Remember Nike, JUST DO IT!

¡Hola!

Alrighty it’s been 4 whole weeks in the Johnson MTC (Missionary Training Center) which means I am over halfway done with my training! That just seems crazy to me that I only have 2 more weeks and my last day of classes is May 9. I don’t know much about what will happen after that, but I will be released as a missionary (meaning I go back to my normal life in quarantine before I started the online MTC) and wait for my reassignment. [More Info: A while ago the Church sent out an email giving us two options to pick from by tomorrow (April 30). Option #1 is to be released after online training and reinstated to either original (for me that is Resistencia, Argentina) or to a temporary assignment (reassigned somewhere) as soon as conditions allow, keeping the original end date (for me that is September 2021). Option #2 is to be released after online training and return to missionary service within 12-18 months, getting a new end date.] I chose option #1. Luckily I have heard some good news from other missionaries that got reassigned stateside yesterday and are leaving in a week to their new assignment. This makes me hopeful that I will be able to get out into the mission field soon, even if it isn’t in Argentina. 

On Thursday my evening class teacher, Hermano Chavez, surprised my district (group of 12 missionaries in the online MTC) with a teaching opportunity. This was kind of freaky because usually we have a day or at least 15 minutes to prepare a lesson with our companions, but this time we had barely 5 minutes! And on top of that, we were going to be teaching a less active member of the church who is HIS SISTER. I felt like that was a lot of pressure to be teaching his own sister a lesson we didn’t have time to prepare for. This is when Hermano Chavez told us all to “Remember Nike!” when we looked at him confused he said “Just do it!” So that’s exactly what me and my companion did, trusting that we would at least be able to teach her something. In the end, we actually ended up talking a lot to get to know her better and even about the lesson too. I can definitely feel my Spanish getting better and I could say several phrases about the Gospel during the lesson, but whenever she spoke to us, in perfect Spanish, I felt like she was speaking an entirely different language! I understood about every few words, but couldn’t quite make out full sentences. She talked really fast and it all seemed to blur together. I mainly followed the advice of the Penguins from the Madagascar movie; “Just smile and wave boys. Smile and wave.” Even my companion at times was smiling and nodding at what she was saying. And then after I had just said my testimony in Spanish, my wifi cut out and I was kicked out of the meeting...so I don’t really know how she felt about it at the end of the lesson, but my companion said it went well. 

On Friday my district decided to have a Spanish competition through the Duolingo app...now if anyone knows me, they know that I am SUPER competitive. This means that I spent a good hour or so just studying on the Duolingo app to try and boost my XP score above the missionaries in my district and of course to learn more Spanish words ;) I continued to go “Duolingo crazy” into Saturday and the rest of this week. The competition ends this Saturday, so I’ll have to tell you guys how it went, right now I’m in the top 5, but who knows what could happen :)

On Sunday we had church at home and my younger brother, Ethan, gave the talk/lesson. The topic he chose was families and I think it was a great reminder to me of how important family is to me. That day we made our usual Sunday puzzle together and later that night we even broke out the marshmallows and made s’mores over our fire pit outside. I have loved being able to spend time with my family during the online MTC and am so grateful that I can live with my family forever. I know how important families are in God’s plan and that if we follow the example of Jesus Christ, we will have the opportunity to live with our families forever in Heaven. I seriously love my eternal family and want to do everything I can to be able to live with them in the next life. I also know that God, our loving Father in Heaven, loves each one of His children, us here on earth, so much and wants us to return to live with Him again and to be able to live with our eternal families too. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of God’s plan, the Plan of Happiness, and I can testify that He is real and He loves us. 

On Monday we FINISHED INTERMEDIATE CORE...now we have Extended Core which is like Intermediate Core, but with less vocabulary words and harder grammar...but I know that I can do it since I was able to defeat the Bowser level that was Intermediate Core. We also taught another lesson, but our teacher, Hermano Chavez, wanted it to be 5 minutes longer than our usual 10 minute lessons which seemed like so much more time to be speaking in Spanish. Of course after looking at the nervousness on everyone’s face in my district we responded by saying “Remember Nike! Just do it!” I was nervous about teaching a longer lesson, but my companion and I actually went over time and taught for 20 minutes!! It made me feel so good that we could hold a conversation for that long in Spanish! That same night there was a special Stake Broadcast I watched with my family. The missionaries in our Stake (large group of church members in Escondido [which also apparently means “hidden” in Spanish so thanks Intermediate Core for teaching me that], CA area) who have returned home from their missions, due to COVID-19, shared an experience from their mission and their testimonies. It was super cool to hear from them and also try to understand the Spanish testimonies, which I would say I got 85% of what they said!! And I even understood some of the Portuguese testimonies!! (Probably because my Dad says that Portuguese is like drunk Spanish)

On Tuesday we taught Hermano Valdez’s cousin who recently got back from her mission in Mexico a week ago. It went similar to how the lesson with Hermano Chavez’s sister went, but I think I understood a little more, so hooray for improvement! Also in evening class, me and my companion literally taught the lesson about The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ like 7 times, with members in our district pretending to be different people. Each time I thought we were done teaching Hermano Chavez would say “Remember Nike!” and put us into a virtual meeting with the next person to teach. It felt a little hectic and crazy in the moment, but I think by the seventh lesson we had it down pretty good hahaha. 

Overall, it has been a pretty good week and I’ve just put all of my trust in the Lord to help me out every single day with things like teaching lessons and the uncertainty of what will happen in 2 weeks. I know that God has a plan for me and although it may be different from my original plan. I know that I can still find joy, despite all the uncertainty, through our Savior and brother, Jesus Christ. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, that it is the word of God and that it testifies of Jesus Christ. And I can't wait to be able to share El Libro de Mormón with people and the peace and comfort it brings me. 

I hope you all know that I love y’all and remember Nike! JUST DO IT!

Love,

Hermana Johnson

Pictures!!!

1. Some pre-s'mores action shots of roasting marshmallows.

2. Post-s’mores eating said roasted marshmallows. 

The Bowser Level

¡Hola!

So I’ve been in the Johnson MTC (Missionary Training Center) for a total of 3 weeks now. Monday officially started week 4, out of 6 weeks in my missionary training, and they definitely stepped it up a notch this week. We are setting higher goals in every aspect of our training (gospel study, language learning, missionary teaching, etc.) every single day, but when I look back at my extremely small amount of Spanish knowledge before starting my training compared to now, I can see a big difference. Don’t get me wrong my Spanish is still pretty bad haha, but it’s slowly getting better each day. :)

On Thursday me and my companion bonded for like an hour talking about the most random things like “In heaven, will we get to wear cute robes/clothes?” and “If the Universe is always expanding, what is it expanding into?” I think this was our way of making up for all the time we would get to talk if we were at the Mexico MTC in person. We quickly snapped back to reality during our evening class. The teacher, Hermano Chavez, introduced us to this thing called “Intermediate Core”. Now we learned “Basic Core” from this cute little red pamphlet in 10 days, which I thought was stressful at first but I was able to do it. Hermano Chavez described the difference to us with an analogy, he said “You know the game Mario? (Super Mario Bros on Nintendo) Basic Core was Mario on level one and Intermediate Core is when Mario has to save Princess Peach on the Bowser level”. This made me think of all the times me and my younger brothers played Super Mario Bros and whenever we got to the Bowser level I let Ethan do all the work while I hid in the corner of the screen. I couldn’t hide from the Bowser level now. 

On Friday in companionship study with my companion (my partner during this whole crazy online MTC experience), Hermana Dunn, we set goals to accomplish Intermediate Core in the week and a half Hermano Chavez gave us. And these are some BIG goals because literally every spare second I have (which really I don’t have any free time), I am studying. I have made so many flashcards with Spanish vocabulary words and phrases, it's crazy. 

On Saturday my family brought home Chick-Fil-A (drive-thru of course) and it was amazing. Or as the missionaries in my district (group of 11 other missionaries in the online MTC with me) described it to Hermano Valdez, who lives in Mexico City and has never had Chick-Fil-A before, it’s food of the Gods. I really love Chick-Fil-A and will miss it when I finally get into the mission field. [Fun Fact: My second semester Freshman year at BYU I saved up my dining dollars money and literally ate at Chick-Fil-A one to two times a day for the entire semester because I got sick of the food at the Cannon Center (cafeteria)...oh what good times :)]

Now on to Sunday….I knew that this would happen at some point, but I still hoped it wouldn’t. Pretty much everyone that knows me knows that I LOVE sleep (I mean seriously, who doesn’t?) and that I have a really hard time waking up in the morning (hence I will never take an 8:00 AM ever again in college, my mistake first semester Freshman year). Sunday was the day that I turned off my alarm while being half awake and instead of waking up at 6:30 AM I woke up at 7:18 AM. Luckily I don’t have classes on Sunday but I do have companionship study at 7:00 AM. I threw on a dress and started a Zoom meeting with my companion, who was super nice about it and said it gave her time to shower haha. Hopefully this never happens again because I felt so bad, but my companion is fantastic. With my family, we had church at home and completed a puzzle, our favorite Sunday activity :) At the end of the night I had a fairly consistent nightly meltdown about my Spanish skills and not having enough time to study everything for Intermediate Core. I think this is about the time you hear missionaries talking about how hard the MTC is in their emails because everything definitely seems impossible to me right now. I can’t imagine being thrown into the mission field after only SIX WEEKS of learning Spanish, it seems kind of insane. 

If you guys didn’t already know this, I have the best mom ever. On Monday I was super stressed about waking up and studying before class that my mom made me a plate of breakfast AND made sure I was awake so that I could get some more study time in. Seriously. I. Have. The. Best. Mom. Ever.

On Tuesday my morning class teacher, Hermano Valdez, gave us a demonstration of teaching a gospel principle to “Maria” or “Mario” and he picked ME to be the person being taught. I had to answer his questions and ask my own questions using the “Maria” profile he gave us. On top of this being all in Spanish, it was in front of my ENTIRE district!! I’ve practiced with just me and my companion a bunch of times but never with the whole district!! I was beyond scared. By some miracle (the miracle of God’s help) I was able to understand ALL of his questions and answer them IN SPANISH! That Intermediate Core IS paying off! I felt so good and like I am actually improving in Spanish! Then for dinner my dad, also I have the best dad ever if you didn't already know, drove all the way to Temecula (almost an hour drive) and back to bring us Cafe Rio since it was my parent’s 26th Wedding Anniversary and they can’t exactly go out somewhere nice right now. 

I know that I have a loving family here on earth and I know that I have a loving Father in Heaven who wants me to succeed and helps me during my hard times. I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He has felt every single pain, trial, nightly meltdown about Spanish, etc. that I have experienced. I know that when I turn to Christ and Heavenly Father in prayer, I feel an embrace of comfort, peace and joy just like the feelings I get when I hug my parents and siblings on earth. I know that God loves me and that God loves you because we are all His children. I cannot wait to share His message of hope and joy during these crazy times.

Love, 

Hermana Johnson

Pictures!!!

1. My companion and I during companionship study!

2. Us doing a companion fist bump through the computer!

3. The difference between my Basic core and Intermediate Core

4. My growing stack of Spanish flashcards.

Easter!!!

¡Hola!

Well I have officially been doing the Johnson online MTC (Missionary Training Center) for 2 weeks now. Honestly guys the first week felt soooo long as I was adjusting to the daily missionary schedule, but this week literally went by so fast. I felt like it was only yesterday I was typing up my first email, it's crazy! But this week was super exciting as we prepared for Easter too!

On Thursday during my morning class, we read from the Book of Mormon (a fantastic book about the interactions of the people in the Americas with Jesus Christ after he died and was resurrected, similar to His interactions with the people in the New Testament of the Bible) in Spanish and it was ROUGH. Everyone in my district (all 12 of us missionaries trying to learn Spanish for our missions) was stumbling through it, so I definitely need to practice reading out loud more! Then in my evening class we got to teach our teacher, Hermano Chavez, a 10 minute lesson on any gospel principle we wanted. We had done this before, but me and my companion, Hermana Dunn, did a lot better this time then the previous time. Hooray for improvement!!

On Friday it was the worldwide fast focusing on controlling the current pandemic, protecting Caregivers, strengthening the economy and on life returning to normal. I participated in the fast by sacrificing 2 meals on Friday because I believe that prayer paired with fasting can truly be a powerful plea to God. I testify that God hears our prayers because He is always there for us, just like my Earthly parents are there for me, we just have to be willing to speak to Him and then open our hearts to listen to Him. I know this is true because I have prayed to my Heavenly Father and I have received answers to my prayers, sometimes in the form of scripture verses or through feelings of comfort, peace and joy. I know that He can answer your prayers too if you pray with a sincere heart and with real intent.

On Saturday I realized just how fast things can change...the first line in my journal for Saturday says “Guess what? I still stink at Spanish”. I know that just on Thursday I felt like I was getting better at Spanish but on Saturday it just wasn’t clicking for me like it had earlier in the week when we taught our MTC teachers. I couldn’t seem to think of what to say in Spanish OR in English… it was extremely frustrating since I thought I was finally making some progress. Then that night during family scripture study I played an Easter song that Sister Pyatt, a very nice woman in my ward, shared with me and when it played I could immediately feel the spirit in the room. I realized that I had not been teaching by the spirit that morning, which is what made it so difficult. As the song ended, I felt a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest that made me feel happy and loved, I know that feeling is the spirit. I felt impressed to share how I was feeling with my family and Aidan, my youngest brother who is 12 years old, said that he felt the spirit too as something “warm”. This was the first time that he had ever shared he felt the spirit! I then asked the rest of my family how they felt the spirit to help Aidan recognize the different way the Holy Ghost (the spirit) talks to each individual person. 

Monday and Tuesday were pretty much the same rollercoaster as Thursday and Saturday were. Monday was good and I felt like my Spanish was getting better. Then Tuesday came and I was back to feeling frustrated about my Spanish.

Then on Sunday it was Easter!!! We started the morning with an Easter egg hunt like we do every Easter, but I was never a missionary during the previous Easters. Now to paint a picture of past Easters...usually we are all half awake, but as soon as we sit at the top of the stairs and see all the Easter eggs “hidden” throughout the house, we immediately start making a plan of attack for how we will push the other siblings out of the way to get the most eggs into our basket...ok now we are back to this current Easter Sunday. :) As a missionary, I didn’t really think I could push Ethan and Aidan out of the way just to get eggs because you know, missionaries must be Christlike. So I decided to give them a head start and figured I would just go slow collecting my Easter eggs. This plan worked at first but with Ethan being too asleep to care much about finding Easter eggs I quickly went back to my old ways of getting Easter eggs, but dialed down a notch. In the end I miraculously beat them both in our egg count, but being the Christlike missionary I am, I gave them eggs so that we all had the same amount. I think that this is really just proof of how God blesses His missionaries. ;) On a more serious note though, I absolutely love Easter. Partly because of the time I get to spend with my family, but mainly because of the meaning of Easter. We celebrate Easter because it was the day Jesus Christ, our Savior, was resurrected after He died on the cross for us. Because He died and lived again, we can too. Because of Him, death doesn’t have to be the end and we can live with our families forever. Because of Him we can find hope, peace and joy during difficult times. I know that Christ made this sacrifice because He loves each one of us so much, with the love a brother has for his siblings. 

I seriously love the gospel of Jesus Christ soooo much. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God who translated the Book of Mormon and restored the church on Earth for us today. I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is His son. I know that Jesus lives and He loves us. And I cannot wait for what’s next. I love you all and hope you’re doing well!

Love,

Hermana Johnson

Pictures!!!

1. Here’s me, Aidan and Ethan sitting at the top of the stairs ready for the egg hunt. I have been up and ready for the past 2 and a half hours, but the boys had just woken up. 

2. Here’s a nice action shot of me putting eggs in my basket, but also taking the time to look outside and let my brothers get some eggs :) and Ethan being barely awake enough to care about what was happening

3. Lastly here’s a nice picture of the Johnson kids after the boys got ready for “home” church. 

First Week In The Johnson MTC!!!

¡Hola mis amigos!

*WARNING!!! EXTREMELY LONG EMAIL BELOW!!! If you are looking for something to do in quarantine, here you can read my email...sorry I just have so much to say about what has happened and life updates to share from this past week :)

I am literally so excited to be writing my first ever mission email! Every Wednesday for the next 5 weeks is my P-Day (preparation day) so this is when I’ll be sending out my weekly emails and can respond to any emails I get too. I want to start this email explaining what has happened this past week.  I was set apart as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Monday night March 30 by my Stake President (the church leader for the area of Escondido) which meant that I was officially a missionary and have to abide by the missionary standards; this includes wearing nice church clothes everyday like skirts and dresses, listening only to gospel/worship music, not going on Social Media and probably the hardest thing: not watching movies, unless of course they are about Christ. For anyone that knows me, going 18 months without watching a Marvel movie seems impossible, but I know that I’ll be able to do it. I then asked my Stake President a billion questions about how the online MTC (Missionary Training Center) was going to work for my 6 week training period. He didn’t have many answers, but I assume that’s because it was only the third week of online Missionary Training Centers EVER!! I didn’t have my first online activity until Wednesday afternoon, so on Tuesday I practiced waking up at 6:30 AM, I probably shouldn’t have been sleeping in until 11am the past few weeks but oh well, then I spent most of the day with my family and got my missionary name tag in the mail! 

On Wednesday I was super excited to officially begin the online Mexico MTC (Missionary Training Center). I didn’t really know what to expect of my first workshop, but I was super pumped up. They had a Zoom conference call set up so that we could talk with our teachers in Mexico City. I never would have imagined that during the workshop online we would be TEACHING SOMEONE! We were about 15 minutes into the workshop when the teacher, Brother Clemente, said “Now, we have a volunteer and your job is to get to know her and share the gospel”. At first I thought he meant one of the missionaries would pretend to be the volunteer, but that is NOT what happened. A girl, not in missionary clothes, joined the Zoom call...she was a 20 year old girl named Chelsea who lives in Utah, but was not a member of the church. We ended up getting to know her, shared a bit about our belief in God, who we call our Heavenly Father, and even got her the phone number of a member of the church in her area. That was not at all what I expected to happen within the first 45 minutes of my online MTC experience, but it was absolutely amazing. We barely got to know Chelsea, but I felt so much love for her and wanted so badly for her to know about the joy that comes from the gospel. I know that the love I felt for Chelsea comes from God because she is one of His children and He loves every single one of us SO MUCH. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start the online MTC.

Now you may be wondering “Megan, how in the world do you spend your time being stuck at home all day?” (or maybe you’re not wondering this, but I’m going to share anyways...haha). My typical day consists of waking up at 6:30am to exercise, shower, get ready and eat breakfast. Then I have class from 8-11am with Brother Valdez in Mexico City. After class, I have companion study for about an hour with my amazing companion. Her name is Hermana (Sister in Spanish) Dunn and she is literally the best. [Sidenote: my companion in my mission preparation class at BYU last semester told me about her friend going to my same mission, Resistencia Argentina, and showed me a picture of her. Now when I found out who my online companion was going to be, naturally I found her on Instagram and stalked her (don’t worry this was before I was set apart as a missionary) I recognized one of her photos, my mission preparation companion had shown me this picture already! So I was already connected to my companion through one of my BYU friends! If you think that’s crazy, wait till I tell you even more connections we have! Out of everyone in our district (made of 12 missionaries all learning Spanish on the online MTC, 4 sisters and 8 Elders) we are the only set of companions going to the same mission AND we are both from Southern California, she literally lives about an hour and a half away from me! Then after talking we realized that we both started college at age 17, both attend BYU Provo and are both Math majors! It is crazy how much we have in common! Sorry for this rather long side note...whoops :) ] Ok so after companion study, I have study time until workshop from 12:30-1:30pm with Brother Clemente (the first week we had workshops everyday, but this week we started having workshops only once a week). Then I eat lunch and have language study where I attempt to learn Spanish until evening class from 4:30-7:30pm with Brother Chavez, who is always very excited about literally everything. After that I have dinner with my family, more personal study time and then I get ready for bed and am asleep by 10:30pm. As you can see, the online MTC keeps me really busy all day and any spare time I have, I’m practicing Spanish or studying the gospel. 

Last week I was just seeming to get the hang of things and was feeling pretty good. Then we had General Conference over the weekend (a huge broadcast where church leaders like our Prophet speak to us, usually there is a big live audience, but obviously that can’t really happen so they did it in an empty auditorium) which was so fantastic! Then on Monday, Brother Valdez told us that Mexico went through something like Daylight Savings so they lost an hour...this meant that for all the sister missionaries in my district living in Pacific Standard Time, class would start at 7am, leaving us only 30 minutes to get ready! It seemed impossible to exercise, shower, get ready and eat breakfast in the morning before class! The rest of the day I really struggled speaking Spanish as we gave a 10 minute lesson to Brother Valdez, completely in Spanish! My companion did most of the talking, since she seems to already be fluent in Spanish, and I tried to insert a sentence about the gospel in Spanish here and there. The entire day on Monday I was really struggling to put together sentences in Spanish and I felt like it was impossible to learn Spanish. The next day, Tuesday, I tried really hard to study my Spanish and talk in Spanish. I felt better than I had on Monday, but still not where I want to be. That night we had our first MTC Devotional where we watched one of Elder Bednar’s (a church leader and one of the 12 apostles) past devotionals. I know that the devotional was broadcast several years ago, but I felt like he was speaking to ME. Something that he said really stuck out to me about his conversations with converts to the church. They told him that they continued to accept new appointments with young missionaries that didn’t speak their language very well, “not because of what they said, but because of what they felt”. I realized that it is not about speaking perfect Spanish RIGHT NOW, it is about bringing feelings of the Spirit into discussions with people and letting the Spirit teach, not me. 

I now know that the most important thing for me to learn in the MTC is how to teach by the Spirit. Yes I need to work on my Spanish A LOT, but more importantly I need to be in tune with the Spirit and with God’s will. I know that as I strive to be a better missionary and to become more like Christ, the Spanish will eventually come. I cannot wait to see how the next 5 weeks of my online training go and am so excited to learn more every single day! 

I love you all so much! I promise that my emails will be shorter next week :) Also feel free to send me an email (Megan.elizabeth.johnson@missionary.org), I’d love to know how all of you are doing!

Love Hermana Johnson

Pictures!!!

Me opening the door to the Johnson MTC!!

Me with my missionary tag because I am now known as Hermana Johnson!

My awesome district with Brother Valdez!

The package of all my Spanish books I use to study

I have literally covered the entire house in sticky notes with Spanish words on them to help me learn. This is the family room.

The guest room that we converted into my own mini MTC at home! I even have a nice desk to use for Zoom calls and studying!7.

Ok this is literally my favorite thing, my whiteboard! I use it to help plan out my week, my schedule for the day and write down a scripture or quote I like every day