Heavenly Father answers prayers, May 22, 2012

Family,

I love you all so much! I'm glad you're alive and my family. I know that we're all here on this earth together for a reason. Heavenly Father truly does have a plan for us and He knows us all so well. He knows exactly what we need! I've seen great examples of that this week as we've been working on visiting the members and getting to know them better.

One sister in our branch is having a really hard time and I'd been feeling like we needed to visit her all week. Finally last night we did. As we pulled up we found her outside and were able to walk to the nearby church to have a conversation with her. Satan is working so hard to destroy strong families and it's heartbreaking to see it happen to the people you love most. We were lead by Heavenly Father to talk with this sister and buoy her up in this trial. We don't council people in their family or marriage lives, but we can share examples in the scriptures of times when Heavenly Father has lifted people up during their hard times. It was amazing to see the light of hope enter her face as we talked. What was once a hopeless and lost cause once again became something possible. Now, it will still be hard. The problem hasn't changed or disappeared, but her attitude towards it has changed. This is the important thing. Sometimes we see things at such a close range that we cannot see around it. But Heavenly Father helps us to look at things with a new light, a new hope and the mindset that with Him all things are possible.

People need to be loved, people need to be helped and lifted. When I'm having a bad day, sitting around and moping only makes it worse. My own problems seem to grow and become large demons instead of little fruit flies. When I get out and serve in the area, talk to people, teach them about the love of Christ and God, and help them on their own journey my problems shrink or even disappear. It's amazing! Mom, dad, don't faint- but the solution to being sad really is get out and serve others and then you feel happy. What a concept?

On Sunday Elder Tad R. Callister from the presidency of the Second Quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us in Stake Conference. We had to leave early to cover our shift at the Battalion so I didn't actually get to hear him speak, but I did hear about something he said. He spoke on ten points, one of which related to the Apostasy and how we know it actually happened. The Bible ended. If the authority to continue Christ's church had stayed on the earth we would have had continuous revelation after He left just as there was before, but we don't as far as the Bible goes. Clearly that authority wasn't on the earth. I thought that was so exciting! Not that the truth was lost, but since we have it again, all is well. But really, if we think about everything that we teach it all makes so much sense! Of course this Church is the true church of God. It has so much order, it makes sense, everything is in line or is becoming in line. We progress, we learn, we continue to be taught the things that apply to our times. We have a prophet! Family, doesn't this just blow your mind and make you so excited?! There is so much truth available to us and it makes me so happy that I'm barely able to contain myself right now! *exhale* But I'm serious here. We are so blessed to have this light and knowledge. Please family, let us continue to live in the way the Heavenly Father would have us.

In 3 Nephi the people were able to destroy the evil things outside, the Gadianton Robbers. But after only a few years they became just as wicked as the evil they had rejected. They fell into an apostasy greater than those who sin blindly because they knew that what they were doing was wrong. Because of their pride, the government was destroyed and evil men became leaders of tribes, they were not a holy people. Are there things in our lives we need to leave behind? Pride we need to repent of and good to do? Nobody is exempt from being tempted to have pride. It comes to everyone, but as we repent and work with Heavenly Father to become humble and truly follow Christ we can avoid it. Read the scriptures- study them- learn what Heavenly Father is trying to say to you today. What can you do today to be a disciple of Christ? What Christlike attribute can you learn today?

Family, I love you all with more love than I can begin to describe. We can see exactly what is happening and we can see what will happen as we continue to study the Book of Mormon. It is the same story we're in today, but with different names. What a blessing to have this Book. Let us be as the saints from the early years of the Restored church. Willing to follow Heavenly Father no matter what He asks. We can be just as strong and stalwart. Let us avoid pride and blindness by truly following Jesus Christ. I don't know what more to say except that I know that the council we receive from our leaders is true, it is for us, and if we follow it we are following God. We will find more happiness as we continue to live the gospel of Christ- more than just going through the actions. It's a promise we've received from every prophet in the history of the world. Spiritually minded is life eternal.

I love you. I hope you have a good week and that you are able to see miracles.

Love, Sister Johnson

May 15, 2012

Hi family,

Have fun on your cruise mom and dad! Happy mother's day to all you moms that I know- which is almost all of you. I love you all and thank you for your example.

There isn't much to report on for this week. We had Zone Conference and Sister Clayton likes to talk to us about cleanliness. They shared some fun (aka disgusting) facts about how many skin cells we lose each day, and how much of that is in our beds, and how we lose 9 lbs of skin every year and since we're in our beds about a third of our time, we lose 3 lbs in bed which if we don't wash our sheets stays on those and then gets into our mattresses. Gross! Needless to say, every missionary is washing their sheets today. I washed mine 2 weeks ago (I only do laundry every two weeks) so I didn't feel too gross (and I washed mine again too), but when I realized that we spend another third of our day in our pioneer dresses and how long it's been since I washed those, I decided they needed some help too. Anyway, now that you're all thoroughly disgusted...

This morning we had an opportunity to do some service. I think I told you about the Randles, they're a deaf couple going on their mission to Independence, MO and we helped them clean their fridge last week. This morning we helped Sister Randle pack up her kitchen. It was fun and they're such a great couple. It was a great chance to practice my sign language. I enjoyed getting to work with them.

I went on an exchange with Sister Kennington to the Black Mountain singles branch on Saturday. It was so fun. I love working in English. We learned some very good lessons about working with members. I feel that a lot of times there is not very good communication between the members and missionaries. We expect members to come and only bear testimony in the appropriate places, and they don't know what to expect. If we don't build trust with the members and let them know exactly what we want them to do, and to help them feel included the lessons are always a struggle because they don't know where we're trying to take the lesson. We had that happen Saturday. We were late and didn't have time to prepare the members and they love to talk anyway so the lesson didn't go quite how we wanted. Afterwords we were thinking about the lesson and talking about what could have gone better and I realized that I have no right to get frustrated with members when they don't do exactly what I want them to do. It's not about my plan, it's about God's plan and how He uses everyone present in a lesson to testify. We take members because they become the investigator's friends. They relate to our investigators and they're normal people. We work with members because we need their help. We can't help the wards or branches grow without the support from members as they lovingly take our investigators in. That's what Zone Conference was about; doing more member work and building trust. This will be a good thing to work on for the rest of the transfer. We're going to start visiting our members more and getting to know them so that we know how to work with them, not make them work for us. It really is a team effort.

On a different note, I'm up to 581st tour in the Battalion- I'm more than half way on my goal!

Well family, I hope you're all having a great day. Love you tons! The Church is true because it has the completely restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. What an incredible chance to have all the covenants we do! What an opportunity we have to follow the prophet of God! We are so blessed to have more light and understanding- let's use it wisely and share it with others. A party is no fun with only a few people there. Let's be Latino and invite all our friends to the party! Be good everyone.

Love, Sister Johnson

More than just fiddling around, May 8, 2012

Last weekend was so much fun with the fiddling. It was hectic and crazy down on the street where our booth was, with loud music, loud laughter, loud people, and too much skin. Playing the fiddle with little kids became a small safe haven while the chaos raged around me. It was fun to see these little kids feel accomplished and happy after the played back and forth on the E string while I played other songs. They felt so much success! I was proud of their efforts. I met some real characters, and I just had to laugh. Heavenly Father blessed me so much and expanded my capabilities. I didn't play perfectly, I frequently made mistakes, but it didn't matter. The Spirit was able to be with me amidst the noise so that the little families I spent 2 minutes with could feel it, and then in turn feel the pull to visit the Battalion. We had over 300 non-members visit the Battalion this weekend. We had more non-members than members come through. How amazing is that?! While the whole thing was exhausting, the fruits of our labors were strong.

To end off the weekend, Elder W. Craig Zwick and his wife and son came for a special devotional for us in the Battalion. He is so incredible! And he is amazing, but not because he boasts of his own strength. He recognizes that it is Heavenly Father who is doing everything. He is an incredible example in humility. And what a beautiful opportunity we had to spend such intimate time with him.

I was reading in PMG today about humility and it said, "You are confident that you can do whatever the Lord requires of you if you rely on Him." Humility is about being strong, but being strong in the Lord. That's a lesson I feel I've been learning a lot of. Many things have been out of my realm of control lately, and I've been praying harder than ever before for His divine help, and I feel so much peace. I know that everything will be ok, even if it doesn't seem so now. I know that I can be a good leader as I learn to serve my sisters, learn from them, but also have the confidence in this assignment from Heavenly Father. He has called me to do this, and I can- with His help. Everything is a lot better when Heavenly Father is behind it all. I'm a lot less frazzled and panicked. It's nice how that is happening.

Sister Young has been in the mission for 2 transfers longer than I have. She leaves in August and I think she'll die in Linda Vista- which is where we are now. I don't think I'll be here more than one or two more transfers. Some sisters seem to stay in an area for a long time, others seems to move more often. I'm one of the move more often kind. But you never know, Heavenly Father always has a funny way of doing the unexpected. I feel like there will be a lot of unexpected things happening this summer as sisters leave and new sisters come.

My little Spanish branch is doing well. Testimony meeting was interesting on Sunday due to Cinco de Mayo. There was a lot of Mexican pride going on, which ruffled the feathers of members who are not Mexican. Fortunately, Heavenly Father loves us all equally. We did get a new RS president, who also happens to be the ward mission leader's wife. She'll do a great job. They're the Gonsalez's and super nice. Hno. Gonzalez is my new adopted grandpa- so mom and dad, I don't know which of you is Ecuadorian, but we've just become a lot more latino.

Zone Conference is this Friday and I'm really excited for it. We're going to be talking about working with members- ironically Sister Young and I have been talking about that recently so we feel like this will be a nice answer to prayers.

Just so you know who the sisters in the Battalion are, here is a list.

Sister Young- Pembroke, MA

Sister Lewis- Springfield, OR
Sister Kunz- Mapleton, UT
Sister Ortez- Burlington, WA
Sister Pelfrey- Auburn, WA
Sister Tardiff- Wayland, MA
Sister W. Smith- Highland, UT
Sister Nelson- Kaysville, UT
Sister McCullough- Hillsboro, OR
Sister Stirling- Pleasant Grove, UT
Sister Mendez- Mexico City, Mexico
Sister Mendoza- Mexico City, Mexico
Sister Tanner- Sascatoon, Sasquatchawan
Sister Kennington- Layton, UT
Sister Stevens- Layton, UT
Sister Burleigh- Bluffdale, UT
Sister Newman- West Jordan, UT
Sister Kearsley- Beaverton, OR
Sister Burden- Ririe, ID
Sister S. Smith- Pocatello, ID

Ok family, I hope you have a great week! Mom and dad, enjoy your cruise. I was thinking about calling Saturday, but my schedule is really shifty. I may be calling Saturday morning sometime, but if not then I'll call at 3 on Sunday. I love you all! I can't think of anything else I need with the flatiron- mom, you're inspired, by the way. The birthday money should be good.Thanks!

Love,

Sister Johnson

May 1, 2012

Dear Familia,

 

I love to hear all the happenings about home. I can't believe Mother's Day is in less than two weeks. It doesn't seem like that much time could have possibly gone by already. I realized the other day that I've been out for 11 months this next tuesday and it halted me in my tracks for a second. I had to digest it. This summer we're having a lot of sisters leaving. It'll start with 2 this next transfer, 7 the transfer after that, and then 4. So much is going to be changing, we're going to get a lot of new sisters who will need training and it'll be during the busiest time of the year for us at the Battalion. It'll be hard to not start getting trunky with all my friends leaving, so it's probably for the best that it's going to be so chaotic.

Transfers last wednesday brought some changes. I was expecting to stay with Sister Lewis in Linda Vista, but surprisingly Sister Lewis was moved and now Sister Young is my companion. I've also been made a Group Leader, which is kind of like a District Leader, but I'm in charge of several sisters in the Battalion. Nothing is more humbling than being asked to be a leader. I've been stressing about how I'm going to serve these sisters and be humble enough to accept help. I think that is my main goal this transfer. Serve others and accept advice. Yikes, I've got a big mountain to climb.

As for the fiddling, a lot of it has actually been coming back and I'm really enjoying it. I'm terrified to play on Saturday, but I'm enjoying getting the practice. The fiddle we have is not very good quality, but I think after my mission I might like to buy a nice one and keep learning. I think I want to take violin and piano lessons again.

I've also started running two miles a day instead of one. I'm getting a lot better at running so Annette and Hannah, that means you need to start preparing because one of these days we're going to run a Ragnar. The boys are welcome to join us- if they can keep up.

So besides the fact that I've been learning a lot of non-mission related skills (but they are life skills so I don't feel bad learning them) I am grateful for the things I have been learning. Last week we went shopping. (I still have that birthday money from Grandparents and I was to spend it on something special.) We went into a few clothing stores and everything was really trashy and not even cute or fun. I realized that I am so grateful for the standard of dress I've been raised with and that I love myself enough to keep myself modest. Thank you so much mom for teaching me that! And Annette and Hannah for being good examples, and for raising your daughters with that. As we're modest in dress, it's easy to be modest in act and speech and as we are those things, we can have the Spirit with us and truly be the Daughters of a King that we are. We deserve respect and we deserve to respect ourselves. I'm always so sad when I see cute young women who dress so inappropriately. If only they could see their worth! Fortunately, we each have the opportunity to help every young woman understand that as we encourage them to dress well and act well. Yes, you men too can help the young women with whom you associate. As the standards for women raise, the standards for the world will come right along with it. Wahoo!!

On another note, I had a really fun personal study this morning. I was reading in Helaman 6 when the Lamanites are good and the Nephites have let pride, the Gadiantons and the lies of Satan take over. In vs. 20 it says, "And now it came to pass that when the Lamanites found that there were robbers among them they were exceedingly sorrowful; and they did use every means in their power to destroy them off the face of the earth" and vs. 37 "And it came to pass that the Lamanites did hunt the band of robbers of Gadianton; and they did preach the word of God among the more wicked part of them, insomuch that this band of robbers was utterly destroyed from among the Lamanites." I just really enjoyed the imagery of hunting people down to teach them the gospel. Sometimes it feels like that. Sometimes I feel like I'm a lion stalking her prey to take them down... into the waters of baptism.

Heavenly Father still loves to teach me about patience. I don't think I'll ever stop learning about patience actually, but I know it's for everyone's best interest.

Well family, I love you all. Grandma, thank you so much for your testimony. I know you've told me your family history so many times, but I'm finally grown up enough to really love to hear it. I want to know more about your family. Are you writing a memorial perchance? Mom, good luck in your Little Red race. You'll be pro at it soon. Dad, enjoy May. It'll be summer soon which means corn and watermelon! (I ate some watermelon last week and thought of you). Love you! I'll let you know next week about when I'll call for Mother's Day.

Love, Sister Johnson