointed. and also i can see myself in them. haha so we are still praying and yes.. we fasted too.. so that they can make this decision in their lives. We actually recieved a call from nunu the night after our fast saying that he wants to pay for them so that they can get the documents prepared.... Wow... what a blessing. Now they just have to decide. They are really just living paycheck by paycheck. She is pregnant and doesnt work and he fishes... which is a rough profession because it depends on what he sells and the people who fish are super bad influence... but he isnt using drugs anymore! nothing!!! so that is a blessing!

I know that this is all true though. and i have been seeing a lot of my weaknesses this week. its a little discouraging, but at least i have a whole life to progress. i want to be more understanding and patient with others. and i want to be able to show the love i have for others through service! Service with a smile! that is the trick... do it with joy. I have seen a lot of how the savior is our ultimate example. I am learning so much from his example and how i need to come closer to him by doing the things that he did! Serve and love. And i also know how he was obedient. Exactly obedient everytime. That is what we need to do as people and especially as missionaries. Even when we have a lot of temptation to break the little rules... like go to bed late or just talk about other things than our work... we need to remember how to be more obedient. i think i am at the point in my mission where i can just be good.. or decide to be great and i hope that i can be more like my savior and decide to show my faith through my exact obedience! In basketball we always heard that saying... we have a lot of people that are good... but then there are those that are great. And what made the difference.. discipline and yeah.. obedience to the plan! so basketball can apply to missionary work! haha obedience exactly every time and i know i will see more miracels. 

 i love you all have a great week

sister johnson

Increase Faith

Dear Familia!

So i blame myself... we made a goal (sister coelho and i) to increase our faith and our hope this month. What a bad... i mean great... idea! haha but this week for sure tested our faith! First i will start with the amazing news i recieved during the week...

do you remember SERGIO AND IRENE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY GOT MARRIED AND BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I kind of count this as my baptism.. and marriage... so you can say that i had 2 marriages this past week! But yeah. so yeah. Sergio and irene got married on friday and BOTH of them got baptized. this means they are not using cafe or alcohol or nothing and that they are going to prepare to go to the temple. i am SO beyond happy. I was SO sad to leave but i am so happy the sisters there helped them reach there goal and that they made this promise with heavenly father. Wow... this is truly the work of the lord. i hope you all remember all the crazy stories and updates we had with them! Good work Sister kohlert and sister cardoso and sister mendes! haha

But yeah so zaza and patrick... i will do a day by day update of what happened with them.

monday- as you know all was going GREAT!

tuesday- We recieve news that we are going to do a musical number at the wedding. no problem. haha just my comp cant sing and she only plays piano.. Sister johnson SOLO. hahahaha

wednesday- still great... just that we go to zazas house and its the day before the wedding and she talks about some strike that is going on at the marriage place. Umm what? But then she said that the strike will all be cleared up by the next day. No problem... yeah right

thursday- The day of the wedding. So i wake up.. get ready in cute clothes and super pumped to go to the wedding and take many pictures. We leave a little late so we have to take a taxi... and they arent super expensive but not cheap either. so we take a taxi there and show up. We see something happening outside but dont thing anything of it. We walk in the place and ask about where the marriage will be and they say "no marriages today... there is a strike. so no one is working today!" WHAT!!!! So we go back outside.. (funny thing is the strike is being filmed and apparently we were on television... a member told us.) But anyway we call zaza and she says it will happen at 2 pm.... oops. So we have to do a lot of planning and re marking and then we go back home. i think we were both a little upset. But the whole time i was thinking.. HOW. i mean it is the day of the marriage...we already passed through a lot.. WHY one more thing. but it tested my patience. so finally 2 comes and despite my lack of faith that it wouldnt happen... the wedding happened. We see zaza and patrick and we listen to the vows and it was great! Then we go to the church to have a little ceremony... where sister johnson would be asked to sing.. this part is funny.

So we get there and the elders have helped a lot with bringing the food and everything. so they are there at the church. so we ask them if they want to sing. They say sure. We just needed one more lady to sing with me so i wouldnt be overpowered.... umm... well there was no members there. but i asked this lady who said she sings that she can do it with me. she seemed very confident and i do a quick teaching of families are forever... forgot the name of that song in english. But yeah. So just as we start the bishop is conducting and says that we will sing uma familia tenho sim to start the ceremony. so... there goes our practice. we have to quickly change to love at home.... oh no. I will just say... the lady tried... but... it was the most embarrassing moment of my life. but i dont think any cabo verdians noticed. hahahahaha

So then on friday- all good. except zaza gets SUPER sick and cant come to her interview. so we had to go to her house. she was basically sweating up a storm with some fever.

but she was interviewed.

Saturday- I woke up excited for the baptism... and with faith that nothing bad would happen. but obviously not enough faith. The tank to the baptism fonte BROKE! what! So we get that call one hour before... so we go there and try to get everything figured out. we left so fast we forgot clothes... so we had to go back to our house to get clothes. and then we got permission to go to the ocean... but then with 5 minutes before we start the meeting... the zone leaders call saying they got some guys to go fill up the tank and all with be good in 20 minutes. so althoug the baptism started one hour late... it happened and it was SO beautiful!

sunday- She was late to church.. but got confirmed! all is good! hahaha

OH so dad asked about patrick. he was a less active. so no he was not baptized again but he is on the path to repentance. great family!!

Love you all sooooo much. this work is real. hahaha even with the ups and the downs i love it- and i know i am strengthening my faith.

Just let me say one thing though... We need Sabbath day pamphlets. We have law of chastity and word of wisdom but the day of the lord is super important! haha i hope one day maybe we will have those things!

Love Sister Johnson

Zaza and Patrick!!!!

My awesome comp

The power of fasting

Dear familia!!

Oh my goodness.... just one hour ago i recieved the best news EVER. i am so happy that i was able to email after this happened. but it is all about zaza and patrick and how they MUST be really important to the plan of heavenly father because they have passed through a lot this week.

Let me begin.

So all is going super well.. we mark casamento.. they have these people coming over to prepare the plans. Like where it is going to be... who is going to give the spirtual thought. What the food is that we are going to eat.. ya know.. all those important details. So they were all preparing with so much help from friends and family and then... the disaster. I am on a division with another sister... Sister Rasmussen... (she is incredible by the way. she is a new missionary who is super amazing and obedient and has it all down. i was definitely learning from her! haha but back to the story) And we get home that night and i call my comp to get some information for the morning... And she says *just pray for zaza and patrick*... and i was like NO. So then i find out the next day they went to have a lesson with them and it was just zaza. she opened up to the sisters and said that her and patrick got in a fight and there was past wounds that got brought up between them and all sorts of things that i think patrick got super mad and ended up texting everyone saying the wedding was off... yeah. 

So that was HUGE drama. We didnt really know what to do. So we mark with them again on saturday and just pray. pray. and pray. Thank goodness this week was fast and testimony meeting because i think we needed to fast too! So we get there on saturday and they still arent talking. we expressed our love and i dont know why but we ended up talking a lot about forgiveness and repentance. we were planning somehting else but that is what came out. they committed to going to church and patrick (the menos ativo) said he would talk to bishop. So we go to church and they show up... But DONT SIT next to each other.... so we obviously saw things were still bad. We just kept expressing love. And fasting.. haha. So then after the talk with bishop that he had they committed to talk about it that night and call us that night. So we wait for the call.. nothing. So today.. being nosy and persistent missionaries... WE call. haah but it was the best call ever and i had the opportunity to do it. Zaza was like *SISTER... I AM SO HAPPY, Thank you So much for all the prayers.* YAHOO!!! After we talked a little bit but not much because we dont have minutes here in cabo verde... haha every second is like a nickle... well sort of. but anyway i was so happy and sister coelho and i did a lot of jumping up and down and hugging and then gave a prayer of thanks!

Wow! What an adventure. i know now they can get through anything and also that the power of prayer and fasting is so real! We cant go wrong with fasting! I know that on my mission i have seen a lot of these blessings. and it has tested my faith. I was happy that during all this i recognized that i felt peace.. and even though i wanted to yell at them and tell them to stop being selfish.. ha.. i felt peace and was able to recognize them as sons and daughters of god. knowing all would work out to his plan. I am just super happy the plan is that they will get married this week and zaza will get baptized on the 11!

So what else. NOt much... this was basically the greatest ever that i forgot the rest of the week. Oh wait. We had our record together of people in church! YAY. We are going up from here. We made some good plans and looked at our numbers. We had like 22 member present lessons this week and we realize that we need to have more members in our lessons as we want more people in church. The members are really what bring their friends to church. that is why you members out there... are SO vital! We need to work together in this work. My comp is genius and did all these calculations with the key indicators about how we need to strengthen this indicador to have this one increase... it was great. so we are going to present that in our leadership council tomorrow! haha it will be fun! I heard there is great food.

But also to close. i have been studying a lot about the atonement of jesus christ this week. I have been looking at scriptures from the plan of salvation lessons to study the atonement and i really have learned a lot about it. I thought about it with the plan.  I know that in the pre mortal life with our heavenly father he presented this plan to us and at that moment when christ volunteered to be our savior we had faith in him to accept. And now we need to continue to have that faith in him and know that we KNOW his atonement is enough. We already accepted it. I know that he is my savior and that i can grow and become new through his atonement. whatever weakness i have i can change because of him. And the same with all the people i meet here. The atonement is really helping them recieve more light in their life and remember the faith that they already have in him as they accepted to come down to earth and follow gods plan!

I love you all!

Sister Johnson

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