One ROUGH Week

Hola y'all!  

This week was all over the place and I had some personal struggles that occurred...but also some good things happened.

Monday it was raining and COLD for most of the day but that didn't stop us from having district pday up in Many! Since Sister Kohn is going home next week and her favorite holiday is Halloween, we decided to carve pumpkins and made Halloween oreos! It was so much fun! The district got pretty creative with Elder Teare as the head artist on everyone's pumpkins! We had an angel Moroni, Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, a spooky graveyard, tired missionary and a 17 legged dragon! Then we drove home for our interviews with President Amos. He's seriously the best man! The first thing he asked me was "how many ticks have you gotten?" Jajaja because he assured me, when I was with Sister Farris, that my next companion would not "put ticks on me" jajaja. He's hilarious! And when I asked him my questions he always followed it by asking me what my thoughts were because he actually cared and wanted to make sure I understood him. It makes everything seem so simple and straightforward, it's the best! 

On Tuesday we went on a little service goose chase…we were gonna spend some miles (32 out of our roughly 30 daily mileage limit to stay within the mileage allotment given to us each month) to go help out at a church handing out food, but the address took us to the woods…then we checked Facebook and it said that they moved...all the way across town...so we went there...it took us to a school...so we just drove to our apartment...later they messaged us saying their church was 3 miles down the road from the school...but it was too late. Then we got to our apartment in DeRidder to see if the power was back on or if the window had been boarded up yet. The other apartments around us had power so we went into ours and it DID NOT! So we went and asked the apartment manager and she was like "your apartment doesn't have power?!" It was a mess...so we started personal study and I was sitting at my desk and said out loud "well I guess the Lord just wants us to stay in Leesville" and BOOM the power came back on! Then it went off for like 2 seconds and then came back on again. MIRACLE! But I think that was an answer to my statement...the Lord clearly wants us to be in DeRidder. Sadly our other service with Mr. Tony (our referral from crisis cleanup) also fell through because it was raining. So we called a bunch of people and then the Lake Charles Elders in one of the Texas missions called us about delivering 3 Book of Mormons to their member living in our area. It was a miracle though that he only lived 10 minutes away! Then we went to visit the Rine family in our ward that has 5 kids all under the age of 11. We taught them the importance of listening to General Conference (a broadcast event where the prophet and apostles speak to the world) and they loved it! It was so cute and they each had such strong testimonies! They even asked some questions that really made me think...

Wednesday we had district council in Leesville (to help Sister Estes and I with conserving miles)! We had a special meeting with the social media specialists to discuss Facebook and then we had an awesome discussion from Sister John about confidence in ourselves. It was great! For lunch Elder Hales made chicken taco meat (cooked for 10 hours in a crockpot)! It was delicious and the whole district had tacos and Blue Bell ice cream for lunch. It was the best! Then Sister Newby and Sister John were practicing the dance they choreographed for a Facebook video while Elder Teare practiced walking through filming it on his fancy camera (this is what I imagine my brother, Ethan, doing if he serves a mission). This literally took ALL DAY long! Sister Estes and I had to stay just because our rules say that 2 Elders and 2 Sisters can't be alone together (because of feelings jajaja). We just studied and started making this cool Facebook program for our members. Then we ordered pizza for dinner and had a mini dance party. It was so much fun! 

On Thursday our lesson with Ms. Sandra (found through crisis cleanup) fell through when she didn't answer the phone...so we weekly planned and called a billion people to try and get some appointments. Afterwards we tried my Facebook idea! We found someone's post on a cooking page and made their recipe and then messaged them for help on what to do better and stuff. We made Texas sheet cake and it was DELICIOUS! Best missionary activity ever! Just kidding but also...yum! It was also Sister Estes' 17 month mark as a missionary so we ate the cake with Blue Bell mint chocolate chip ice cream in celebration. That night we also watched the Christ child video from the church about the birth of Jesus Christ. It was really cool! Technically it's more of a Christmas video, but it was very touching and cool! I continued to think of little RJ Rine's gospel question...

Friday was a pretty chill day of studies, Facebook and contacting members. Then we had our first dinner appointment post Laura! It was with the Renaud family, this cute young couple with a toddler and little baby! They also had 2 HUGE dogs who were awesome, secretly my favorite part ;). Also their great dane mix TOTALLY looked like my dog, Ripley, back home so that was cool. They made us Taco salad and Reese's peanut butter pie for food :) We got them excited for General Conference (THIS weekend!) and Sister Renaud seemed to love talking with us! Brother Renaud, a convert, was a little quiet during the spiritual thought...but he was also dealing with their crazy kids...but we'll work on it! 

On Saturday we had so many things scheduled: 3 lessons, 1 service project, some crazy stuff! How much of that actually happened? Just one lesson...it was a bit of a rough day. I've also been having a bit of a faith crisis...the whole week I had this big question (since meeting with the Rines) that made me doubt if the church was even true. It snowballed throughout the week to the point where I wondered if I even had a testimony and if I did what was it. During companion study we decided to do a "faith flip" where we say a prayer and then flip to a random place in the scriptures. The verse that we flipped to was Helaman 5:46 in the Book of Mormon which talks about peace. I felt like I was supposed to feel something special when I read it...but I didn't. I felt like I couldn't even feel the spirit and didn't know if I even wanted to. For our one lesson that happened that evening, I let Sister Estes do most of the talking because I didn't know what I could say. Then our district leader called us that night and I had Sister Estes ask him my questions for me...it only made me more confused when he said it wasn't a problem if someone were to believe that way, but I felt like everyone saw it as a problem. But I just had to continue on and act like everything was fine even though I didn't have any truth behind the words of my testimony. 

Sunday we went to church and there were a bunch of new people, so that's exciting. After church we went to Ray's house, a referral from my girl Sister Cottle ;), to help him move his couch. We brought 3 single men in the ward (2 of them just showed up to church that day) to help move it. Then Ray requested for us to say a prayer with him! He ASKED us! So of course we did and then he asked if we had brought "his book" for us a.k.a. The Book of Mormon. His wife that passed away recently and apparently always let the missionaries come over, watched BYUtv and really wanted to join the church, so he was curious about it. Brother Skarstedt (an eager recently returned missionary) even bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon and invited Ray to read it. It was such a cool experience! Back in Leesville we had lunch and I made my own chicken for the first time! Don't worry it was well cooked and pretty good if I do say so myself ;) Then during my studies I felt like I was going in and out of my testimony crisis, it was crazy. I just don't know what I believe or how to feel...

On Monday it was a proselytizing day since transfers are on Tuesday. My transfer news: I'm staying in dead DeRidder and getting a new companion (I don't think Sister Estes and I could have made it through another transfer together), Sister Teague, who was the STL in our Zone so I actually know her. It's also her last transfer, so that's fun. I decided that I needed a priesthood blessing (a blessing given by a priesthood holder, from God to you) and my district leader, Elder Teare came down to Leesville to do it. Another Sister got one too and during hers I was already tearing up and by the time Elder Teare was asking me what I needed, I was full blown crying. I think all I got out was "I've been struggling spiritually. I don't think I even have a testimony. Why am I here?" I was shaking during the entire blessing, but it slowly made me feel a lot better. I was still crying by the end of it, but I felt like I could take the next step forward with faith. Then we went to the Gunoe family's house for dinner. She made DELICIOUS enchilada things with rice and beans. So good! 

This week was kind of all over the place. I struggled A LOT and still am, but I am choosing to put my trust in God and move forward with hope that my questions will be answered and that my testimony will strengthen with time.

Have a blessed week! 

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

Love, 

Sister Johnson

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!

1. Here is my consecrated missionary dog tag we all got at Zone Conference last week, it's pretty cool :)

2. Pday pumpkin carving as a district!

3. The cake we made! It was SO good!!

4. Our apartment's version of "boarding up thewindow"...

5. A picture from one of our daily walks to get outside time and stay sane with Sister John, Sister Estes and Sister Murdoch.

6. Daily walk as the sunset with Sister John and Sister Estes

In The Yellow That's You And Jesus!

 Hola y'all!  

What's up folks? It's been a pretty cool week, nothing too exciting but still cool. :)

Monday was a pretty chill pday (preparation day). With hurricane Sally coming to the eastern part of the mission, we were all on lockdown to within 20 minutes of our apartment. So we just got groceries at Walmart, cleaned our car (hadn't been washed since before Laura…) and called our families. Our lesson with Michael got moved to Tuesday so we did some Facebook finding to finish off the day. 

On Tuesday for service we went to a member's house on base at Fort Polk and helped him clean his house since he was moving. And boy was that the cleanest house I have ever seen! And this is before we came to "clean" it! I aspire to have my future home be as clean as that one! Then we came home, I had a Spanish call with some other missionaries learning Spanish (it's really rough man!! My Spanish has disappeared :/ ) and made some cards for people we teach and members in the ward. Then we had our lesson with Michael! We got to know him better and read some of the Book of Mormon with him. He really connected with what it said about Enos, a prophet in the Book of Mormon. It was great! Then Sister Estes asked him if he wanted to be baptized (I was feeling the spirit but it also felt wrong…) and he said no...of the 2 other times I've invited someone to be baptized, they've never said no...I had no idea what to do! Sister Estes was stumped too! So I just invited him to keep reading the Book Mormon...he still wants to meet with us and had lots of good questions though (some too good that we didn't know how to answer, but we're gonna get our district leader to help us out answering them for our next lesson)! 

Wednesday we received 2 referrals (when people request a missionary visit)! MIRACLE! We've actually been getting a crazy amount of referrals lately, it's just that none of them ever respond to us...but today both of them responded! But didn't continue responding to get appointments...still doing good though. After lunch we embarked to our apartment in DeRidder to grab some things for Zone Conference. When we got there we couldn't take the messiness of the apartment so we deep cleaned for a couple hours. Since the apartment complex hadn't boarded up our window yet, Sister Estes took a cardboard box and cut it up to tape to the window. Then we took the tarp and tacked it up outside the window for better protection. We vacuumed up glass, swept, mopped, cleaned all the dishes/containers of water from when we panicked about the hurricane but didn't have time to empty them before evacuating, etc. It was intense! But we finally started getting the smell of the forest out of the apartment...and then...the power went out...BUT it was a miracle because the dishwasher had just finished and we had cleaned everything we needed power for already! Then we left our nice clean apartment and headed back to Leesville to call it a day. 

Thursday was ZONE CONFERENCE!! (Where a bunch of missionaries gather together for the day to hear from mission leaders about how we can become better missionaries) It was in Alexandria and was awesome. Everyone talked about finding joy/growing during our trials and becoming a more Christ-like missionary. President Amos is seriously HILARIOUS! He made this analogy about driving in a car and going through a yellow light that turns red. He said, in his Opelousas Louisiana born n raised Southern accent, that he'd rather us just stop when it turns yellow to stay in the clear because then "YOU GOOD" but that when we enter the intersection during the yellow light it's "all between you and Jesus"! If that light turns red...eek! Jajaja Basically he just wants us all to be cautious and just obey the standards in the missionary handbook...even classifying lawn mowers as power tools jajaja. Also they brought us all Raising Cane's for lunch! Yum! People in the South sure do love their Cane's man! Then we went to Pineville to go on exchanges (where you switch companions for 24 hours in order to improve as a missionary) with the STL's (Sister Training Leaders). It was strange being back at their apartment without 10 sisters being there with no power...it was nice…

Friday we did our exchanges! I was with Sister Teague and Sister Estes was with Sister Jacobs. We did our studies in the morning and then we made chocolate chip cookies to deliver to the people they are teaching in Pineville. Then we went to a lesson with a recent convert, Ms. Pauline. She was super nice and we read from the Book of Mormon and it really helped her understand more about how God answers prayers. It was awesome. That afternoon we got to join a zoom call touring the John Johnson home in Kirtland Ohio. It was really cool to see the house that Joseph Smith lived in for a while and where he received a bunch of revelation from God. For dinner we went to this fun Mexican/Caribbean restaurant and all got fajita quesadillas and shared a fried ice cream. It was fun. Then we made the long drive back to Leesville to be with our giant quad of 6 sisters...I don't know what that would be called...a sextuple??

On Saturday we had a mission wide zoom call with everyone to do a little training that Elder Bednar wanted our mission to do. It was cool. We ended up driving down to DeRidder to get some stuff and the power is still out and the window is still broken… Then we came back to Leesville to do weekly planning and called a million people to set up appointments for next week. We even called a referral from crisis cleanup who was open to the missionaries and talked with him for 30 minutes! His name is Mr. Tony and we are gonna go help clean up the rest of his yard on Tuesday (even though he doesn't think that women should work...we'll just have to show him that women can work extremely hard!). We even invited him to church (he didn't come because of his work schedule, BUT he said that next Sunday he would!)! Hopefully everything goes well with him next week! :)

Sunday we went to church in Rosepine! This was literally only my second time going to church in this ward and as a missionary in general. And guess what?! I gave a talk! And so did Sister Estes! The number of active members in the ward is apparently so small that they basically just switch off every week having members then missionaries speak...there were 31 people (a bunch of cute young families!) at church...but nevertheless I gave a talk! And it was ok. I was extremely nervous, but now it's over! And I'll probably have to give another one soon :'( Then we filmed a video of Brother Beardsley for Facebook, dropped off some cookies to Ms. Charlotte (who I've still literally never talked to other than over text because they called her while on exchanges) and came home to watch the Sunday live devotional on Facebook! The rest of the day we just studied, called some people from crisis cleanup, had my first missionary correlation meeting (meeting with ward leaders about the people we are teaching, members in need of assistance and what's going on in the ward) in this ward and took a walk. With tropical storm Beta approaching it actually got COLD outside. I repeat COLD in Louisiana!! 68 degrees! 

Overall it's been a good week. Still not back in DeRidder and I'm pretty sure I know the Leesville area better than my own area...Things are moving slowly at the moment, but still going. Also next week is transfers so that's CRAZY! But I'm continuing to learn more and more about what it means to be a more Christ-like missionary or better yet a better disciple of Jesus Christ. I literally have SO much still to learn and to progress in, but I'm excited to keep learning and growing in the gospel because it's freaking awesome man! I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that Heavenly Father loves each and every one of you and that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for every individual to ever walk the Earth. And I love sharing these truths with others!!

Have a blessed week! 

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

Love,

Sister Johnson

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!

1. Sister Estes made a make shift window out of cardboard and tape on the inside with a tarp held up by push pins on the outside. 

2. Cute pic Elder Oswald got of me eating my salad at lunch during Zone conference! jajaja

3. Alexandria Zone COVID-19 safe pic

4. District picture with Sister Amos!

5. Silly district picture with Sista Amos because she's the best! 

6. Companion picture! 

7. Comp close up picture of Sister Estes and I 

8. District picture with President Amos! 

9. Exchanges with the Pineville Sisters

10. Silly mirror pics while on exchanges

11. About to eat our quesadillas with Sister Jacobs and Sister Teague on exchanges

12. Second time at church with Sister Estes!

Service All The Day Long

Hola y'all! 

So I'm still in Leesville or as my Grandpa called it WAY back in the day when he was stationed at Fort Polk (crazy right?!?!) "Fleasville" because no one ever stays in Leesville (and maybe there are fleas too?) jajaja. Just waiting on my apartment window to be fixed, but with the hurricane drama nothing has really been very reliable so…we'll just have to see what next week brings! But on to this week!!

Monday was a very strange pday...we had service at God's food box, handing out food and other supplies as people drove through the line, from 9am-noon but those count as proselyting hours...so our pday went until 9pm and our proselyting hours got moved from the normal 6pm-9pm to 9am-noon. AND the entire district was able to come down to DeRidder and help serve! It was exciting! They even fed us deer chili for lunch (from the extra hot meals they had)...it was my first time eating deer...it was interesting...not sure if I'd do it again, but it was cool. Then we all went to New Llano park in Leesville for second lunch…MORE DEER CHILI! Because they gave us all the leftovers! While there we met Matt and Brittany and their dog Jake.  We literally talked with them for HOURS! We talked to them about their lives, gave them some deer chili, and the dog too jajaja. Then Matt asked about our stance on marijuana, Elder Teare was able to answer his question using the Bible and then we even got to talk about Jesus Christ and our unique message of the Book of Mormon! It was great! However our Elder Teare gets really excited about everything and kind of went very deep into the gospel...not exactly the best thing to do when you just meet someone, but he answered all of their questions so that's good. Then the district played ultimate frisbee in the 100 degree heat...it was super fun though! Hot and sweaty and gross, but fun! Then the Nachitoches Elders were making a Facebook video where Elder Hanks gets covered in food and stuff in his nice suit and we all got to help throw eggs and mysterious liquids at him. It was some serious district bonding this pday. They are the best! 

On Tuesday we decided to get outside and take a walk which was very nice, humid but still nice:) Our lesson with our referral, Dusti, fell through when he didn't answer even though he was super excited for it that morning! We even think he blocked us on Facebook! Rough! After dinner we got a call from the Orlando Florida Elders about a referral named Michael. He sounds awesome and reads from the Book of Mormon everyday!! MIRACLE! We are having a hand off lesson on Friday! AHHH! I haven't taught in so long! Scary! 

Wednesday was different than usual...we moved district council to 10am instead of 11am and then we all went to do service at the fairgrounds in Leesville together. After that we drove to DeRidder and helped an older woman named Ms. Kay, clean up her yard. Then it started raining so we said we'd be back the next day. She was so nice! She even gave us money for dinner! We all went to domino's for pizza. Wow our district spends A LOT of time together with all of this hurricane service...it's cool though. 

On Thursday we did lots of service. In the morning we went back over to Ms. Kay's house and she had us weed her garden...as a part of hurricane cleanup??? It was very strange, but we got to pray with her and she gave us rainbow sherbet! Then we skirted on over to the fairgrounds in Leesville to do service there for a few hours and they gave us chili cheese dogs for lunch. Afterwards we went to the church for weekly planning and then came home and had dinner. Pretty good day :)

Friday we went down to DeRidder to visit Ms. Ursula and her husband Bruce.  We got to talk with them more and they are literally so sweet. They told us all about their cats and kittens that used to be strays but then became indoor cats. I just love hearing her speak in an Irish accent! They told us that this can be our second home. Bruce is from Wisconsin and kept telling us why his state is the best jajaja. He definitely opened up more to us when it was just Sister Estes and I versus the whole district having sacrament meeting in his living room. At the end we got to share a Bible verse and Bruce was like "that's it?!" So we might be able to actually prepare a bit more of a lesson for him, which was quite surprising but yay!! Then we drove to Leesville to help at the fairgrounds since they close up on Saturday. It was super great because a couple of the people that we had made friends with asked us more gospel questions and our district leader even taught them a lesson privately! Then they were so excited to give us their contact info to stay in touch! MIRACLE! Back at the apartment our lesson with Ms. Charlotte fell through...oof. But then we had a hand-off lesson with the Orlando, Florida Elders with Michael our referral. They had been teaching him for the past 3 months, but since Michael lives on Fort Polk we made the transition for us to teach him. Michael is awesome! He has such a great testimony of Jesus Christ! Sister Estes and I both felt like we should invite him to be baptized during the lesson and kept thinking the Elders were going to on like 3 separate occasions! But then the timing just wasn't right and it was awkward...but we'll see about the next lesson ;) We finally have like a solid person we're teaching! MIRACLE! That night we also had a Zone Zoom call with the missionaries in our Zone to build our teaching skills. 

On Saturday morning the Leesville Sisters had an 8am baptism that the whole district was invited to! His name is Christian and is our age, so it was really cool for him to be around all us missionaries. What was so special about his baptism was that since the power was out in the Leesville building, they got special permission to do it at Toledo Bend, a lake nearby. It was really cool to see how they did baptisms way back when in lakes and rivers, just like when Jesus Christ was baptized! Then we spent the day doing service! Whoop whoop! We were able to get 2 work orders done with our team of missionaries a.k.a. our district plus President McKay and his son Caleb. At the first one we helped a woman named Ms. Sandra who was so grateful and was actually curious about our church! So we got her phone number!! MIRACLE! The other work order we got done was in Leesville and the other Sisters got her phone number as well! MIRACLES EVERYWHERE! Then we headed home for the day and had dinner where Sister Estes made us all Mole which was good. 

Sunday we continued doing service with "the A team" of our district of missionaries, President McKay and his son Caleb who is about to start his mission next month and Christian who got baptized on Saturday! We did like 5 work orders today in Leesville! It was awesome! We got to meet so many cool people and be able to serve them! And everyone kept calling me a hard worker even the firefighter! I felt pretty cool jajaja ;) As we finished up, getting ready to have lunch, we were deciding where to go that would have AC. One couple we talked to said that they had keys to their church building and that we could eat there, so we did! They gave us a bunch of snacks and we even got to sing some hymns with them in their church building! Afterwards we drove to the Leesville building to have our own mini sacrament meeting with just the district and Christian. It was super cool and we even had a spiritual discussion about the Book of Mormon. Christian even shared his testimony and it's like he's been a member of the church his entire life. He has such a strong testimony of everything, it's amazing! Then we came home and watched the Young Adult Face to Face broadcast with Elder and Sister Rasband (event where this apostle answers questions for young adults). 10/10 recommend. It was really good and talked about the recent Restoration Proclamation about Christ's New Testament church restored on the Earth today, the prophet Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and revelation. Also fun fact: that night I counted up my bug bites from just Sunday and my total was 38 bug bites on just my legs...fun...welcome to the South! 

Gosh dang y'all! My testimony grows little by little every single day, it's crazy man! I've had so many experiences on my mission so far that have built up my testimony so much! I grow closer and closer to my Savior Jesus Christ by reading The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ every day. It truly does help build our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and I know that it contains the word of God. I know that by following the example of Jesus Christ can bring us true joy because I have seen it in my life and in the lives of others. I just love joy, the gospel and the Book of Mormon so much!!

Have a blessed week! 

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

Love, 

Sister Johnson

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!

1. P-day with the district! Sister Estes, Elder Genda and I getting ready to cover Elder Hanks in food for a Facebook video jajaja
2. The district at domino's for dinner after service
3. Me doing my organizing job at the fairgrounds handing out meals :)
4. The fairgrounds service team!!
5. Companion selfie on the dock at the lake for Christian's baptism. 
6. Christian's baptism in a lake!!!
7. Elder hanks demonstrating the size of spiders here in Louisiana
8. got to hold a baby snake we found while doing service on Sunday in a man named Ari's (short for Ariel) backyard

5 Months

Hola y'all! 

Dude I can't even believe that I have to start telling people I've been out for 5 months! Ahhhhhh that's crazy man! I don't even know what I'm doing!!! But enjoy this email ;)

Monday was our first full day in Many. We got special permission to sleep in until 7:30am and it was wonderful. We chilled out and went to Nachitoches for district pday since the Sisters were all in Many and the Elders (Elder Teare, Elder Genda, Elder Hanks and Elder Hales) were all in Nachitoches. The town was basically like a mini New Orleans, at least that's what Sister Estes said...we got to visit a cool historic site on the river front and eat Popeye's bought for us by Elder Teare's mom. It was lots of relaxing fun, we even played Uno! Then we went to Walmart where basically everything was gone…no produce, no meat, no eggs, no cheese, etc. It was pretty sad. Then we all drove the 40 minutes back to Many and deep cleaned that disgusting Elder apartment for the rest of the day. It was so gross, just imagine teenage boys living there for 9 YEARS with no real supervision...gross. 

On Tuesday we were on a hunt for service and basically things to do out of our area. At the end of personal study, there was a knock on our door from Ms. Amber, one of our neighbors who was moving out. She asked for help and we were able to serve her by helping her move all her stuff! MIRACLE! Then we walked down to the Sheriff's department in search of service. The dude there directed us to Brookshire's to help them out. We went there and they directed us to city hall for service. So we went there and it was closed...oof. So we called some people and decided to go to DeRidder after lunch. We went to a warehouse and it took a sec to find the people...but they didn't need us anymore that day...so we drove to Leesville to a church handing out food...they didn't need anymore help...BUT they directed us to 2 places that needed help. The first place...was closed. The second place was...OPEN and in need of help! So we served there bagging and handing out meals to people for a few hours then headed home, got Pizza Hut and ate Blue Bell for my 5 months as a missionary! :)

Wednesday was district council! We all met up at the Nachitoches church building and had a mission wide zoom call with President Amos discussing safety with crisis cleanup on the weekends. Literally 3 zones of missionaries are gonna be coming to the Rosepine command center to help out doing work orders! That's so exciting! Then we went to lunch at Little Caesar's, came back to the church and discussed the whole living situation and working our areas...basically to be determined later since only one set of missionaries are actually in their area still jajaja. Then we drove back to Many and all took naps because none of us have gotten any actual good sleep in a LONG time. Afterwards we decided to pray about our situation because Leesville got power back, but they don't know for how long...so we had to figure out if we were going there or maybe only some of us...ahhhhhh. I got a really strong prompting that we needed to wait, so we decided to wait until Saturday to make a final decision...then we all took a walk in the cemetery across the street and all had a comp. study. Then we came home and Sister Estes made shredded chicken with beans and corn and garlic bread. Yum. Sister Murdock even got a lesson with a man from Chile so we can practice Spanish. She is originally assigned to Chile and is one transfer younger than me so we'll see how that goes on Friday! The Sister Newby and Sister Estes wrestled. Sister Estes won all 3 rounds...that's my comp! 

Thursday was kind of a mess to be honest jajaja. We were showering 6 sisters in one shower in one hour...surprisingly it's been working over the past few days. Then during daily planning Ms. Sarah from the DeRidder sheriff's department called us asking us to help out at the warehouse (the one we went to on Tuesday) to deliver hot meals to people in the evening...since we are crunched on miles, living over an hour out of our area, we said we'd look at our schedule and get back to her. At first I was like "there is NO way considering our mile allotment!" then we went to the car, did some miles math and said a prayer and I felt so strongly that this was an answer to prayers, someone was literally asking US to do service instead of desperately searching for service to do. After many prayers Sister Estes and I decided to go. Then Ms. Sarah texted us and asked how many vehicles we were bringing...just one...then she asked if we'd be able to deliver 200 MEALS…so we asked the other sisters to come and help, said many prayers, called some people and decided that us and Sister Newby and Sister Hansen would go down with both cars and all of our stuff to stay in the Leesville apartment. Then Sister Murdock and Sister John would take the Many Elders' truck to bring their mattresses and all the Elders would stay in Many. So we packed up our homeless suitcases and booked it to Leesville, dropped our stuff and went to the warehouse in DeRidder. As we entered the city of DeRidder there was a small storm that had flooded the roads, even more than the hurricane! We had to drive through it and take side roads to get around the big flooding spots, but we finally got to the warehouse. When we got there the hot meals weren't ready yet so they fed us hamburgers for lunch and we helped unload some 18 wheelers full of various things. Then the sheriff's department gave us the address to the church we would drop off the meals to...it was 9 miles outside of our mission, near Lake Charles...so we called President Amos and he said no to the Leesville sisters...then we called President Amos and he said yes...very reluctantly, but still a yes! So we did it! It was strange, the damage got worse and worse the farther we went, but we were in, dropped the meals to the people at the Pentecostal church and left. They were very grateful and it just amazes me how little I can do to help brighten someone's day and serve them. Then we went back to the warehouse and organized a bunch of random canned foods and they fed us Jambalaya for dinner. They were all very grateful for our help:) Then since Leesville got power back we moved to Leesville! However their apartment manager is stingy about 2 people per apartment, so the quad of Sisters actually have 2 apartments across the hall...this meant that Sister Estes and I had to split up and each sleep in a different apartment...it's weird...

On Friday we actually had some normal study time and weekly planning, then headed down to the Rosepine church building in the afternoon to unload another 18 wheeler of stuff. After unloading everything for a few hours, Sister Estes and I took some MRE's and water to deliver to someone who was interested in our message. Her name is Linda and she was super sweet and old and we couldn't escape without getting a hug from her. She was hesitant at first, but by the end she really warmed up to us and was open to having us visit sometime. We were gonna deliver to another person, but Sister Murdock and I had a lesson with a Chilean man...so we went back to the Leesville apartment, I changed and we called him. I was very nervous about it, but he didn't answer. Then we were watching the lightning storm outside when a huge lightning bolt struck the power out, then it came back on, then went off and then on and finally off again. That's when he called us back, but the service was bad and the call ended...oof. We were having an electricity struggle as it came on and off constantly, we were all basically on the verge of tears if the power stayed off permanently. So for our own sanity, we started walking around outside in the cool air. Eventually the power came back on! Woohoo! So we had some Blue Bell and went to sleep. 

Saturday we basically ran out of food since on pday the Walmart we went to had nothing and we left half our stuff in the Many apartment because it wouldn't stay cold during the drive...honestly it's been a struggle knowing where my next meal is coming from, but it's ok. For breakfast I had some stale cereal the church gave us last weekend...yum. Then we went to Walmart to buy work boots, since President Amos wants us to use an "abundance of caution" while out serving. All the missionaries split up into different work crews and even missionaries from outside our district came to help! Sister Estes and I worked on one house for the whole day! The old woman had evacuated, but there were like 3 huge trees that had fallen on her house and broke part of the roof. She also had a shed that was completely destroyed. We worked there from 10am until 5pm, taking a lunch break where they gave us these nice sack lunches! MIRACLE! We had to stop because there was a storm, but luckily they had just finished putting a tarp over the roof! There was rain and lightning and thunder that sounded like a gunshot and shook your whole body with how close it was! It was super cool! Then we headed back to the command center in the pouring rain and flooding. We got to eat dinner, red beans and rice, with our district provided by the members there. MIRACLE! It was a great day! 

On Sunday we drove to Rosepine to work at the command center again. We went to this house with 5 other missionaries from the Denham Springs area that came up with some members. We went to this house with an older couple that both have cancer and couldn't get out there to do the work themselves. There were also like 2 trees fallen on their house, so that's difficult...the lady, Ms. Valorey, was so nice and believes in Christ so much and has such a strong testimony of relying on him since she has battled cancer 5 times now! She is one strong woman! We even got her phone number! This was the first house we finished before lunch! So we headed to the command center for a new work order. We met up with our district and President McKay (a counselor in the mission presidency) to do more work orders. We went to like 4 different houses in search of someone to help, but each house we got to looked perfectly fine...then we finally found a trailer with a HUGE tree on it that we were able to help with. We couldn't get the whole tree gone, but a lot of it on the roof and branches on the ground we were able to get. :) Then we went to the command center to have dinner (chicken sandwiches) at the church and have a mini sacrament meeting for Sister Estes and I since we were gone when the district did it in the morning. It was very nice of them. Our district leader, Elder Teare, also gave Sister Hansen a priesthood blessing. It was just so cool to be there and witness how the Lord speaks through His servants. At one point during the blessing Elder Teare got super emotional and so did the other Elders in the circle, it was super touching and I just kept thinking about how those couldn't be Elder Teare's words...he was even saying stuff about her that he didn't know! The spirit man! It's so cool! Afterwards we went to deliver some food and water to Dusti, our referral, but he wasn't home and the family there didn't really need much help...it was kind of awkward...then on the way home Sister Estes was talking about a woman  Ms. Melissa, who lived in the RV we passed and was super interested in the gospel a few months ago, but they never got her contact info and since we can't "knock doors without being expected" they had never came back. So I suggested we ask her if she needed food or water, like we've been doing with a bunch of people the past few weeks, so we turned around and did it. We knocked and she was home! MIRACLE! And she needed food! So we were able to give her food and get her phone number because she's still interested and even said she's been reading the Book of Mormon! What a great end to the day! 

Well let me just say that service is amazing. I know that as I strive to listen to the spirit, I receive blessings. This week I was homeless and was slowly running out of food, but I put my trust in God and He provided. I know that He can do that for everyone that puts their trust in Him and chooses to rely on Him. I have seen it work in my life and I KNOW that it can work for y'all too. I love being a missionary, even though being a missionary is kind of strange right now...I love it and can't wait to see wait the next 13 months have in store for me :))

Have a blessed week! 

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

Love, 

Sister Johnson

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles (I have no bike...sadness…)

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

Pictures!!!
1. Pday in Nachitoches!!
2. Getting a picture with the Desert semi truck of supplies! 
3. Action shot of us unloading the truck;)
4. Smiling through my mask with Sister estes and Sister Murdoch! 
5. Sister Hansen and I taking a water break 
6. The other half of what used to be our building...after the tree fell on it...
7. Sweating while we work! 
8. Work order #1 done for Ms. Valorey!
9. Missionary group photo while we searched for more service to do
10. Giant tree that fell on someone's home
11. District photo in front of said tree…
12. District photo in front of fallen tree part 2
13. Picking up some sticks with Sister Estes :)
14. Photo with the family we were helping out
15. President McKay's son, Caleb, an honorary member of our district with his phone he left on our car after we drove away...