Hola y'all!
Let's just say this was a pretty interesting week...
So Monday was kind of a lame pday...the trio was in Columbia so we couldn't meet up as a district since it would've been just the Meridian Elders and us. So we spent the day talking to family, getting groceries at Ramey's (and missing Walmart), messaging people, walking down Main Street to go in a few stores and antique shops, going to Roses Discount store and that's about it. We did go to Huddle House for dinner which was nice. Then we came home and did some studies, called some people and did some Facebook stuff.
Tuesday morning we finally got to meet Annja who is a recent convert that moved in just after we got to Collins. We went over and met her and her almost 2 year old son, Elliot, and talked with her. She's super cool and seemed very into her Book of Mormon reading as we read where she's at in Helaman. She did have some good questions about women and the Priesthood that we didn't get to answer cuz she moved on but we'll have to talk about that and some other things down the line. Then we hurried home, ate leftovers for lunch in 20 minutes then called Danielle over Facebook. She's always super sweet and even though she didn't pray in the mornings like we invited her to, she recommitted herself to do it this week. We did a little Bible study on the importance of scripture study and it was good. We also did a little cross study with Elder Snapp and Elder A'isea in our district since Elder Snapp is also in training so that he and Sister Cropper could do some role plays together. It was really good for her, especially since we haven't been able to teach people more than the first lesson and she came out of it really wanting to be a better missionary so that was good. And the Elders made pretty funny Southerners being taught the Plan of Salvation (God's plan outlining why we're here, where we came from and where we're going) jaja. We had 2 lessons fall through but it gave us time to be able to call a lot of people. We also had the first Spanish call with the missionaries wanting to speak Spanish...it was interesting...only 1 companionship joined and they all kept asking me questions, I was able to answer them correctly...hopefully but it was just freaky to think about how little Spanish I know and having them rely on me for their questions, but it was alright. Elder Aldana also organized a call with his mom for her birthday so we could sing to her in Spanish that night which was pretty fun.
On Wednesday morning I had a good personal study. I read Matthew 27 about Jesus Christ being tried and crucified. It was kinda intense yall, it really just put into perspective EVERYTHING that Christ chose to suffer, for me, and for you. I mean He had just suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, was betrayed by one of His apostles, was starving and thirsty when the chief priests were accusing Him of doing things He hadn't done because He is the Son of God, then His own people have the choice to free Christ or a murderer and they chose the murderer. Christ was mocked, tortured, spit upon and crucified (which is like the worst death ever as your body earns for the sweet release of death). And during all of that He could have made them stop. But He didn't. He suffered it all to carry through God's plan, which allows us to have second chances. I just got super overwhelmed at everything Christ has done for us. Us. Then we went over to Keith and Sandra's but they weren't home...rip. But we went around knocking doors in the area so that was good, always a struggle to find people's address sometimes though. Then we drove back home (since my bike is in the shop) for virtual district council since the trio is in Columbia. Sister Cropper was a little nervous because she was giving her first discussion and when we logged on the AP's were there too! She basically flipped out jaja but she gave a great discussion on effective study, specifically personal study which I think was really good for her too. Then we tried to have district lunch virtually too but the Meridian Elders had service to go to so they were lame...We had 2 lessons that both fell through so that was an oof. But we got to do some Facebook active calling which is always freaky but produces MIRACLES! I even had a Spanish class led by a member with all the missionaries trying to learn Spanish. It was really good for me to review the basics again super in depth. Man I need to work on my Spanish...I was also craving mashed potatoes for dinner and made some with some potatoes, milk and a LOT of butter jaha which was fun...I secretly like cooking. We also had the Mendenall Sisters spend the night with us, Sister Martin and Sister Killian, which was fun.
Thursday morning we woke up and drove down to Oak Grove for Zone Conference! So exciting! It was a Mississippi Zone conference with all 3 zones serving in Mississippi. So hype! We got there early for pancakes from the AP's and got to talk with everyone before the meeting started. It was really good. The AP's calculated out 4127 hours as the number of hours that we use on a 2 year mission proselyting (so the total 2 years was like 17,000 hours but with sleep and pdays and meal time taken out it was 4127) which freaked us all out about using our time wisely. Crazy stuff! Then we had a mission vehicle training with the Odd and Ends Elders at Zone Conference and the rest of the mission was over zoom. It was fun! We did some great workshops and had some great presentations about using time wisely. President Amos even showed us this video of ants building their ant hill after it got rained on and man those suckers are diligent! They worked for 15 hours straight, each carrying 1 menial piece of sand, while it even fell a couple times. It taught us to not be discouraged, the small things make a difference and that it just takes patience and consistent hard work. So good! Then we had pizza for lunch, Klondike bars for dessert and played some team bonding games after taking pictures. Then the President asked to talk with me about a "special assignment"...I kinda freaked out and was like what the heck does he want me to do?! We stepped outside (so we could take off our masks lol) and he said my special assignment during my "bonus transfer" as the President called it (because I chose to extend my mission) was to "habla español"...I totally died inside!! This is what I had been telling people my dying wish as a missionary was and it was finally gonna happen that I could speak my mission language! He hadn't told anyone else yet so we basically just threw a bunch of ideas out there and asked for my thoughts. They're getting 4 new Spanish speaking sisters next transfer so Sister Tippetts and Sister Hunt will each train 2 of them but there are currently 3 sisters in training so he said that 1 of them, whichever needed more help, would come with me so I could finish out training her. We talked about what Spanish areas there are in the mission to send us to and he basically said I'd be going back to the Gulfport Zone. This gave me A LOT to think about! I was so pumped to finally be able to speak Spanish...but I've also only ever spoken to like 3 Spanish people and that was mostly in my first area...so a WHILE ago...and I only have 1 transfer left...it was very overwhelming and quite the mix of emotions, I'm excited to train again but it's follow up training which isn't really training and I've heard kinda socks...I'm excited to speak Spanish but I know I'm not very good and I only have 6 weeks to speak it...Basically everything kinda freaked me out. But we were going on exchanges...which seems to always happen when President tells me something...so I didn't have time to ponder too much on it, especially since we got in the car and Sister Fisher told me it was my last Zone Conference...I hadn't realized that...next transfer it will just be a Zday...sadness. But we went to dinner with this single old lady who was super sweet and has gone through quite a lot in her own life but somehow keeps pushing through everything. Then we got home and I was finally able to do my personal study. joy! I wanted to read something to help me feel less stressed with this huge Spanish speaking and training task that lay in front of me but I started by reading where I was at in the Book of Mormon. I was at 1 Nephi 3 and when I realized that and the classic verse 7 "I will go and do" I think I lost it. I started silently crying over my desk in the Purvis apartment because that's exactly what I needed to hear. I read the chapter and it seemed like every little thing related to me and my situation, God was asking me to do something hard but He's not asking me to do it alone, if I have faith and put in the work, He will provide a way for me to accomplish what He has in store. How awesome is the Book of Mormon!! It seriously answers every question, even if we're just reading in our normal place! It just made me feel like God knew who I was, how I was feeling in that moment and was ready to help if I came unto Him.
On Friday I was in Purvis so we woke up, did our studies and all of our stuff for the day slowly fell through...oof. But Sister Fisher had a call with the Zone Leaders and all the District Leaders that I kind of just sat in on and it was wack. They were talking about how to apply what happened at Zone Conference and my mind started running, coming up with all these ideas and things to help the Zone...but I'm not an STL...so I didn't say anything...even though no one else had any thoughts! It was just wack and I felt like I was an STL back in Monroe but couldn't actually help...I did slip in an idea to do another Zone pday though (that was all I felt appropriate to chime in about jaja). Then after lunch we went to the church to do a bunch of Facebook. We tried calling a bunch of the dudes I've been messaging out of the country who want to have calls but they didn't answer...rip. Then we decided to do some active calling and all the people I called answered! We got a new person, Daphne, and I had a video chat with, Cindy, but she said she's too busy to do Bible studies but I can send her daily verses. (Then a crazy miracle was that Cindy commented on my "moved to Collins" post and asked me to friend her daughter. THEN a member replied to her comment and asked about how she met with me! Instant fellowships for the future! MIRACLE!) Then we found out Sister Simpson is leaving for her original assignment in France on Monday! So we freaked out about that and what's gonna happen as we drove back to meet up with Sister Cropper and Sister Simpson at the giant watermelon (aka halfpoint between Collins and Purvis). When I got back with Sister Cropper she told me that she did a lesson over the phone all by herself! Proud mom moment! That was exactly what I needed to hear that everything on her exchange went well, especially with all this special assignment stuff. I know she can lead the area but it was just nice to really put it to the test. Then we basically spent the rest of the day doing Spanish study (cuz I really gotta grind that out) and weekly planning.
Saturday was good. We had a little social media safety moment on our Saturday call about Sister Missionaries and the sad reality of creepy men. Basically they encouraged sisters to friend other women on Facebook and that the Elders will friend the dudes...it reminded me of the time a "professional pervert" messaged me...I blocked him before anything crazy happened but yeah...wack stuff out there. But after that we went to meet LaToya. We drove to her house and as we pulled up there were some kids playing outside and when we parked they ran to the door, but it was locked and they started banging on it, acting like they needed to be let in or we would kill them...it was kind of hilarious jaja. But LaToya came out and explained that her 6 nieces and nephews would be joining us for a lesson outside. At first they were NOT into it. But she made them listen and asked us to share a message as she used a metal bar to wack her poor dogs away (I straight up almost cried). Since we were planning on just teaching LaToya the Plan of Salvation, which is a kinda intense lesson, we had to switch up what we were sharing for kids. To list the children we had Kenesha (11th grade), Jeremiah (9th grade), Patrick (6th grade), Jemaria (5th grade), Kaden (3rd grade) and Jayla (1st grade). So we had a wide variety of audience. We taught them the Restoration extremely simplified and using the pictures in the Book of Mormon. We even gave each child their own copy of the Book of Mormon. Good stuff. The kids ever so slowly warmed up to us so by the end they were sharing experiences with prayer, what Jesus meant to them, volunteering to read verses and saying the closing prayer! It was so fun and then LaToya asked us to tell them about our purpose as missionaries here on earth and Kenesha even asked us some questions! It was so good then we asked when we could come back and LaToya said she only gets them once a month so that was kinda sad but we can still meet with LaToya. Then we drove home and had lunch. After lunch we called my friend Shanu from Nigeria. He messaged me saying he wants to be "born again" so I told him I'm a missionary and teach 5 lessons in preparation for baptism and he was interested. I had been trying to video call him like 5 times previously but today he answered! We only got to talk for like 15 minutes but he said he was looking for a church. He said none of them met his standards or were God's church so I promised him that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is Christ's restored church on the earth today and that he found what he's looking for. He was super excited and thanked us many times. It was so crazy! We are still in the process of trying to find his missionaries though...so that's fun. Then we went to visit Grace but apparently she doesn't feel good until 3 or 4pm so when we came over at 2pm she was not in the mood...wack...but she let us help her prepare some meals for her which was nice. Then we came home and called a billion people (members and nonmembers) for like 2 hours! Later that night we did another cross study with Elder Snapp and Elder A'isea. Sister Cropper was a lot more confident in this one and it went well (even though Elder Snapp was pretending to be a drunk Mexican guy (cuz he's practicing Spanish but really speaks Portuguese) coming from the bar holding a Corona). Pretty interesting stuff man. She's growing up so fast.
On Sunday we invited a bunch of people to church who said they'd come but didn't show up, #constantstruggle. We had like 12 people at church to hear my 35 minute long talk since I was the only speaker, but that's ok because I always prepare way too much so I had to cut my talk in half because I just love talking about Jesus for forever I guess. That was fun, but Sister Jones was super into it and had so many head nods in agreement as she took notes, it was the sweetest thing ever. A couple of the older dudes were definitely asleep but oh well. Then after church we had a really good missionary coordination meeting with our branch mission leader, Brother Stelly. Good stuff. The rest of the day we did our studies, called people and took an evening walk.
In closing I know I've said this just about a million times already but I can PROMISE you, in the name of Jesus Christ (and this is coming from a representative of the Lord) that The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ can answer every one of your questions, each one you've got deep down in your soul, The Book of Mormon has an answer. I don't always logically know how it does (I mean God) but it does, if you are sincerely searching with faith. And I know that The Book of Mormon is evidence of God's love for all His children. I know it is the word of God and can help make your life just that much better because it's done that for me. And I know that with God, we can all do hard things (hopefully even speak Spanish jaja).
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
August Bike Mileage: 30 (ya know, not having a bike really messes with my mileage man)
Pictures!!!
1. Me taking a walk down Collins Main Street...I promise my legs aren't THAT white
2. Sometimes there's cool stuff in Collins...like this thing outside the funeral home…
3. Always gotta take a comp selfie
4. Me and a nice Collins sign
5. The new standard mission bikes jaja
6. Dinner at Huddle House
7. Yall I made myself a little fake Thanksgiving with chicken, mashed potatoes (that I made from scratch cuz I was craving them), stuffing and green beans! It brought me so much joy!
8. The Sole sistas store we met at for exchanges
9. We took a picture in front of this GIANT watermelon!
10. Such a big watermelon!
11. There was a funny sign at the store too
12. Sister Cropper's mom sent us both hairbrushes
13. Cool sunset comp selfie
14. Took this picture then like 2 seconds later the train started honking at us...whoops we almost died...but not really but also kinda jaja
15. Me in front of the Collins train station!
16. Comp selfie at Collins station
