JOHNSON, MEGAN: No Coincidences With God

Hola y'all!

BAM! Another one! Here's another weekly update about what's going on with me out here in Collins, M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-humpback-humpback-I.

Monday we had a zone pday in Hattiesburg which was fun. It was crazy because a bunch of missionaries I've served with were there. Elder Hadlock and Elder Keen from my first district, Elder Baxter from my district in Monroe and Elder Back from my last district in Gulfport. It's so fun when you actually know missionaries. Anyways we all played signs (super fun game where everyone has a sign or gesture and it gets passed around like tag but the person in the middle has to guess who has it), a LOT of volleyball (so much that I’m forming a bruise on my arm) and this game called "Do you love your neighbor?" (it's like aggressive musical chairs where you ask someone if they love their neighbor and if they say yes the 2 people next to them have to switch chairs while the person in the middle has to get a chair. Then if they say no they have to say who they love and all those people have to get up and find a chair). So much fun! Then we went home and called a bunch of people.

Tuesday was quite the interesting day, let me tell ya. So it starts out with us biking 5.6 miles to our first appointment with Fannie at 10am. And it was HOT outside, man. I was sweating literal buckets yall! But anyways we were biking, I was in front navigating and Sister Cropper was right behind me. We were on our last 2 mile stretch when I look at the ground where the road meets the bushes and see a giant SNAKE! As I bike past it's like slow motion and it opens it mouth to show it's HUGE fangs and I flip out and swerve out of the way. Sister Cropper didn't see it but also swerved and we ended up being ok (I did some snake research and decided it was a Cottonmouth or Water Moccasin, a venomous snake in Mississippi). Then a car drove past us and probably thought we were crazy jaja. Then the google maps navigation I have on tells us to turn into Fannie's house, I have a feeling I should check the house number but I'm going too fast to slow down (my bike has no front brakes and only semi-functional back ones) so I pull in to the driveway and notice the number is 924. I briefly check Fannie's address and see it's 942 so in my head I'm like "yup we're at the right address, 942"...right? So we knock on the door and this older couple answers the door and immediately lets us in. I assume Fannie must be the wife (and she's super skinny and I totally pictured Fannie as a bigger black lady not a skinny one but whatever lol), but as soon as we're inside the wife goes into the other room...I was kinda confused because I didn't know Fannie had a husband and I thought the Elders only talked to Fannie...wack but we went with it, maybe dudes just like talking to dudes so the husband mainly talks with the Elders? So we get to know him and he seems super chill. As we're chatting we even discover that he was the guy in the truck that went past us when we swerved away from the snake! Crazy coincidences! He doesn't really talk about us as missionaries so I try bringing up his experience with the Elders and he seemed to really like them and knew who they were. At one point he said that the "Elders always visited Sister Fannie" and motioned to a house down the street...that was the first sign...then we ask to share a spiritual thought and ask if his wife wants to join but he said "Sandra is busy"...that's sign number 2. I'm slowly starting to think we're not at Fannie's house...so I pretend to be pulling up a scripture on my phone and go to our areabook map to see if the missionaries have a record for the people at this address but they don't...wack...so I roll with it and pull out my real scriptures to share Matthew 10:29-31 about God's love for His children. Now Keith is a retired pastor so we give him a Book of Mormon and I ask him if he'll read it if we give it to him and he says yes so we commit him to read some before our next meeting. I make sure to get his and his wife's names again, just to double check, and it's still Keith and Sandra...not Fannie. So when we go outside I ask him if he knows where Fannie lives and Sister Cropper gives me a confused look (I don't think she quite caught on to all the same signs I did). He tells us where and once we're out of sound range Sister Cropper is like "that wasn't Fannie's?!?!" Oof. But we pull up to Fannie's actual house at like 10:45 ish (45 minutes after our appointment) and she was in the car (looked like what I imagined Fannie to look like) on the way out with her cousin. Luckily we were able to reschedule and apologized for being late, but she was still excited to see us later. So to sun it up, we basically knocked on some random people's door (in our mission tracking is not allowed and we can't knock doors unless we have an appointment and are expected to show up) and they totally let us in like we were supposed to be there and gave him a Book of Mormon. MIRACLE! But they don't stop there folks! On our last 2 mile home stretch we saw this old lady outside in her yard and she makes a comment about us on the bikes. So I turn around and pull up to her driveway where she and her husband are. She talks about how hot it is outside and can probably see how gross we are, dripping in sweat so she invites us in for some drinks. Basically we were there for like 30 minutes, got cold sodas, saw their high school yearbooks, all their kids and grandkid family photos, got the beginning of a house tour and left with 4 sodas and a bag of cookies. Wow I love the South! Their names are Ester and Lynwood Williams and are the sweetest old couple ever! They invited us back later too! MIRACLE! Then we finally finished biking home and had some lunch before driving (it's too far to bike) to Sister Jones' house to meet her. She was super sweet and we talked with her, met her dog Grizzly who was awesome and shared a spiritual thought with her. Then we drove to help out this less active member, Ananda, with painting her house she just moved into. We helped paint her kitchen and she's pretty cool, we even discovered she teaches deaf kids and we have someone we've been contacting who's deaf so she's gonna help us out! MIRACLE! Then we came home to have a video call lesson with this referral named Tommie but it fell through. We really had quite the busy day.

On Wednesday we had district council and loaded up the bikes for a trip to Taylorsville afterwards. I had to give the discussion in district council so that was fun...it went good though. The district was nice and participated so that was helpful. After that we loaded everything up and went to Taylorsville (a town super far away but since it's the end of the month we have miles to go the other way back from Laurel). We stopped off somewhere on the side of the highway so we could bike like 4.5 miles to deliver some Bibles. I don't know what it was about that biking journey but it sucked! The hills and heat were killing me man! We did give some Jesus pictures with our phone number on them to some kids, almost got attacked by several dogs (the usual) and met this lady who met with the missionaries in New York. So good stuff. After riding back to our car we went to a local restaurant, Ward's, to fill up on ice water and plan out some more things. Then we went to dinner with a member family named the Skaggs. We went to their house and they had 6 dogs (best thing ever), showed us their smart fridge (which was dope) and their fancy brand new van. We also met their 2 teenage girls and grandma, who were all super nice. We had fried chicken, fried potatoes and corn bread for dinner which was delicious even though everything on my plate was the color brown and there were no fruits or veggies (unless you count fried potatoes lol). It was kinda funny. They were a very interesting family...they told us how the dad proposed in the Sonic they were working at, the mom and 14 year old daughter cried over a Carrie Fisher cake and every single one of them tooted by the end of dinner…it was wack but they were nice. They kept making excuses for why they don't come to church though, like they don't have church clothes and stuff (even though they showed us all the brand new stuff they bought)...the whole thing was just weird, but hopefully we can get back over there!

Thursday morning the Branch President's wife called us to say she tested positive for COVID...that was a rip since she visited us a week ago, but luckily it was a week ago and Sister Cropper and I were feeling fine. The rest of our day wasn't too eventful. We weekly planned a lot. Met Grace for the first time and she told us she doesn't think she'll ever join our church but still wants us to come over and told us how the last Elders REALLY had to push her to get to church so to not be mad at her if she doesn't go, to which I said "we won't be mad just disappointed" and gave her a sad look...we'll see how that goes jaja.

On Friday we woke up at 6:30am, put our service clothes on and left the house to get to Bishop's Storehouse in Hattiesburg at 7:30am. When we pulled up we got to see Andy and Erika Wood from the Wiggins branch and it was so nice to talk with them again! Weird, but nice! While doing Bishop's Storehouse they had a Spanish order and for some reason the Spanish Elders hadn't come so I was the only Spanish-speaking missionary there, so I volunteered to fill out that order and it was BIG! It was cool to be able to use my Spanish a little...even though I don't know like half the foods on the paper but that's what logical thinking and google translate are for. After that we went to Smoothie King with the STL's and it has become Sister Cropper's new favorite place. They do have some good smoothies! Then we drove back to Collins, did our studies, called a BUNCH of people and had a Social Media call about Zocial Media Day (a Zone day for social media). Then we had our last accountability call with our District Leader, Elder Angilau, who just found out he's going to his original assignment in the Domician Republic! Crazy stuff! Especially since he came out to the mission field at the same time as me!

Saturday morning we biked to Fannie's house and made sure we got the address right this time! We got to talk with her and she told us all about the service the Elders would do for her all the time but how she hated the last Elder who was here. She said that he made her friend (literally EVERYONE in town knows Fannie) want to burn the books he gave her...oof. She's totally not interested in the gospel but if we have a good relationship with Fannie, everyone will like us too so I don't know. Then we biked past Keith's house and saw him outside so we stopped to say hello and ended up having a whole lesson with them. And his wife, Sandra, was actually in the room for it too and seemed to REALLY like it and us. It was just so good and I love them so much! Then we biked home and had a pretty chill day full of studies, Facebook work and calling people. We also went to La Casita, a Mexican restaurant in town for dinner that night. They had good fajitas and beignets.

On Sunday I was fasting because it was Fast Sunday (our church fasts together worldwide on each first Sunday of the month) so just keep that in mind...we got to go to church and meet all of the 10 members which was awesome! They had some really solid testimonies that they shared during our meeting and I got to share my testimony on the peace that comes from saying our prayers, reading our scriptures and coming to church. Then we came home and had all of our studies. Then we had a lesson fall through so we took a walk around 4pm. It wasn't too hot outside but like it's the South so it's always hot and humid jaja. We had just finished up and decided to walk down the street back to our house when our neighbor, Lynda, stopped us and talked to us. She's originally from California and told us how she moved here, what's been going on in her life, we offered to help her if she decided to move back to the best state ever (aka California if you didn't know) and talked about this women's service group she's in. It had been like 15 minutes or so we'd been talking to her when suddenly I started to feel like I was gonna puke. I began thinking "can I make it back to our apartment to the toilet? I could puke in those bushes right there". Then I started really not feeling good, my head was pounding and I started getting excessively sweaty. Luckily we were closing up our conversation when my vision started to get dark. We said bye to Lynda and started walking back home (like 1 house away) when everything went black and I whispered to Sister Cropper "can you hold my hand?" Thinking she'd give me her arm to brace myself. Then she actually held my hand (which I can see why she was confused) and I told her I couldn't see anything. Then I started walking like I was drunk and stumbling so she told me to sit down. So I sat on the floor on the side of the road, only like 100 feet from our house, sweating SO MUCH my clothes were sticking to me and you could physically see individual drops of sweat covering my arms and legs. I basically almost passed out, either from food poisoning the night before or from fasting and dehydration...who knows?! But we had to take it easy the rest of the day, a couple naps and going to bed early for me.

So this week I came to realize that there are definitely no coincidences with God. He's got a plan for everything and no matter how weird it may seem at first, His hand is in the details. I know that His spirit helps inspire us to know what we need to do and when we need to do it. I know that He places people in our paths that either need us or we need them. Whatever happens, His hand is in it and He will be there to support us through it all because God is our loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is our merciful Older Brother. (:

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

July Bike Mileage: 67 miles (bruh 30.4 of these were from this week)

Pictures!!!

1. Cute Hattiesburg wall selfie with the STL's

2. Getting pizza for zone pday

3. Biking on Salem Church Rd for first time

4. The snake I saw when I almost died. This is a picture from Google but I swear it looked exactly like this, especially the open mouth! Freaky!

5. Getting Smoothie King after Bishop's Storehouse