JOHNSON, MEGAN: 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