I Almost Died…Twice This Week

Hola y'all! 

 

Monday we found out that missionaries might be able to get the COVID-19 vaccine soon! I am very anxious to gteh that as soon as possible! And then there are people out there who are wearing Blue Bell lids for masks lol, straight we saw a guy in Walmart today wearing like a pint of Blue Bell lid as a face mask, I died. We hung out as a newish district at the West Monroe building, minus the Bastrop Sisters who kinda came and left a couple of times. It was fun though, we played games and had Chick-Fil-A. Then as a quad we went to Eskimoes and I got a king cake concrete (it’s like a blizzard with king cake since its Mardi Gras season). Also I had been talking to Sister Ward about missionaries traveling and all since she recently went to try and get her Portugal Visa and is currently waiting for it to be sent in the mail on time because her permanent reassignment date is April 3 (which probably means that is mine too). So I started freaking out and talked to my mom about it and decided to email someone about it just in case. After all our pday stuff we called Anthony who had some questions about a verse and then about if the light of Christ was the Holy Ghost…so some pretty deep questions. But he just got distracted on some tangent and then his roomates came in and were like “oooooo” at the fact that he was video calling 2 girls (us). We kept trying to talk with him and share scriptures but he literally just kept getting distracted by everything going on around him so eventually we just finished up. 

On Tuesday morning we had quite the morning so let me just describe for y’all everything that went down. We woke up so hot and sweaty so Sister York and I just wanted to go outside for exercise time. I kinda had this thought to exercise inside but I was like “nah we finna go outside” and Sister York decided to not bring her phone either. Then as I closed the front door I had the thought that I should lock it, but we never lock it in the mornings while out for 30 minutes of exercise and Sister York didn't have the keys on her so we just left at 6:50am, leaving the front door unlocked. This morning Sister York was very decisive about which way to go on our walk (a little unusual since we are usually taking our time to decide which loop we wanna do) so it was actually faster than usual. Then as we walked back to our apartment, there was a police car in the parking lot and I was like ooo the police as a joke. Then as we got closer there was a second police car in front of our apartment. Weird. Then we got even closer and I saw Sister Angilau and I freaked out, I couldn't see Sister Ward yet so my mind started jumping to crazy thoughts like she got kidnapped or whatever. Then I saw her behind everything because she is just a short 5’2” woman. There were 2 police officers there questioning them. Sister Angilau turned to us walking up and asked if we had just seen a black man on our walk…we didn't see anyone…then they started describing a man to the officer and Sister Ward said he was ducking behind bushes looking into our kitchen window?! WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?! Then they finished and we went inside and they told us everything that happened. So now here is their story from their perspective after we left at 6:50am. A few minutes after we left someone started banging on our front door and they thought it was just us, that we had forgotten something and were trying to get back in or whatever. But then the knocking just kept going so Sister Ward walked downstairs and checked the kitchen window first to try and see who it was at the front door and made eye contact with a black man (it was also dark at like 6:50am so she couldn't really see him). She asked who it was and they didn't answer. Sister Angilau came downstairs at this point. Sister Ward put her ear up to the door to try and listen for a response and then the door knob started turning as the tried opening the door (the door that I DID NOT LOCK but they couldn't tell if it was locked or not). Sister Ward grabbed the door knob and braced the door with her body (imagine 5’2” Sister Ward holding the door closed from this mysterious stranger trying to get in) while Sister Angilau hid behind the laundry door in the living room calling our District Leader, Elder Cameron, in Farmerville who told her to call our Ward Mission Leader since he actually lives nearby and can do something about it. So Sister Angilau called Brother Holt as the stranger was continuing to band on our front door for like 30 minutes, but Brother Holt was “too busy” to come over and help!! So she called 911 and about 2 seconds after they heard someone banging on the door they heard the ding ding of our doorbell, so Sister Angilau asked the 911 operator she was on the phone with if that was the police. They opened the door and it was the cops but none of them had seen the stranger banging on the door! Wack! Then Sister York and I showed up only a couple minutes after this! Apparently they had tried calling us too but Sister York hadn’t brought her phone and mine couldn’t receive anything without her hotspot so they totally thought we might be in trouble too since the stranger came knocking right after we left. It was insane that our apartment was almost broken into with them inside of it! Then we called President Amos and he told us to get to know our neighbors better and get their phone numbers too in case of an emergency. After that as we all got ready for the day we were all kind of on edge, especially Sister Ward and Sister Angilau were pretty paranoid. So after I showered I went into their room to talk and Sister Ward saw someone outside our door (their room is right above the kitchen and front door) at like 8am so we all went downstairs quietly, FREAKING out. We couldn't see anyone from the kitchen window and then they started banging on the door. I died. I felt like we should ask who it is but everyone was too scared. I think it was just a lady who knocked and left but we were all pretty freaked out especially Sister Angilau. I tried being with them a bit more that morning, we even escorted them to their car at 9am. The rest of the morning was pretty chill and normal. Our lesson with the Williams fell through because the boys were taking naps lol. So we called some people and then walked to the church for some stuff. We found a room to do our phone lesson with Erin about Daniel 6 with Daniel and the lions den. She seemed very distracted though so I don't know how effective it really was :/  Then we went out to the lobby to wait for Akila and the Poulsens who were joining our lesson. Sadly Akila never showed up….but Bishop Jones did and President Ross who told us that Casey and Thomas Temple passed their Melchizedek priesthood interviews! Woohoo! Then they went to set apart Brother Poulsen as the new Elders Quorum President. Bishop had his own little meeting with us to tell us about our people and then the Poulsens took us out for dinner! We met at Cormier's so that we could all get some good Southern food since they hadn't had any yet, being from SoCal. It was cute and had outdoor picnic tables. The waitress helped us (she said she ate 5lbs of crawfish alone) but we got 10lbs for everyone (Brother and Sister Poulsen, their teenage son Mason and Sister York and I) and 2lbs shrimp. Then the manager's daughter came out to show us how to eat crawfish jaja. You pinch the tail and twist, peel it and eat. Then you break open the head and suck it out if you are feeling brave. It was pretty good. None of us were very good at the sucking head part though...not a fan of eating brains man. But the little baby tail was good. I ate a lot and made jokes with Mason who was sitting across from me, it felt like my little bro was there man (: I ate some shrimp, died of spice, twas a good time. Now I can say I’ve had the southern experience of a crawfish boil! Then we came home and had stewies with the Bastrop sisters which was good. We got them to open up a little more which was awesome sine we’ll be spending another transfer together. We shared what we've learned on our missions and what we want to stay changed when we go home. For me, I have learned/found my own testimony and I never want to doubt my faith again. 

Wednesday morning we made the group decision to all stay inside for exercise since the other sisters were still a little freaked out (and for good reason). During our studies Robert, the always high maintenance guy, came over to fix our AC since it felt like hurricane season again in our apartment and our floor was like a giant river puddle. Apparently our pipes were frozen with some BIG chunks of snow/ice!!! Woah! He came back a few times after that to check up. Later there were some tornado warnings and even a tornado watch so we tried to stay inside but all of our lessons fell through except for our one with Sadie. WIth Sadie we read Matthew 11:28-30 and a talk by Cristina B. Franco "The Healing Power of Jesus Christ" which was good. Then we had stewies with the El Dorado Sisters which were good. Sister Holloway pointed out how the youth really hold a ward together by taking care of the old people and doing all these things and when a ward doesn’t have any youth it sucks. No wonder President Nelson has been focusing on the rising generation and youth. Sister Munford always claims to be doing good but then tells us about everything except for her like today she told us about her brother who is 16 and doesn't have any interests and how it’s ridiculous that he doesn’t have things figured out yet and how he HAS to go on a mission...oof. 

Thursday morning we went for a walk outside for exercise and no one almost died this time. We had a vehicle training meeting over zoom with a kahoot presentation. Elder Eckles (one of the senior couples over cars) even put in some memes lol. For lunch our entire quad went to the Daily Harvest and we talked to a bunch of ward members who were there (no real surprise since the Rennicks own the place). Brother Young told us some wack stories of people being rude in temple and crazy church members...no wonder he's inactive man. Then we came home and weekly planned for 4 hours. During comp inventory Sister York said I'm judgemental which I know cuz I was judging all the sisters’ areabooks for not being perfectly up to date and full, I just don't know how to be ok with taking improvement one step at a time. 

On Friday morning at 2:45am the other Sisters came into our room, woke us up and said they just heard someone knocking on the door like 4 times but not as intense as it was on Tuesday. I was barely awake and they were already calling 911. Bruh. Then the policeman flippin knocks on the door...only to freak us out even more...yelling LAPD!! He said they've been getting calls about car alarms and crap around here. He suggested we get a camera set up and that they'll have some more patrols coming around our area. He stuck around in his car for a while afterwards too which was good for Sister Angilau cuz she was freaking out! Once we all actually woke up at 6:30am, I stayed with Sister Angilau downstairs so she wouldn't be alone while everyone else was getting ready. We had our first District Council of the transfer and it was quite good. Elder Baxter was the only one who could play the piano so that was nice. Elder Baxter, our new District Leader, was very quick about everything, get it done kinda style. He gave the discussion on "doctrine" and anti stuff. He had us play a game where we had to back up the doctrine with Book of Mormon scriptures and see which team could find scriptures the fastest which was fun and I actually got a couple of them!! Then Elder Elder gave his refinement and might have thought it meant something different because he was like “I'm still figuring this out but this is all I have”...aw he's just learning I and wanted to be like there there *head pat* it's gonna be alright. Then as we left to get food (Farmerville and West Monroe brought food) I said to the Sisters "just make sure you're not alone with the Elders" as we left (because when we got there the Elders had entered the building when it was just them so I wanted to make sure they remembered) and we got in the car and they hadn't left the building yet…I was high key stressed man then they came on out with their salads and sat on the floor. During District lunch it was super fun telling stories and stuff and it just wasn’t awkward like our last district even though only 2 people changed…I don’t know how that works but it's really nice now. When we got back home I started my language study. Sister York asked me if it looked like Sister Young looked sad or something like she was crying in the car when we got back from Chick-Fil-A?? And I was like yeah…so we messaged them and they asked to do a quick call. I was thinking maybe someone in her family passed away or she was so attached to Elder Cameron lol. They ask about visiting someone in rehab and what not, then Sister Young was like I guess I'll share. She was like "someone made a comment" about us not being alone with the Elders (in my head I was like that was me, shoot!) and she felt like she knows the standards and wasn't tryna be apostate or anything. I felt so bad so I told her that I knew I was the one that made that comment and that I was sorry and that I do trust them and their knowledge of the standards and stuff and that we could do better to wait for them to leave before we leave. Sister York stepped in and said some stuff too, then it seemed ok so we moved on back to the rehab thing then ended the call. As soon as the call was over, I started BALLING my eyes out! This has been my struggle the whole last transfer, just tryna figure out how to correct people and stuff as an STL.  I felt like Sister Young hates me now and that I COULD NOT do this STL thing anymore. Sister York was trying to find some scriptures but couldn't find the reference (as usual lol) and then put them down and was like "look at me...you can't". That was rough to hear. She continued saying she can’t be an STL either and that we have to be Christlike leaders and Christ gave us grace and mercy so I can give that to people too. The sisters can get a grace period for leaving the building and not everything has to be super exact right now, following the spirit of the law kinda thing (basically not the way I was raised by Sister Farris lol). This went on for the next like 2 hours. We read the standards about what an STL does, Sister York made me pick my top 3 roles an STL does and we started the Christlike attribute activity too before we had to go to the Temples. It was helpful since I have literally been feeling so inadequate as an STL and like all the sisters under my stewardship are not doing everything right and that is my fault but I don’t know how to fix it.  Anyways we had a good lesson at the Temple’s house. We talked about Casey serving a mission since he is our age, the MTC, mission papers, language assignments and all that good stuff. We discussed the diligence and obedience Christlike attributes from PMG. I connected them to the armor of God like the spiritual thought Sister Young shared in DC. Betty shared that Brittany is in an abusive relationship, Dakota, her husband, is controlling and put his hands on her once, doesn't let her leave the house and she doesn’t even have a driver's license. OOF it was even worse than we thought! We don’t know how to help with that situation but we will definitely keep reaching out to Brittany with love. Once we got back home President Amos called to talk to us about safety. He said that we would be sleeping over in West Monroe tonight, they’d get the Farmerville Elders to stay in our Monroe apartment to monitor the situation for a few days and as he said this I was like “this is way excessive man”. Also we only have 2 good air mattresses and I don't want the Elders in our apartment (Elder Elder just broke his arm biking anyways). So I said something and spoke up, President was like, are you sure you are feeling the spirit on this and it is safe and I was like “yeah” so it ended up being just the Bastrop Sisters who left and Sister York and I would stay. Then Bastrop started packing up, also Sister Angilau has apparently been on her period now for like one month so she is pretty stressed from a lot of things and this was just pushing her over the edge. I started feeling doubts about my decision to stay and Sister York was like "I'm doing whatever you're doing cuz at Nashaun’s you felt good when I didn’t and it was ok". I guess I'm getting better at listening to the spirit y’all! I felt like it would be ok to stay here and then Bastrop left and I started freaking out man (cuz we were all alone). So Sister York decided to barricade the apartment jaja. We put the couch in front of back door, gerryrigged a table stool contraption in front of the front door so it couldn't open all the way, put balloons (from Sister Ward’s birthday last week) everywhere to make noise if someone came in and armed ourselves with frying pans and “sister bars” (the bike bars that you put over sister/female bikes so that they stay on the bike rack). LOL. We slept in the Bastrop room too for better hearing since they are right above the front door. I was a little jumpy but Sister York said I was asleep so fast and while she was journaling she heard a noise, went to the door then realized it was coming from behind her and it was me breathing. I slept pretty good though not gonna lie. 

Saturday morning we woke up and no one had knocked on our door in the wee hours of the morning. So Sister Ward and Sister Angilau came home and were just so talkative so I talked with them for a while before daily planning with Sister York. Also during my personal study I decided to actually study up on the question I’d been having lately about prophets back then and Lehi and if it was ok to have more than one prophet on the earth at a time. It turned out to be an awesome study! Suddenly everything clicked! In my prayer I felt that God was VERY aware of me, my question, my personal challenges and was there answering my question on HIS time. It was pretty sick and I cried some tears of joy (: That afternoon we went over to Sister Wilson’s house, she is a member from the Bastrop branch who just moved into the Monroe ward, to help her move boxes/unpack. I was following Sister York into each room when she moved boxes to maintain “sight and sound of my companion” and Sister Wilson was like "are you so new that you have to follow her everywhere" and I was like nah missionaries have to stay within sight and sound because I will straight up explain my obedience, no matter how silly it looks. Then she said she wants to cook for us but the Bastrop members warned the missionaries to NEVER take food from her because it is not clean…oof. After dinner, in our own apartment, President Amos called us to check in on our situation and talked to us about getting a ring camera setup so we could see what was going on outside. He really does care for each one of his missionaries! We also called our apartment manager, Freddie, who is awesome. He gave us some apartment hacks and told us to call him at any hour if we have a problem. He explained that on Tuesday an old lady escaped a nearby mental institution and went around knocking on everyone’s doors LOL then on Friday he explained that it was probably just someone who was at the wrong apartment. It was nice to have an answer about what happened although I don’t know which version is worse, a strange man trying to break in or a crazy lady escaped from a mental hospital jaja 

On Sunday we were running a little late so we decided to drive to church and the Williams even beat us there!! And Larry was there too, he was being shown how the sacrament works so that he can bless it! The Poulsens even invited Larry to sit with them! Since we zoom the sacrament meeting, the talks went first and then we turn the zoom off for sacrament. I literally almost cried when Larry blessed the water with Brother Poulsen up there on the stand. It is so amazing to have taught Larry, seen him get baptized, receive the Aaronic priesthood and now have the opportunity to bless the sacrament! Seeing one of God’s children progress along the covenant path is just so cool! *Insert tears of JOY! After church we were having another one of our lessons with the Williams and had invited the Poulsens because Mason is around the same age as Maddox. Although it was just Sister Poulsen that came…it was about the gospel and we had these little cards where each one went along with a station that we were gonna have each Poulsen be in charge of. It ended up working out great though! The boys all loved it and by the end of it Ammon was wanting to read scriptures out loud and even Maddox read something and answered one of our questions! Progress! We are getting them to open up and talk to us! Then of course Eli wanted to do everything! Bishop even popped in at the end for a minute and I felt prompted to set a date with them for baptism, so I did! Sister Williams is gonna check with her sister though because she wants her to be there! How cute! Then later that afternoon Sister York and I went to visit Sister Wicklund. Sister York had been there before and tried to warn me about how it wasn’t the cleanest home but she also wouldn’t tell me everything…which was confusing until I actually entered her house…we were going over there to have a lesson with her and when we first walked in I was like it’s not too gross in here, there was some dirt tracks in the floor, your classic smoke smell, as well as a kitty litter smell. We sat in her living room and were talking with Sister Wicklund for like 10 minutes when I started hearing this squeaking noise coming from inside the walls? And then I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a giant black thing scurry down the hallway. It. Was. Huge. Like an entire foot long, maybe more! After that as we talked I could not take my eyes off that hallway. I saw 2 more run by and then one super fat, slow one walk by to confirm my fear; rats. They were EVERYWHERE! I could hear them running around IN the walls! I saw a few rat heads poke out of holes in the walls. All while her stupid cat just sat there. She explained how there was a flood here in Monroe and the church’s Mormon helping hands volunteers came out and stripped like 2-3 feet of drywall all around the edge of the house to get rid of the mold but never came back to put it up so that’s when the rats came. She is too old and poor to be able to do anything about it and has reached out to the Bishop and has gotten money on several occasions (she is very inactive and has a smoking problem) but just not enough to fix it all? Once she finally admitted to all the rats, as I’m sure she saw my eyes following them everywhere, she showed us her kitchen and more damage from the storm including many cracks going from the floors to the ceiling. I think she was doing this in hopes that us, missionaries with no money, would fix it. Apparently this was her “rat room”. I even saw a rat climb up a pile of junk, stare at me for a hot minute and scurry off. It was huge and somehow avoided all the poop on the floor. Sister Wicklund is too scared that her cat will die from the rat poison too so there is no real solution (other than literally tearing the whole house down at this point). I kept imagining the scene in Ratatouille with the old lady with the gun who shoots the ceiling and all the rats come falling down, I was 94% sure that same thing was gonna happen at any moment with the 20+ rats in this house. Then we went back in the living room, saw another giant rat, she smoked and explained how her friend stole from her and all this horrible stuff and how she is really mad at the Bishop for not doing more for her…oof. Then we came home and I swear I could still hear the rats running through the walls :/ we finally had a real MCC with the Monroe ward where we got so much stuff done! We found friends for Brittany, Sister Williams, Nashaun and Brother Oglesby said he will go over and kill the rats himself. Sister Bringhurst just wants to do everything and was disgusted when they found 2 rats at her house let alone Sister Wicklund’s straight up infestation. Then we did the Zone summary report which was super effective with our new Zone Leaders. It was nice to not be the brand new person in Zone Leadership too, Elder Cameron was very worried about everything but he was doing great. Also Elder Young was my Zone Leader in Alexandria when I was in DeRidder so it was fun to see him again. They are good wholesome lads, this will be a good transfer. Then as we were all getting ready for bed Sister Quick sends a pic in the Sanhedrin chat (for all the leadership) of Elder Obray proposing to Sister Farris on Facebook! At 10:20pm the chat BLOWS UP about them being engaged and honestly everyone thinks it is a prank since they’ve only dated for like a transfer. Crazy!

Well this was another VERY interesting and eventful week. I really did almost die twice, once by our apartment almost getting broken into and the death by rats. I never thought I would be saying that. But once again God was with me through it all! I really did have to rely on the spirit for a lot of things this week and I am so grateful for being able to have the Holy Ghost as my constant companion. I know that when we live worthily, we can be open to receiving guidance from the spirit to know what to do in our daily life as well as when we are seeking answers to gospel questions. I know that Heavenly Father works on His own time and I have to be ok when His time doesn’t match my own personal timeline. That’s when we have to trust in Him and when we do miracles will happen and we WILL experience joy. I know this to be true. 

Have a blessed week! 

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

Oh and remember that "we did not come this far only to come this far"!

Love, 

Sister Johnson 

January Bug Bite Count: 2 bites

December Bug Bite Count: 12 bites

November Bug Bite Count: 18 bites

October Bug Bite Count: 39 bites

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

The Williams Came To Church!!!

Hola y'all! 

 

On Monday we went to Farmerville for pday and were like 2.5 hours late so we missed the water balloon fight but Sister York played the guitar while the Farmerville Elders and West Monroe Sisters and I played this game called Unstable Unicorns. It was quite interesting and I won the first game but then they were all concerned about me the next game that Elder Grant won lol. Always fun to hang and chill with the district. Then we headed home and went to our lesson with the Williams at 6pm. We were doing it virtually since they live pretty far away. It was super cute because all the kids huddled around Sister Williams’ phone, except for Elijah, as we asked them some getting-to-know-you questions, read about Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3:13-17, talked about Heavenly Father and Jesus and the Holy Ghost. She even said they were all listening very intently! We also talked about prayer and invited them to say family prayer and Maddox even said closing prayer!! MIRACLE! Literally such a cute family! Then later that night we had a call with the ZLs about a transfer input spreadsheet. Apparently as the transfer is ending, the Zone Leadership fills out this spreadsheet for President Amos about every member of the Zone with info about if we feel they would be good trainers, District Leaders, Zone Leaders or STLs and anything else we feel President Amos should know. This blew my mind that I never knew I had been talked about amongst the Zone Leadership to determine if I should be a trainer or STL! It was crazy, but also cool. 

Tuesday morning we had a lesson with Brenda over the phone. She shared an experience about after her husband died she went online and talked to a dude for a year and he was a con artist…oof. Brenda has a hard time telling the difference between Satan and God sometimes. So we talked about the fruits of the spirit and how if the fruits are good, it's from God. She really likes our calls though, she even makes everyone in the back be quiet and said she was excited for our next session. (: She literally set up her own follow up appointment, we love that! Later we called this girl named Brelynn over Facebook Messenger. She is this girl that the missionaries used to meet with but we could tell that she has some sort of brain injury (that’s what the previous missionaries who taught her had written in areabook) based on the way she spoke and stuff. She was really sweet, we got to know her and shared our favorite verses. I was gonna share my favorite one in Alma 26:12 but the spirit was like nah Alma 30:44 so I just went with it…wack thing how the spirit works but it was good. Sadly we don’t know if she's accountable though and just looking for friends more than the gospel :/ Then we went to Walmart to buy birthday supplies for Sister Ward’s birthday tomorrow. Then we were supposed to go over to Nashaun’s for another lesson but she wasn’t quite home yet so we decided to go down our list of referrals (since we get like so many a day and as soon as we put in that we reached out to them, whether they’ve responded or not, on areabook they disappear into our list of like 200 yellow dots and then easily get forgotten if they don’t reply back to us) on paper so we can better keep track of those who don’t respond and reach out again. I also had a feeling that we should call someone and we did and she answered and really appreciated it! It was quite nice to know that the spirit speaks to me and I can listen lol. Then Nashaun got home at 4:30 and we went over there but this time for only 2.5 hours (we’re slowly getting better jaja)! She started by explaining her week and how she doesn’t work on Sundays because it is a holy day (yes!). Then she shared this weird dream she had of herself, it was kinda wack and she proceeded to share with us some of her other dreams too that were even wackier. Then she shared a few stories about her boyfriend, being a tomboy when she was younger, hanging with her friends back then, and at like 6:40 she asked about how long we serve out here as missionaries (seriously, just when we get back to the good stuff it’s been 2 hours and we actually HAD to go because we had a meeting with President Amos at 7). She’s seen the Elders in NOLA biking around and had been taught by some nuns who hit her with a paddle. Then our backup plan was for the ZLs to call us so we could leave and they did, so we physically stood up to try and leave. We said a family prayer with them in a little circle on the floor where Nashaun prayed, then Willow said a prayer and then Sister York closed us out. It was very cute. So we had to join the zoom call in the car and talked about the Zone and the missionaries being trained and transfers coming up and the notes we made on that spreadsheet and stuff. Dude it would be so hard to be President Amos and have to find out where every single one of our like 200 missionaries should be, who they should be with and what they should be doing. Then later at like 9:40pm we began birthday scheming. We had left all of our birthday supplies in our car trunk so Sister Ward wouldn’t see them, we brought them out while she was asleep because she goes to sleep crazy early. We decorated the entire apartment with streamers, birthday banners and balloons. I even sneakily strung some streamers on their bedroom door and accidentally popped a balloon but they stayed in there!

On Wednesday we were super excited for Sister Ward to see all of the decorations, we waited for her downstairs and when she came down she seemed to like them all and really appreciated it. We had even bought her a birthday girl crown and sash (my idea) that we made her wear to District Council. Then our last surprise was sneaking waffle stuff in our car trunk for District lunch. We had District Council in West Monroe and this week everyone had so many miracles to share! Elder Grant gave a nice discussion on Preach My Gospel and Elder Cameron gave a refining lesson about how to use PMG better. Then for lunch we had the surprise waffle party for Sister Ward! We had lots of fun toppings and things like nutella and fruit and stuff. Then when we got home Sister Ward’s mom and sent her some cupcakes which was super sweet. Our lesson with Katherine fell through so we started doing some family history work since that was recommended with the new daily schedule from Zone Conference. At first I was attaching records and doing good things then I wanted to see how far back I could go and so I started from my mom’s side going from my great grandma Aagard’s line. I start getting really far by clicking on people with pictures and I start wondering if I can get to around Jesus’ time and then...I see Jesus. On. My. Family. Tree. Jesus. Labeled "Messiah Jesus Christ" with the classic Jesus in red portrait and I FLIPPED OUT. The family tree app says he married Mary Magdalene and had 2 kids, Sarah and Joseph (although he was born in 044 and Jesus died in 033 so) but like bruh. So then I thought maybe I could get back to God. So I kept going up the Jesus line, passing King solomon, Jezebel and then Enoch and Noah and then Seth and then ADAM AND EVE whose parents are "Elohim Heavenly Father" and "Heavenly Mother Sr". That's when I literally DIED. I  don't really know whether to actually believe it but that was pretty cool. Then we contacted some more yellow dots with our new paper recording system which seems to be working out well. We called Saide and had no plan, so Sister York decided to do a faith flip in front of her which was interesting. We landed on Alma 28 and 29. I don't know if it was actually a good lesson for Sadie or what but at the end of Alma 29 Sister York started tearing up (also she teared up in the opening prayer cuz I think she thinks she's getting transferred but like in the car on the way home from DC I was feeling I might get transferred so oof). Afterwards we got a text from Casey about the “Melgelestic priesthood” lol and just how he is worried about being worthy and all that jazz since we are helping him prepare for it and all. So we had a good little talk with him and during our next lesson will definitely address that more. Then we had stewies with the El Dorado Sisters and they’ve been biking lots which is super good to hear! Sister Holloway’s training pass offs were also really good! Then Sarah Coenen came by to deliver a birthday cake for Sister Ward. She loves baking and we asked her if she would be able to bake a cake for Sister Ward and she was thrilled to help out. It was beautiful, round, purple (Sister Ward’s favorite color), with yellow and white polka dots and flowers on it. Sister Angilau and Sister Ward started cutting into the cake while on the mission Instagram meeting and dude, it tasted like it was from a professional store or something! Amazing!!! Then after 9 we went into our room and I somehow got sad about Argentina again. Sister York joined me on my bed and then we talked about her problems too. Luke, her ex-boyfriend who she dear Johned while on her mission, sent her a letter and our DL gave it to her at DC (she won’t share her address with him but he sends stuff to the mission office and then people deliver it to her) and she chucked it, then Sister Young picked it up and she chucked it again, confusing everyone. He sent a Valentine's Day thing too with a painting of her and stuff. She doesn't know what to do about him continuing to send her things after they’ve broken up. She also said that she really doesn't want to go home so we talked through some things. I gave her the classic “your life's a mission get over it” (Elder Jacobson, my mission dad) speech lol. 

Thursday morning during our exercise walk we found some guppies on the little streams next to the road. After getting ready and our usual studies, we went to lunch at the Daily Harvest. On Thursday their daily special is gumbo! Yum! Brother and Sister Holt were there as well as Brother Rennick and his sister, Sarah. Brother Holt asked about Larry, as always since he was the one who baptized him, who is doing great and we also brought up Nashaun. After lunch/MCC we came home and did some weekly planning before our lesson with Laquita. She told us how being with her boyfriend now that he's out of jail makes her unhappy. So our lesson on families kinda went out the door, then Sister York gave her some options about what we could talk about and Laquita chose the spirit. Sister York just busted out like 3 scriptures in 10 minutes and then looked at me and was like “bear your testimony” and I was shocked. I didn't catch how much time she had for a lesson and was trying to follow where Sister York was going with prayer?? It was a little rough (Whenever Sister York seems to be following the spirit and can never seem to get on the same train and can’t follow where Sister York is trying to take the lesson). Anyways after that we spent 3.5 hours weekly planning. We contacted people and set a bunch of things up. At point point we called this guy named Akila and left him a voicemail. Then he called us back and we were on the phone with him for 1.5 hours! Although it was more like Sister York talked with him as he told her how awesome she is (we’ve never called this man before ever), was absolutely shocked that she was only 20 years old and ended up offering her a management position at his real estate agency and said he'd help her do some big things. It was one crazy phone call! He was amazed at her dedication to serve God (I basically didn't exist, I tried inserting myself in the conversation a few times but he was so involved with Sister York that he didn't quite catch that another person was speaking). She told him about our church and he liked how it sounded like Christ’s New Testament Church (duh, because it is jaja) and then at the end we were somehow talking about church callings, like what Sister York’s gonna do when she goes home (which she has been freaking out about) and Sister York was like “can I be bold?” and just dumped doctrine about the apostasy, priesthood, the restored church and all that jazz. It was totally crazy and more like a therapy/real estate call with God mixed in there at the end. We set up a time to meet on Tuesday and he'll see about bringing his family too. MIRACLE! Later that night we called El Dorado for stewies and Sister Rosas and Sister Quindo were giving us all of their transfer predictions for what would be happening on Wednesday. Ahhhhh. 

Friday is our Winnsboro day so that afternoon we headed down to Brittany’s. We had our lesson outside since it was nice out. Also their dog, Remi, totally loved us by the end of it lol. We showed a video about faith and read in Alma 32 (the classic faith chapter). (Sidenote: her little 2 year old son, Michael, is just so cute!) Brittany brought up her goal to be baptized in a few years (cuz kids and she doesn't have as deep of a relationship with God as she wants oof). Sister York picked up Michael to move him a couple times so he wouldn't ask her to hold him…I don't really think that's allowed man with the whale missionaries can’t hold children rule but oh well I guess. Brittany also tried getting us to stay longer because most of the time she is at home all day, alone, being a mom while her husband is at work or traveling for work. Sadly we had to go though to make it to our lesson with the Temples. With the Temples we have been going through the Preach My Gospel lessons and everything since they each have their own copies. So today we were in chapter 6 about Christlike attributes talking about knowledge. We thought this would be good since Casey has been freaking out about getting the Melchizedek priesthood soon. We discussed how they don’t need to know everything RIGHT now. They are still recent converts and are literally killing it! Casey expressed a desire to go to the temple and we showed them the Rome Italy temple tour video (it is literally one of the best temple videos) which they really liked and said they felt much peace when watching it.

 

On Saturday we did exchanges with the Bastrop Sisters, I was with Sister Angilau in Monroe and Sister York was with Sister Ward in the Bastrop area. We exchanged after getting ready so that they could do their extreme workouts with each other jajaja they really do go crazy hard man. Also on our walk this morning Sister York found this hanging sun decoration thing in some guy’s trash out front and took it home with us lol. Anyways, we daily planned and contacted some people before doing some service at 9:30am. We were going over to Meiko’s house to do yard work for her because she was one of our service referrals. We pulled up and her yard literally looked fine…Brother Reeves was coming to help out by bringing equipment like a lawnmower and some rakes and stuff. Meiko asked us what church we are from and Brother Reeves told her. She asked if we had church services going on in-person right now and if there were lots of kids (since she’s got some kids). So we got to excitedly tell her that of course we do! Then we got to work. Brother Reeves cut the grass (aka Southern speak for he mowed the lawn jaja) while we raked in the backyard and Sister Reeves cleaned up the leaves. Then as we were finishing up, Brother Poulsen and his teenage son, Mason, showed up too! So they helped us pull weeds. Then after everyone left, I asked Meiko if we could say a prayer with her and she was ok with that. We held hands in a circle (another Southern thing and probably the first time Sister Angilau’s ever prayed like that) and after she asked for our church card! MIRACLE! Of course it was the one time I did not have a pass along card with me but we said that we would text her the information. After that we came home, did personal study and decided to go to the Daily Harvest for lunch (when doing exchanges within a quad, it is best to get out of the apartment so that they can tell you anything they need to without their companion being there). I ordered the banana split crepe and she got a sandwich and some chips (: While we were there Sister Angilau was able to open up to me about feeling like a “useless missionary” so she asked me for some tips and advice but then President Amos called looking to speak with Sister Angilau. Apparently in her weekly email to President (the thing we all have to do every pday) she had said some stuff and he wanted to call her and talk about it himself. He is so sweet and I think it showed her how much we all care for her, as well as freaked her out a little bit that President Amos had called her jaja. Then we had comp study and Sister Angilau shared with me how she was feeling a little homesick when she sees all the family events she is missing out on. I talked about appreciating eternal families and temporary sacrifices we make as missionaries. I was also tasked by Sister Ward to talk with her about 4 eyes (having 4 eyes on one screen at all times, so that your companion is always seeing what you are doing) so I brought that up and she said that she feels like she’s doing way better than at first, so improvement is good to hear. Then we had training and we read from PMG and did some roleplays as she passed off some stuff to me. She still needs some basic teaching skills like maintaining eye contact and having gospel knowledge since she hasn't read the Book of Mormon all the way (like me when I came out so I was able to share my testimony on that which I literally love doing because God will help you fill in the gaps of what you don’t know as long as you are willing and put in the effort) but she is SO great with people! Then we went on a quad walk where we caught guppies, walked to the Bayou and saw a dead turtle. Then back at home we called the Williams for another lesson. Chris and Elijah were getting haircuts (their dad took them without Sister William’s realizing) so it was just Maddox and Ammon. We did an activity (Sister Angilau’s idea from using the Primary handbook!) were we each drew ourselves on a piece of paper and they were like mini artists! We explained how Heavenly Father is a real being just like us and the paper versions of themselves that they drew. We taught them that before this life we lived with God and He still knows us as His children. Maddox and Ammon said it feels good to know God and that we are His kids. We told them that they are Sons of God which means that they are like kings and they were pretty happy about that(: Sister Williams mentioned how they like singing so our commitment for them was to have them sing “I Am a Child of God” and to share what they learned with their other 2 brothers who missed out. Then we had another phone call lesson with Michele. We started by asking her about her day and she didn’t want to tell us because she thought that we would think less of her and we said we wouldn’t. Turns out she went dumpster diving and it’s her favorite hobby so I told her about Sister York finding that sun decoration thing from this morning and all we hear is  her yelling in the back "Robert they like dumpster diving!" Lol I guess that helped us bond a little? Basically Michele has been through a lot of stuff; her ex-husband tried to kill her, but she prayed and God delivered her 2 days later, her dad molested and raped her but she kinda forgives him. The scriptures we had prepared lined up PERFECTLY with what she was saying so that she could relate to how God delivers us from bondage, and how He is mindful of all people and the importance of trusting in Him (Alma 26:37 and Mosiah 29:20). Good stuff. After dinner we had a lesson with Brelynn where we read the Book of Mormon with her. She seems to answer questions pretty well but we did have to break it down verse by verse as we read. Sister Angilau did a great job of picking up on what I was doing when I started explaining the story one verse at a time! It was actually really nice to feel insync with my companion again…

Sunday was pi day! Obviously one of my favorite holidays as a math major (: Also at 6:19am Elder Hill informed everyone that transfer boards were out! Bruh. Sister York and I are staying here in Monroe, the district is staying the same except that the Elders are getting whitewashed with Elder Baxter and Elder Elder (getting yeeted as a greenie after his first transfer in Covington oof also yes you read that right, his name is Elder Elder). Elder Cameron, our DL, is going to be the new ZL with Elder Young and Elder Grant will be the DL in Winnfield (so Sister York and I still get to work with both of them!) Crazy stuff! And Sister Quindo and Sister Reynolds are greenie breaking (when their first transfer out of training is with another greenie right out of training) each other in El Dorado oof. Getting transfer news is always exciting and then everyone spends so much time just looking at the transfer boards over google drive. We had a ward council meeting at 8:30am and I just can’t tell yall enough how good this ward is. They are all sooo willing to help out with the missionary work going on and truly care about all of their members and follow that with the effort to help them. We walked to church and at first there weren't a lot of people there and then during the opening hymn the Williams got there!!! Larry wasn't there though…oof. But like 40 people were there, so not too bad (I can’t believe that i’m saying 40 people at church is “not too bad” wow). Then right after sacrament meeting the ward swarmed the Williams family (exactly what members should do when new people come to church for the first time)!! Brother Reeves gave them the Young Men activities schedule. Sister Tuft (Primary President) was talking to the boys and with Sister Williams. Bishop Jones took Sister Williams into a room for a priesthood blessing while we talked to the boys. The twins played an intense game of rock paper scissors in the front lobby area. Maddox kept walking around to explore. They just seemed comfortable in the church building. Then we got to have our lesson about Jesus. They actually knew quite a bit about Jesus since Elijah said "every church knows about Jesus" lol. Elijah was having lots of fun. We showed the kids video explaining Jesus, building on their knowledge of Him being a kind, respectful person. We talked about choosing the right after Elijah talked about Jesus as a shield. Chris asked who created God...I was like bruh this 8 year old is getting into the deep questions man. Elijah asked about if Jesus was perfect and stuff and ended up answering his own question! Then he wanted to say the closing prayer too (he said the opening one too) so Chris was nervous but he did it! They are so cute! 

To close up this was an interesting week and I’m excited to see what the next transfer will be like with all the new people we’ve been finding and teaching. I know that God is looking out for me and that even when things don’t quite go as planned, it works out in the end. I know that being a missionary can be hard sometimes but it is people like the Williams family that keep me going and wandering to go tell everyone about Jesus Christ who loves them.

Have a blessed week! 

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

Oh and remember that "we did not come this far only to come this far"!

Love, 

Sister Johnson 

March Bike Mileage: 9.9 miles

February Bug Bite Count: 6 bites

January Bug Bite Count: 28 bites

December Bug Bite Count: 12 bites

November Bug Bite Count: 18 bites

October Bug Bite Count: 39 bites

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles

The 6 Hour Lesson

Hola y'all! 

 

So on Monday when I got to call my family, I found out that my mom is getting her first COVID vaccine today! Woohoo! I got to say hi to Ethan and Aidan and help wake them up lol “those poopheads” - my dad. Then we all went to Walmart and as we finished getting all our stuff, a lady in a mechanical wheelchair needed help getting food because her hands were paralyzed. We ended up helping her with all of her shopping. We talked about her kids, grandbabies and then God as we stood in the checkout line. She asked us what church we're with and she said that she’s had missionaries over at her house before! Like 2 years ago and doesn’t know what ever happened to them! (that’s always sad to hear because those missionaries probably got transferred and her records were lost or the new missionaries don't know who she is if they didn’t keep accurate records, it happens way too often) She swore she recognized Sister York and that I looked familiar too (from 2 years ago…). Sister York even bought her roses. So cute! Then we helped load up her wheelchair with groceries and got her phone number. After that we basically had a zone pday since the Vicksburg and Greenville Elders were on exchanges with the ZLs. We played volleyball together as a quad but Sister York isn’t very coordinated so that was kinda fun. I got Sister Angilau to go play basketball with the Elders since she is a beast. I cheered her on while they played 3 v 3 and her team crushed the other guys! Then we played some card games with the West Monroe sisters and the Farmerville Elders. Elder Cameron even spoke some French for us (he served French speaking in Africa)! After pday, we went to go visit Nashaun. We pulled up to her house and I was really feeling the spirit, but then Sister York said that she felt gross about knocking on the door in the dark in this sketchy neighborhood while her (ok well we didn’t actually know if Nashaun was a boy or girl name yet) house lights were dark too, we thought maybe no one was home. So we considered dropping off her Book of Mormon in the mailbox instead. We decided to say a prayer and I was trying super hard to feel those bad vibes that Sister York said she felt and listen to the spirit but I couldn’t tell what was being said. I didn't feel bad about either choice. So we called and apparently he was a she who was just in the back (the 1 light on in the house) in the kitchen making dinner. So we went up and she was so cute and has 2 little girls! She said that she forgot what time we were dropping by and kept looking at the time wondering if we'd come and she’d missed us. She just moved here from NOLA and said she'd read the Book of Mormon to her girls tonight because she wants to teach them about Jesus Christ. She was literally so sweet! It turned out ok after all! Then we went home and the El Dorado sisters arrived for Zone Conference tomorrow. We got to take a virtual tour from Sister Quindo’s sister serving at Temple Square in Salt Lake! It was pretty cool. Then Sister York and I hopped on a call with the ZLs to finish discussing Zone Conference. Since they were on exchanges though Elder Rogers answered and it turned into helping him decide on his breakfast for tomorrow lol. Then Elder Ruegner joined and Elder Rogers went dull...oof…Elder Ruegner said he was super nervous for tomorrow and stuff so after hanging up we called him again and reassured him it would be ok, he was highkey stressed with all the Elders in the zone staying in Farmerville for the night. 

Tuesday morning we woke up, got ready and headed over to the church building early to help set everything up. It was just President and Sister Amos there so we started setting up the tables and cleaning the kitchen with Sister Amos while the ZLs were nowhere to be seen…I did the first PPI (I think its stands for like Personal Priesthood Interview or something like that) with President Amos (this transfer only the Zone Leadership are getting interviews with President Amos so everyone else is a little sad). But anyways he asked me about how being an STL was going and I said good, I’m slowly getting how things work. He told me that the most important thing is to be a beacon of joy for the other missionaries. I asked him how you counsel/correct missionaries and he said in a private one on one setting where you can ask what standard they're working on or share with them which one I'm working on (to get them to think of the one I want them to be working on lol) and take it one step at a time. Good stuff. We started a little late because the ZLs were all over the place and were late so yeah…President AMos gave a really good presentation about how even 0.01% improvement is STILL improvement, so we should just take things little by little. Sister Amos talked about ways we can love finding new people which was great too. We had a special musical number where we all sang together which President Amos really liked. The social media specialists gave a presentation about sending random people in our area little introduction videos of ourselves and what we do as missionaries which is a cool idea. Then we all had Cane’s for lunch, classic. Then for the AP’s presentation we got split up into 3 groups and then each group was given a gospel question and they had the missionaries who’d been out for less than 6 months present giving a scripture reference and bearing testimony. My group’s question was about the need for a restoration, not just a reformation like all other Christian churches went through. It was pretty cool to hear Elder Grant and Elder Smith present for us. Then our Zone Leadership presentation came up and it was just eh. Elder Rogers did some good improvising by calling on people and asking questions and for testimonies. Sister York shared some stuff then I read a scripture quickly and gave them a commitment. I felt super strongly that Sister Ward needed to bear her testimony and she did on her own! The spirit is crazy man! Elder Ruegner gave his long spiel up at the pulpit. Then Zone Conference was over and we went in the back to debrief with the APs and President and Sister Amos. They asked about our takeaways and Elder Rogers agreed with mine! (that was just big to know that for my first time as an STL someone who has done this before agreed with my thoughts) We also received the new daily schedule which went right along with our zone vision of time management! Our only Zone Leadership improvement was to get there early to set up but apparently our Zone was the most lively, so go us!! Then we went home, Sister York packed up and we did exchanges with the El Dorado Sisters. I was here in Monroe with Sister Rosas while Sister York went to El Dorado with Sister Quindo to pass off her training. So Sister Rosas and I did a little comp study to prepare for our lessons that night. Our first one was at the church building to meet with Renaisha and Marianne was gonna meet us there too as a fellowshipper and to help us determine if Renaisha is accountable or not. So we got to the church building and Marianne ended up being like 40 minutes late :/ But we still got to talk with Renaisha and try to assess some things, having Sister Rosas there as a fresh set of eyes as well. Renaisha seemed normal at first, she talked about going to college soon, studying chemistry, then shifted to talking about boys and how they are digusting, wished sex didn’t exist, how we shouldn’t text boys at night because it makes her spiritually sick. Now she did this whole boy speech while looking at me, the girl who has never had any interactions with boys like the ones she was talking about lol, it was just a little freaky. Then after we said an opening prayer, she asked me a question about my “disgusting boyfriend” and I was like “I don't have one”...awkward...Since she hadn’t read what we assigned her last time, we decided to read the testimony of Joseph Smith at the front of the Book of Mormon and Renaisha proceed to tell us how she's "addicted to the Book of Mormon" and wants to get closer to Jesus. So we were talking about that when all of a sudden Renaisha had to leave, so I started closing up the lesson and she was like no, I have to go now and I barely managed for us to close with a prayer before Renaisha was out the door. Marianne’s advice to us was to get her to church and see how much she wants it. Then we went over to our lesson with the Davilas, a family in our ward who speak Spanish, which was perfect because Sister Rosas is a native Spanish speaker! We showed up apparently to the wrong house because when we knocked on the door some tennagers were there (who didn’t look like they spoke Spanish) so we asked if they knew the Davilas but they didn’t…awkward. Then we eventually found Brother Davila’s mom’s house and her daughter answered so Sister Rosas started full sending it with the Spanish. Then we came to find out that they were not expecting us AT ALL, nor did Brother Davila tell her we would be coming over. He also told us that his mom had been vaccinated but she only had the first shot!! So many red flags and Sister Rosas was just like "sorpresa" oof. I couldn't understand practically anything she was saying in her thick Honduras accent, except a few words here and there. She has a strong faith in God, but has recently been inactive...even though it’s been a lot longer than just recently (Sister Rosas was convinced she was straight up lying to us about a lot of things jaja). I did kinda make out a funny story about her seeing the missionaries a long time ago but since she doesn’t speak English she flashed them her garments to let them know she was a member jajaja. We (well more like Sister Rosas because I didn’t say anything :/ ) invited her to start reading her scriptures again. Then we got home and finally had some time for personal study. I was finsihing up and kneeling down to close out my studies with a prayer when Sister Rosas started talking about all the stuff going on right now and unloading her entire life story on me until 10:18pm. It felt like some good bonding though and I tried to give her some advice about remaining active when she goes home soon to her inactive family in Texas. We even had a mini testimony meeting between the two of us and as we went to bed she said “I like you” lol that was nice to hear. 

On Wednesday during comp study with Sister Rosas, she showed me a couple of Bible study tips like to use the Come Follow Me and basically just read the intro parts and form a Bible study for someone based on the scriptures and points in the Come Follow Me section. It was a great idea! So we used it for our lesson with Brenda which went awesome! It flowed super well and the points and scriptures helped organize things a little better all centered around Matthew 6-7 about God and prayer. It was also really nice because when people request a Bible study I just never know where to start, there are SO many stories that we could share with them. And after Brenda was like “did I sign up for this?” because she really really liked it and appreciated our call and even set up another one! Then as I packed up for my exchange in El Dorado, Sister Rosas tried teaching me some Spanish slang words and phrases jaja. Then we left for Farmerville and switched companions with the other sisters. I was with Sister Munford in El Dorado and Sister York was with Sister Holloway in Monroe. It was so weird and so nice to drive through El Dorado again. Then we got to the El Dorado apartment and dude, after 6 months that apartment was so different from the way Sister Farris and I left it! So I took a few minutes to take it all in and walk around, getting the new tour of it all. It was wack. Anyways we got ready and went to go do service over on College Blvd (they were visiting Sister Russell’s house the next day but it was close to there, where Sister Farris and I would visit frequently!). Apparently they weren’t doing their weekly service project that week but no one told the missionaries or the missionaries forgot so we went back to the apartment and Sister Munford asked me to help fix her bike. I felt so cool knowing how to fix her bike, we had to replace the tire tubes which involved taking the wheels off the bike so it was lots of fun lol I’m the resident bike fixer for sisters now I guess jaja. Then we did some Facebook work, I was trying really hard to try and help with finding because the sisters have been a little depressed lately about not having people to teach. Then someone ended up asking Sister Munford for a Book of Mormon! MIRACLE! Unfortunately they live in Georgia but I tried really hard to get Sister Munford excited nonetheless. Then I suggested applying some of the stuff the social media specialists talked about at Zone Conference so she tried that too. Then we had a Stake Missionary Coordination meeting over zoom, it was a little rough not being with Sister York cuz Sister Holloway was taking the STL stage there since the members didn’t understand we were on exchanges lol. For dinner they all made it together cuz Sister Quindo is super good at cooking. It was so fun and it was so cute because Sister Quindo didn’t know that's not what every quad of missionaries do every night. It was so fun! Then after 9pm they had a district goal setting meeting which was a little chaotic. Then we got ready for bed and Sister Munford just kinda did her own thing away from everyone else, so I was definitely seeing where Sister Holloway felt not so close to her companion, so it was a little rough. 

Thursday morning we went for a quad bike ride as exercise. The bike I was borrowing definitely had flat tires so that was a fat oof! The as we were biking out of the apartment complex, Sister Quindo swerved in front of Sister Rosas, cutting her off and making her crash…her legs really hurt, but she pushed on like a trooper. We biked up to Lea and Clifton’s neighborhood, past the Bishop’s house and back around to the neighborhood on the other side of the complex. Around then Sister Rosas asked me if I wanted to walk with her so I did cuz she was clearly in pain but it was nice to talk to her some more. Then during personal study Sister Munford kinda went off on her own…I think they usually personal study in different rooms…which is not ok because then your screen is not visible to your companion…so I tried moving into the room with Sister Munford and she seemed to think that was strange but dude she is the one training, going home in a couple transfers and setting the example. Then after studies we went to go visit Sister Nash at her work at Brookshire’s which was super nice. Sister Shelander (she would come to our little sacrament meetings in El Dorado when they weren’t meeting for church and her husband is a nonmember) was even there and Sister Munford and never met her before so that was a mini miracle that I could introduce them! After lunch we packed it up and headed to Farmerville to swap companions back. On the drive back down there I tried getting to know Sister Munford better and at the end she was like “wow this is the most I’ve ever talked” lol. When we got to the Farmerville church building Sister York and Sister Holloway had pranked the Elders’ car by putting plants and pine cones all over it. Then the Elders came out and saw it and we did it again with them lol, missionaries find some weird things funny. Also dang I really missed Sister York! When we got home we had to weekly plan. After that we visited Sister Aja Cambra and got a little lost in her apartment complex trying to find which one was hers. Her mom and sister Ashley were there too as well as her 2 little kids. She was super sweet, we just stood outside and got to know them better since Aja hasn’t been to church and recently moved here from California. When I told them that I'm from California they all flipped out because I understood how DIFFERENT everything is and apparently they're treated like total outsiders! Rough stuff! She wanted to have us over for dinner though! So sweet!

On Friday we went for a bike ride for exercise and it was so much fun to bike without hills (@El Dorado) lol I loved it! Then we had District Council where we made monthly goals, which were all super low (something that I absolutely hate). Sister Ward also gave a great discussion on Luke 5 connected to finding through social media and what nets we as missionaries have to leave behind. She is such a good missionary without even trying sometimes! We had district lunch all together where we cooked breakfast burritos with deer meat as everyone went around sharing embarrassing stories. There was some pretty embarrassing stuff shared (like Sister Ward making out with a guy and then puking in his mouth). After that we went home and had to get to our first lesson with Nashaun. So sometimes during our missionary lessons we go a little over on the time, we try to spend only 30 minutes to an hour with people…keeping this in mind, we were at Nashaun’s house from 2:30pm until 8:15pm…you read that right! We spent almost 6 HOURS with her!! It was so crazy! AND we had an appointment with the Temples all the way down in Winnsboro that night too (which we ended up missing)! So here’s what happened, she first explained to us why she answered our message to her and how when she lived in NOLA (where she just moved from, as in she doesn’t really know anyone here except for us now) she always saw the Elders in “white shirts and ties riding their bikes”. Then she went on about the horrible bus system in Monroe and how she had to ask her neighbor (a man) to give her a ride to get her laundry that she forgot and then his girlfriend got suspicious of her. Then she went back to the good stuff and asked us how it feels to be missionaries. Then she proceeded to share practically her ENTIRE life story with us. She is on the right track with a lot of her beliefs though which were very similar to ours (she did mention some stuff about speaking in tongues and already being saved though…so the usual classics). She talked about the rapture and telling her kids and how she won't get to see them grow up cuz it's coming fast. She shared her testimony with us, which was very sweet and then she said a prayer for the missionaries out of this little prayer book she had. Although as she was praying from it (and was super determined and excited to share it with us) she got distracted by Sister York's WWJD bracelet and went off again. During this time Sister York's 4pm alarm went off, the Winnfield Elders called us concerned about why we weren’t at our combined lesson with them and the Temples, even Brittany (who is also a friend of the Temples) called us! Oof Nashaun didn’t really seem to notice that we had other places to be despite the fact that we said we had other places to be and those places are calling us lol. Then Nashaun and Sister York talked about the Book of Mormon, read the title page and introduction, which Nashaun found super interesting all while I talked with her daughters, Willow (age 8) and Jade (age 11). Then eventually Nashaun just stood up and narrated her story (we had all been just sitting on her couch in the front room together) which only pinned us down some more :/ She told us how her mom’s boyfriend, Kevin, killed her own boyfriend and how Nashaun almost killed Kevin but didn’t even though at one point she had a gun on him. Kevin was abusive, threatened her mom and would stand over Nashaun’s bed in the middle of the night, stalking her and even kissing her one time when giving her a ride to work. It was some messed up stuff that this girl has been through! And in Jade’s words “New Orleans is cursed”. Then she asked if they were the longest visit we’ve ever had and we said yes lol. Then Willow did an art show for us and also commented on how surprised she was that we got here when it was light outside and would be leaving when it was dark outside…oof. Then we came home and were TOTALLY drained, even though we hadn’t even been the ones doing most of the talking! We ate cereal while having a zone goal setting meeting with the ZLs (Zone Leaders) and all the DLs (District Leaders). 

Saturday afternoon we hopped on our bikes and rode over to ULM at the Bayou Park to meet the Williams for a lesson. Sister Williams brought her 4 boys; Maddox (age 13), Ammon (age 11), and Elijah (age 8) and Chris (age 8) who are twins. Sister Williams has been inactive and her husband/boyfriend is not a member. She is very concerned about her boys and that she is "stealing their salvation" since she has been a member of the church for her whole life but kinda went inactive and is trying to come back. She said they'd be at church tomorrow! Ammon and Maddox were blessed as babies (their dad wasn't in the picture) but Chris and Elijah weren't (their dad is pretty chill though and even let's them do scripture studies and stuff). But he wants the kids to decide for themselves whether to be baptized. They've been trying to do Come Follow Me and reading out of children's picture scripture books. We asked the kids if they wanted to be baptized and there were mixed emotions, Ammon didn't even know what that meant. We did a brief Plan of Salvation lesson, then showed them the baptism Children's bible video which they seemed to like. Sister Williams also expressed wanting to get a blessing to help her stop smoking. Overall it was pretty good and quite exciting! Then we biked home and decided to walk to the church and cleaned it up since we were finally having IN-PERSON church again!  Then we tried calling Sharon so I said a prayer that she would answer and she did! Then we said we're the missionaries and she hung up…oof…I guess my next prayer will be a little more specific about her answering and then staying on the phone with us jaja. We walked back home and called Kiewanda. So this time I prayed that she would answer and stay on the phone and I thought we were having a lesson but we called, shared a verse, prayed and hung up. I was shocked cuz it was like 5 minutes ish and really weird the way Sister York just ended it…So after we talked and I felt out the spirit a little, we called back and got to know her better and stuff. It was good. Weird but good.

On Sunday morning we walked to church and I literally knew basically no one, but everyone came up to us to say “hi Sisters”. But I counted like 70 people there! Sadly the Williams were not there though. But the Bastrop Sisters came and Sister Angilau shared her testimony too! And Brother Boyle invited them over for dessert tonight too! We sat with Sadie in the back and heard a good bunch of testimonies. Brother Coenen asked us about Sadie and Sister York said we were looking for a friend for her and I was like "seriously, I was just talking about this and you said no" (I had expressed that Sadie needed a church friend and Sister York was against the idea and practically shot it down) so I don't know what happened there but it did so yeah…Later that day we had our usual Come Follow Me with our Winnsboro gang (Brittany, the Temples and the Winnfield Elders), even though we are back to full 2 hour church so we may stop doing that soon. Then for dinner we drove over to the Poulsen’s for ribs, baked potatoes, salad, corn and pistachio bundt cake for dessert cuz they’re amazing. Then we talked about the Restoration and invited them to share their feelings with someone. After that we went to the Boyle’s for dessert with the Bastrop Sisters. We had apple crisps and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Yum. They are so sweet and even asked (very excitedly) if we had any baptisms coming up, then as we were eating I mentioned what my dad does and that he went to BYU. Apparently Sister Boyle’s dad was an engineering professor there, so he straight up CALLED my dad in the middle of dessert! My dad didn't answer though lol, but Brother Boyle left him a voicemail. Then Brother Boyle was like, come on in for a lesson and I totally thought he was joking since that’s the missionaries’ job to give the lesson but he really let us choose a lesson between one from Numbers 11 or D&C 18 for HIS lesson. We picked Numbers 11 and he told us about the 70 which they had back then as part of the church organization to help Moses the prophet, which was cool to think that we still do that in our church today. They even told us to visit their daughter-in-law who isn't a member.

I don’t really have too much to say but I would like to simply testify of the power of prayer. I know that I cannot be a missionary without the help of God. I know that through Him, I can do all things, no matter what that looks like on the mission from things as simple as speaking at Zone Conference to knowing what to say in a lesson or what to do next in the day. I know that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers when we ask in faith. I know that He desperately wants to help us but I also know that we need to be the ones reaching out for that help and love that He so badly wants to give to us because we are His children. 

Have a blessed week! 

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

Oh and remember that "we did not come this far only to come this far"!

Love, 

Sister Johnson 

March Bike Mileage: 4.6 miles

February Bug Bite Count: 6 bites

January Bug Bite Count: 28 bites

December Bug Bite Count: 12 bites

November Bug Bite Count: 18 bites

October Bug Bite Count: 39 bites

September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles

August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles 

July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles

June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles