Hello!So this week has been exciting! We went on two exchanges this week. One with the Campbell Oark sisters - I went with Sister Slaughter (cool name huh?) and we got to teach an impromptu lesson on the Plan of Salvation to a referral they had received. The Plan of Salvation seems to be the theme for my week. I'll get back to that later.
Anyways, while on exchanges Sis. Ewing and Sis. Oliver (I'm her father from Fairbanks!) taught our awesomely amazing investigator A! She is the best. She is basically planning her baptism already! It's pretty great! I love her!
We also were able to get ahold of a less active we have been trying to see forever! She is the cutest! She has 4 little girls and they are just so adorable! While we were there her oldest (who is like 9-10)?did her own thing, but the 8 year old brought us out basically all the food they had in their cupboards, and she refilled our water glasses and stuff. It was super cute! The two youngest were just adorable! They are like 4-2 and they were climbing all over the place! The 2 year old would try to give us kisses. It was craziness but I love those girls so much! They are so cute! She said she wanted us to come back! Trust me! We will be!
We also had an investigator come for sacrament meeting! We recently found her. The sisters had taught her quite a bit in he past, and she even said she knows it's true and that she was planning on being baptized at one point, we aren't quite sure what is holding her back, but she came to church so it's a good start!
Also what happened at church, so BYU is doing a documentary on the growth of the church so they came and filmed the Bush Branch! Look for it in between conference sessions, either this conference (spring) or next conference (fall). Some of the Bushme mbers also happened to be in Anchorage so we finally were able tomeet a few of them face to face! So that was cool!
So back to my Plan of Salvation thingy. I taught it quite a bit this week, and we learned about it in Sunday school, and it stood out to me in my studies. I have never realized how amazing that plan is! We were listening to a talk by John Bytheway and he said imagine that as you are going through life a voice comes down and says the Plan of Salvation is canceled, it didn't end up working out. Please continue with you purposeless life. When I heard that I was like oh my goodness! I'm not sure what I would even do! There would be nothing we could do about it! Without God's plan...well we wouldn't have had the atonement, we wouldn't be able to repent and there would be no point, we would lose an already lost battle. I hope you guys realize how cool Gods plan is for us! He lovesus! He wants us to succeed and that is why he has given us this plan! The church is true people! There is no way it can't be. I know it is.
I love you all!Sis. Johnson😊there is a view behind us....... but you can't see it.... so that's awkward.... just enjoy the view of our beautiful faces instead ;
Hello from Alaska!
So this week was exciting. Most of it just went by in a blur, but the parts I can remember it was pretty good! So all of you in Utah right now will be able to relate, but we finally got dumped on! I'd say we are about even with Utah now :)
So this week we went on exchanges with Sis. Neild and Sis. Koncurat. Sis. Koncurat is the mystery sister who was trained in Juneau and stayed there for the first 8 months of her mission. So none of the sisters had met her before! But this transfer she made it up to Anchorage and I was able to get to know her! Fun fact, she is fromMaryland. We had a sweet exchange! We had oodles of lessons! One of them was with our investigator in the bush. The sisters have been teaching him since the creation... ok maybe not quite that long but it has been a long while and for the first time he actually turned off the tv in the background, and he pulled out his scripturesand followed along with us. And even better! He finally called in for church! Like this is his second time ever! So we are progressing! It's great! He is such a great person! I love the lessons we have with him.
On the down side we also got dropped this week by a different investigator in the bush, so that was sad, but she has a Book of Mormon and she said she would keep it, so let's see where that goes :)
Ok so back to the snow real fast. On exchanges we were driving to a lesson and on our way cars were stuck left and right all over the roads! Most of them had help already so we kept going until we came across a car that was centered in the middle of the road! So we pulled over, and luckily we had shovels in the back of the car and we helped dig him out! So that was exciting!
Also, due to the snow Saturday we went shovel tracting. So we just shoveled people's driveways and cleaned off their cars. And you know what! People are a lot nicer to you when you do something for them rather than just knock on their doors! We got sunny Ds and hot coco and played with the most adorable golden retriever I have ever seen! (He liked to do belly flops in the 4 feet of snow! It was so funny!)
Anyways love you all! Be safe in this winter weather! Make good choices! Remember who you are and what you stand for!😊love,Sis. Johnson!
Hola!So exciting stuff and huge testimony builder! You will never believe what happened this week! So first of all, I got to go welcome in the new missionaries this week (it's transfer week last week, but I'm not going anywhere, and neither is Sis. Ewing) We got one new sister! Sis. Randall she is amazing! Because we only had one sister we were her companions until she received her trainer the next day. So we spent the night at the mission home with her, then got to see all the missionaries get assigned to their companions. It's super exciting stuff!
Ok so miracle moment! The Lord led us to 5 investigators that we are now currently teaching! The first one was a self referral from Mormon.org requesting a free Bible. She lives out in the bush in mountain village. We called her and asked if her address was right, if she still wanted it, and if we could send her a BOM and teach her about the church. And guess what! She said yes! We had our first lesson with her (this is part of the Bush Branch, so yes it was over the phone) but we had a conference call with one of the members from that area and they totally know eachother! The lesson went amazing and we invited her to work toward baptism and she said yes!!! So that is super exciting. The only hold up will probably be church attendance. But when our member gets home (she was in Idaho.. so yes she was in Idaho during he lesson, crazy right?) she said she will invite her to her house for church so that is exciting!Another investigator we picked -The elders in Inlet View (my birth place) talked with her at a bus stop! She said she would be interested so they got her info and sent her on over to us! We went and visited her, she lives in an assisted living home with a few other people. When she saw who we were she got super excited. We also helpedher roommate put together a glow in the dark fish tank. Thanks mom and dad for making me clean Flipper's tank, not that those skills helped much cuz it was a completely different tank, but because I had a fish once I was suddenly an expert fish tank builder. Another one of our investigators we met with this week and taught him the beginning of he plan of salvation. He struggled to understand it so it is a slow pace. He didn't come to church yesterday, but that is because his health has been really bad his week. Church really did a number on him. He had the shakes pretty badly. But he said he doesn't regret going one bit. So that is a good sign... the only problem is I'm not sure his care takers agree....Ok so cool story! Every Saturday we have a district tract. So our district will get together and go tracting in one of our areas for an hour. Last week it was our turn. So they all came and tracted in Ocean View and the elders knocked on this ladies door. Her boyfriend was a member, that we didn't have records for, and she told the elders we could come back. When the elders told us this they down played it ALOT! They said she said it would be fine. So we figured this would be our normal procedure of going over just to realize she was too nice to say no the first time. So we go, and her boyfriend answers the door and invites us in and asks her if she wanted to talk to us. She said fine, kinda like she didn't care either way, so our expectations are still quite low. Then they invite us upstairs and invite us to sit down, we are a bit surprised cuz we are actually getting somewhere. Then she tells us they had lived in Idaho and she had lots of Mormon friends and clients and basically asked how she can become a Mormon. This took us completely off guard cuz this kind of thing never happens! So we didn't really know what to say or how to respond. But we invited her to take the lessons. So ya that was pretty amazing!But you guys! The coolest part about all of this is still coming! So we have been struggling a bit to find people to teach, well last Monday Sis. Ewing's friend sent her an email saying she had put her name in the temple so we better have some investigators. By then we had found one, but the Lord is amazing and wasn't finished yet! Cuz then we found the rest of these amazing prepared people!
Prayers are real. The Lord does answer them. The temple is amazing and truly the House of the Lord. The temple is where you find safety, peace, answers to questions. I learned I needed to go on a mission in the temple. Prayers are answered here! You need to go to the temple. Inside or just on the grounds, no matter where you are, it is the house of the Lord. "... in this there is safety, in this there is peace. He will send blessings, he will send blessings, words of the prophets keep the commandments, in this there is safety and peace!" I know it's not the temple song, but think about it, it is applicable! I know the Lord hears and answers our prayers.I love you all!😊Sis. Johnson
New missionaries with their trainers
Hello everyone!
So this week was good! We helped move some sisters out of their apartment this week. Their new apartment is super duper nice! Like heated floors and granite countertops! They live in the basement of a member who was awesome enough to let the missionaries move in! They even have a dog! And it is super cute!
We also were able to have a return missionary join us all the day long on Tuesday! Her name is Megan Futui (I might have spelled her last name wrong) but coolest thing ever! She was companions with Kelsey Rounds!!!!! Like what?! Small world! But it was awesome cuz while she was with us we found a new investigator!
Cool story! So we were visiting a less active in our Ward, and she lives in an assisted living home. While we were getting ready to leave the awesome lady who runs the home stopped us and said there was a man downstairs who wanted to talk with us. So down stairs we go and there he is sitting in a lazy boy smiling this huge grin! Basically he said he has been waiting for us! We invited him to church and arranged for one of our members to go pick him up. And he came! He said he almost didn't come, but had changed his mind when our member showed up. It was fast and testimony meeting. He got up and bore a super simple, powerful, and sweet testimony. Then he described it as coming home. He felt like he was home. It was awesome!
We are teaching him Thursday when a soon to be missionary will be joining us! #returnmissinaryblessings! Go out with missionaries you guys! It brings blessings!
On Thursday, our youth made us food for mutual. They had what they called missionary olympics where they learned how to iron white shirts, tie ties, look up scriptures, slurp ramen, and make food out of scraps from the cupboard.... which is when they made us food. The young men vs. the young women to see whose food was most good. Well the young women's tasted better, but we let the young men win for style (they even had a drink included) and out of pity lol. But it was super fun!
But ya that is me!!! This week has been an interesting one! I'm also like in the orange zone for stress... so that's great... but don't worry I'll be fine.
I love you all so much!
Love
😊Sis. Johnson
P.s. Also Utah got more snow and was colder then Alaska! How funny is
that! We like hit a heat wave and they got our cold and snow! It was
like 20 degrees up here with only frost all over the place! To funny!
Hello everyone!
Happy New Year!!! I can't believe it is 2017 already! Like what?! Where did the time go?? I hope you all enjoyed it! And had fun parties and things! My New Years night consisted of going to bed at 10:00, so if you think about I had a Utah New Years. Just like most of you lol, it was lovely!
So this week was exciting! There is a family we have been teaching, the parents are some returning less active members and their kids are not, but want to be! They are working super hard! They fed us dinner the other night and after we read the scriptures with them. They do this really cool thing when they read! So they each go in acircle and read a verse then the mom draws out what happened, then we keep reading until we all read a verse and she draws it out again. It's super cute and super fun! It helps engage all of the family in their scripture study!
We also had a chapel tour on Wednesday with a lady who had called us! I guess she had taken the lesson in Salt Lake, but then moved up to Alaska, and her and her boyfriend are now taking thediscussions. It's super exciting!
We also went on exchanges again! Sis. Ewing went with Sis. Neild (my MTC comp) and I went with Sis. Jimenez! She is from Nicaragua. It was super cool. She is a very freezing but amazing missionary, And her English is super good! Remember how I wanted to learn Spanish on my mission? Well here we go. Lol, not that I'll get to have the time to learn much but you never know lol :)
On Sunday we got a call 2 hours before church to sub in the gospel doctrine class............ I want everyone to know that missionaries spend 18 months to 2 years teaching the basics of the gospel, so we don't focus much on the deeper stuff.... so that was interesting. To top it off we were giving the wrong lesson. But luckily this Ward is supertalkative, and hey, probs felt bad for us which helped in participation so it worked out pretty well :)
Something awesome happened this morning! I was studying and reading in the January ensign of 2014, and there was this amazing article by Pres. Uchtdorf called "The best time to plant a tree". It is super good and talks all about setting goals. One of the things he said is, "Setting goals is a worthy endeavor. We know that our Heavenly Father has goals because He has told us that His work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39)." I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE!!!!! Mind blown!!! It's true though! Hemakes goals and he teaches us to make goals! You guys! Prayerfully think of goals that will help you come closer to Christ. Goals are supposed to make us better right? Well who better to be like the Jesus Christ?
So here are my goals, and I'm telling everyone cuz I need some accountabilabuddies! My New Year's resolutions are : to be more obedient, to finish the Book of Mormon by April general conference (thank Elder Speth for that one), to be less fearful of people, and to get at least 2-3 more baptisms by the end of my mission. Hold me
accountable! This needs to happen! Tell me yours and I will do my best to do the same!
Anyways I love you all! Hope his week is amazing!Loves,😊 sis. JohnsonP.s. Hope you enjoyed my moose riding pictures, my family got me toadmit he moose was in fact not living while skyping them, but I stillrode one!
This guy went through the temple a little while ago! He was one of theinvestigators sis. Ewing knew in Fairbanks!!!
Hhheeelllllloooooo!!!!!So Merry Christmas everyone! Hope it was great and that you all made good choices and were safe and things and stuff!
So highlight of the week! I got to Skype my family! Wahoo! So that was exciting. Most of you probably know better then I do but they seem to be doing good. Lol
So this week was crazy awesome! We went caroling like almost every night to people in our Ward and people in our district's wards as well, so that was fun! And cold, but super fun! We also went on exchanges. I went with Sis. Langford while Sis. Ewing stayed in our area with Sis. Slaughter. It was fun! I got to go back to North Anchorage, the place of my birth! So that was awesome!
Sis. Langford and I met with a referral the elders had given her. And holy cow she is so ready! She is so open to the gospel and everything about it right now! She is like golden! We also met with a family from Russia, that was awesome too cuz Sis. Langford said they had a rough time getting in with them, but then we did. #Christmasmiracles!
Also on exchanges I went to one of the coolest Christmas parties I have ever seen! It was for a Samoan Ward, man do they know how to put on a party! Everything was decked out in Christmas decorations and they were dancing up a storm! It was awesome!
Also this week we got to do service at this Christmas party the stake put on for foster kids, It was really cool. Sis. Ewing and I handed out drinks while the elders served pizza, then we helped clean up. Then Christmas Eve, President and Sister Robinson had us over for a Christmas party. It's was fun! We played around the world ping-pong and I made it to the end! But then I lost to Elder Anderson so I got second! Which surprised me cuz I'm really not good at ping pong. We also played Uno, which I apparently am a bit rusty at cuz I lost every time! Like really bad.., like I had to draw 12 cards.... and 8 cards.... and ya so that happened... that or everyone else was justout to get me, which is quite possible. But ya it was fun! Anyways!
Love you all and hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!!
