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