WHAT THE?

Man, so this week has been crazy, to say the least. Suuuuper good, not so good, and everything in between. Mostly really good though. So we had 2 amazing miracles this week! I think last week I talked about some miracles that happened when we received some member referrals. Well, both of them are super awesome! One of them, Benito, is really interested in learning about religion and his member friend is super awesome! He accepted the idea of getting baptized and that all of this might be true, so we are excited to see him progress. The other one, Antonia, has been an investigator of the elders. When we went over there we taught her the plan of salvation and when we invited her to be baptized it was just like yeah, when can we do it? So awesome!! I really like her a lot, she is super sweet. So we are really excited about these 2 investigators, pray for them to be able to reach their baptismal dates and have strength to get through the trials that they will have!

So transfers are tomorrow!!!! Transfers are always a stressful, but very exciting time, especially in the Irvine mission where we see all the other missionaries in the mission on a very regular basis. But we found out that neither of us are leaving!!!!!!!!! Such a huge relif, I thought I was gone and I was super sad. And we also found out that we are training!! I am suuuuuper excited! We are going to be in a trio again, way fun. :) We also found out yesterday that we are going to be taking on a new ward. There is an English ward in our area that is trying to do an outreach to their Hispanic less-actives that used to go the English ward. They are looking for help doing that and they also want to have sisters in their ward because there are a lot of single women who need support and people to go visit them, so...president has asked us to cover both wards. I am pretty excited about that too because I kind of miss having 2 wards. You ALWAYS have something to do, so its pretty fun.

Hermana Garner went home this week. :( But it was actually super fun, we honestly have the best mission president ever. Because she didn't go home on a transfer she was the only one going home that day. Usually all the people going home go to the mission home and have dinner, spend the night hanging out and then they all go to the airport the next morning. But because there was no one else to do that with, president said that she could invite people. So she invited me and Sister Drinkwater (her companion after me) and we had a sleepover at the mission home. It was sooooo fun!! He even let us take her to the airport the next morning with him, before we went back home. It was sad though because I will really miss her.

Anyways, a ton of changes coming up for the next week! I'm pretty excited. I love this work, I love being a spanish missionary, I love being in the ward I am in, I have made some really close friendships and I will be really sad when the day comes that I have to leave....good thing that isn't for a while :) I love you all, I miss you a ton, and I hope everyone has a super good Thanksgiving holiday!!!

Love,
Hermana Johnson

p.s. FELICITACIONES MAMA!!!!!!!! Estoy muy emocionada y orgullosa de ti !! Caleb sabia que iba a lograrlo!! (make it)


So I actually just remembered 3 more things...

1. On saturday we had a very successful ward thanksgiving party. It was sooo fun! I have a ton of pictures and videos :) As missionaries we put on a play about Alma the younger and how he changed his life, and then we related it to being grateful and missionary work. Everyone LOVED it and there was a ton of non-members there. And then afterward there was a live hispanic band that came and DJed while we ate dinner and afterwards danced. Oh man, it was soooo hard for me not to dance and just be in the middle of the party. :)

2. So we have a mission choir. And it is going reeeally well. We have a lot of performances in the coming weeks because everyone is starting to hear about us and it is Christmas time. But we went to a Methodist church yesterday and sang for a multiple faith thingy and it was awesome! There was a ton of non-members there, obviously, and they were all saying that we sounded like the Tab Choir! Then afterward there was at least one person teaching someone about the first vision and they exchanged contact info and everything. It was soooo fun!

3. We have a mission website page and facebook page! It is irvinemission.org and facebook.com/IrvineMission On these I think there are pictures and other cool info and stuff about the things that go down here in Irvine California :)

Love you all a ton!

Me and Hermana Johnson with Hermana Mosquiera, one of my favorite members. She is from Peru and I think I am going to move there one day and live with her.

The other best member, Hermana Marquina and her daughter Diana

Andrea, the best recent convert. She is sooo adorable and we see her a lot

All of the hermanas in our district. We got super close and so we got a bunch of pictures right before transfers.

 

Un Dios de Amor

HOLA!!!

 

Como estan todos?! Wow, this week was awesome. Actually, it started out a little rough but had a fantastic ending. Something that I learned this week was that God knows what he is doing, and that as long as you trust in him, keep his commandments, and try your hardest to do everything that he has told you to do, then the things that may seem hard right now will pass by and you will realize the reason behind the trials that you have. So my trial wasn't really that hard, but it taught be an important lesson. Over these last couple weeks we pretty much lost every single one of our investigators and we almost dropped Tino as well (the one we have been teaching FOREVER). On Saturday we had nothing to do, that has never happened to me on my mission and I didn't really know how to handle it. I was getting really frustrated. But we had a window of heaven set...man I love those things. I was frustrated though because we got there late and then we couldn't find parking, and we ended up having to walk forever to get to the place we had previously picked out. But like I said, God knows what he is doing. So as we were walking, we stopped and talked to this lady. As soon as we said hi she was like, "Oh, I'm glad you guys stopped by, I was just saying the other day that I needed the Mormon's to stop by cause I have a question for them." So then we talked to her for a super long time. Oh boy is she hilarious. Her name is Ilene (we think, but she was kind of hard to understand). She was a hard-core heroine addict and has since then changed her life. She LOVES the bible and knows it pretty much by heart. She loved talking to us and after explaining what the Book of Mormon was and everything she said that she was going to read it and that we could come back to visit her! She was awesome, it was just what I needed to brighten up my day. If there had of been parking, then we never would have run into her, and she is the person that God needed us to see that day. So sometimes we just need to trust in God even when we don't understand.

 

So that was Saturday. Then that night there was a baptism in our ward from some of the other missionaries. While at the baptism we received 2 member referrals!! One of which we have an appointment set up for this week and he came to church yesterday and to the baptism!! Then on Sunday we had a choir performance in one of the English sacrament meetings (I can never remember what I have written, but just in case I haven't told you...we have an Irvine Mission Choir! It is super fun). After the sacrament meeting was over we were introduced to a hispanic family that had just shown up at church because the husband lost his job and they lost their house and they have been sleeping in their car for the last couple of days. The Relief Society president gave them some food, took them to church and to all the classes, told them a little bit about the gospel, and gave them some money to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights. So we are going to go over to their house tonight and give them some more food and see what we can do for them and see if we can help them find another house and see if they want to keep coming to church! So amazing!!! Then when we were at church we talked to one of the investigators of Elders in our ward and she said that she doesn't like it when they come over because her husband gets mad that there are 3 men coming over to visit his wife. Haha, so...we are going to teach her now! She is super cute, and her name in Antonia. (oh the dad's name in that family is Fernando) And she told her friend (Kimberly's mom Sara-the one who got baptized when I was here) that she wants to get baptized!!! So hopefully we will be able to help her do that.

 

I think that was everything that happened, I don't really know. But it was a crazy ending to the week. I know that God looks out for his children, he answers prayers, and that this church is the true Church of Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary. Transfers are next week and I am praying soooooo hard that I don't leave. I LOVE my area and the people here. They are so humble and so loving. I couldn't ask for more in my life right now. I love you all and I miss you! I hope you have an amazing week!

 

Love,

Hermana Johnson

p.s. These are the people we are teaching right now. Thank you for all your prayers for them!!

• Tino (our eternigator :D)
• Antonia (the one who told her friend she wants to get baptized)
• Benito (a referral from a member. the one we are going to meet on Wednesday)
• the family- Fernando and Citlali and I don't know the names of the kids)
• David
• Sully
• Fransisco (Jehovah Witness-a member's husband)

Frustrating week

HOLA!!!!

Well I guess every missionary has to have at least one frustrating week in their missions...this would be that week, haha. Ok, it really wasn't that bad, I felt pretty happy most of the week, just a lot of craaaazy stuff happened. Where to start?

Well monday morning (last week) my companion woke up with a super sore neck, then as she was getting ready she sneezed suuper loud, which followed by an immediate, "OU, OU, OU, OU, OUCH!!!!" All of a sudden she couldn't move her neck at all, it was super bad. Really funny, (cause it was a sneeze) but not really that funny at the same time cause she couldn't move :) Fast forward. Wednesday it was pretty bad so the nurse told us to go to the chiropracter the next day. We get there, he was like what the heck did you do?! After a good while there he banned us from missionary work for the next 24 hours. I was like, "WHAT?! Are you joking me?" But he was afraid if she kept moving her neck that she would get a hermiated disk...so we listened :) we canceled everything and went home. To be honest I was annoyed at first, but then I actually really liked it. She didn't cause she had to lay on the floor without any pillows or anything...but I just got to read scriptures for a long time and do all the things you want to do as a missionary, but you just don't have time for. So then the next day we went to the chiropracter again. It was waaaay better and he allowed us to start working again. Wahoo!!

Fast forward. Friday night. It had been a frustrating day, we had some frustrating lessons and we had some frustrated non-lessons :) We get home to start planning and my head is itching super bad. I am used to this, I have dandruff. But as I was in the bathroom I decided to check my head because it was itching unusually. I looked at my hair to see hundreds of little black dots all over my head, and I was like, what the heck? Then I looked closer....yep, a little insect crawling on a strand of my hair. Just the thing to make my day, I had lice! I told Hermana Johnson that I was pretty sure that I had lice and she was like, "What?!" Haha, we called the nurse the next morning cause it was super late and I didn't really want to deal with it then :) But the nurse told us what we needed to do to get rid of it. So we went to the store, got all the stuff and then spent the next 3 hours getting the little critters out of my head! Hermana Johnson kept cracking jokes like, "This is true missionary service, giving a home to the homeless." Haha, it was pretty funny. But NO WORRIES we got the lice taken care of and we are all doing good now. :)

So needless to say, we spent most of this week inside of our house and not really doing missionary work, but this week coming up should be a lot better! Oh yeah, and we got kicked out of a complex for contacting people on the street. Haha, it was right after we had spent 3 hours getting the lice out of my head. It was actually kind of funny just cause it reminded me of selling security and getting the cops called on you or having people threaten to call the cops...but I don't think Hermana Johnson liked it that much. :)

Anyways, lots of crazy stuff. We are at a weird point in our teaching right now that we really need to find new investigators. So that is what we are dedicating this week to! So pray for us that we will be able to find those that are prepared to hear the gospel at this time. There are prepared and elect people all over the earth!
Con muchisimo amor,
Hermana Johnson

MILAGROS!!!!!

HOLA FAMILIA!!!!!

Ok so the coolest thing of my entire mission happened this week. On Thursday we were helping Luz move (So sad!!!) and while we were waiting for her to arrive we were kind of standing in the middle of the street when a truck stopped in the middle of the road. He waved us over and said, "Son misioneros?" I said yes, and he said, "Tienen folletos o una tarjeta o algo asi?" (Do you have a pamplet or card or something like that?) I said yes, and started to give him a pamphlet. He had been driving around for a while so I asked him if he was looking for something and he said that he just wanted to hear more about God. So we got his contact information and then he drove away. It was crazy, we were like, What the heck just happened?! So then we help Luz move and we go home and start weekly planning (this was on Friday). As we are planning we decided to call him, his name is Augustine. We called him and he asked us if we could meet with him in an hour. So we rearranged some of the stuff that we already had and we set up an appointment to meet with him at 4. We met at the Library, and there is this spot that is really peaceful that has waterfalls and a lot of greenery and no one is over there, so we decided to meet there. When we got there, he started telling us that he didn't really know why he was there, that he just felt like he needed to talk to us this morning and that he decided he should listen to what we had to say. He said he needed more peace in his life, that he has a super crazy job and he is just looking for peace. So from the very beginning we were already super excited, like that's what we do!! So we started teaching him the restoration. It was the best lesson we have ever taught, the spirit was so strong, the words were just coming to my mouth, Hermana Johnson talked a ton and sometimes she has a hard time talking a ton in spanish, it was just really good. So then we get to the part where we were sharing the first vision and afterwards we asked him how he felt about it. He said that he couldn't see the light like Joseph Smith could, but that he kind of could. He held up the picture in the pamphlet of Joseph Smith seeing God and Jesus Christ and then he looked at the setting that we were in, and it was really similar. He went on to say that he could feel something and that he just felt really special and everything. It was CRAZY, the spirit was super strong. So then we kept teaching him and we invited him to be baptized. He was like, well what does that mean? Do I have to take lessons with you guys? Do I have to come to your church? What do I have to do after baptism? And tons of other questions like that. We started laughing and we were like, Slow down! We explained that we would help him be ready for it and that we would do more lessons, he would come to church and stuff like that. Then we finished the lesson and taught him about the Book of Mormon. Afterwards we asked him if he would say the final prayer and if he would ask specifically if the Book of Mormon was true and if this was the right thing for him. Ok, we usually ask people to do that, and they NEVER do it! I don't know if they don't understand us or what, but he did it! Word for word, is the book of mormon (Libro de Mormon :D) true? It was soo cool! After the prayer he looked at me and was like, "Peyiscame" (pinch me) Then he was like, "Ok, this is real." He said that as soon as he started praying he felt like all the tension that he had, all the discomfort, went away and and he was filled with a ton of peace. That he went into another world kind of where everything was perfect. He just kept saying how amazing he felt and all this stuff. Then after a while he was like, "I don't know anything about this book, about what you guys do, what you will teach me or anything. But I feel it." Then he stood up and said, "This is book is true," as he held it in the air. IT WAS CRAZY!!!!!!! SOOOOOOO AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously I don't think I have ever been so happy in my entire life. I didn't want to leave, he just looked so happy. We haven't been able to meet with him again yet, because he works a lot, but we should meet with him tomorrow and we have been keeping in contact with him and stuff. MILAGRO!! It was the best day ever.
So yeah, besides that super awesome story, not a ton of other stuff happened this week. Oh yeah, it was Halloween! That was fun, we got to go home at 7 and we watched some church movies. They were kind of lame...but hey! We got to watch a movie! Sorry, I don't have much more time to write and I can't think of much else that happened.....oh wait. Yeah, guess what I did. Dropped the phone in the toilet! Dead serious, haha! It was hilarious, except for not really at the same time because now our phone is having some serious issues and it didn't work for a good couple hours....
Pues, no tengo mas tiempo. Les quiero muchisimo y espero que todo este bien alli! Estoy case en la mitad de mi mision! Ah! No lo puedo creer.
Con amor,
Hermana Johnson