JOHNSON, MEGAN: #socialmediaworks

Hola y'all!

This was a good week. It felt so long but also so fast at the same time...wack. But some good stuff happened so that's always hype.(:

On Monday we had Zocial Media Day in the morning and the rest of the day was a zone pday. We all met up at the Oak Grove building which is like Utah-sized aka HUGE! It was sick. We basically had a 3 hour meeting doing different things with social media missionary work. We had 3 different workshops about posting, active calls/20 second videos and reels. It was kinda hilarious because since I don't have Instagram I don't really know what a reel is but they explained it to us. We are doing a challenge to see who has the best reel in the mission, which is fun. We also had some cool miracles come from this day. We had broken off into our companionship to apply active calls, it's like cold calling people but calling random friends on Facebook who are active and sharing a scripture or something with them. I was super nervous about it but the first person I called, Danielle, answered and I got to share a scripture with her and she was super sweet and it wasn't as weird as I thought it would be. MIRACLE! Then Sister Cropper and I finished presenting the presentation and hyped everybody up about how #socialmediaworks. Then we went to Which Wich for lunch with the STL's then had a zone pday. We played basketball, had some crazy shots playing PIG, chair soccer, then team chair soccer and then regular soccer. It was so much fun and we played for like an hour! I was so gross and sweaty by the end of it but it was a blast. Then to finish the day off we played this board game called Settlers of Catan, I had never played before so it was interesting but fun. Overall a fun day.

Tuesday morning we did our personal study (I went crazy reading like all of the Children's Old Testament stories cuz they're dope) and then headed out on the bikes to Keith and Sandra. They had just redone the road the last time we were there on Friday and put gravel down and they hadn't finished it so we were biking on gravel the whole way there which totally slowed us down, was super bumpy and smelled funny jaja. Then we got there, knocked on the door and Keith looked through the window and shook his head at us. I was so shook, in my head I was like "Did we do something? Did we not do something? Did his pastor tell him something? What happened?!" Then after a minute he opened the door a crack and told us they'd been exposed to COVID and were getting tested tomorrow...oof. So we biked home and it started getting really hard to bike and I realized my back tire was slowly getting flat. So I biked on it for as long as possible until it was totally flat. Then we walked, luckily we were almost to the Williams' house and knocked on their door. Their daughter and grandson pulled up...awkward...so we told them we'd come back another day. Then I continued walking my bike home the 2 more miles we had to go while Sister Cropper biked in circles around me. I got so sunburned and my feet hurt by the end but we made it home! Then we had an awesome lesson with Danielle over Facebook. We got to know her better and shared who we are too. She was super sweet and slowly opened up with us so that we could help her understand prayer and invite her to do it this week. It was so good! MIRACLE! The rest of the day we finished studies, did Facebook work and called a bunch of people including our branch mission leader for a great missionary coordination meeting.

On Wednesday we had district council which was fun and it was all about charity so I learned some good stuff like without charity we are nothing and like the Primary song we can start with kindness then love then charity. Good stuff. Made me want to be more charitable towards everyone. Then we got Panda Express for district lunch and talked about our favorite animals. Mine is a fossa and of course no one had ever heard of it before. They're pretty dope anyways. We then went to Walmart and got some stuff to fix my bike since the Elders couldn't and some props for the reel we're making. Then we went home and I replaced the back tire on my bike put it all back together and then heard air leaking from it and it got flat again...I think there's either a hole or something sharp puncturing my tube over and over again...oof. So we ended up just driving to Mount Olive since my bike isn't all the way functional. We delivered a Book of Mormon to Stephanie and knocked on some people's doors that had been previously contacted by missionaries. Although we had a hard time finding like half their addresses, it was a struggle from past Elders putting it in weird. Then we came home, had dinner (I was in the mood for cinnamon rolls) and then I had a call about Spanish. They started some Spanish groups for missionaries who want to learn Spanish but aren't called Spanish-speaking. Elder A'isea assigned me to be a "comforter" to Sister Larsen the Spanish group leader who's almost been out 6 months and decided to start learning Spanish last transfer...so that's gonna be fun jaja.

Thursday we did a whole lot of weekly planning. In between that we had a lesson with Grace. She kept her commitment and read the introduction of the BoM and had questions about it that we were able to answer. She even asked about some of the stories like the Jaredites and the Tower of Babel so I explained it to her (I later found out Sister Cropper had no idea what I was talking about and she listened to me teaching, I was like LOL that was literally ME every single lesson with Sister Farris. Straight up how I learned the gospel. That and prayer of course). We were still very bold with her and she seemed to understand that us missionaries are here for a reason and that she needs to be progressing if we're gonna continue meeting with her. Then we went over to the church building and met with this guy that messaged us on Facebook, Doug, who we discovered (from the Elders in our district) is an MMA fighter. He was meeting with the Elders in Petal but then they lost contact and he actually lives in our area. He reached out because he has a fight to defend his title over the weekend and wanted an extra spiritual boost. So we met him at the church with some members and he was super nice, he's only 22 and the Elders taught him a lot of stuff and he's been going to church and has a lot of member friends. He even said he'd try to make it to church here but his face might be all beat up...so that'll be interesting. Then we came home, finished up our studies for the day and worked on our reel for our missionwide competition to see who can make the best Instagram reel. Not gonna lie ours is pretty hype (I'll put the video down below).

On Friday we woke up and drove straight down to Hattiesburg for Bishop's Storehouse. Almost our entire zone was there! It was so fun and then we all went to Smoothie King and hung out at the institute building playing games while finishing our smoothies. Then we took my bike to a bike repair shop (since there's no bike shops in Collins or Laurel) and gave it to them to get it repaired...there ended up being a few more things wrong with it than I'd realized (basically the rear tire tube needs to be looked at cuz it keeps going flat, rear brakes need readjusted, front tire rim is bent really bad, missing front brake pads, back gears are bent so it's dangerous to go down to 1 because it might hit the rear tire) AND a lot of them were safety things so I couldn't just continue to not have those fixed...it was kinda expensive but the lady said it'd feel like a brand new bike after...I hope so...then we drove back home, personal studied, our lesson with Danielle fell through and we drove up to Taylorsville. We had lunch with Sister Kilgore, the Relief Society President, and then from 1pm-7pm we were out doing ministering visits all day. Even though we really only got to talk to 2 people...for a really long time jaja. We visited Skaggs and talked with them as their girls got home from school and their 6 dogs slobbering all over us, which was fine with me. Then we visited Sister Tebo who has had to stay home with her 90 year old mother-in-law because she cannot be alone and needs to be cared for. So it was good to get her some social interaction as we sat out on her porch. Then we drove home, had a quick dinner then some meetings and called it a day! Man were we tired by the end of it!

Saturday morning I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the second time and it was dope! Afterwards I read my patriarchal blessing (little recorded blessing that acts as a roadmap for my personal life) and it just confirmed a lot of my feelings and told me some things I need to be doing. Then I closed my personal study with a prayer and asked if the Book of Mormon was NOT true (like it says in Moroni's promise) and had an absence of those spiritual feelings, which my patriarchal blessing helps me understand better. So then I bore my testimony to my Heavenly Father in prayer and felt the spirit confirm everything I testified of to be true. It was pretty sick, there were definitely a few tears. Then we called Doug to pray with him before his MMA fight at the Hard Rock in Biloxi. He had just finished some light training and was headed over for the rules rundown and stuff so we were able to say a prayer and he was feeling good. Freaking stuff man. The rest of the day we did a TON of social media work! We called a bunch of people and went on a walk too but we had a Social Media call, did some Facebook Watchmen stuff gathering together posts for the FB page, making posts for Facebook, messaging people and making a reel. We had to wait until it was darker though to make our reel and it was so fun! I'll put some pictures of the whole glowstick dancing process.

On Sunday it was a pretty boring day...we had 14 people come and again half were the Stellys and none of our friends came so that was a rip even though Brandon and Doug said they'd be there. But Doug lost his fight so that was rough...Basically the whole day we studied, edited our reel (which took FOREVER), did some Facebook work and did training stuff. Nothing too exciting...OH BUT I FORGOT! So on Saturday I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the second time and started reading it for the third time on Sunday! So that's pretty hype!

Well this week we had a TON of social miracles and it really helped us find people to talk about Jesus with. I just want to say that I know the Book of Mormon is true and it has been written for our day and time (I mean Moroni literally saw our day for Pete's sake!) because we need it. I know that the Book of Mormon and Bible are the word of God because I have prayed to know for myself and the spirit has made me feel those Galatians 5:22 kind of feelings. I also know that we can only find out the truth through our own efforts of study, ponder and prayer. I know that Jesus Christ lives and is at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to return to live with Him again and we can get there by trying our best to be obedient.

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

August Bike Mileage: 30 miles

Pictures!!!

1. The zone at zone pday

2. Leaving zone pday there was a cute sunset

3. With all the people I friend on Facebook there are bound to be some interesting ones like this…

4. Me with my favorite flavor of Blue Bell! Strawberry Cheesecake!!

5. Fixing my bike for the millionth time