Hola y'all!
Bruh…this was my last full week of missionary activities…
Monday we had zone pday. We all got to the church and each companionship carved a pumpkin, Sister Scrogham and I carved a bat on our white pumpkin (she picked it out lol). Then we headed over to a member's house in Orange Grove and they gave us lunch. We had enchiladas, rice, beans, lemonade and peach cobbler for dessert! They were so nice! Then we all headed back to the church and played kickball (obviously my team won), since messenger and all apps connected to Facebook were down I couldn't really contact anyone…then we played a couple rounds of Monopoly Deal and messenger started working for like the last 15 minutes of my pday! Then we headed home, had dinner and did some language study and training stuff.
On Tuesday morning Sister Scrogham was up and awake for personal study! I even got to daily plan with someone else (Sister Thelin) since Sister Bailey is going to Houston for her French visa stuff so we're gonna be a trio for a couple days. Then since Sister Scrogham was up, we finally went and visited our referrals from Sister Garcia. On the way there we saw a bunch of cool old cars for Cruising the Coast, some event going on this week. First we stopped at Yazmin's house. We knocked on her door and she was super nice, we said we were friends with Sister Garcia and she asked if we wanted to come inside so we said yes. We tried getting to know her, obviously we don't know too much small talk in Spanish so yeah...but then her husband, Luis, was home too!! We asked if we could share a verse with them, it took a hot minute to help them find it, they said that they'd both been baptized super young and were trying to get into church. But we read Matthew 11:28-30, one of my favorites about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. After we shared it and everything that Christ has done for us Luis started asking some questions. He asked if we were scared of dying even though we know about Jesus Christ. I told him yeah it's still scary but that Christ can bring us peace. Then Sister Scrogham proceeded to tell him how she's scared of insects and he gave her a weird look, she didn't quite understand what he said in Spanish jaja. But then we got back on track explaining that death is scary but because of God's plan we know what will happen and that Christ can give us hope. Then he asked if we're Mormon and we explained that Mormon didn't die for our sins, Christ did, so we like to be called members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and we are Christians. Then he asked if we have a Pope so we explained a little about prophets and President Nelson, the living prophet today. He asked how other churches can be hypocritical and be super rich but not help others in poorer countries. We got to explain all of the church's humanitarian efforts and showed a picture of us doing Helping Hands hurricane cleanup. He had so many good questions and wants his kids to know about God too! It was so awesome!! Then we went to Antonia's house, met her and set something up to come back next week (sadly when I'll be gone, which is so weird). Then we came home, some other French sisters picked up Sister Bailey and we became a trio with Sister Thelin. Since this week is our grind finding week we all just called a bunch of people trying to set stuff up. Then we went to English class. We got there a little later than we usually do to set up and when we walked in Laura, from Tuesday's class, was just sitting in the room in the dark. She thought the class started at 5, not 5:30! Poor lady! But the thing was that she stayed!! And her son, Joseph, came and so did Miriam! It was still small but good! Then we went to Subway and Sister Scrogham just loaded up on chips and we all stayed clear of the turkey. Then we came home and called some more people.
Wednesday I had my very last district council. It really hit me hard when we all stood together and recited our missionary purpose for my last time. It'll be the last time that is my full-time purpose: to invite others to come unto Christ. It was kinda sad for me, but we had a good council on personal revelation and the steps of asking, believing that you will receive an answer, being worthy of an answer and acting on that answer. Elder Smith even showed a cool video of Elder Bednar, one of the current 12 Apostles, talking about the difficulty of recognizing when the spirit is gone, especially as missionaries because the spirit is constantly with you as you teach and find people. It was very good. Then we went to the library to meet this grandma named Margo to tutor her grandson, Nakota, in Spanish. It was very interesting...she is homeschooling him and needed help with the pronunciation. We did have to assure her that we were not perfect cuz definitely still learning over here but it was fun to just pronounce basic words for them to repeat. It was also kinda funny cuz some words I didn't know if I was pronouncing them 100% correctly but there were a few I felt solid about and the grandma would look at me and be like "are you sure?" and I would just be like "yeah" It was fun though and they were super nice. Then since her book had some Bible verses we practiced I asked if we could close with a prayer and they said yes! I asked if they wanted it in Spanish or English and they asked for both...so Sister Scrogham prayed in Spanish and I translated it into English. It was cool! On the way home we dropped off some more English class fliers at the store we witnessed a drug deal at and literally as we walked out, all 3 of us were sure another one happened when a lady walked into this Spanish store, clearly didn't speak Spanish, and a fat wad of cash in her hand… awkward… Anyways we came home, Sister Scrogham and I jumped on a call with the Biloxi missionary coordination which was good, not a lot of Spanish stuff went on but hopefully that will change. Then we had 2 lessons with some of Sister Thelin's people; a pass-off lesson with the Elders and someone wanting to be baptized but doesn't quite seem all the way there and this nice dude named Alfred who wants a Book of Mormon. Good stuff.
On Thursday morning Elder and Sister West, our Senior couple in the Zone, came over to do an apartment inspection. They confirmed our suspicions that there is mold on our bathroom ceiling...very gross, very black and looks very much like someone tried to clean it up but just smeared it everywhere. After that our trio biked to someone Sister Thelin is teaching. Since Sister Scrogham doesn't currently have a functioning bike it was an adventure for her riding Sister Bailey's bike (keep in mind Sister Bailey is 5"10 and Sister Scrogham is 5"2 so...yeah jaja). But we made it and I forgot how much I like to bike and Sister Scrogham did a lot better than the first time we rode bikes and I thought she was gonna die slowly making her way along the beach lol. Unfortunately though when we got to her house she was not home...fat rip. So we biked home, had personal study and then Sister Bailey got back from the consulate in Texas! Most of the afternoon was spent doing my last ever weekly planning session before we headed to Biloxi for a lesson with Juanquina (this is the same lady who I had my first Spanish lesson with here and didn't say anything but the closing prayer so I was super determined to say something this time!) and the Spanish Elders. We were a little late because of all the traffic from Cruising the Coast so I had to use some of my raceway driver skills (just kidding I can't even speed with a tiwi lol). We ended up having to wait for Hermano Espinal anyways. Then we went up and Juanquina's daughter, Maria, was there too with her kids as well. We watched the 20 minute Restoration video in Spanish together and then talked about it. Man oh man was I feeling the spirit strong during the video, even if I didn't understand all of it Hermano! Hermano Espinal did most of the talking and he has such a strong testimony! It was so good! He even brought up baptism and Elder Ruebush invited them to be baptized, Maria and her son were totally down but Juanquina was baptized into another church when she was younger and was hesitant about being baptized again. Elder Ruebush tried explaining and Hermano Espinal took over. Then he asked if us sisters had anything to say. Sister Scrogham was kinda thrown off so I started bearing my testimony. Somehow that was the fastest Spanish I've ever spoken in my life, the words just kept coming (I mean it was still a little rough but it felt good) and Sister Scrogham said that Juanquina even had some tears in her eyes! Then everyone else proceeded to bear their testimonies too and it was sustained so good and the spirit in the room was so strong. Then we had to go because it was 6:30 and our English class started at 7...30 minutes away in Gulfport! So I pulled out the racecar driver skills again and we got there with just enough time to set everything up and scramble to get someone to the building to unlock it for us. We had Juan and Laura and her son Joseph come. It was a good class. At the end I had been thinking of a scripture to share for the spiritual thought and changed it last minute to Matthew 7:7-8 about prayer. As I was bearing my testimony in Spanish I wanted to say "I know God hears our prayers" but the word for "to hear" would not come out of my mouth, I visualized the word but it wouldn't come out! Then Juan stepped in and bore his own testimony and it was really good! Tiny MIRACLE!
Friday was an interesting day...we did our studies in the morning, the Elders came over to fix Sister Scrogham's bike because I didn't have the right wrench, we made them cookies for helping, then Sister Scrogham made us this Chicago pizza (last week her parents sent her some of her favorite Chicago foods frozen in a box) and it was pretty good. We decided to stop by the Alvarez family again, knocked on their door and it totally sounded like someone walked up to the door on the inside but no one answered, then we went to the church so I could finish MyPlan (course for missionaries going home) while Sister Scrogham made some posters for us to hand out free Jesus books. Then we went to this neighborhood where lots of Spanish-speaking people live and thought we could set up our car and hand out stuff but there were some signs that said we couldn't park unless we were residents and no good place to do it...so we drove around looking for a better spot they might be to hang out but couldn't find one. We decided to try going to the parking lot of a tienda and some other stores. We started setting up and after we got our table out this dude named Brad started talking to us. He has been through A LOT, apparently there was a movie a while back about some Somali pirates and stuff based on a true story. He was the engineer for one of the ships that got captured in real life! They even left some metal in his body and he had to get surgery then an electrician cut a wrong cord and the power went out during his surgery and now he has a giant scar all up his stomach…he even showed us...anyways he talked to us for like 30 minutes, got his number, gave him a Book of Mormon and all the good stuff. It was 6:30 and starting to get dark but we stayed out there...there weren't a lot of people and everyone we asked said no...one dude pulled up and we gave him a Libro de Mormón y la Santa Biblia! So that was sick! At home we were supposed to have a lesson with this guy named Edwin from some other sisters in Florida but he didn't answer the phone...then we called some members to tell them about church in Spanish on Sunday!!
On Saturday morning we had to take the car to the shop to get an oil change so we took our bikes with us and biked to the beach, took some pictures of a Book of Mormon for FB marketplace, filmed a teaching video for Abraham, then headed back to get the car. After getting it the transfer boards with everyone's transfer news went up on the Google Drive. It was really weird to not see my name anywhere...kinda really sad. But Sister Scrogham is staying here and getting Sister Bogh as a companion, they lived together in NOLA and both just finished training so that will be fun. Sister Glenn, the other NOLA sister, is getting Sister Tippetts trainees while Purvis and Baton Rouge are getting English sisters serving Spanish-speaking. Sister Angilau is training 2 sisters in Purvis in Spanish! Crazy stuff! Also Sister Thelin is training Sister Thelin! Lol Then after our studies we called all the people in our areabook that seemed to speak Spanish. Only a few answered but still good! Then we were supposed to have a lesson with this guy named Carl, we drove all the way to his house 30 minutes away, he wasn't home from work even though we had talked to him that day so we waited outside his house for 30 minutes but nothing...so we came home, had dinner and then our whole quad biked to the beach to talk to people at Cruising the Coast. We all biked over there at 7pm in the dark jaja, parked our bikes, split up and walked along the beach. Sadly we didn't find any Spanish people but we gave out some Jesus pictures, heard some really loud music and cars, got lots of cat calls...even some for my mother...very awkward...and saw some really fancy looking cars.
Sunday morning we drove to my very first Spanish sacrament meeting as a missionary...and my last. EVER. Church. As. A. Missionary. CRAZY! It was like 8:55am and church started at 9am for both the Biloxi English Ward and our Spanish Group and no one was there yet for Spanish. We kinda freaked out a little...then finally the Elders got there, then the Espinals, Brenda and her family and then Juanquina and her family. We had 11 people there and 16 if we include the missionaries!! It was so awesome! Hermano Espinal is the group leader so he conducted the meeting. Sister Scrogham plays a little piano so she was gonna play some prelude music when he started. She realized that the Spanish hymn book is different from the English one (less hymns and different numbers) and was trying to find hymns she could play when I heard Hermano Espinal announcing we were gonna sing some hymns he had...I translated for her and she was like "oh" then he wrote the hymns numbers on the board and we tried to figure out what they were in English. It was so awkward cuz she didn't know what they were supposed to sound like so it wasn't quite the right tune but Hermano y Hermana Espinal were desperately trying to sing to it and have everyone follow along but it wasn't really working...during the second hymn she gave up during the middle of it and we decided to just play it from her phone. But Hermano Espinal was so nice about it and said "this is a good time to practice. We are a family ``. It was so sweet!! Then Elder Ruebush blessed the sacrament and Alvin Espinal passed it while his dad gestured how to do it jaja. It was so cute! Hermano Espinal was the only speaker but he gave a great talk about the importance of the Priesthood, fighting the natural man and enduring to the end. He has such a strong testimony and it seemed to be the perfect thing for Juanquina to hear! Then all the Spanish members left except for the Espinals who stayed for the second hour of church in English. We had a really good Relief Society discussion on President Nelson's opening remarks about listening for pure truth, pure doctrine and pure revelation during General Conference. It was really good. It made me keep thinking of 4 Nephi after Christ visited the Americas and how when the people had the love of God, there was no contention and they were blessed! I just need to hold to that as I prepare to go home this week, anyways then we came home, planned for the day, got into a small argument about planning for sending videos to Abraham (basically I wanted to plan out a principle to teach and invitation for him and who should say which part, but Sister Scrogham wanted to "let the spirit guide" so she took 2 seconds to pick a scripture and started recording...anyways I think we're good now). Then we just had studies, did some Facebook work and then headed to a lesson in Gulfport with Brenda's family and the Elders. We got to her house and there were 6 other people there! Her kinda husband (probably not legal), Salvador, her 2 kinda sister-in-laws named Cecilia and Vanessa, daughter Cindy and like 2 year old niece. Milagros. We were planning on talking about the Restoration and showing the video. But before we did Brenda just went off about everything; how she wants all of them to be baptized, how she loves going to church and how the church is a church of order which freaks out Salvador because it seems like there's so many rules oof. After that we showed the video and asked everyone what their favorite part was. Brenda went off again and then everyone else answered. It was really funny to see that when I spoke all 3 ladies' heads turned to look at me speaking Spanish jaja fun stuff. We gave them all Libros de Mormón and invited them to read it and all 4 of us missionaries bore our testimonies on it and so did Brenda. It was good and at only one point was the little girl running around with no pants on jaja. We also invited them to English class and Sister Scrogham taught Brenda and Cindy how to say "Sup dog". It was pretty hilarious! Then we came home, had dinner, some of Sister Scrogham's Cheesecake, and my last stewies with Sister Bailey. She gave me some advice on not going inactive (aka my biggest fear) when I go home lol. But she said that she heard somewhere that if you're reading the Book of Mormon everyday you won't go inactive so that's what I'm gonna do!
To finish things off I want to actually share 4 Nephi 1:15 which says “And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.” I know that with the love of God, all things can be made right, whether that is our love for God or His love for us. As I get ready to go home I just keep thinking about holding to that truth that God loves me and therefore will help me, be with me and carry me through. Because of that and all that my Savior, Jesus Christ, has done for me, the least I can do is continue to learn and grow by studying and living the gospel. I know that God loves each one of yall and with that knowledge we can do great things!
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
October Bike Mileage: 0 miles
Pictures!!!
1. Zone pumpkin carving at its finest
2. Our companion bat pumpkin
3. All our little pumpkins lined up
4. My very last district council pic
5. Classic Subway group selfie
6. Classic giving out free Libros de Mormon in front of the Latina Tienda
7. Ok ok so this is our recreation in process selfie
8. Ok ok the original picture
9. Ok ok our quad recreation of the OG pic (one night we had a district competition of best recreations and this was one of ours…you can’t even tell the difference can you? )
10. Cool red car at Cruising the Coast
11. Cool corvette at Cruising the Coast
