Finding The Spanish People

Hola y'all! 

 

 

Well then let’s get right down to it!

 

 

Monday was so boring. We had a normal pday, called my family, got groceries, met up with the district and played unstable unicorns and then everyone talked to their families for like 4 hours! Then Elder Smith and I were bored calling our families so we started playing basketball and Elder Hall joined. Then we messaged a bunch of gray dots, previously taught people, about English classes and I friended so many latino people in Gulfport and I posted our English class fliers in so many places. People better be there yall! Then Sister Scrogham and I did some role plays in Spanish before heading home after the sisters were done with Zoom MLC. 

 

 

On Tuesday morning we invited more people to English class over Facebook then we had a cross study with the AP's and another companionship in training (the 2 sisters that Sister Scrogham was with last transfer and their trainer, Sister Ward (who was assigned to speak Portuguese lol)). I thought it was just gonna be Sister Scrogham but then it ended up being a companionship roleplay :/ but I was aight. The other companionship went first, poor Sister Ward just shared a scripture with Hermana Glenn speaking some really fast fluent Spanish and Hermana Bogh was speaking some pretty good Spanish too.  Then it was our turn, Sister Scrogham started by asking how they're doing and stuff, asked a question about faith and I was able to pull up a scripture (well I asked them to read it but they didn't have it up so then took the whole time pulling it up and we ran out of time which was a fat oof but whatever) but they liked it! It was nice to think that the scriptures can still teach people through the spirit ,even if I'm not the best at speaking Spanish. Then we went for a nice walk before lunch. After lunch we grinded some studies and planned for English class then left for English class. We invited so many people and someone even called us that night about English class and others had said they would come so we were super excited. Sister Scrogham did English classes in NOLA but this was my very first one using the church's English Connect so I was kinda nervous. We did have a little panic that we didn't have keys to the building but luckily the other sisters were already there early for their Bible study class. So we set everything up, put up signs to where the room was and everything for the class at 5:30. Then 5:25 came...and 5:30...and 5:35...and 5:40...and then just as I was super sad that no one came, a man walked in!!! I was kinda shocked but eventually got out a "bienvenidos a la clase de inglés" and then he went off in Spanish jaja. I don't think Sister Scrogham understood anything he was saying so she just kept writing stuff up on the board while I attempted to talk with this young dude named Felipe. He was super nice, he's from Mexico and has almost been living here for a year (so he knew zero English).  He said that he saw our flier in the latino bakery and that Tuesdays were his only days off so he could come! MIRACLE! He was very understanding of our little Spanish knowledge because I did not expect or prep to be speaking so much Spanish during the class. But hey it worked out. We practiced introducing ourselves, explaining where we're from, how we're doing, etc. Then we taught contractions and that's where it started getting a little confusing...eventually I think he understood for the most part though. Then we asked if he had any questions and he wanted to know how to say things at the bakery in English like flavor/filling. Except that when he said filling he really said "feeling" so we were trying to figure it out like "sentimiento" and he was like no, then "palpar" and Sister Scrogham held up her skirt demonstrating he touching it but he said no until we somehow finally understood he was talking about “filling” (as in the filling of a donut)  when he mentioned cream. It was kind of hilarious. But he was cool and understood.  Then at the end we were sharing a spiritual thought and Sister Scrogham read a little paragraph from Google Translate explaining that he could either stay or leave for the scripture but he said the way she said it was a little offensive and explained how to say it better. Felipe our guy! He was so nice! And he stayed for our thought where I shared Romans 8:16 about us being children of God and he was like "sí fe en Dios" and it was just so sick! Even though we only had 1 person we still had 1 person!! Then us, the sisters and elders all went to Subway for dinner then back on home.(:

 

 

Wednesday we had district council and the other sisters surprised us by going to Biloxi instead since they were going on exchanges...which was oof cuz I was giving the discussion at district council and had planned for them to be there...but whatever I made it work. I had to give the discussion on "how the Bible and Book of Mormon support each other" and it was very interesting...we played a fun scripture chase game to find Bible and Book of Mormon verses that support the same gospel principles that we teach. It was cool to see how both volumes of scripture work together so well to support each other! Then we came home and while Sister Scrogham painted a Nuevo Testamento I answered a bunch of messages from people on Facebook and then we posted more stuff about English class. That night we went over to Sister Giuffria's house in the Gulfport Ward to help her pack up her stuff cuz she's moving. We had Popeye's for dinner and then all got to work packing stuff and getting her house ready for it to be viewed and there was some pretty interesting stuff she had. Sister Giuffria rides a motorcycle so she had some dope stuff. And she let me have a cute little Spider-Man comic thing to hang on the wall after I geeked out jaja

 

 

On Thursday we did a whole lot of weekly planning y'all! It was so long but it was so good and we bonded over the mess that is our Spanish Group and working with the Elders. We made a plan, called them, and then they came to our English class that night! One lady who I had messaged on Facebook who responded to my ad for a free English class came! Her name is Lucia and she is from Guatemala. Her English level was A LOT more advanced than Felipe from Tuesday! She knew a ton of English and seemed to be pretty bored with our lesson about introductions and greetings...so then we switched it up and asked her what she would like to learn about so we taught about careers and stuff on the spot. It was nice to have the Elders there since we had not prepared for that lesson and Elder Ruebush had done this a few more times...Elder Leis was definitely just using Google Translate jaja. Then we shared a spiritual thought and asked her what she wanted to learn about for next class and she told us a story about how she cleans houses and the lady told her to be careful because her mom was in a pot. Lucia was like "what?!" she didn't understand that it was the lady's mom's ashes in a pot, it was hilarious! And she told us this story in mostly broken English, it was great! And she said she'd be back next time! Then we had a meeting with the Spanish Elders to talk about our group and what's not working and how we can move forward. It was good and we got on the same page about a lot of stuff. It's fun now that Sister Scrogham and I are doing good because we can have fun together. 

 

 

Friday we did exchanges so Sister Scrogham led the area in Biloxi with Sister Thelin (who is trying to learn Spanish) and I went to Gulfport with Sister Bailey. Although since we all live in a quad it wasn't too crazy jaja. Sister Bailey and I biked to this lady named Hattie's house. For some reason I thought it was only like 1 mile away and then we just kept biking and biking and biking...and we were late so we were biking uber fast to get to this appointment that was apparently 5 miles away! We got there and it wasn't too bad since it was all flat, Hattie was a nice old black lady who reminded me of Grace from my last area. The missionaries have been helping her clean her house for a while and she didn't really seem to be progressing...my suggestion was to tell her to pray about our message of the restored gospel and to call the missionaries when she does and until then, they won't contact her...apparently that was too harsh so we went the nicer route lol. She did watch 1 of the videos they had sent her about Joseph Smith so we talked about that and she knows she needs to change but being 80 years old, that's a hard thing to do. She also said she wanted to talk to someone "more mature" than us so that's fun. But we were able to read a couple paragraphs in the introduction of the Book of Mormon and I told her the story of how I got a testimony and she REALLY liked it and it seemed like she was gonna act by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon like I did to get an answer! Then we cleaned her house...that was already clean. Then on the way biking back we stopped off at Bonnie's apartment to give her a talk the other sisters wanted her to read and while we were doing that there was a lady sitting outside and asked us for "the word" so we said we'd be back, we dropped off the talk then came back to her. Her name was Bonnie too but we prayed with her and she still seemed to want more so I asked if I could share a verse with her and she was down. So I read Ether 12:27 from the Book of Mormon about the Lord making our weaknesses strengths and she really liked it! I read it, bore my testimony on it and she still wanted more so we set up another appointment with her and gave her a place to read. It was sick! Then we came home, ate lunch, someone cancelled our Bible study and then we went to dinner with a member. Sister Hicks was super nice, it was kinda weird though because if you just imagine this picture perfect cartoon mom in a movie, that was her. She was in a pink shirt, polka dot skirt, heels with her blonde hair tightly back in a bun and a smile that never seemed to leave her face. It was nice but it just creeped me out a little bit lol. We had chicken fajitas while her husband was out working on a truck that lit on fire after cleaning it off with water, hence its name is Fireball, and her teenage daughter was serenading us with the piano...it was just too nice to be true. But we had a nice dinner conversation about bears and the wilderness jaja. Then we headed over to Sister Garcia's house to teach the recent convert lessons to her daughter Samie. She is only like 10 but was WAY distracted and tired the entire time. We were trying to teach her the 10 commandments using the hand signs but I really just felt like we were forcing it down her since she was so distracted by everything. It was wack but she remembered a lot of it so that was good! Then we came home and got to hear about the other sister's exchange in my area. They went and knocked on all our members' doors (a total of like 6) and got to meet them and apparently a lot of them knew English! Then they had an appointment with Hermana Espinal, the group leader's wife, but she was just doing someone's hair the whole time so they just talked to her 3 boys the whole time...oof. But yeah so slowly making some progress getting our group back up and running. 

 

 

On Saturday we woke up at 5:30 am for hurricane cleanup and headed down to Hammond, LA this time in Sister Canaberry's nice Dodge Charger, it was pretty nice. We pulled up to the command center and I got to see all my buds from past areas which was super fun. Sadly Sister Cropper wasn't there though, but our first job the lady basically had everything already piled up so we just moved the piles of leaves and debris to the front. It's always interesting finding things in people's backyards because we definitely leave it cleaner than it was before the storm...so we found a bong...that was fun...then we went to our next job which was supposed to be a muck-out but when we got there they had kinda already started. Their house had a couple of inches of water so when that happens they take everything off the floor, rip out the floor, take down 2 feet of  the dry wall and sheet rock stuff all around the house, etc. So we mainly just helped clear stuff out since the floor was already gone. Then we cleared stuff out outside where there was a bunch of soggy wood, broken solar panels and random metal things. They were a very nice couple though! Then we went back to the command center because apparently people had food for us. We went there and got to have taco salad, well apparently it was just for us missionaries and people working at the command center so they shooed our crew away (I mean our quad still got food though). Then our car waited for the actual food while our crew went to the next job. Apparently they pulled up and the dude was a total pothead and was so confused about why they were there, then he went inside to talk to his mom (probably flushing all his drugs) then came out and told our crew that there was no work to be done and waved his arms telling them to leave lol. So we met them at the next place. The backyard had such tall grass and it was so muddy it was like quicksand, you'd just start sinking in mud! But we chainsawed up a tree and took it out then the people that were supposed to give us food lived right next door to the house we were working on so they came and brought us Jambalaya for lunch! Yum! The lady, Monica, whose house we were working on also wanted to give us tea but we said we don't drink that so she gave us a whole bag of lifesavers! It was great! Then we called it a day and headed back home. The rest of the day we just did our studies and went to bed as early as we could.

 

 

Sunday morning we got to sleep in until 6am which was nice then Sister Giuffria drove us down in her truck and somehow I got stuck in the middle again. When we got to the command center we were in and out in 30 minutes! The fastest it's happened with this crew! It was nice! Our first job site had a couple dead trees in their yard that was already a mess before the hurricane came...that's always fun…and the trees were covered in poison ivy so that was fun...although I tried to avoid it as much as I could so we'll see how that goes. We even helped move out their totally wrecked trampoline. Then we went to like 3 different job sites before finally finding work. We pulled up to this guy's house and he was out there in work clothes getting things done. His name was Chris and his wife was Sarah and their 2 little boys, Todd (5) and Dean (3). They were such a cute family. They had a tree completely uprooted fall in their yard and wreck a couple kids play structures. We hauled a lot of stuff out there and when we finished the grandma came over and they bought us all lunch! It was so sweet! We had Jambalaya, white beans, green beans and rolls. It was so good and we got to talk to their cute family which was so fun! Then we headed home, just in time for our lesson with the Alvarez family we found last week. We came home, got ready and planned before leaving. When we got there, there were only 2 cars in the driveway versus like 6 last time we came. But we knocked on the door anyway and no one answered...one of the kids playing basketball in the street said that if their white car isn't there then they're usually not home...fat rip. So then we decided to knock on some member doors and gray dot doors...and after 2 hours no one answered their doors! One house we went to, the neighbors told us no one lived there and that the De La Cruz family moved from there like 2 or 3 years ago...but there was a brand new car parked in the driveway and the front light was on...very strange…we also ended up finding 2 ENTIRE apartment complexes full of latinos!!! It was crazy! They were everywhere. So we rolled up in the back and then tried finding this apartment near the front and talked to people. On the way back to our car we talked to this group of men all holding beer and offered them English classes. They all started talking to us at once in Spanish though so I went and talked to one dude while Sister Scrogham talked to another. The dude I was talking with asked about English class so I told him, then his friend asked where it is, so I told him the address and said it was at our church. Then he said something about Jesus Christ that I didn't understand and his friend pointed up to the sky and they all laughed at me. That was not so fun...but oh well. Then we found a Spanish Baptist church and circled around the parking lot for a while jaja. Then we came home, had dinner, quick studies and stewies before calling it a night. 

 

 

To close I just wanna testify that the Lord is always with us during the hard times, even when I don’t think anyone is understanding my Spanish or I can’t understand their Spanish, the Lord provides a way to make it work. Every. Single. Time. As long as we keep pressing forward with faith. 

 

 

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, 

Hermana Johnson

 

 

September Bike Mileage: 17 miles (finally got some biking in while on exchanges!)

 

 

Pictures!!!

1. Our little subway squad

2. Comp selfie before Bishop’s Storehouse 

3. Quad hurricane cleanup selfie

4. Hurricane style showers

5. We matched this cool car and had to take a pic with it 

6. Our work crew next to a fallen tree

7. Sis G from Gulfport ward is the best at taking loads of pictures!

One Rollercoaster Of A Week

Hola y'all! 

 

 

So Monday was our first pday in Gulfport. I was able to call my family and have a chill morning, we went to Walmart and it took SO long. We each bought stuff individually and then by companionship and in groups of 3 for stuff...it was a hot mess at the self-checkout jaja. Then we went to the church and all the other Elders in our zone showed up for pday so that was hype! We didn't really do much though...just Uno and Monopoly Deal. Then after pday, we used the computers to create an English class flier while I started MyPlan (this 6 course plan that missionaries take their last transfer to prepare them for going home). It had some good stuff in there including how to still be a diligent missionary at home and keeping with that desire to progress and learn more. It was cool. Then we came home, sorted through everyone's groceries, had dinner and organized our media stuff.

 

 

On Tuesday it was raining so we planned to go to a bunch of stores to see if we could find anyone that speaks Spanish (Sister Hunt, who trained some of the NOLA Spanish sisters last transfer had told me to go to the store when it's raining because construction workers can't work in the rain...and it sounds kinda bad but down here a lot of latinos work construction). So we did our personal study then language study in preparation for all the store contacting in Spanish before heading out. We planned to hit every grocery store between our apartment and Walmart! We went to the first group of stores and couldn't find anyone speaking Spanish and there weren't very many people in the stores either. Then we went to the next group of 3 or 4 stores and as we were walking we saw a dude who we thought might speak Spanish (I know this literally sounds so bad like we're making assumptions about the way people look/act but we gotta do what we gotta do to find them Spanish speakers here in the states!) and he told us to talk to his cousin inside the store, I don't think he spoke very good English. His cousin, Omar, had just moved here from Dubai a week ago and didn't really know anyone but said he'd give our card to people if he saw them! MIRACLE! We asked a couple other store owners if they knew of any Spanish speaking communities but had no luck. The next store we were going to was a Latino bakery and we went inside but no one was there. BUT everything looked so good so we stayed so I could buy something and then a family came in! We gave them a Jesus card with our number on it even though they said they didn't speak Spanish (despite their very Spanish sounding names). Then 2 more families came in! It was kinda awkward cuz the first family kinda turned us down and we were trying to talk to the other people about Jesus. We gave one family a Jesus card cuz I was talking to their little son so that was sick! Then I went to buy a couple things and the lady at the cash register, Mercedes, talked to us and let us give her some Jesus cards to display and she was super sweet. She even paid for my pastries so I got them for free. I tried saying no but she insisted so I got her name and said we'd be praying for her. THEN as Sister Scrogham was backing our car out there were some dudes pulling up so I timed it to where she would have to get in the car next to them so she could talk with them and she gave them some Jesus cards too. MIRACLES! And get this...they just kept coming! Next we went to supermercado la veracruzana and it was like half market half restaurant. It was a little different vibe than the bakery, the soccer game was on and there were like 2 aisles of groceries. Eventually a group of dudes came in so Sister Scrogham started offering English classes and Bible studies and they made fun of her Spanish and then were nice and listened and all took a Jesus card. I felt so bad but I couldn't understand what he said and felt weird trying to insert some more of my trash Spanish in there so she did all the talking. Then we went to Tienda Santa Fe which was a bit bigger half grocery store half restaurant. We didn't really talk to anyone there, so I decided to buy some candy and we got to talk to the man and woman at the cash register. At first the man was trying to tell me I couldn't pay with a card but I said something in Spanish and he was like phew and started spitting some Spanish. Sister Scrogham then explained how we're missionaries and offered English classes (speaking all this in Spanish). While she talked to the lady who seemed interested I talked with the dude and I asked him to repeat what he was saying like 3 times until it finally clicked that he was asking me what day English class is, he was super nice for being patient with me even though I could tell he thought it was awkward but I really wanted to understand him and I think he realized that and worked with me. Then we finally made it to our final destination, Walmart, but we didn't hand out any cards there but that's ok because we handed out all of our pass along cards but 2 so MIRACLE!! It was really nice to finally meet some Spanish speaking people, even though Sister Scrogham basically did all the talking (which I felt so bad but I just got so scared and then my mind went blank, forgetting any and all Spanish that was in there). But we came home, had lunch and did some companionship study and that's when everything fell apart...I felt like we were doing pretty good as a companionship and there were a few things we didn't quite see eye-to-eye on but it worked. Then we finished our companionship study and started talking about English class. The Elders have been trying to start English classes up this week but have basically just been doing it with individual families on their own different schedules. Sister Scrogham just came from NOLA where they had a big Spanish Ward and English classes 2 or 3 times a week so she decided that we should make our own English class and have it "be better than the Elders" and started telling people we were gonna see who’s was better...that's where we had a misunderstanding...I thought she wanted to compete against the Elders' English class instead of combining our efforts to work together so I tried compromising with having one here in Gulfport and 1 in Biloxi with the Elders every week and we just got into a major argument and total miscommunication about what the other person wanted. So she came away from our discussion thinking I did not like her idea of wanting to do any English class at all in Gulfport...it was rough to say the least...she ended up taking a nap for the next hour...we didn't really talk about it much after that, we went to a group Bible study with the other sisters and then Subway with them and the Orange Grove Elders and didn't really interact much as companions. I knew something was wrong and didn't know how to fix it without making her absolutely hate me more. So there were lots of quiet tears as I laid in bed that night about how horrible of a person I am and how horrible this transfer all of a sudden got...rough stuff yall. 

 

 

Wednesday morning she still didn't really talk to me and I was too worried I'd make it worse because it seemed like she found every reason to get mad or offended when I spoke. We had district council and then stayed at the church all day until the sisters would pick us up to join their lesson. During this time we had another companionship study where English class came up again...we had, what I felt like was a more understanding conversation where we tried to figure out what each other were saying and we decided to do English class here in Gulfport twice a week and once in Biloxi. I felt like that was better but still everything I said she took a jab at me...but I didn't want to make anything worse so I just took it. While in the church we did language study, called a dude on Facebook and then went on the computers so I could do MyPlan and she could make more English fliers (since she said that after our conversation yesterday she crumpled the ones she had made all up, which was seriously so sad she felt that way). Then as we cut up the little English class cards we were able to have some normal conversation as I asked her questions about her life, it did seem very fake and she was still taking small jabs at me. Then we went with the other sisters to their member lesson and it was super cute to teach their 3 kids about prayer and how God loves them and cares for them even more than their earthly parents. Then we came home and had dinner before going to bed. That night everyone gathered in our room while I was in the living room on the couch, but I didn't want to go in and ruin everything so I just stayed out and listened to their conversation and silently cried after she was asleep. 

 

 

On Thursday morning we went to Bishop's Storehouse to help out. A lot of missionaries weren't able to make it so we were the first missionaries in the building and the other 5 people got so excited when we walked in! It was so cute! This Bishop's Storehouse was a little more disorganized than the one in Hattiesburg and we only did 1 order each but hey it's still 1 order! Then we started talking to this old lady for a really long time who told us all about her 14 children (13 of them adopted), and her crack grandkids and all this stuff. It was very interesting. Also crazy story: on Sunday the other sisters asked this member about the Saucier family in a different ward in the stake and she told them how the Sauciers have stolen tons of money from the missionaries' families by convincing them they need it and all this other crazy stuff. So basically to not visit them and be cautious. Now fast-forward to being at Bishop's Storehouse and we were filling out the order for the Saucier family. Sister Saucier got there late but the whole time I was freaked out she was gonna steal all my information and embezzle money from my parents, even though she was super nice and seemed totally cool! But as we headed out she did invite us over for food and that's what the member said not to do so that was freaky. Then we got in the car and Sister Scrogham didn't know that she was that member and got WAY freaked out. Then we even got a call from her later that night inviting us to lunch...freaky! Anyways we got home, had lunch and then went to the pool in our apartment complex to do our weekly planning. Let's just say that there's this part at the end of weekly planning called companionship inventory where you talk about companion goals, how yall are doing and how you can both improve for next week. I think we were both anticipating this because things were pretty rough...the first question was about goals and then the next on was how we felt our relationship was. I asked her what she thought and she told me to go first. I decided to be honest and as nicely as possible told her that I thought it'd been rough, lots of miscommunication and misunderstandings but that since yesterday I felt we were improving. Then I looked at her and she went off about how she thought we had been "violently miscommunicating" and that she had "never wanted to go home more her whole mission" and stuff like that. If yall know me, I'm a pretty sensitive person and this was a lot to take in since I was trying so hard to make this a good last transfer and good transition for her getting a new area and companion during her training so I stepped away and asked her to give me a few minutes. Basically as we are out at the pool, I walk into the corner and just start crying, like full on balling my eyes out thinking about how I'm gonna fix this and make things right so she doesn't want to go home. So I'm basically standing in this corner with my back to her for what feels like forever as I try to compose myself. Then I go back over and she's on her phone...I sit down and start trying to talk but just start getting choked up again! I apologized like a billion times through my sobs and asked her what I could do to be better and more clear. I think she realized that I do actually care about everything, so we worked out a plan and made goals to better communicate. The rest of the day she kinda walked on needles around me and I definitely felt like I could just start crying at any moment. We did simple things the rest of the day like language study, cutting English class fliers and Facebook stuff. 

 

 

Friday was a good day. I swear, Sister Scrogham and I didn't argue at all and actually had a good time together! We did some Facebook work to friend people and join groups to get the word out about our English class, I ate a quesadilla for lunch because doing all this Spanish stuff makes me want Mexican food and what not...kinda wack but yup, then we actually did language study so I was really feeling it jaja. Then the other sisters got home and drove us to tag along to their lesson with Sammy Garcia (a 10 year old girl who recently got baptized last month) so we could talk to her mom, Sister Garcia about Spanish stuff. We got there and started talking to the mom but then she just went into another room with all her other kids so we just sat in on Sammy's lesson until halfway through we decided to just knock on her room door and try again. She let us into the room and we were able to talk with her. Her parents are from Mexico so growing up she lived between there and L.A., California and then she served a Spanish speaking mission in New York. We invited her to our English class to help out but with all her kids she stays pretty busy. BUT THEN she told us about some of her friends she's invited to church and activities before who could be interested and even gave us some addresses! MIRACLE!! Then the sisters drove us to the church building so they could have a lesson while we printed our more fliers for English class...we lowkey had to break into the family history center to use the computers since the librarians were leaving when we got there but shhh, so we were able to print out some more English class fliers with the days were doing them on! Success! Then on the way home we stopped at Panda House to celebrate Sister Bailey's 6 month mark (great grandkids grow up so fast). But they had some good sweet and sour shrimp, we also had Sister Thelin's dad send some desserts over that we ate in celebration too. Then the rest of the night we just did some training stuff to figure out where Sister Scrogham was at, it was good and we were able to have a few nice conversations that made us feel like real friends! 

 

 

On Saturday we had a nice morning and after personal study we loaded up our fliers and stuff for English class and headed out to hit up all the nearby tiendas (Latino stores). By the end of it we had put up all of our fliers in Mexican good stores/grocery stores/Mexican restaurants, handed out all of our English class cards MIRACLE and witnessed a drug deal for $600 (we walked into a tienda but only the man at the register was there when a woman came in and went straight to him and said "$600", there was an exchange and then she made sure to wipe off the counter before leaving, it was also in a pretty sketchy area so...idk). T'was an interesting day. Afterwards we came home, had lunch, contacted all the members about our English class this week and then posted it all over Facebook! We are really trying to get people to this thing! Then we felt too stuck inside so we went on a walk and started following this one dude playing Latino music cuz that's what missionary work looks like now I guess #thestruggleisreal as we try to find people who speak Spanish.

 

 

Sunday morning we went to the Biloxi ward building for sacrament meeting and got to meet the 5 Spanish members that came so that was hype! We kinda ran out of Spanish small talk so it got a little awkward but we'll learn and improve! Also the Bishop also let us introduce ourselves and bear our testimonies and then the Elders got a bunch of messages from the members inviting us over for dinner jaja so that was awesome! Then we drove over to the Gulfport building to attend their sacrament meeting too, sadly no Spanish members were there but we got to meet some nice ward members and talk with the Stake President about how the Spanish group should move forward. Basically we don't have much...so that's a fat oof. Then we came home, quickly had lunch and planned for our first lesson and headed out!! We were meeting this teenage girl named Sharon who was previously taught by the missionaries, but dropped when they found out she was 16...about 5 minutes before we got to her house, she texted us saying she was out of town! We decided to just knock on their door anyway. We pulled up a few minutes early so we reviewed our Spanish and saw a man come out of the house and then started going back in so we got out of the car but didn't catch him before he went back inside the house. So we knocked on the door like 2 seconds after the man went inside and no one answered...we knocked again and a woman opened the window curtain, made eye contact with me and I waved at her but she didn't open the door. I knocked and said "It's the missionaries" then tried "¡somos las misioneras, hola!" But still no answer...so we started writing a note when the door opened and a young girl answered. She spoke English and we asked if Sharon was home, but she wasn't. Asked if her parents were home and she was like "hmm…" but said yeah so we asked if we could meet them and she let us in! She brought her mom and we explained *in Spanish* how we were going to share a Jesus message with Sharon but could do it with them and the mom said yes. She is from Honduras and has lived here in Mississippi for 12 years and her daughter, Alex who is in 6th grade, is learning Spanish. We shared Mateo 11:28-30 with them, my mind kinda went blank on a few things but I was able to ask them a couple questions. Then we read the scripture in English for the daughter Alex since she didn't really understand Spanish. They both seemed to like it though. After we prayed the mom said something but I couldn't understand so I asked her to say it again and she said it slower "whenever you want to come back you can" (basically that's what she said in Spanish)!!!! So we set up a return appointment and they were just so sweet and helpful as we attempted to speak in Spanish. My first successful Spanish lesson on the mission!! We were so hype!! It was so good and they wanted to have us back! FAT MIRACLES! The rest of the day was less exciting, we studied, had a phone lesson with Jesus fall through and stewies with our roomies, the STL's. 

 

 

Basically this was not how I envisioned my first week of my very last transfer as a missionary to be going at all but here I am. Definitely had some miracles happen this week nonetheless and I just wanted to share some of my feelings from our sacrament meeting on Sunday. We were singing something and it had the line “thy will be done” from when Jesus Christ was suffering and told the Father that He would put God first, above everything else that He was feeling. I guess even near the end of my mission, the Lord sometimes speaks to me in song lyrics (this is referencing my fake farwell talk when the Lord spoke to me through song lyrics before I entered the home MTC). But it helped me realize that I will get through these 5 weeks, now just 4 and that when I put God’s will above my own, things will work out for good. 

 

 

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, 

Hermana Johnson 

 

 

September Bike Mileage: 6 miles…not doing so hot when your comp doesn’t really have a bike

 

 

Pictures!!!

Um so due to this being such a rollercoaster week…no pictures were taken during the making this week…sorry yall, there will definitely be some next week though!

Oh My Biloxi...

Hola y'all! 

 

 

This week I had to leave Collins and Sister Cropper and went to Biloxi. Let’s just say it was quite the interesting week...

 

 

Monday we all got to finally catch up on a bit of sleep, definitely utilizing those pday morning naps. Then I got to call my family, loaded up all our stuff from the Hattiesburg apartment and went to the church building in Oak Grove for pday with almost all our zone (minus Sister Fisher...rip). We played LOTS of chair soccer which was SOO much fun, we played team chair soccer and volleyball too. I was major sore everywhere from hurricane cleanup but it was good. Then we left and drove back up to Collins straight to an appointment with Sophia. She is the lady who we miraculously found her kids (we went over to this lady named LaToya's house and taught 6 children but they only visited there once a month BUT we somehow found 5 of them at Sophia's when she requested a missionary visit) and we were trying again to have a lesson with her but she wasn't home, so we talked to her kids for a while and said we'd be back. So we went to another appointment down the road with Essie who we'd tried twice already but she was never home for our scheduled appointments. So we knocked on her door and some dude answered, told us she was inside and let us in then left...so we just sat in their dark living room for about 10 minutes before Essie finally came out of the bathroom. We asked her why she requested a missionary visit and she said her granddaughter probably signed her up...awkward...so we asked if she wanted to talk about anything or hear the Jesus message we had prepared. She listened to us the whole time and was super sweet but didn't really talk much...it was wack but good...then we went back to Sophia's house, hoping she'd be home this time and she was!!! MIRACLE! We went inside and she gathered all 5 kids together. Some of the older ones were shocked to see us there. And Pat, the 11 year old, told us he had read 2 chapters from the book we gave him aka THE BOOK OF MORMON! MIRACLE!!! Dude that was crazy to hear! And Kenesha, the 16 year old, had read 1 chapter too! So awesome! We retaught the Restoration to the kids using pictures in the pamphlet and taught the mom for the first time too. It was really good and the spirit was SO strong when Sister Cropper recited Joseph Smith's first vision (you could even see it on Sophia's face, so cool how the spirit was touching her!) Kenesha had some great questions about what our church believes and what we do too! Sophia's husband, Michael, even walked in and out then we were able to catch him and introduce ourselves...it seemed like it might get bashy at first when he told us he was a Methodist and his family are Baptists and we're not with the church bus that picks his kids up every Sunday, but it was good! He was super polite and nice but didn't stay for our whole lesson...we'll catch him next time! Well...Sister Cropper will catch him next time jaja. Then we gave them all a Restoration pamphlet and Pat was like "you want me to read this?" And we were like YES! It was so cute! 

 

 

On Tuesday it was my last full day in Collins, we had a pretty normal morning full of studies and a walk. I did try to get fancy with lunch and made frozen Jambalaya and beignets. But here's the thing...Sister Johnson is not a chef, just a wanna be chef so picture this...I'm making beignets and getting my little pot ready to deep fry them on the stove, I put the oil in and wait for it to boil...then it's been a while but I don't see any bubbles, so I turn it on high heat for some more time...still no bubbles...then smoke started coming from it and the pot starts turning brown and our whole apartment turns super smoky as I basically am evaporating oil so I take the pot outside and that's when Sister Crooper tells me that oil doesn't bubble when it boils… so I got it figured out and we made beignets and they were great! And no smoke alarms went off in the process!! After that whole thing we drove to Mount Olive for a lesson with Elle. We went to her house and it was so dark inside (the classic Southern person house where they turn off all the lights and shut the blinds so it doesn't get too hot and they have to pay to a ton for AC) I could barely see her the whole time jaja! She had met once with the Elders a while ago but she said that because of that she started changing a lot of things and trying to become a better person. How awesome is that? She's been reading her Bible and trying to learn lots of stuff. We taught her the Restoration and it went really well. During the First Vision the spirit was SO STRONG and she said that she wanted to "join that church" that Joseph Smith restored as Christ's church on the earth. So we invited her to church and everything. She said she'd come! SO GOOD! Ya know the miracles just don't stop right before you're transferred out man. Then we came home, called people, had a "last supper" Waffle dinner where I burnt myself AGAIN (wannabe chef yall) and had a nice Spanish call. Then I packed like crazy! T'was a good day .

 

 

Wednesday morning we woke up, I packed up the whole car, got my bike on the bike rack and we headed off to Denham Springs. It was so sad to be leaving Collins and spending my last few hours with Sister Cropper as my companion. It was a good ride and we got to Denham Springs right before I just about exploded with pee. I got to see lots of friends, say goodbye to Sister Cropper and eat Cane's with Sister Scrogham! Then I drove us (cuz I can drive again! This last transfer not being able to drive was kinda the worst and my inner raceway driver was dying the entire time so JOY I can drive again!!!) home to Gulfport. Since our quadmates are the STL's they were staying the night in BR for MLC (mission leadership council) the next day so it was just Sister Scrogham and I that first night. She is super sweet, I think she was SUPER sad to be leaving her first area in NOLA but it sounded like things didn't quite go the way she was hoping they would so her second transfer with me follow up training her will be good. She is from Chicago, has never spoken Spanish before and is SO excited to get to work. It's awesome! After we struggled to find our apartment, in our complex that looks like a beach hotel with palm trees, we hauled all our stuff up 3 flights of stairs and had to take a few water breaks because man that's a lot of stairs. Then we were able to unpack and clean things up while the other sisters were gone. It was another good day. 

 

 

On Thursday morning we had a call with the Biloxi Spanish Elders to find out "the tea" about our area. Basically we cover a Spanish group, not a ward, not a branch but a group. And this group hasn't met for the past 2 transfers, they've just been meeting with the English ward and not being able to understand anything. And the last time they actually met, there were 5 people there (a lady and her 3 kids and another dude) and none of them were even the group leader...so basically it's kind of a hot mess...fat oof. It's really hard for Sister Scrogham because she came from a Spanish Ward with 7 missionaries and so she has some high expectations, but she's also super motivated to start making things happen which is great. Hopefully we can really get the ball rolling on some stuff here. That afternoon we weekly planned...but our areabook was wack so we didn't have any of our Spanish group members' phone numbers...so we really couldn't do much...but we were able to make cookies and give them to our neighbors! So that was good! Then we grinded some language study and friended some latinos on Facebook. 

 

 

Friday we went to District Council and it was super weird because I was in this district 2 transfers ago...and 3 of the same people are still here...it's just wack...we also aren't in the same district as the Spanish Elders which is also wack...just all the wack stuff, but we had a good discussion about asking inspired questions and being led by the spirit. Then we came home and during Facebook time we active called a dude from El Salvador! I could understand most of what he was saying, Sister Scrogham did all the talking since she was the one calling him though. Spanish is freaky yall...in my head I'm like "yeah I can talk enough to someone in Spanish" then I start talking and it just doesn't make any sense...so send some prayers my way that I can get better at Spanish please! Then we got on our bikes and rode to La Costa Latina in hopes of finding Spanish speaking people but only the owner was there and was kinda confused that we knew Spanish...it was wack...then we biked to the beach and tried biking to a pier but it was a lot farther than we thought and we had a lesson so eventually we had to turn around and go home, even though we didn't get to talk to anyone really. Also it's so flat here and I'm so used to biking with a ton of hills so I kept biking "really fast" in the words of Sister Scrogham even though I thought I was going normal paced, oof. We got home, hauled our bikes up 3 flights of stairs then jumped in the car to drive to Biloxi for a lesson with Juanquina who the Elders are teaching. It was gonna be my first Spanish lesson (well I guess second, I taught 1 lesson in El Dorado to a family in Spanish but I didn't know how to be a missionary so I don't really count that one…)! I was super nervous but the Elders were there and brought a member too. Juanquina is from Honduras and was very nice, but I could only understand every few words from what she said. She would look at me every so often and I would just smile...I didn't say anything the entire lesson until she called on me to say the closing prayer. It was horrible! Elder Ruebush did all the talking and his trainee, Elder Leis, shared an experience and Sister Scrogham asked a question. But I did nothing. I couldn't understand completely what she was saying so I didn't wanna say something and misunderstand what she needed. And she could barely understand Elder Ruebush anyways so my Spanish was gonna be 10,000 times worse. I felt so helpless! In English I can teach a lesson just fine about recognizing the spirit but in Spanish I was totally lost. The member asked me how long we'd been out and I felt horrible for saying 17 months but not being able to speak any Spanish in that lesson! What missionary has been out for that long but can't teach a lesson in their mission language!! 

 

 

On Saturday we had our first hurricane cleanup here in Biloxi. Our Stake went to the Slidell, Louisiana Zone and got work orders in New Orleans. Once we got our equipment and stuff we drove over to NOLA. It was cool because it was my very first time going to New Orleans so I was pretty excited! The first place we went to just wanted us to take down a tree...we had to say no though because it wasn’t hurricane damage or anything like that. It was also weird to drive around these neighborhoods because almost every house had bars over all the windows and doors...a little sketch...Then we went to another lady’s house who had a tree fall in her backyard. But the way her house was situated, each house was right next to the other, with their backyards touching and across the way another backyard touching...so there was no way to move the tree debris to the front without going through her house...so she just had us chuck it all over the fence into the other person’s backyard cuz they still had debris from Katrina. It seemed like quite a few houses down here still had debris from Hurricane Katrina but they just never came back to their house...She was super grateful and sweet though. Then we went to another house and were taking down trees and a fence in the backyard...this is when a small disaster struck...we had a pile that we were throwing everything in to be carried out to the front and I apparently got in the way when Sister Bailey (my mission great-granddaughter) was throwing a fence piece into the pile and my face intercepted it. My left cheekbone just got wrecked, I was bleeding a bit and then it totally bruised up...now I can say the first time I went to New Orleans I got punched in the face jaja. After that we called it a day and headed back to Gulfport and spent the rest of the day finishing our studies. 

 

 

Sunday morning we headed back down to NOLA for hurricane cleanup. We went more downtown this time and got to see some fun super colorful houses! Every house was a different bright color! It was pretty cool! For a couple houses I wasn’t sure if we were cleaning up Hurricane Ida debris or older stuff...but oh well we got to help a lot of people! We even helped this cute mom and her little daughter who had a tree covering their ENTIRE backyard! That was a fun before and after shot. Then we came home, did some studies and then went to Ocean Springs to have a meeting with Stake President Perkes, the other Spanish Elders, Zone Leaders and STL’s about our Spanish group. Basically the Stake President said he never even authorized the Bishop to discontinue having Spanish sacrament meetings separate from the English meetings! Which is just ridiculous. President Perkes made it sound like he really wanted them to be meeting in Spanish again (since they don’t come when it's in English because they don’t understand anything). He asked the Spanish Elders when they wanted to start again and Elder Ruebush (who has been here for 3 transfers and has only met in Spanish once) said in a few weeks. So when he asked us sisters when, I was like “as soon as reasonably possible, this Sunday or the next if we can” trying to push for urgency cuz this is important stuff!! After this meeting, we talked to the Spanish Elders about what we need to do and to make sure we are on the same page for everything. This will be an interesting transfer to say the least…

 

 

Let’s just say that this week was a little rough figuring out Spanish finding and the hot mess that is our Spanish group who aren’t even meeting in Spanish. I know that the Lord is with me because there is really no other way I’m gonna be able to make it through this transfer yall. 

 

 

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, 

Hermana Johnson

 

 

September Bike Mileage: 6 miles

 

 

Pictures!!!

1. Some usual pday shenanigans 

2. Sophia and her adorable family

3. I made beignets for our last night together! 

4. Sister Cropper made a little meme as we ate beignets 

5. Selfie as I leave the Collins apartment 

6. Meeting Sister Scrogham

7. Our apartment literally looks like a beach hotel 

8. Y’all I found a dead snake on our bike ride to the beach and had to take a pic 

9. Cute beach pic

10. Ready to do some hurricane cleanup!

11. Loaded up in the minivan

12. Finishing getting the trucks loaded up

13. Action shot of me pulling some tree limbs to the road

14. Raking action shot to finish making it look nice 

15. A nice before and after pic from one of our jobs