Week 39- Bus Stop Maria

So basically I have to start this off with a crazy funny miracle story from this week. We were headed to knock on the door of an old investigator we found in the Area Book named Tony. But on our way there we saw a man standing outside of his house so we started to talk with him, his name is Cory. Cory did NOT want to talk with us haha so we kept on walking a little farther but then we saw this cute little family walking and we decided we needed to go talk to them but right as we turned around they turned the corner right by where Cory lived so we awkwardly walked back and the family was just about to get in their car and definitely didn't want to talk with us. But we still needed to get to Tony's house but we didn't want to walk by Cory's house for the third time. So i said hey don't worry about it, we will just walk around the block through the other side. We were on exchanges so my companion Hermana Hedges told me, Oh my goodness we are never going to get to this guys house! And I said hey dont worry about it, I bet that if we have faith we are going to walk around this corner and someone is going to be standing on this block who we need to talk to. (totally joking) Well we turned the corner and a boy was standing there wearing a bright yellow work vest, goggles, and a hard hat. Talk about screaming come talk to me. We talked to him but then he said that he had already bought himself a book of mormon and that sometimes he saw the missionaries. We were so confused but then he asked us if we would like to meet him mom. We of course said yes and it turns out....they are less active members!!!! Who hadn't been to church in months and months and she hadn't transferred her records so no one knew about her. We talked with her for about an hour and she let us know her preoccupations and everything. Her son who has mild autism told us that he hadn't been baptized because Jesus already saved a spot for him...that was really cute :)  But we were able to give the other missionaries her information so the ward knows that she is there. Literally God has to have a sense of humor- and has to have his hand in everything. So we continued on to Tony's house- who wasnt there haha but then we saw a hispanic woman sitting at a bus stop with a young boy and we stopped to talk with her. Her name is, of course, Maria and we had a good little talk with her but right as we were getting to the good stuff the bus came, so as she was running to catch the bus we asked her if we could have her number and so she shouted it at us as she was running- got it just in the nick of time haha! :) 

We had an amazing lesson with Juvenal and Maria this week. We got them to come to the chapel for a church tour and we had the ward mission leader there. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ in front of the baptismal font and then we invited them to be baptized. and they said YES! ahhh. And Maria said she was going to talk with her boss about getting Sunday's off so she can come to church. When we were in the chapel talking about Christ it was a feeling unlike any other. My heart started to beat so fast and I felt filled with a love that was stronger than almost anything I had ever felt before. I loved them so so so much in that moment- and I knew what God saw them as- their true potential. He sees a lot in us!!!  Well Sunday rolled around and neither of them showed up to church- getting people to church is probably the hardest task in the world. But they didn't answer their phones so we were really worried but they called us today and said that they were sorry- they had to both go to work unexpectedly but we have a lesson with them tomorrow so pray for that! I get so nervous. haha 

Bishop called on Wednesday and asked me to give a talk on the third article of faith in church- I was pretty nervous (why do I always get the Atonement as a topic lol) but lots of people said I did good, and then right after gave me advice on how to correct my spanish. #humbled. :) Defintely could have been worse! 

I guess the last interesting thing that happened this week is that we were in a lesson with the two best people last night, Rafael and Lucinda and I totally got the hiccups so bad! Like those loud, painful ones and they would not stop. And every time I would hiccup they would laugh and laugh and laugh. It really was so funny! The struggle is real. 

Well I love y'all. Still trying to look for more people to teach because we don't have too many but it's going! 

Con Amor

Hermana Johnson

These little garden statues are found all over Salem

Rafael and Lucinda - the Hiccup family

 Home

Week 38- Love and Charity

So coming here to North Salem has been a fun, challenging, exciting, frustrating, testing, happy time. We have spent a lot of time with trying to find people and have not done a whole lot of teaching. I love to find, it is pretty awesome and there is a process we usually call SAM. When you are contacting for the first time it will usually be a Super Awkward Moment, Super Awesome Moment, or a Super Awesome Miracle. And something that I didn't realize is that a Super Awesome Moment can turn into a Super Awesome Miracle just a few days later. We saw a family walking down the street and we whipped around and ran to talk to them. But when we got there they did NOT want to talk with us (super awkward moment) and we headed back to where we were parked and I had already gotten in the car when Hermana Tuisaula saw a man and a woman walking down the street. I was feeling pretty defeated at this point, it had been a long day but Hermana T comes and knocks on my window and says Lets Go! So we headed on over to talk with them. They introduced themselves as Maria and Juvenal but Juvenal did not say much at all. They said they were on their way to the store so we just talked for a minute and asked if we could come by and visit another day. Juvenal spoke up and literally told us "I live by that tree over there." haha so we didn't think much of it and we went our separate ways. A few days later when we had no one else to really go visit and it was getting a bit later we decided to go find the house by that tree. We passed by where he told us and low and behold, outside of the house sat Maria and Juvenal. When they saw us they began to laugh so we were not expecting good things but we sat down and began to talk with them and Juvenal told us that the other day we had met he assumed we already knew his wife because we were so friendly and happy so that's why he didn't say anything but then when we walked away he asked her how we knew each other and she said she didn't. So he told her well why didn't we invite them to walk with us?! So I guess he really did like us. Well at the lesson he told us that he had been thinking about us that day and asked his wife if she really thought it was a coincidence that we met on the street that day. And then this big old burly man began to cry. And told us that he felt his heart was far from God and all he wanted was the truth and to know where he was supposed to be. Then he asked us "So now I am ready. Tell me where I am supposed to go." Then WE started to cry because we hadn't taught someone in 4 days! And this man was so humble and kind and God let us witness a miracle. We taught him and his wife the entire Restoration. It took about two hours because they were so intent and wanted details and had really great questions. We gave them a Book of Mormon and they promised to read and at the end of the lesson he held the Book of Mormon in his hands and said, "I feel like this is the start of something." We cried a little more together. We taught him a few days later and really recovered the Book of Mormon because he had a lot of questions and yesterday when we drove past his house- he was outside reading the BOOK OF MORMON. We passed by again 45 minutes later and he was STILL reading the BOOK OF MORMON. I know that he is going to get the answer that he is looking for because God has promised us that all we need is that real intent. We have another lesson with them tonight. Pray for Juvenal! We love him so so so so much. (It also can't hurt to maybe pray for ourselves, again, if the Book of Mormon is true. We don't build a lasting testimony in one event.)

Finally something spiritual. Yesterday in Gospel Principles we talked about Charity and how it is important that we have it and what it is but also about the fact that we cant have charity for others until we have charity for ourselves. We cannot share the good news of what Christ has done for us unless we put his Atonement into practice in our own lives. We cannot love others when we don't love ourselves and we cant tell others that Christ loves them if we haven't tasted of his love ourselves. So lets all repent haha so that we can except when others repent but also so that we can feel clean and whole and healed through the Atonement and our Savior.

Love you bunches. 

Hermana Johnson

Week 37- Whoa Transfers

Ok well since I got four emails from mom insisting I write a good email this week I hope this is better than the sentence from last week. :) 

This week was ABSOLUTELY insane. So yes, I did get ripped away from my home again and I think I am going to wait until next week to tell you where I am....

haha I am just joking you. I was transferred to North Salem but in kind of a weird situation. So I am officially a "step-mom" because I am training a new missionary but she has already received her first six weeks training by another missionary so I am just here to finish her last six weeks of training. But it is pretty crazy because she is asking ME questions about Spanish lol so surreal. And we are opening up a new area. Which is weird because it is technically an old area- it is just the neglected parts of 3 other areas basically. It is pretty funny though because last week I remember telling Hermana Meise that if we just had less people to work with we could focus more on them but I think I should have just stayed quiet because we now have 3 investigators. hahaha And it was a little last minute the decision so we have come into the area without a phone, car, or apartment so we are piggy backing off the other Hermana's that we live with that did my companions first 6 weeks of training. Dad- you will probably like this: we have done a LOT of tracting :) hahaha I probably have lost 10 pounds since I left McMinnville a week ago! My companion is literally so cool. I got a POLYNESIAN! Her name is Hermana Tuisaula (two- E- ssss- ow-la) originally from Hawaii but came on her mission from Alaska. For those of you who know Trevyan- she is a lot like her. Full of energy, not afraid to just open her mouth whether she knows the Spanish or not and literally sooooo funny. I haven't stopped laughing since I got here. Plus her clothes are so cute! (the important things right?) All in all you should probably pray for us because I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing and I am supposed to be the leader. :) It is also a little weird to be here because we are serving in the only Spanish ward in the mission. It is so much bigger and put together than McMinnville and I had to learn the word bishop in Spanish! 

I really do like it here- it has definitely been the most challenging week I have had as a missionary. We are starting from the very bottom and building up. I have spent nine months praying and studying but in the past week I think I have gotten closer to my father in heaven than I have ever been before. Not necessarily just because I am in need but because I am painfully aware of my inability to do this without him. I don't know what this ward needs, or the members, or the investigators, or my bright and loving little trainee. I really don't know. But I do know that God knows. He has not left any of us alone in this mortal journey. He unfolds little truths to us. He loves us. He guides us. He tests us. And I need Him. We all do. I love Him so much. And shoot I am like OBSESSED with Preach My Gospel because it really knows what it is talking about. 

Good and cool stories. We were tracting out this trailer park a few days ago and we had just said we were going to knock on 3 more doors when a woman came out of her trailer and was like HEY WHERE ARE YOU GOING! We came back and just told her we were walking around and then she told us that she used to go to our church in Woodburn...and that she had been sealed in the temple. At first I thought that maybe she was joking or crazy or something because sometimes people say stuff like that but she gave us her name and told us we could come back. Well we called Woodburn and said we met Maggie and it turns out that she really did and that she had left a few months ago without warning. It was so lucky to find her! Then as we were walking out this lady shouted at us and said HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! So we went over and started talking with her. Her name is Patricia and she is really the studliest woman. haha But she said well do you wanna read the bible or something and we said...what we would really like to do is read the Book of Mormon. And she thought that was just the best thing in the world. So we read the bible with her and she introduced us to her kids and invited us to her birthday party. Then she told me that I looked like her cat because it had blonde fur and blue eyes. Maybe I should be offended haha. 

Other than that we have just been talking to everyone we see. I ran a poor 13 year old down on the street and got nervous so I told him. "Today we have a prophet and God wants you to know about it. Can we have your address??" lol so embarrassing but he said yes so maybe i should take that approach more often. Hermana Tuisaula felt prompted to talk to another young man sitting down so we parked the car and walked up to him. Usually the young Hispanics here can speak english so Hermana T said How are you? And he said No hablo ingles. We were like Perfect neither do we!!!! Anyways turns out he has only been here for 15 days and is only staying for 3 months. Can you believe how amazing that timing is?!? If you say God doesnt have a plan for every one of our lives you're crazy :) 

I. Love. You. So. Much.

Really I am so grateful for everything that each of you have done for me. 

Con Amor,

Hermana Johnson 

Ward missions leaders family. The game was on so one pic is us all
watching the tv when a goal was made right as my comp took the pic

Week 36- Ya me voy

Well this will probably be a pretty short email today because I am....getting transferred. *tears* Not really but I love love McMinnville and it has been a good ride but I am ready for the change of scenery. But today we are eating 6 times because everyone wants to do farewell feeds which is going pretty good for us. We have already had 2 of them. I already know where I am going and who my companion is because President told me but I am going to make you wait anxiously until next week when I am really there. 

As for good things that happened this week...I went on a really good exchange in Forest Grove and is was full of crazy spiritual experiences. It started with a less active mom of two boys who left the church when she was 18 and doesnt believe in anything now- not even the bible. But the reasons that she had for leaving were some of the same things I struggled with back in the day. She asked a really good question about why if God was so good and loving why would he just not let us have our families for forever without doing anything. That really made me think and then I started thinking would God really love us at all if he forced us to be with them forever- if we didnt choose them. God gave us our agency and it is the best gift in the world. Everything we receive, we choose so that we can be happy for real. We choose it all. 

Our apartment blew up so we had some apartment inspectors come over and they found an old air conditioner that we thought was a washing machine from the 60s so we have air conditioning! 

Thats all I have time for. Fourth was good!

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