Hurricane Laura

Hola y'all! 

Ok. Longest. Email. Ever. I am so sorry, but this is literally my hurricane journal so enjoy or skip to the pictures, whatever you want, but this week has been a blast, a crazy, messy, blast jajaja ;) Monday was my first pday (preparation day) in DeRidder! We couldn't really do anything though because of the storms coming...we were in lockdown…*dramatic "dun dun dun" gloomy noises* But it was a nice sunny day, we stayed inside and played Monopoly deal, the shorter card game version of Monopoly. It was pretty fun. Since it was Sister Estes' 16 month mark today we went to Sonic for dinner! Whoop whoop! Man she's a grandma in the mission! Jajaja We were supposed to have a lesson with a recent convert, Sister Partin, but that fell through...oof

On Tuesday everyone started freaking out about Hurricane Laura coming Wednesday night. Hurricane Marco turned into a tropical storm that died on the coast, so everyone turned their attention to Hurricane Laura that is coming and rapidly intensifying. Everyone has such mixed feelings about what's gonna happen...it's either the power will be out for 3 weeks and it'll be rough or it'll just be some wind and rain...don't really know what to expect...Also I got a call from the El Dorado sisters saying that Sister Russell just tested positive for COVID...we visited her last Monday...so far I have no symptoms, we did wear masks at her house, but couldn't be 6 feet apart on her couch, so Sister Amos said I should informally quarantine for the next week...fun stuff..Most of our plans for the day got cancelled, but we did have our lesson with Ms. Judy! She probably talked for a solid 45 minutes before we could get a single word in. She's a bit older and didn't seem to have read or understand most of our questions...so we'll have to work slower with her, but that's ok! Then we went to Walmart and stocked up on some more stuff for the hurricane, just in case...then President Amos called to say that just us and Leesville would be areas affected in the mission. He made sure we felt comfortable, offered to have us stay in Baton Rouge and imparted some hurricane knowledge since he's lived through like 46 hurricanes! Then our Bishop came over to give us MORE food and prepped us for the hurricane situation worst case scenario. He basically assumed the power would be out, trees would be fallen over and it would be pretty bad. So we will prepare for the worst! 

Wednesday was one crazy day man. We went to Walmart one last time in preparation for the hurricane. I was also stressed because I was giving the discussion in district council on patience and hadn't had time to prepare for it since I found out Monday night and the hurricane kinda took up most of the time...so that was stressful. We also had a zone zoom call right before that. Luckily it went well, it was actually too long but we cut it short. After lunch we prepped for the storm by taping our windows and filling everything up with water. Then we got a call from President Amos saying he had talked with some crisis people and we needed to evacuate 2 minutes ago...so us and Lafayette packed some stuff up and headed to Pineville in Alexandria. We were leaving right as the storm was starting to hit. There was pouring rain and strong winds, we might have just died from Sister Estes' driving jajaja. It was lowkey a little crazy...but we made it to Pineville where 10 sisters stayed in the pineville apartment with the Leesville quad too. It was a party! We got all ready for Hurricane Laura that was now a category 5...

Thursday we were all so tired from staying up all night watching the hurricane. The power went out around 2am so that was fun...There were tree branches covering the entire ground and when we woke up there were just huge BANG noises coming from all walls of the apartment...just a little freaky...we stayed inside while the storm was still going on and luckily we still had running water for a hot sec. We started eating our cereal, quickly taking the milk out of the fridge since it would go bad, liquid soup ice cream and peanut butter sandwiches...we took some frequent walks when the storm was over to cool down because during the day, without AC in Louisiana...IT WAS ROUGH! We all thought we were gonna die of heat stroke as we played card games, read the Book of Mormon together and sung hymns to pass the time. Then by 10pm when we were all going to bed, it was still so HOT that we all slept in our underwear....

Friday we all woke up extremely hot and sweaty...fun. We had to pack up all of our homeless people things and then leave Pineville to go find some gas to get to DeRidder. On the way home we saw an open gas station WITH GAS! We quickly pulled over and got in the enormous line.  People were getting very crazy...there were cars cutting in line, people filling up like 5 containers of gas, it was nuts! We waited for like an hour and 45 minutes, got super close to the front and then they ran out of gas. We were devastated! We would not have enough gas to drive home AND stay in Leesville for the night AND drive to the Leesville church building to organize the crisis command center that President Amos put our district in charge of. But we had no choice...so we drove to DeRidder (over an hour away), after using up our time waiting for gas, to see the state of our apartment and town...when we got there it literally looked like a war zone...there were fallen trees everywhere, almost all the power lines were destroyed, roofs ripped off houses and debris on every corner. We had to navigate through some fallen trees to reach our apartment to find out that our building of 4 apartments had a giant tree fall right through it. There was like a forest right behind our building that had just demolished the other half of our building and a branch had broken one of our windows in the living room. The entire apartment inside smelled like the woods. We only had enough time to throw out everything in our fridge since the power was out and put a tarp over our window to prevent at least some bugs from getting in. Then we went to the Leesville church building (30 minutes away) to meet with the Stake Presidents from all over Louisiana and Mississippi to organize the crisis cleanup command center. After cleaning up Leesville for 400 people in tents and an 18 wheeler full of supplies and equipment on the way we decided to move the command center to the Rosepine (DeRidder) church building instead after all saying a prayer about it. So we used our gas to go back there to our teeny tiny church building. Our whole district was there too, 4 Elders and 4 other Sisters, and a bunch of ward members from Leesville and DeRidder which includes all the military guys from the base on Fort Polk. We all helped unload the huge semi truck full of water bottles, MRE's (box of food), chainsaws, rakes, sleds, shovels, tarps, wood, nails and bright yellow helping hands shirts. It was pretty great man. Then we started driving back to Leesville to sleep at the Sisters' apartment for the night since ya know, our window is broken. We decided to go into base in search of gas on the way there. There was one station with gas and an ENORMOUS line that we could never get through in time to be at the apartment by 9pm (basically missionary curfew) since it was already after 7pm. So we drove to a few other gas stations on base, but none of them had gas. At the last one though Sister Estes recognized someone from the Leesville ward, Brother Thomas, and he gave us an address for somewhere that had gas in Pitkin! It was about 20 minutes away, so we'd have just enough gas to get there. We started driving there but lost service and totally got lost on some backroads covered in fallen trees and powerlines in the pitch black darkness...not exactly the best situation as we slowly ran out of gas...then by some miracle we found the town of Pitkin and the gas station that had gas! But since it was almost 9pm it was closed! I thought we were gonna die in the middle of nowhere! We started driving back to Leesville, praying we would have enough gas. Somehow we made it safely to the Sisters' apartment! MIRACLE! They even had running water! So we were able to finally take a shower in the dark (since they didn't have power). Then we went to sleep in their extremely hot second floor apartment. 

Saturday we all woke up and I had to just accept the constant state of sweating I now live in with no electricity in the Louisiana summer heat. We all got ready and since both of our gas tanks were flashing "empty" we went to Fort Polk in a last attempt to get gas. There was a long line, but we had to do it. Since it's the military the line was surprisingly very efficient and we got to the front in an hour. When we finally got to the front and the pump didn't work...we all almost cried since we literally wouldn't make it far on the little gas we had left. After a few minutes a lady said that the most expensive gas still worked and it did! MIRACLE! So we got to the command center just before 9am, got some special training from President Amos and went out with Elder/President McKay's (literally does a bunch of stuff in the mission) team. We drive (with our gas!!!) to a neighborhood in DeRidder. On the way it seriously did look like a war zone; trees everywhere, powerlines tangled all over the place and on the road, houses demolished by trees, it was literally so sad. When we got to the neighborhood, no one seemed to want our help, so we drove to another neighborhood nearby and found a lady slowly dragging things from her backyard out front. Her name is Fara and a tree had fallen in her backyard on the fence between her and her handicapped neighbor. We were able to get our crew of missionaries and members to completely remove the tree using chainsaws, rakes and sleds to pull the stuff to the front. She was SO grateful and we even got to know her too! Then we helped her other neighbor who was out chopping a fallen tree with just a machete. That yard was covered in power lines, so us missionaries couldn't help but a crew of members was able to. We went down the street and helped a lady named Macia who had a tree fall on her fence too. Then across from her house an older Irish woman named Ursula was out desperately trying to clear her huge yard using her little tractor. When Elder Teare and Elder Genda went over to ask if she needed help, she broke down in tears because we had volunteered to help her, without pay and she didn't understand who sent us. We had to break for lunch, graciously provided by Sister McKay, the most delicious thing I've ever tasted, a turkey sandwich. I don't think I can even look at another granola bar, cereal or peanut butter sandwich ever again. Then we went over and got to work on Ursula's house. She has a huge yard and there were like 7 trees that had fallen, one just barely scraped her house! And there were branches and leaves covering everything...it was a mess! We were able to talk with her more inside because Sister Estes was lowkey getting heat stroke and had a healing priesthood blessing (we sat in Elder McKay's air conditioned car for a while). She is super nice, has a great Irish accent and said she received answers to her prayers when the trees didn't fall on her house. The church even ended up interviewing her which was super cool and we were able to get her phone number! MIRACLE that all of a sudden our area is being resurrected and we are getting to meet so many people. It was getting late in the afternoon so we took the big branches to the road and then switched to delivering food and water to people since we were pretty exhausted from like 6 hours of straight work in the hot sun. We spent the rest of the day stuffing our cars with food and water and then delivering them to people in need for the Sheriff's department in DeRidder. Nothing can replace the warm feelings I got when I saw the joy on the faces of the people we were able to serve. They were truly so grateful. We even got to sing some hymns for an apartment complex! It was a day well spent! Then we dropped everything off at the command center and they were cooking chicken and fish burgers. I can't even describe what it was like having a hot meal. It. Was. Amazing. I'm so grateful for the food we ate because it is a little freaky not knowing where your next meal will come from man...Then we stopped by our wrecked apartment to get a few more things and then went to Leesville to stay the night again. Their apartment was literally 95 degrees and the thermostat wouldn't go much higher. After taking a cold shower we all went outside, where it was so much cooler, and chilled in the bed of the truck (Many Elders switched vehicles with Leesville) until 10:20pm then went to sleep. It was the first time I had ever slept without a blanket, I didn't think I could sleep without a blanket, but I guess when it's that hot I can jajaja. 

On Sunday it was decided that we aren't going to Lafayette until our power comes back, we will stay in the Many Elders' apartment with the Leesville Sister quad (Sister Hansen, John, Murdock  Newby). 6 sisters. 1 bathroom. 1 Elder apartment. Fun. But we all kinda split up in the morning. The other missionaries in my district all went to schools to distribute food and water to people while Sister Estes and I went to Ms. Ursula's house to keep working. When we arrived, there were these 2 guys outside with chainsaws taking down the tree in her front yard...apparently they're from Texas and were driving by churches looking for somewhere to help. How cool is that! We made A LOT of progress on her yard, taking down 3 trees and raking up like half her yard before noon. We also helped out a bunch of houses behind her as well! They even repaid us by giving us pizza for lunch! Hallelujah! Then the work crew had to leave and our district finally arrived. We held a sacrament meeting in her house and she and her husband, Bruce, and adult son were able to participate! It was so cool! Then we got back to work for another couple hours! I think we were all kinda dying of heat exhaustion, but finished working while this news lady came by and filmed some stuff. Then we finished up and headed out to deliver some more food and water. Afterwards we went back to the command center where they had packed up everything to come back next weekend. They even gave us a box of donuts! Score! Dinner! Then we went home and packed up basically everything, took a shower since we had running water in our DeRidder apartment. I was hot, hungry and heckin' covered in bug bites. I was lowkey convinced that I had chiggers (a scary bug that goes under your skin). I had a mental breakdown in front of Sister Estes in my underwear before getting in the shower, doing the whole sobbing, gasping, ugly cry thing. I couldn't stop crying, but got in the cold shower and everything seemed to get worse. I finally decided to say a prayer and as soon as I said "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I immediately stopped crying. I was so confused because I felt like nothing had changed, but something did, I received peace. It doesn't really make any kind of sense, but I know that was Heavenly Father answering my prayer. :) Then we left to the Elders' apartment in Many. It was pretty sketchy getting there and Elder Teare said that he cleaned it so much, but Elders had lived there for like 9 years and ya know...boys are boys...it was a mess! The toilet was even cracked, everything smelled and nothing seemed to make sense at all...I don't know how Elders live. Also one of their windows was broken from the storm, but the apartment is on the second floor so it's fine, they have AC which is all that matters! It was an interesting day...I repeat 6 sisters, 1 apartment...

So this was a crazy week. 6 months ago I never thought I'd be homeless, living out of my suitcase in an Elder apartment after my apartment got wrecked by a hurricane...some fun stuff man. But it has been a really cool experience to see all the people gather together to support, love and serve those in these affected communities. It's amazing how fast the church is able to organize relief efforts and be willing to send people from all over to help those struggling. Although we haven't been doing much sharing the gospel, we have been spreading the light of Christ through service and it has filled me with so much joy. I know God answers prayers and although I don't have much right now, I am happy despite these crazy circumstances and still love being a missionary. :)

Have a blessed week! 

Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!

Love, 

Sister Johnson

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!
1. Hurricane squad in Pineville, consisting of Sister Teage & Sister Jacob's (Pineville), Sister Murdock & Sister John (Leesville 1), Sister Newby & Sister Hansen (Leesville) and Sister Ward & Sister Clark (Lafayette) on our air mattresses the first night...with electricity

2. Laura on it's way
3. Laura is a coming!
4. Boom Laura is here! 
5. Hurricane squad in the morning looking nice after the hurricane. 
6. Me next to a tree that got wrecked after Laura
7. The hurricane quad (Lafayette sisters) next to the snapped tree!
8. Sister Estes, Sister Murdock and I working hard taking leaves into a sled post-hurricane
9. The whole district cleaning up Ms. Ursula's yard...peep me in the back left corner holding the rake ;)
10. Girl power lifting this tree onto a dollie for the trash stack

DERIDDER, LOUISIANA!

Hola y'all! 

So this email comes from DeRidder, Louisiana! It was an interesting week of getting used to all sorts of new things, people and places. But enjoy this email! ;)

On Tuesday we finished packing all of our stuff up and by some miracle I FIT EVERYTHING! I really don't know how since I've definitely gained more stuff or as Sister Farris puts it, I'm an accumulator and "She accumulates things I've never even seen accumulated!" Jajaja Then we drove down to Ruston, LA for our last district pday! The Elders bought 6 pizzas for the 12 of us for lunch, which were gone in a flash! We played our usual game of district volleyball, kickball and then Elder Jacobson gave us one of his 30 minute jokes about 12 green golf balls. And then we headed out forever!  We got back to El Dorado and went out to dinner with the Nashs one last time at the Laredo Grill. We said goodbye to Arkansas and spent the night in Monroe, LA. 

Wednesday was transfer day! We drove down to Hammond, LA where I met my new companion Sister Estes while leaving Sister Farris. I was pretty sad to be leaving my first in-person companion and trainer. :( But Sister Estes is pretty nice and we drove to DeRidder, LA making a stop for lunch at Cane's of course! We also lowkey left the mission on the way up as we went through Lake Charles for like over an hour...whoops! Once in DeRidder, we unpacked and then went to a church service at the First United Pentecostal church in town. That is what Sister Estes has been doing to build relationships with the people here. Also fun fact: DeRidder is supposedly the place with the most churches per capita in the whole country! It was a very interesting experience...the minister preaching was very loud, it was very different from what I am used to. Overall he shared a great message about prayer, it just had a different spirit that filled the room.

On Thursday I spent my first official day in DeRidder! We did our usual studies in the morning and I had my own desk! Sister Estes even joined me for language study! She really wants to learn Spanish and already knows a lot, so that's pretty cool. Then we went to Brother Hutton and his mom's house to have spaghetti lunch and clean their house. They also have a huge Great Pyrenees dog named Earl who was literally as big as ME! He was gigantic! And we helped groom him a little by cutting off his matted fur, well Sister Estes did the cutting while I did the distracting by petting jajaja. Then we came home and Sister Estes made chorizo for dinner (she really likes Mexican food and it was real good) and rice pudding for dessert! We also had a lesson with Mr. Robert who is super nice, but he's moving to New Orleans...so our teaching pool is down to 2 people...really only 1 though since we called and he pretended to not be himself :/

Friday I realized just how many bugs are in this apartment...so we live right next to the woods on the first floor, so the bugs just come on in. That morning I found a GIANT SPIDER in the shower and I'm talking like tarantula size spider! I died a little inside! We also have cockroaches, centipedes and termites...at least there's no bed bugs...yet jajaja. We drove to district council in Leesville and it was so weird not going to Ruston, but I guess change is good. Our district includes the Leesville quad of Sisters  the Many Elders and the Natchitoches Elders that just got whitewashed in. They are all nice, it's a little strange to have a new district and they are all training except Many but their companionship includes the district leader and Sister Estes and I are the only regular companionship of Senior companions. Ahhhhhh I'm a senior companion now! That's freaky! Everything was just so different, it's gonna take A WHILE for me to get used to it all...also apparently Sister Farris just did things differently from most missionaries, so I'm also getting used to not doing it the awesome Sister Farris way...on the way home I got my base pass for the army base in our area and stopped by Sister Hancock's to share a spiritual message. She even fed us chocolate cake and ice cream! 

On Saturday we had a mission wide zoom call to discuss some exciting new things happening this transfer (including Sister Farris basically being an AP or assistant to the president, it's a pretty fancy assignment, she's quite literally THE BEST) and the hurricanes that are supposed to hit on Monday. We had to prepare our 72 hour kits, I did not have one so...we got permission to get all our groceries for the week today and stocked up on food we can eat without power and refilled our gas tank in case of emergency evacuation. So now we are prepared!! We are only on the edge of it though, so we should be fine. My first lesson with Ms. Charlotte, our only investigator, fell through...BUT we decided to call out of the paper areabook (how we found Mr. Brian who was baptized last week and is the best) and we set up an appointment with a lady named Ms. Judy!! MIRACLE! For dinner we went over to Brother Woolley's house and had pizza. Here in DeRidder we do a lot more with the members since a lot of them don't actively come to church and we have no one else...it's a bit rough but I know that it'll get better. We even decided to street contact in this park on the way home, we got rejected but a cute little girl did come running up to me and hugged my leg so that was nice :)

Sunday we went to church! In DeRidder they actually have church sacrament meeting! It was only 30 minutes, with 2 short 5 minute talks but it was great! It was also my first time at church as a missionary welcoming people inside so that was pretty cool! After that we went to a Catholic church service which was very different. There were priests in robes and people reciting prayers together out loud. There was like guitar music and they even had communion which was super similar to the sacrament! It was cool to see what was similar and the spirit that definitely felt different there. Then everyone left and put their tithes in a bowl at the front. On the way home we received a REFERRAL! I just about cried with joy! His name is Dusti and we set up a call with him next week! Hallelujah! At home we had the Sunday live devotional which was great as always! Then we went to a lesson with Ms. Judy from the paper areabook. She loved having us over, she spent most of the time talking about Jesus and prayer but she totally accepted the Book of Mormon we gave her and said she'd read it! MIRACLE! Once we got home the Lafayette Sisters were at our apartment after evacuating for the incoming hurricanes. There are 2 coming, one on Monday that shouldn't be too bad and one on Wednesday that might be worse, but nothing too crazy. Then we all headed to the Pentecostal Gospel Lighthouse church. The people were so nice and welcoming! They spent like the first 30 minutes just singing and dancing. The pastor was VERY loud and went from talking about the Bible, COVID, Democrats, gun control, puppies to baptism. We got to see a baptism happen! It was so similar to what we do! The kid was immersed in water, the pastor said a prayer and gave him the Holy Ghost. So similar to our church just without the proper priesthood authority! It was a great experience though! 

What a week! I definitely never thought I'd be leaving El Dorado or Sister Farris. DeRidder is very different, it's a bit bigger than El Dorado so my missionary strategies for finding people don't exactly work the same...I also don't have a bike so...Sister Estes and I are very different and we have 2 very different ways of doing missionary work. She has been out for 16 months and has been in DeRidder since March...that's a LONG time to be in one area! I am trying my best to adjust to all these new things, but I know that I can rely on the constant comfort of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I continue to grow and learn new things about the gospel and even about other churches. My testimony in the gospel of Jesus Christ and His restored church gets stronger every single day. I know that I'm out here doing the Lord's work and I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY :)

Also here's my new address:

408 Somerset Drive #C

DeRidder, LA. 70634

Have a blessed week! 

Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!

Love, 

Sister Johnson 

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles (guess this won't really change much without a bike jajaja) 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!
1. Last picture with the Ruston district on pday. Best. District. Ever.
2. Sister Farris and I recreating our first minivan picture. 
3. Sister Estes, my new companion, and I in the Deridder apartment.
4. Sister Estes and I street contacting in a park.
5. Me in front of this cool tank in the park. 

Mr. Brian's Baptism!!!

Hola y'all! 

So A LOT happened this week! There's some pretty crazy stuff coming y'all! 

Monday we had pday in El Dorado! We went to downtown El Dorado and walked around, ate frozen yogurt and took a BILLION pictures! It was so much fun exploring that part of town! Then we visited the South Arkansas Arboretum. It was a cute place with trees, a butterfly garden and some nice trails to walk on. It was very pretty. Then when pday hours were over at 6pm, we put on our biking pros clothes and biked out to our appointment with Ms. Laylay...but she wasn't home...so we came home and had a lesson with Ms. Mary. She is just the cutest! We taught her the 10 Commandments, very slowly, using hand gestures which she LOVED. She ended the call with her usual catchphrase of "stay sweet" because shes the best and treats us like her own daughters.

On Tuesday we had a lesson with Mr. Brian and Brother Ricker in the morning. It went well other than Brother Ricker's audio being wack so there was a huge echo, but he couldn't figure out the buttons to mute himself jajaja. Gotta love Brother Ricker! Then we had a meeting with Stake President Heim, who is super cool and tells some great stories. Our lesson at noon with Ms. Venus fell through because she was still in bed...people here in the South either wake up real early (Mr. Brian) or real late! For lunch we made some dirty rice using one of the recipes I got from "outbound finding" on Facebook. It was good! We biked to Sister Russell for a lesson about the plan of salvation  but she broke down in tears to us about her daughter not making the right choices. So Sister Farris, being the coolest missionary ever, switched to a lesson about mothers, tied with this week's Come Follow Me about the 2,000 stripling warriors. It was awesome and completely led by the spirit!  At home we got to have a bike race with this little boy named Jayden, who is literally ALWAYS outside asking us to play with him or give him candy. So we finally agreed to have a little race with him within our apartment complex and he loved it! Seed planted! We had a second lesson with Ms. Donna from the Facebook page! Boy does she LOVE Jesus!! Then we had a lesson with Malika and she even brought her boyfriend! And we're dropping him off a Book of Mormon! 

Wednesday was district council! We decided to have a last minute potluck for district lunch too. We had a LOT of cheese dip from Bishop that we had no idea what to do with until it had been Sister Earl-ified. The Elders brought chips, chicken, homemade bread and a GIANT watermelon. It was pretty great! On the drive back, we dropped off Deandrae, Malika's boyfriend, a Book of Mormon because MIRACLE he lived on the border of our area on the way home from district council! Then they dropped us off on the bikes to try and have a lesson with Ms. Jan, she wasn't home but we were able to street contact and even set up an appointment with a man named Mr. Aaron! MIRACLE! Then we biked home and had dinner with the Nashs at Antigua's. I ate some pretty good fish tacos man. 

Thursday was FULL of meetings! No meetings I was actually a part of, but lots and lots of meetings for leadership since my companion is the coolest. We did have our last lesson with Mr. Brian though in the morning! It was great and he shared how grateful he has been for our studies! He is just so sweet! We biked to the church after lunch to change up our meeting area a bit...then we biked home and had a lesson with Malika, her boyfriend wasn't there but she assured us he would be next time jajaja. She is in Mosiah 5! This girl is awesome! Then we had a lesson with Ms. Mary who is just so cute. We read her a Book of Mormon story, which she loved. She said bye to us using her usual catch phrase: "Stay sweet!" 

On Friday we had Mr. Brian's baptismal interview with Elder Tauraa! Mr. Brian was pretty nervous, but we had practiced the 6 questions on Thursday and he did well. When he kind of forgot something's Elder Tauraa did a great job of saying "yes!" And then asking more questions to get him to the right answer a couple times. It was great! On our bike ride we saw some pretty crazy miracles! So we've been having a hard time finding new people...the area has slowly started to slow down...just as Sister Farris is leaving...but we were biking and talked to a Mr. Tommy, it almost got a little bashing but he said he had met with missionaries in the past and we explained we don't believe in the Trinity but in the Godhead as 3 separate beings...very interesting...Then we continued biking to our appointment with Mr. Aaron. On the way we stopped to talk to a lady and then she was like "there's some Latter-day Saints in the house" there were like 2 members in there! We met Ms. Nikki who is a member and another lady, Ms. Ashley, who we ended up giving a set of scriptures too! MIRACLE! Then we went to our appointment and ended up biking past his house like 3 times since Mr. Aaron wasn't sitting outside. He finally came out and we met his wife  Ms. Betty, and got to share a verse. Then we started biking to Ms. Lena from the paper areabook and we got to meet her son, sadly she was asleep but that's ok. On the way home we were talking to a very drunk man who asked if we were the police...we said no and he was like "Good cuz I had a few beers and am bout to go get another" as he stumbled on the road...we gave him our card...At home we made rice krispies for Mr. Brian's baptism and homemade pizza for dinner! 

Saturday was Mr. Brian's baptism!!! We woke up early to fill the font for this 9AM baptism! We were missing keys from the lockers to the font, so Sister Farris had to do a little maneuvering to get in there. We sanitized the church while this font of stinky slightly tinted green water filled up. It ended up taking only 26 minutes to fill...it's apparently usually 1-2 hours, so that was cool. Then everyone arrived (9 people total to fulfill the 10 or less COVID rule)! It was great and Mr. Brian really seemed to like the ward members there and Brother Guibergia who baptized him. Mr. Brian was just SO HAPPY after he came out of the water and was confirmed. He even bore his testimony! It was great! Then we cleaned and sanitized everything and headed home to do some service for Ms. Pat. Now since we were at the baptism in the morning, instead of our usual Saturday morning 9am service, we went over at 1pm...BIG MISTAKE! We were just laying down some fertilizer and what not, but IT WAS SO HOT AND HUMID! That was the most I have ever sweated in my life! It just kept coming down and didn't stop! Even Ms. Pat had to take a break! We definitely got a little heat stroke out there in our long socks, jeans, long sleeve shirts and short sleeves on top. Luckily the rest of the day was pretty chill. 

On Sunday Mr. Brian came to our mini sacrament meeting of 9 people where he partook of the sacrament for the first time! He even got to witness a priesthood blessing given to Brother Ricker! Mr. Brian was so cute and took the bread and just kind of held it, until he realized he was supposed to eat it. Then after he took the water, he put the cup back in it's spot instead of in the trash part. But it was super special and a very spiritual time. He even stayed for our Come Follow Me lesson! Later that night we had our Sunday service with Malika, taught by Sister Dukes, the Young Womens President. Sister Dukes was baptized at age 19 and just connects so well with Malika who is 17 years old. Malika just loves the Book of Mormon so much too! She's in Mosiah 26 and even gets on her boyfriend about reading it jajaja! For dinner Sister Earl made us this BOMB chicken and we made beignets using pillsbury crescent rolls! Who knew?!

Monday we had a packed day! In multiple senses...half of the lessons fell through though...but we did get to go to Sister Russell's and have a great plan of salvation lesson with her 2 daughters listening in. We called Ms. Donna and we are sending her a Book of Mormon! (Since she lives out of our area) Then we had a lesson with Malika and had a pretty intense law of chastity lesson...Sister Earl made us a grand feast for dinner since Sister Farris AND I are being transferred! They are white washing our area with brand new missionaries and I'm going down to Deridder, Louisiana folks! Goodbye Arkansas!

This week was packed full of all sorts of crazy stuff. I am super nervous about leaving my area, getting a new companion and meeting completely new people! I know that it is where the Lord wants me to go, doing what He wants me to do though. I know that as long as I trust in Him, everything will be ok and He will magnify me for what I need to do.

Have a blessed week! Talk to y'all next week from Louisiana! 

Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!

Love, 

Sister Johnson

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles


Pictures!!!
1. We spent pday in downtown El Dorado!
2. We also got frozen yogurt at the Creamery! 
3. Comp photo shoot in downtown! 
4. A cool guitar at town square! 
5. Meeting with President Heim, the Monroe Stake President
6. Sister Farris and I racing Jayden, a little boy in the neighborhood! 
7. Comp matching part 1!
8. Comp matching part 2!
9. Ms. Mary who is literally the sweetest! 
10. Sister Farris and I filling up the font…
11. Mr. Brian's baptism!
12. Mr. Brian by the baptismal font! 
13. Us with Sister Russell! 
14. Goodbye Arkansas 

What's Up Homies?

Hola y'all! 

I had another great week in the mission field. It's flying by so fast, but I wouldn't trade my time here for anything! 

On Monday we drove down to Ruston for district pday! We threw some frisbees, found a turtle and played district volleyball! It was a blast! Then we drove down to Monroe for our interviews with the mission president, President Amos. We dropped off the STL's at the church for interviews, got the car washed and ate some Raising Cane's. Delicious! We changed into pros clothes and I got to have my first interview with President Amos. He's great! After all those meetings we drove to the West Monroe Sisters' apartment to stay the night. 

Tuesday was Zone Conference! Sister Farris even did my hair all fancy in this braid crown thing. She's a braiding wizard! Zone Conference was amazing, although my favorite part was probably when Sister Farris gave her presentation on the training program with Elder Obray (an office Elder). They've put a lot of work into the new training program for our mission and it's pretty fantastic. The West Monroe Sisters took us out to Wendy's (drive thru) and then we drove 2 hours back home to El Dorado. It was a LONG, but good day. 

On Wednesday we had a lesson scheduled with Mr. Brian, since he is being baptized next Saturday! Whoop whoop! However something came up (Satan) and he had to cancel :'( That afternoon we went over to visit Lea and Clifton to drop them (when they aren't keeping commitments and showing a desire to change, so we stop teaching them for a while until they are ready), something I feel like I'm an expert at now...but it was my first drop in person so far and it went pretty well, yay! Then we tried this new Facebook thing called "Outbound finding" where we join Facebook groups to meet new people. I posted somewhere looking to learn how to cook, cuz I can't jajaja. Let's just say that it was very successful and by the end of the week I had over 700 comments...that now I have to answer...then we went to dinner with the Nashs! We went to this Mexican restaurant called Antiguas, it was really good and they gave you SO much food for a good price! Brother Nash even gave us a cute speech about how he's always there for us missionaries, no matter where we serve! Their family is the best! To top the day off, we had a lesson with Malika and the Young Womens President. It went great and Sister Dukes really connected with her! 

Thursday we biked to Hillsboro. It actually wasn't too bad after all the times we've biked down there and since my bike got fixed. We had a lesson with Ms. Alexis, but she kinda forgot and wasn't home...but we waited and she got home! We went inside and were able to share a scripture with her since she was so busy. Since we had some time...we went to check on Ms. Jan, but she wasn't home. So we started biking home, did some facebooking at a Pavilion outside, went to the church for weekly planning and then biked home. 

On Friday we had a lesson with Mr. Brian in the morning, but he didn't answer! Then 2 hours later  he called us back and we had a lesson! MIRACLE! Satan really is working hard on him! We decided to bike to a park since we were gonna be inside most of the day. We did LOTS of answering Facebook comments at this park! There were definitely some pretty interesting conversations...Then we biked home, our lesson with Gabe got cancelled, but we had a great lesson with Malika! We taught the plan of salvation and she loved everything we taught! She even asked us to give her MORE stuff to study! She's awesome! 

Saturday we had exchanges. Since it's my second transfer that meant I was leading the exchange in my area with the STL's. So basically we switched companions for the day, I was with Sister Burns and Sister Farris was with Sister Earl. It was pretty nice that the STL's just live in our quad. We went and did service for Ms. Pat in her yard and got nice and sweaty! Then we hurried home, changed and went to lunch with a part-member family, the Moores (Sister Moore and her 3 boys are members  but her husband is not). Sadly the husband wasn't home, but Sister Moore made us some great Chicken Spaghetti. Then all of our plans proceeded to fall through...but it was our day to message for the Facebook Page for our Zone so we literally spent all day responding to messages! We even had a lesson with someone over the phone from Facebook! Her name is Ms. Donna and she is so nice! That night for dinner Sister Earl made us all some mashed potatoes and gravy, which were bomb! To end the night we had Come Follow Me with the district! 

On Sunday we were having our last Sunday service that we need before Mr. Brian's baptism THIS Saturday. He's ALWAYS early, but today he wasn't there early...so we just waited...even the family leading the Come Follow Me discussion was late! Then by some miracle Mr. Brain pulled up in his little green car! And we had an amazing lesson from the Guibergia family! At the end Mr. Brian bore his testimony. He said that he knows the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church and that the Book of Mormon is "100% true"! He's the best! Then we had the sacrament with the Nashs, Brother Ricker and Ms. Amber. We taught Ms. Amber about our current prophet  President Russell M. Nelson, who is just so awesome! We walked home after the live event and started planning Mr. Brian's baptism! We even had a Sunday service with Malika and Brother Bates! 

This week has been great and I am so excited for Mr. Brian's baptism on Saturday! Please pray for him to stay strong in his faith! Seeing how much joy comes from living the gospel is such a blessing and I am so glad that I got to know our Savior, Jesus Christ  from such a young age. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to learn more about the gospel every single day. Sometimes I question how much I really knew before coming out on my mission. Sister Farris seriously teaches me something new every week, it's crazy! But I know that my faith in Christ and Heavenly Father has brought me to where I am, with the trainer I have and to the people that surround me. God is in every single part of our lives, we just have to be willing to look for Him. 

Have a blessed week!

Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!

Love, 

Sister Johnson 

August Bike Mileage: 15.6 miles

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!

1. Companionship at church! This was last week but I just forgot to include it so here it is! 

2. The turtle from pday! 

3. Sister Farris and I waiting for our interviews with President Amos.

4. The district at Zone conference! 

5. Best companionship ever! 

6. Cute district Polaroid.

7. District got a little crazy after picture time 

8. Sister Farris and I late at night after Zone Conference, prepping for the long drive home...we were pretty tired.

9. The quad (during some exchanges) and the Nashs at Antiguas.

10. Weekly planning at the church! 

11. I don't remember when this was  but we were TIRED! 

12. Walking down the street.

13. Us at church on Sunday.