Week 35- Long days, Short weeks

This week feels like P-day happened two days in a row but looking back SO much happened the past week. 

First off we have been teaching a woman named San Juana since I have been in McMinnville. She was actually one of the very first lessons I ever taught in my mission and was the first person I got to invite to be baptized. I remember being so nervous and not being able to remember the Spanish to say "will you be baptized". Well many months ago she asked us to stop coming over because she just couldn't believe that he Book of Mormon would be true. So we left her for a time but some of the english elders were knocking on doors a couple of months ago and came to her door and she told  them in her rough english that she would like to meet us again because she had never gone to one of our services or given us a chance. So we were excited to go visit her again and we have been visiting about once a week. We have tried to teach her and teach her but she has always been really against the Book of Mormon so anything we said we had to have it backed up by the Bible. It was sometimes pretty frustrating and it felt pretty ineffective. Then a few weeks ago we had a Zone Conference with President and he told us to come with a name in mind to receive revelation for and I came with her name. And the whole entire time it just kept coming to my mind that I haven't loved her enough. That everything I did was not with love- I didn't really care about her. So the last time that we went to go see her I have no idea how it got brought up but we really just wanted to know what is really getting in the way of letting her progress. But for weeks before that I have been praying for love for her and charity. And this time she just began to tell us about how she was so worried if she joined the gospel it would split her and her husband up and she has no family here and neither do her kids so she was just so scared to see it break up her family. We all ended up in tears and I loved her so much. I wanted her to be happy. She told us that she did want the Gospel. That she did want to be baptized but that she couldn't lose her husband for it. Christ works through love- He is love. That is why He let me love San Juana and that is why He let her feel my love. Thank goodness for that because San Juana was hurting and worried. Let's hope that her husband sees her desire. And gets that same desire. 

I do have some bad news- Pancho is not getting baptized. Won't get too much into it but safe to say he is probably more into the dark side than the light. It is sad and hard because you just want to see these people be happy and safe but sometimes life is hard and people get handed bad cards and then they make bad decisions. Keep praying for Pancho. He needs it now more than ever. We will too.

We are teaching a really great family right now who has tons of potential. They are just kinda on the in between and ready to start improving but the dad literally looks like Wiz Khalifa (Grandma he is a rapper, don't look him up). Something awesome though was that we just taught them the restoration and everything seemed to make sense. They weren't blown away by it- it just clicked. The gospel just MAKES SENSE! yay. 

Welp not much else. Except it was 111 degrees here this week. I will send pictures because I have some good ones. Love ya! 

Hermana Johnson

These little kids mom got baptized by the elders in the branch this
week. Love them.

Week 34- Fathers Day and Devil Dogs

So last week I realized that I titled my email cherry picking and then forgot to tell you that I went cherry picking! haha so in Oregon they basically grow all of their own food and they grow so much that they just let people come and pick on their farms and pay a dollar per pound for different types of fruit. It was super super fun!!!! Except I found a spider on one of them and so now I can't eat all the ones that I picked. 

So the week started out pretty eventful. We went to go visit an investigator we hadn't seen in weeks and we were just hoping they would be home. Well they came out to the front porch and started talking to us and I don't know exactly how we got into it but we just started testifying about how we have a living prophet today and how he leads us for the things we are going through right now. And Jose-our investigator- is not necessarily argumentative but he always has an opinion and he wants to tell it to you. But he got really quiet and then said you know what? I am really going to have to think about that. I have never thought about that before. And he excepted the Book of Mormon. Then he preceded to tell us we just had to marry his sons so we got out of there as fast as possible. lol but it is so interesting and makes so much sense that because God loves us he would give us a prophet to lead us through the turbulent times. We may not need to be freed from Egypt or get every animal on a big old boat but we have to not get sucked in to the black hole of technology and we have to be kind in a world where manners really dont mean much and we have to be a family when we have a thousand things attacking it. So we would definitely need the guidance. So I am grateful that God was good enough to hook us up in this dispensation. 

We were also teaching Mimi the other day and she wanted to show us her quincinera pictures and we started to look at them closer...they were literally taken outside of the temple in portland lol! I guess everybody knows how beautiful it is. 

We might be having a baptism here pretty soon. His name is Poncho and he is on date for the 5th of July. All though we aren't too sure that he will make it because he didn't come to church this week we are really hoping. Have prayers for Poncho- he has all the cards stacked against him and will have a lot of hurdles to jump through so hope for the best. 

Well I luckily went through the typical missionary experience where a dog tried to bite my hand off but the worst part was that it was a members dog and it was this sweet little grandmas dog and I was just petting it like I always had before and I guess I must have just seemed threatening because he just tried to bite my hand off haha! It wasnt too bad just a little flesh wound. learned my lesson.

Something that was a big evidence that God's timing is AWESOME is that we got a member to come to a lesson with us to see Lydya and her husband would be there for the first time but we knocked on the door and no one was there so we were pretty bummed out so then we were talking to someone out in the street for awhile and I guess that Lydya drove by because she called us later and told us that her husband had seen us as he drove by and felt bad that they hadnt been there so he was going to come to church for the first time. Well he didnt come but i think desire is a good sign. 

Just so you know- holidays are not holidays for missionaries. they are just days when no one is home becuase they are all at parties and so you just drive around for hours trying to have anyone let you into their house. 

thats all. 

Love hermana johnson

Conference

 Spanish Sisters

 The District

 Girl from the Ward

 Weekly planning

Week 33- Spiders and Cherry Picking

Hey y'all. :) this might be a little long today so you might wanna sit down! 

So the craziest week ever ALLL started last ​Monday. The first thing you have to understand is that Oregon is filled with bugs and especially spiders. And since there is a gaping hole in the wall at our apartment a whole hoard of them seem to be getting in and they always seem to like the bathroom. So I was getting ready and a spider literally FLEW from the ceiling down to the floor right in front of me without a web. A FLYING SPIDER! And then (embarrassing story) the next morning I was going to the bathroom and one climbed down the wall and started running towards me but, obviously there was nowhere to go so I just screamed and screamed and screamed. And then- I went to take a shower and (you guessed it) one hiding behind the shower curtain! Also by the sink there is a little spider that sits in the same spot day after day but it is right in the corner so whenever we try and kill it, it runs into its little hole and we cant get to it. We should start naming them. The shower surprise, the toilet terror. lol nevermind. 

ANYWAYS,  we are teaching this really nice lady named Edith who may or may not have a few tools missing in the tool shed. But she said that she had a friend that lived by a white trailer on a street here in McMinnville that would like us to come. So we said sure even though we were pretty sure we were NEVER going to find this stinking house but we went scavenging anyways and we saw this white trailer that also looked like it may double as a taco stand and the house behind it had a Mexican flag in the window so we figured we were getting close. So we knocked on the door and this little grandma comes skipping on out of the house and has all these little kids with her and tells them all to step back from the door and then shuts them all in! haha and she starts to talk with us- her name is Raquel- and basically tells is that she doesn't think anyone should fear because death is just another step in the big picture. We were so excited because she was so excited and she didn't turn out to be the person we were looking for but we set up another appointment. But the best part is she did know where the person we were looking for lived! So we headed on over to that house and we met the cutest little old grandma who was the friend of Edith. Her name is Santana. We walked into her house and mind you it is literally about 95 degrees here everyday and super humid and Santana is sitting on her couch wearing a winter coat and a wool hat! haha anyways we begin to teach her and she said that she has really been wanting to get a bible but she can't afford one and we told her we could fix that. Then she also asked us a lot of questions about if we believed in baptism and she was really happy to hear that we did- we will see how it turns out. 

It has been a really, really exciting week for the Spanish branch because guess what?!? WE GOT APPROVED TO BECOME A WARD!!!!!!!! There is finally enough faithful members to have their very own ward. It has been in the works for over 15 years and it will be the second Spanish ward in the mission. I don't know if y'all are as excited as I am but to see the growth and the hard work of the members is just heart wrenching. I am sooooo grateful that I got to be in this branch right as they turn into a ward- such a blessing! And on top of that- the branch has only had about 5 or so missionaries in its history. And this week TWO of the boys from the branch got their mission calls. They have been best friends since they were little and so they opened their calls together. One is going to Mexico and the other is going to Fiji... the one going to Fiji is the son of our second counselor of the mission. So all in all very exciting. I love these people SO MUCH! 

We saw some really cool experiences with investigators this week so I will just go one by one. First, Pancho. I think I have talked a little about him in other letters and this week we taught him the restoration and helped explain to him about the great apostasy, and prophets, and Joseph Smith. We got to the end and he said. Well I believe all of that. We were like well oh ok. So there is that :) He hasn't been able to come to church yet and he is so humble and receptive to things that we know when he comes he will just receive so much of the things he has been missing in his life. We met crazy awesome Rosie. So I honestly have never met a Hispanic who has been well off or had very much money. Or if I have they have never showed it. well we went to go contact a referral that the elders had given us and this older woman walked out of the house wearing this sassy little outfit and tons of makeup and she saw us and was literally so nice and told us we could come on in. So we did and her house was FILLED with hundreds of glass and porcelain elephants. She had pimped out her trailer and her kitchen had granite counter tops, she showed us her room and she had her perfumes all laid out on her vanity and there was probably 50 or so of them. There were chandeliers hanging down and she had built kind of like a sun room. It was so awesome. Well we sat down and started tallking with her and she reminds me SO MUCH of Aunt Maureen. Just real sassy and just the best. But she told us that she used to live in California and these really nice boys used to come by and tell her about Joseph Smith and she used to feed them and she just knew that everything they told her was true. Oh my she is so cool. haha We will see. Finally Gustavo referred us to one of his friends who he has been sharing the Gospel with and this friend is really nice. His name is Mikah. Mikah had a lot, a lot of questions. He had read a lot of anti mormon stuff, was raised strong Christian, had read some things in the intro to the Book of Mormon that he didn't really agree with, and really just wanted proof of the truth of these things. It was an interesting lesson but mostly he was just so confused and I think probably really frustrated about all the unanswered questions. The lesson really made me think about how honestly lucky we are that we don't have a ton and ton of pending questions to our most basic beliefs. That we know God's plan for each of us, that we know how we can achieve it, and that we have the gift of personal revelation to guide us through everyday. I am grateful to God and to my family and to all my teachers who helped me resolve my questions. So I am not lost and confused and angry. I hope that we can all appreciate a little more this week the knowledge that we have. I know thanks to Mikah I do. 

Other than that not too many more exciting things. A seventy- Elder Johnson came and gave a conference here in the mission to all of the Spanish speakers which was really cool! His Spanish was really good. We are also teaching a 15 year old girl named Mimi. Makes me think of my grandma every time. :)

Love you so so much! Have a good week! 

Hermana Johnson 

Week 32- Paperwork and Translating

Pre- warning this is going to be the most boring worst email I have ever written because we stayed inside ALL WEEK! We have been transferring hundreds and hundreds of records from the past ten years onto digital records in the iPad's. Literally anyone even talked to on the street by missionaries in 2005 we have had to put in and it has been brutal so we are pretty short on the coolest things ever BUT the other night we had spent hours working on the iPad's and just decided to take a break and see if we could catch Pancho at home but then we saw a family outside eating so we started talking to them and by the end they each gave us their address to come by and visit! Three different families so we were really excited about that. Especially since just before that we had stopped by a man's house who a few months ago had told us he did not want to learn because he didnt really want to change but our ward mission leader works with him and said that he had been going through a hard time and it might be a good time to stop by. we knocked on his door and he came out to talk to us and we began to talk and he told us about some things that had been going on and then said i think that Jesus can help me become better so that I can help my kids become better. I think I am ready to learn. Wow! It is so sad how sometimes people need to pass through things difficult to turn to God but the Lord is preparing people in our lives to grab by the hand and lead to Him. and right after that before we meet the families we saw a woman standing outside her house with a baby that is so little and we talked to her and she just smiled and smiled as we told her that the Gospel could bless her family. She seemed so excited! 

Everything was pretty normal until Sunday when it was my turn to translate in sacrament meeting for the FIRST TIME! AHHH. So I was translating from Spanish to English and it was going pretty good but then this little grandma got up to give her testimony and she didnt hold the microphone very well so I honestly couldnt hear her at. all. I would catch some words here and there so then I just started to make up a testimony based on the words that I did hear. I knew that she was talking about being in a hospital and having a dream about a man. So I said that Jesus had come to her with a bunch of white people with Him and said that she would be fine and my companion just started laughing and laughing and she whispered to me NO! Jesus came to her with angels in white robes!!! lol so funny. and then I just made up all of the rest so all the people with headphones probably thought that little grandma was crazy. The worst was that her daughter got up right after and referred to the story that her mom had said but i told a different story so I am sure those only speaking English had no idea what was going on! 

Lydya came with her husband to a party with the members yesterday which was amazing because she is ready to be baptized but she isnt willing to do it without her husband and he doesnt want to learn so it was great to see him begin to budge a little! 

Anyways sorry so boring. Love yall! 

Hermana J

Week 31- Goodbyes and Simple Truths

Well everyone this week was sad and devastating and hilarious and awesome but thats just missionary work I guess. Last week my companion went home to Utah. I was pretty bummed BUT then I also realized that like, all, of my friends were going home. Like Hermana Barrios <3 <3 and my first zone leader Elder Hayden and one of my Sister Training Leaders Sister Agader. So basically I bawled like a baby in front of everybody while Barrios hugged me and tried to get me to stop crying but I just love them all so much! haha I guess I just need to accept that is missionary life. I am officially also the oldest missionary for time in the McMinnville zone, everyone else has been transferred or gone home. You would think that would mean that they would transfer me soon but who knows? 

So my new companion is the (literally) most perfect, sweetest, kindest. most beautiful Hermana Meise. You think that I am joking but 3 little kids have asked her since we have been together if she is a princess and that would be funny except she actually was a paid Disney princess for a company before her mission. LOL She is from Philly- she unfortunately is unable to make cheese steaks. But all jokes aside she really is so awesome and I feel so lucky and like God really loves me for putting us together. She was a Sister Training Leader for 6 months and for the past six weeks was put into English work out in Redmond as an STL so nobody thought that she would be coming back into the valley before her mission ends in August but President said at transfer meeting that he had the most distinct impression that we HAD to be together. And that it was so important that she needed to be released as an STL. So I know that this is a very important time- the time her and I have together. She is a very good missionary. She has taught me SO SO SO many things. But I think the biggest lesson I have learned is that we can teach and teach and teach the Gospel all day but if we don't actually address peoples real concerns for what they are then we are not going to do them any good and the Gospel will not bless them at all. We have been working with the members a lot as well with Visiting and Home teaching and the same principle applies there as well. We can all pass by the house and check of the list the visit but if we dont understand whats happening with their families, or dont serve them when we have the chance then it is in vain. Which is not OK because this Gospel is a blessing to all situations and all circumstances because its Christ's gospel and He helps every situation and circumstance. 

We had a really good lesson with Pancho this week. He was just heading out the door so we asked if we could show him a quick video and so we showed him the Plan of Salvation video. Pancho has had a very rough life, was born in Mexico and has passed through so many difficult things. He has never really had the opportunity to fully understand who God is or just the simple truths of His gospel. When we showed Pancho the video and it talked about our time here on Earth is to try and make correct decisions and prove ourselves to God he just said "WOW." and you could tell that it was the first time he had ever thought about the purpose to this life. My heart started to beat against my chest and the Spirit told me, invite him to be baptized. He said that he would pray about it. But I know that God love that young man more than anything and he wants so much for him and I am grateful that I got to see it. 

Yesterday we had another lesson with a Catholic missionary and it definitely got very unproductive and there was tons of contention. We left the lesson a little discouraged but right after we met a guy on the way to our next lesson who was basically a miracle. He was so excited to hear about the Gospel and so it was just a huge testimony that good will come after bad.

I know there has to be more but gotta go! I love you all so much.

Hermana Johnson