The Best Week

Monday of last week (p-day ) was way fun. we got our brand new car! We named him Einstein because he is white and Einstein had white hair and he is way smart. 

we also got Thai food that was really good. 

then that night we met this guy we talked to him for over an hour he was a conspiracy theorist so he was my best friend and I knew like everything he was talking about. 

it was very interesting.

 Tuesday we had zone conference. I learned so much! our president asked us to fast this Sunday for 4 things 

1. that every companion ship will have at least 1 person come to church between now and Easter 

2. that every mission will fill their "pots" to the brim and try their very hardest every day. 

3. that we as a mission will have 100 baptism between now and June. 

4. any missionary that is struggling will have the strength that they need to work hard and give it their all.  (remember theses things because they come in to play on Sunday) 

On Wednesday I drove for the first time in 105 days. 

I only got 1 check your speed! we also had our first lesson/contact with Manuel! remember him!! he is the cutest lil human ever and he loves Jesus Christ so much and is looking for a church and what is true. 

Then we were on our way to a lesson and we had a feeling to stop and talk to this man named Fermin (remember him as well), so we had that first contact with him, we gave him a book of Mormon and asked him to read the introduction, and promised him that the book will help him so much in his life. then we went to our lesson and it was really good. 

then we had a lesson with a lesson active Saul and his girlfriend angelica who is not a member. it was such a good lesson. 

Then on Thursday we had another lesson with Manuel (2 days in a row) and he loves what he is learning and wants to keep learning because it is making him happier!!  

Then we went to this less active members work to try and talk to him because we have been trying to find him at his house and he is never home, so we went to his work and he was about to leave and we caught him, and started talking to him. he served a mission in new York city and his mission president was elder Rasband, he loved his mission so much and was so proud of the work that he accomplished there. we are going to keep talking with him and try to get him and his family back to church and to the temple. 

then also this day we drove down this random street and we saw this guy and he waved at us and i was like I think we talked to him before and we had. his name was Erick and he was the one who saw me taking a picture of the sky and was like take a picture with me and we were like okayyyy so we did ! 

then we gave him a book of Mormon. Anyway we saw him again and he has been reading the book of Mormon and he loves it and says that it has been helping him so much. 

then on Friday we had another lesson with Manuel (3rd time in a row) he loves Jesus so much and feels that he is coming close with him as he reads the book of Mormon. he is so wonderful and wants to keep learning more because of how he feels. 

Then we had another lesson with Saul and Angelica, and we talked about the importance of families because they just had a baby and Saul was is going to take her to the temple grounds for a picnic and it was the sweetest thing ever. He also made us food while we were there, it somehow came up that I was vegan and he went into the kitchen and started cooking and it was amazing ! some of the best food I have had it was way good. they are such a sweet family. 

then on Saturday we went to the church early in the morning to help set up for the fiesta! that night Manuel and his mom Maria come to the Fiesta ( that is 4 days in a row) and they loved it and all the members were so nice and welcoming, it was so perfect. at the fiesta they had professional dancer and they did traditional dances from a city in mexico there was a mariachi band (some of the members in our branch are in a Mariachi band and they travel all over playing music). it was such a fun night night!! 

then on Sunday Manuel and Maria came to church (5 days in a row) they loved it and how they felt at church. 

then we went and saw Fermin!!!! ANDDDD we asked if he read any of the Book of Mormon and he was like I read a little and we were like what do you think, and he was like i love it! its so good and I have been learning so much. then he asked us where the waters of Mormon were at where Alma baptized all the people and I was just thinking oh there is a picture in the front of the book  that talks about that and I was thinking how cool it was that he read the captions under the pictures. BUTTTT we asked him how far he read and he was like to where the bookmark is at. it was at Alma 42 !!

that 375 pages in 4 days, in Spanish which is way longer and harder to understand!! (The Spanish version of the book of Mormon has more pages than the English version.)   so to say the least we were excited!!!  he wants to learn more and he said he will continue to read!! 

then we had a lesson with Fabi and she is so wonderful she is progressing so much. she used to attend another church and she was saying that she feels so different when she attends our church, she says that she feels so happy, safe, peaceful and clam. it was amazing. 

then we were like why was our day so wonderful and it was because we fasted and prayed. god truly does answers our prayers and he blesses us so much when we give it our all and try our very hardest. 

love you all have an amazing week  

444 Days left

 444 days left 

this week has been pretty good! 

On Tuesday we met this man while we were tracting. 

He was older probably in his 50s, he was walking with a walker, and an oxygen tank, he didn't live in the nicest of apartment complex, and he lived alone, we asked him how his day was and he said it was wonderful, he said that his life was perfect and that he has nothing to complain about. and for me that was so cool to see because so many people in his situation would complain, and be unhappy, he couldn't walk that good or breath on his own. 

but he chooses to be happy! 

We had the sweetest conversation with him.

he told us that he feels so blessed every day and that he sees the hand of god all the time in his life. 

it was such a powerful lesson, because we can choose to be sad and unhappy, and not feel grateful for the small blessing and miracles we receive, or we can make the choice to be happy and to be thankful for all that we have all the small blessing we receive.

then on Saturday we went a visited this less active family and he told us how he joined the Church and how he knows that it is true. and he was telling us how he knew and wanted to come back to Church. 

then on Sunday that same man came to church, it was really exciting to see him. 

our branch is growing and a lot of less active families are coming back. their is this couple we visited when i first got here and they hadn't been to church in almost a year and they have stared coming back, they recently opened a business, which they have to be there on Sunday or the get fined, but they came to church this week even though they would be fined for not being there. 

It was so cool to see that they recognize the blessing of coming to church and how much more happiness they now have in there lives and that they are now willing to make sacrifices to go to church. 

then yesterday we got bible slammed hard, we talked to this man for over an hour about what he believed and about how he thought the book of Mormon was wrong. but it was really interesting to see what he believed he also taught us a lot about history so it was pretty cool actually because we did learn a lot about the history of the bible. 

that is pretty much all that happened this week. i hope that you all have a good week . I love you 

Another week

Another week 

on Tuesday i went on splits with a Hermana from another area and a sister from Australia (post mission i am going to Australia and we are going on a surfing, and i am going to teach her what i know, i am way excited and its going to happen!!!) 

they are some of my favorite people they are so cute. and it was way fun. but i had to be in charge of everything calling people, talking to everyone in Spanish but it was good practice. we had 2 lessons and it was all in Spanish .  i am getting so much better at speaking now which is so cool. 

then on Wednesday nothing much happened. 

then on Thursday!!! we drove back to the referral that was way far away. the one place where the guy (leo) got his car stuck in the mud.so we see a man walking and its LEO! so we followed him like any normal missionary would and he walked down to this house which ended up being the mom of the referral we got sent! it was crazy!  god is so good!!  it was way cool we got to talk to them for a while, she told us her son lived in town, so we drove to the town. .it is like this old vintage city, with a ton of cute lil old stores right on the river and its spring here so it was way pretty. anyway we see this truck with a bunch of cute lil old men selling oranges, pineapple,coconuts and strawberries. so we went up and talked to them. the man gave us oranges and was so sweet ( he ended up being a member) but his friends were not members so we talked to them for a while and set up another time to talk to them. but we actually found out that the area we were in isn't even in our zone so we cant go back but it was the coolest thing ever. then we went to this member house and she had a super fluffy pet bunny and i got to hold him the whole lesson it was so cute. 

on Friday we had a ton of good contacts and got to teach a bunch of lessons. we had a lesson with a recent convert Salvador and he was telling us how he found out about the church. he said he was in Idaho falls on vacation and he was at a park and he saw the angel Moroni on the top of the temple and he wanted to know what it was, so he found out and was taught and he ended up being baptized exactly one year to the day of seeing the temple.

Saturday we had dinner at a members  house who remembered i was vegan and she made a vegan dinner it was so cute and she was way sweet. 

then we were tracting and met "mother Helen" she was the cutest lil old lady and we got to talk to her for a while she was adorable

 on Sunday we had dinner again at another members house and she made me a special vegan meal which was the best meal i have had on my mission it was SOOOOO good. 

then on Monday night we had 2 way good lessons , for sure the best lessons i have had on my mission. the spirit was so strong and we taught her exactly what she needed she even started crying. 

on Tuesday i went on splits with Hermana miller. 

it was so much fun. we had a bunch of good contacts. we also taught the lessons. we are both new and still kinda of learning Spanish but we were able to teach and they understood everything. it was so cool. 

learning Spanish has been so crazy, i have begun to think in Spanish a lot, its so cool to be able to understand Spanish and to go to doors and talk to people and have them be way surprised that i can understand them and that i can speak Spanish. its also amazing because a lot of people have told me that i don't sound white when i speak Spanish which is the biggest blessing of my life. i am so thankful that i have the gift of tongues and that it is working, i know that if i wasn't a missionary and i didn't have help form god i could not speak Spanish. 

Love you 

Day 90! 3 months!

Tuesday transfer day, this was a cool day.

 we had a lesson with this guy named Francisco, we have been teaching him for a minute and every time its been in his doorway because his wife wasn't home, and we cant go into a house unless their is a girl over 18. so this was just another door conversation, but I will talk about him later. 

then we got a referral, and it was like 30 minutes away, so we drove to the house and it was the wrong address, but we saw this guy out in the trees. it was in like wine country so their were a bunch of grape vines and it has been raining every day here so it was very  muddy and his truck was stuck in the mud. so we walked over there and asked him if he needed help. and he was like no. but he ended up speaking Spanish and so we talked to him for like 30 minutes in the pouring rain about the gospel and about how wonderful the book of Mormon is and how much it could help him in his life. he thought that it was cool and wanted to learn more.

 so it was amazing!! 

also we think that the referral we got might live next door to the house we had gone to so we are going back another day. 

we got a new Hermana in our house she is so cute she is the 3 oldest of 15!!! so it really crazy she has had a crazy life each siblings is 1 year apart for the most part. but she is so small she is like 4'10 and  weighs like 85 pounds she said so she is smaller than Kate. 

then we had a lesson with flor. it is so cool to talk to people who haven't always had the holy ghost because for me its just kinda always been there  but to see poeple who notice a huge difference in their lives because they didn't have it before is  so cool. she has had so many crazy experiences recently with the holy ghost and its so cool to talk to her and see what blessings she is receiving in her life. 

then on Wednesday we had a lesson with Francisco and his wife rosalba we got there and he let us in and we had a really good lesson with him and his wife about the Book of Mormon.

 he has been reading the book of Mormon and he said he doesn't understand that much ( which makes sense because the book of Mormon in Spanish is kinda hard to understand its written really differently than the form of Spanish we use now) but he said even though he doesn't understand he knows its good and that it is the word of god and him and his wife want to learn more. 

then on this night!!! we locked the key in the car. HAHA its not like i have ever done this before... but any way we had to call the car guy and it was going to take him about  an hour to get there. so we just tracted in the rain. and it was a miracle, we had a lot of lessons planned this night so if we didn't lock the key in the car we would have gone to these lessons and we wouldn't have met so many people. we made 4 new friends (which are people who we share the gospel with, we ask them to do something like read the book of Mormon or a pamphlet, and then we have a return appointment with them). it was so cool then we made 1 friend for the english missionaries so we made 5 in total. it was so wonderful we got to talk to so many people. and we got our car unlocked right at 7 just in time for our last lesson. 

then i went on split with another hermana this day so that was fun. 

on Friday we had interviews with President Hymas.

his wife went on a walk with each of us. they are really sweet i love them,. they are definitely  mission parents .it so cool to have them. 

then that night we went tracting, we met a Hmong family they were so nice, they believe in Shamanism which is really popular here and it was cool because these people  knew what they believe in . most people we ask what is that they are like i don't know it just what we believe its a tradition, but they were hard core in it. its really really interesting look it up if you have time, you can also send me more information on it if you want. then we met this one guy who was like 19 and he didn't believe in anything at all most people when they say they are atheist at least believe in a higher power but he believed in absolutely nothing. we asked him if he knew why he was here on the earth and he said to have fun, and then where he was going after he dies he said this is it. it was really sad to see that because he said he wasn't that happy and its because he doesn't know his purpose here on earth. that is one of my favorite things to teach is why we are here on this earth and where we are going after. we know that our purpose is to learn and grow, we also know that we are never alone. 

then we went to a baby shower this day it was huge their were like 70 people there they had way loud music like a dj type thing it was crazy. but the lady is a member and her husband is not and we have been trying to teach him because he knows the church is true, he just isn't ready. 

 then we had a family home evening lesson 

then yesterday we had a fireside in stockton it was like 40 minutes away but it was so cool and so much fun. then after we went a visited a less active member and she gave us a ton of food.

That’s it for this week. 

Love, Hermana Johnson