April 25, 2016 - Graduation

Hey family!!!
First of all, shout out to my dear brother and my future sister-in-law!!! I love you so much Allie! Oh and you too Sean ;)

So this week was pretty stressfully awesome! I love this work and I love my ward, but there are always those moments when you just want to pull your hair out! But I love them. So we OYMed into a new investigator this week. He is a native with quite a few cool gifts. He is super open to everything we had to say.... But he didn't come to church which was super disappointing. But we will be meeting with him this week so let's hope we can have another great lesson!

We also put our investigator on date for baptism! Wahoo!!! She is cute but we have a lot of work to do to get her ready for her baptism. She has been coming to all of the ward activities and
to church every week so that shows us she is committed at least.

This week we also got to help teach the activity days girls! That was super fun! There are like five of them, one of the girls isn't even in activity days yet. But we played missionary jeopardy about and stuff, then the activity days leader called them all on missions. She even gave them fake missionary badges. Then  she let us draw (I mean get called) on our senior missions with our future husbands, I got called to Las Vegas Nevada, hahaha sorry future hubby, it's destiny! But it was super fun and cute and all decorated. She even had cupcakes with cute little flags!

We also had an awesome lesson with our now progressing investigator. She is a single mom, probably a little older then I am. She is a very logical thinker. We went and got ice cream at
Dairy Queen and had our lesson in there. Luckily it wasn't too busy, otherwise it would've been hard to focus. But we had a great discussion! I love her! She is planning on thoroughly studying the Book
of Mormon. Which is awesome! She had already read some of it so that was great! She was even going to come to church, but then her son got sick so that didn't happen. Maybe next week :)

I had my last trainer trainee meeting!!! Yay!!! This week will be our last week of 12 week! I am so happy! We get our transfer calls on Thursday. Sis. Rose will be leaving me :( and I might be going or I might be staying we just don't know! The anticipation is killing me!!!

So last week our mission leaders moved to Tonga, I can't remember if I mentioned that, but to make a long story short, they felt they should move back there one day. Sis. Killary even got discounted plane tickets, but that meant they had to move within the month. When they told us we were so confused! Like what?!? Who just gets up and moves to Tonga randomly?!? They were such great mission leaders too! They met with us every week! So I was super surprised. But they felt
strongly they needed to move back. (Even though that is where their son is serving his mission) They were even moving into their son's area! The day before they were scheduled to leave they got an email from him saying that his mission president was wondering if she would work in the mission office and if he would be willing to do dental work on the missionaries.  And for a job to support themselves the mission president arranged for them to do bug inspection stuff (Bro. Killary is a dentist and he helped his son with a bug business so this was perfect). Basically they got a mission call to Tonga.... Where they get to serve with their son at the end of his mission..... I was
thinking about this and honestly.... It'd be weird. I love you mom and dad.... But idk, it would just be weird, and I need to focus  haha :)

Anyways I love you all! Choose the right! Remember who you are and what you stand for! Read the Book of Mormon everyday! It really does help with your understanding of what we as Latter Day Saints believe. It is the corner stone of our religion after all! So if you don't know or understand what you believe, then read the Book of Mormon! It is true, as a missionary I carry it and testify of it. So you need to read it!

We are going to Tonga!

April 18, 2016 - Biking in a skirt

Hello everyone!!!!!

Sssoooo this week was super exciting!!! We got to ride bikes!!! That
is like the highlight of my whole week! We biked all day long!....
Well for like 4 hours anyways. We got a little lost. There are so many
bike trails that go all over Anchorage, people use them all the
time.... But they move so fast it is kind of like in the best two
years when that one elder is chasing down everyone on bikes and
are running and stuff.... Ya not the best place to OYM, so we just
biked and said hello to everyone. But can I just say, skirts and
biking don't go together very well. But we make it work, there are many
secrets. It is definitely a skill that I don't have yet. And it
doesn't help at all that I have become quite klutzy... Idk what it is! But in
one day I dropped ice cream down my skirt, spilt water all over an
investigators table, dropped my companions sewing kit all over the
floor (it's a nice one too), and almost hit someone's car (don't worry
I didn't hit them, I stopped just in time) It's so weird... I'm pretty
sure I wasn't klutzy before my mission... Right?

 

Anyways, we also got to meet with one of our old investigators! He is
my favorite! He thinks things, and is so receptive to everything
(we don't teach him anymore cuz he isn't in our area, but we got to sit
in on a lesson) and he is super funny! It's great! We had a great
lesson!

This week we went on exchanges! I went with Sis. Fambrough. She is
so awesome! I swear that sister has no fear whatsoever. We got four new
potential investigators because of it,though none of them came to
church like they said are they would :/ but that's ok we are patient...

I got to eat Samoan food! It was very interesting! They fed us fish
heads, egg plant, and bananas soaked in coconut milk with rice. It was
actually pretty good... A bit weird cuz they only had two plates set
for us and then they watched us eat..... I felt very self conscious!
But it's pretty cool! I like Samoans, they are super funny! While we
were eating the dad started throughing his 3 year old son onto the
couch from across the room! It was awesome! And the kid just kept on
coming back for more! He loved it!!! Samoan children are adorable!!,
it's great!

Anyways I love you all so much! This church is so true! It changes
lives and helps people so much! If you don't know yet if it is true,
well find out! Because this is the only true church! It is something I
testify of everyday and will for the rest of my life!

I love you all so much!!!
Sis. Johnson

 

April 11, 2016 Earthquakes and Stuff

Hello everyone!!!!!!!!!!

So this week was pretty exciting!
First off we finally got through to one of our less active members that we see every Monday night. She is really quiet and usually when we go over there to talk to her and her husband she is on her phone and he is talking most of the time. But this last Monday after a fantastic game of volleyball and lightning, we went over to their home and we were standing outside the apartment (it is one of the fancy ones where you buzz them from the outside and they let you in and stuff) and we are buzzing, but no one is answering so we figured they forgot, so we are about to leave and a car pulls up and she gets out of the car with some groceries. She apologizes cuz she forgot and she said her husband was at work. (When she said that I'm thinking "boo Yah! Jackpot! God is good! Finally! Hallelujah!" Cuz now we can finally get her attention as we talk... Hopefully) on the
outside though I am very composed and professional and I ask if we could just talk with her then. She says sure and let's us in. And can I just say hip hip hurray!!!!!! She opened up to us, she told us her
concerns, by the end of the meeting she was making eye contact with us! She committed to pay her tithing and she even came to church with her hubby yesterday! Wahoo!!!

Secondly I finally got my Alaskan drivers license! I am now the designated driver so I have been driving our little subaru around downtown anchorage.... Super scared.... Alaskan drivers are crazy.....
And there are no lines on the roads!!!! Or at least not anymore! If there are you can barely see them they are so faint, half he time people aren't even in lanes... Super stressfully exciting. Sis. Rose
said since it is warming up we might start riding bikes (I think my driving scares her).

On the same day I got my license I witnessed some miracles. One of them was we finally got in to see a cute Samoan family who are recent, but less active converts. I had never met them before. And only he was willing to meet with us, his wife let us in then went into another room. It was super awkward at first cuz we didn't know what to do... We were hoping to talk to her but she left and he didn't know why we were here, we didn't really know why either. All of our appointments had canceled so we were just dropping by to see people and our bishop felt inspired for us to go see this family... So we did... Anyways once we got talking to him, he finally warmed up to us. He even wanted us to come back so that he could feed us some Samoan food. So that was exciting!!

Then the next day I got to sit in an elevator for 2 1/2 hours....Wahoo.... It actually wasn't that bad, it was pretty fun. We found ways to entertain ourselves. Cuz you see, we were doing service for the
library cuz it is under construction and this was the only working elevator, so to make things run more smoothly they are having workers and volunteers sit there and push buttons for everyone. We have to stop at every floor (it is a huge library! Especially compared to the Hyrum and Logan libraries!) so we got to talk to a ton of people! We were very entertaining. I am proud to say that I fulfilled something on my bucket list! There was one time the elevator was packed... we had run out of things to say.... It was super awkwardly quiet... So I said "I am sure you are all wandering why I have gathered you here today!" It was pretty awesome! And they all laughed.

The next day we went on mini exchanges and went OYMing  with sister training leaders (or just talked to a billion different people). That is always an exciting experience, especially with how many drunk people there are up here.  I went with Sis. Fambrough, she is really good at talking to people! I learned a lot of cool things!

And now finally, the thing you were waiting for due to my subject of the email.... Yes we had an earthquake. Yes it was my first one...... IT WAS SSSOOOO EXCITING!!! We were on the middle of correlation meeting with the elders in our ward and one of the ward mission leaders and all of a sudden there was this big jolt, the whole house shook. The chandeliers and lights were swinging. I was super confused as to what just happened. Until Elder Matlik said it was an earthquake. I got sssoooo excited! They all thought I was weird cuz of how excited I was, especially since it was only a puny little jolt, like nothing else happened, but I finally felt a real earthquake! I can't wait for it to happen again!

Anyways love you all!
Sis. Johnson

April 4, 2016 - A spiritual feast

So, my mother graciously informed me that my weekly emails aren't very
good. So I will do them first so I have more time to make it good.

So this week was like a huge spiritual upliftment week. We had
trainer/trainee meetings, a special meeting for sister (since we can't
have sister training meetings anymore we now refer to it as SMS) and
general conference! It was awesome! Like the spirit coming out of a
fire hose! Best part of a mission is how strong the spirit is!

My favorite conference talk.... Well... I loved all of them! I got the
same message from like all of them. My question was how I can OYM
better (talk to random people on the street) and basically I need more
faith. Elder Eyring said "draw near unto me and I will draw near unto
you." The closer I am to Christ, the braver I will be cuz I know he
will be with me. Sis. Durham said "if we aren't careful the
things of the world will drown out the things of the spirit". The thing
of the world holding me back is fear. In the second session Mervyn E.
Arnold said "we must not delay going to the rescue!" I have been
delaying cuz I think to much. I hesitate going to talk to people. Those
are some examples of the answers I received. What kinds of cool things
did you all get from general conference?

We still go to the homeless shelter ever Saturday, best thing ever!!!
We meet some of the neatest..... And craziest people. But it is super
fun!

Well, the work is continuing up here in Alaska! This church is true! I
love it so much! And I love and miss you all!!!

Love,
Sister J
😊

April Fool's Day! She thinks she's so funny!

We were hiking in an area where we hadn't had any cell service and very little wifi. We were at the top of a mountain when my phone beeped that I had a text. Funny, the only reason I had my phone was for time and to take a few photos I could send to people quickly, which I kept forgetting to do. Anyways, I got this text:

Poor Sister Johnson met a bicyclist. And she lost

 

 

Um, what? Honestly, this was April 2nd, so I wasn't sure, but it seemed like the kind of joke our sweet Sister Johnson would pull on us. And I could have been getting it a day late because we hadn't had any cell service the day before. Plus, the crutches look too short, and Sister Rose was holding her foot kind of funny.

Well, I posted this on the Missionary Momma Facebook Group page, kind of wondering what to do. I mean, I would feel really bad if I didn't take her seriously and she really was hurt. Another Mom then posted this photo saying her friend, Sister Rose's mom got this photo.

Busted!

I did email her telling her we were in touch with the mission home to see what we need to do and that the ward was holding a ward fast for her to heal quickly. April Fool's! She then thanked me for appreciating her awesomeness and sent this photo showing us what they did with the family they live with.

What a goofy kid! Love her!