Hola y'all!
Alrighty so this was an exciting week full of new stuff y'all.
On Monday we got another referral! Of course now we actually start getting referrals once I’m supposed to leave but it will definitely help prepare Sister Lynch with some people before she takes over the area. Instead of having pday today we had a normal Monday with pday on Tuesday. That morning the mission had “Greenie Graduation” for all the trainees in celebration of them finishing their training, the STL’s also called and gave us both some advice for going into our new leadership roles with me becoming an STL and Sister Lynch becoming a trainer right out of training. We also were able to go drop of a Book of Mormon to Anthony who the sisters at the Hawaii Visitor Center are teaching, although once we dropped it off we called them to see when we could start teaching him, hoping to join in on the next lesson since we just met him but they were super weird about it and said we could join a later lesson…weird but oh well. Then we visited Audriana and had a quick lesson with her, but she doesn’t seem quite all there…so it was kinda awkward and short…But we directed her to listen to the Book of Mormon app since she can’t read so hopefully that all goes well. Sadly Brinda was waiting for her doctor so she had to cancel. That night we got to go over to the Marshall’s for dinner to say goodbye. They are the sweetest little old couple ever who are so active in the church and willing to help us out with anything. Also during our spiritual thought they were just total spiritual giants and man does Brother Marshall know A LOT of stuff about the Book of Mormon! Then after the day was over I frantically packed and tried to study past MLCs (Mission Leadership Council) to try and know all the tiny little mission rules and in hopes of learning more about being an STL. Stress!
Tuesday we had pday! Woot woot! My last pday and full day with Sister Lynch, my baby. She was too cute and made pancakes for breakfast and I made homemade buttermilk syrup (shoutout to Sister Hoopes for the awesome recipe) and it was amazing. Then I started putting all my clothes through the dryer again to pack and so that I don't take the bedbugs with me to Monroe since they won't come spray until Wednesday. Oof. For pday we went to Nachitoches and since it was Elder Miyasaki's birthday last week, his mom paid for the whole district to go out for sushi! I had never actually had sushi before but we all got a bunch of rolls to share and it was SO GOOD! Definitely liked the cooked rolls more than the raw ones but it was a good time bonding with the district before peacing out (well Elder Coon is getting transferred to the Monroe Zone so I'll still see him). Then we all went back to the Nachitoches church building and played chess and said goodbye to everyone. T'was a sad time, I've known them all for so long. Then we came home, called Brother Larimer for the last time and went to our last dinner together as companions. Sister Lynch and my "last supper" if you will jaja. We went to this Mexican food restaurant called Fiesta Cafe and I got shrimp and crawfish fajitas and she got the same thing in quesadilla form. It was each of our first times having crawfish and it was really good! Basically, it’s like a mini lobster! Then we came home and she helped me pack the rest of the night because I was major stressed. I have accumulated A LOT of things and am the worst at packing jaja.
On Wednesday we woke up at 6am to finish getting everything together and make the 3.5 hour drive to Baton Rouge. We did stop at Smoothie King along the way though for breakfast. At transfer point we had to be super COVID cautious because one of the office missionaries tested positive for COVID...oof. But I got to see all my missionary pals from my first district, my mission dad and Sister Cottle (who gave me all the tea on my new companion, Sister York, because they were companions for 2 transfers. She sounds awesome!). I even got to meet Sister Lynch's baby she's training, Sister Carroll, who seemed super sweet and I hyped up Sister Lynch for her and it was good. I was with Sister Young (going to West Monroe) since both of our companions were just staying up in Monroe and then we also had Sister Ward (who came out into the mission field the same day as me) who was training Sister Angilou (a brand new missionary) loaded into the West Monroe minivan. We got Cane's (of course) for lunch with all the other missionaries then made the 4 hour drive up to Monroe. They are all super nice and Sister Ward and Sister Angilou are serving in Bastrop but they live in the same apartment as the Monroe sisters, so I'll be living in a quad with them. It was SO weird to be going back to the Monroe Zone (my very first zone) and we got to their apartments and I even remembered the directions to the church building to meet the other Sisters to get the apartment keys. Sister York and Sister Smith (West Monroe) were teaching the young men and young women at the church, so we saw them (my first time seeing my companion, Sister York, since I first met her during hurricane evacuation for Delta when she was Sister Cottle's companion). Then we unloaded all our stuff at the apartment and they got home and Sister York came and gave me a big hug! Yay! They even made us dinner! So sweet! I ate super fast though because we had a call with a returning member named Sadie to talk about this week's Come Follow Me over video call. Sadie was super sweet and she even knew Sister Farris!! So we bonded over that jaja. Also Sister York bore her testimony and she got all teary eyed and it was just so cool to see how strong of a testimony she has! I can tell Imma love this girl!
Thursday morning I totally woke up and forgot where I was, expecting to see Sister Lynch. It was wack! Sister York and I went for a walk for exercise time to get to know each other better. She's pretty chill (or in the words of Sister Cottle "she's a hippie"). After getting ready we went and got groceries as a quad (wow I missed living with other missionaries man) and came back home, did our studies, had lunch (where I tried to break all that awkward silence of getting to know each other) and did weekly planning. It's always interesting to see how other missionaries do things. We also have someone named Larry being baptized next week so we had to plan for that!! Super awesome!! Since we're the STL's (Sister Training Leaders) we also had time to plan for our exchanges (STL's have to go on exchanges with each Sister in their zone and we have 8 other sisters in our Zone so we were trying to plan 4 exchanges. Fun). Then we had dinner, language study and a missionary coordination meeting with President Hathcock, the branch mission leader in Winnsboro (since we cover 2 units and share the Winnsboro branch with the Winnfield Elders). He is so awesome and is so invested in the missionary work! It was great! Then we called the ZL's (Zone leaders) to talk about which areas in the zone could become biking areas since the mission is losing miles and cars. Then we had a stewardship call (as STL's we do this with each companionship of sisters once a week) with the West Monroe sisters and I was super nervous, but they were really nice and it went ok. I'll have to work on my advice giving and stuff though jaja.
On Friday morning we all exercised inside, Sister York did yoga while Sister Ward and Angilou did some hard core workout video thing. We had district council in West Monroe and it was so weird having such a small district, my smallest district so far with only 4 companionships so only 8 total missionaries…wack. But that meant that it went by so fast! Sister York gave a great discussion though, she is super chill about everything. Also Sister Angilou is already such a great missionary when it’s only her first week! Once back home we contacted a bunch of people and it was weird not knowing any of them (since in El Dorado we weren’t teaching anyone and it was basically the same when I first got to DeRidder). We had a video lesson with this lady named Brittany. She's got 2 little kids who woke up in the middle of our lesson so then we couldn’t really talk much after that…oof, but she read the pamphlet the missionaries gave her and is super sweet! Then we drove down to Winnsboro (they usually go down there only once a week due to miles and such) where I got to meet the Temple family, recent converts in the Winnsboro Branch. They were all so nice, Betty was pretty quiet while her husband, Thomas, did most of the talking as well as their son, Casey, who is our age. They are so fun and absolutely love the gospel!! They also have chickens, like 5 huge dogs, cats, so many animals outside in the middle of nowhere Winnsboro.
Saturday morning we went for a walk for exercise time and found little guppies in the gutter which was cool. We got a referral, Charmaine, who we texted and were able to set up a call for today in the afternoon (apparently they actually get referrals here in Monroe/Winnsboro). She was super sweet and Sister York was so good at genuinely being there to help her and working together to meet her goals. It was a teaching style I had not yet seen before in missionaries, however we basically had no lesson plan and we pulled scriptures out of nowhere (which was great)! After lunch we visited one of the Monroe members, this old lady named Sister Bollinger, to drop off her violin and some Book of Mormons (she always wants some to mail to her friends) and she gave us some old coins so “we’ll always have money” lol. Sadly Brittany canceled our lesson for today but when we called Sharon it turned into a lesson about agency and redemption! And she wants another Book of Mormon for her friend who has been meeting with missionaries! Then as STLs we had a call with one of the El Dorado companionships, Sister Munford and Sister Holloway, who were specifically asking me for advice about people that were being taught when I was there. It kinda scared me but they asked about Ms. Diane who Sister Cottle and Sister Earl taught but that Sister Farris didn’t think was accountable due to some mental stuff. They told us how Ms. Diane got SUPER mad at them for not accepting money to go buy her food since she’s sick, and they put her back on date for baptism…not really sure that was the best idea but hopefully that works out. It is so weird being an STL and trying to help other sister missionaries with their people and stuff going on, I kinda feel like I’m expected to be the therapist that solves all of their problems. Then we had a call with Larry (also we literally have so many lessons a day here in Monroe! It is so awesome!) and the Elders in Farmerville (Elder Cameron and Elder Grant) and Brother Oglesby in our ward, which might have been an overwhelming bunch of people for Larry who just seemed to listen and absorb the information we taught about the commandments. During dinner we tried to all bond as a quad asking more getting to know you questions and stuff. Then we contacted more people, had an accounting call with Elder Cameron, our district leader, who was very serious and straight to the point (a stark contrast from Elder Engler doing calls while he laid in bed).
On Sunday I had a nice, chill morning where we zoomed into church and had testimony meeting which was nice to actually have church meetings go on. AND the whole ward has such strong testimonies like dang! Then we went to the church building with the Bastrop Sisters to get the sacrament from Brother Holt, the ward mission leader, who was sweet and even gave us some time to “ponder” before he blessed the sacrament (another stark contrast to getting the sacrament in the Partins’ living room surrounded by dogs lol). Then at home we contacted a bunch more people, had a good companion inventory where she questioned why I burp so much and pop my shoulder all the time…whoops. Then we had a video call with Brittany to discuss a video she saw on Instagram about Lilith (which we had been freaking out about all day because there is no scriptural evidence for Lilith who the video said was supposedly Adam’s first wife) but then it turned out Brittany just wanted to know if the video was true and was satisfied with us saying that it was not true. Period. So that was chill jaja. Then we got to do a Come Follow Me video call with Brittany, the Temples (who are all friends) and the Winnfield Elders (and Elder Keen from my very first district in El Dorado was still there! So it was really nice to see him again!). Then we went over to the Poulsen’s house for dinner to break the fast and they were so sweet and are members who recently moved here from Escondido, California! Crazy! And we invited Larry to come and the Poulsens were so welcoming of him! And Larry had remembered everything we taught him from our last lesson (even though he never said anything and I was convinced he might not be listening)! It was so good! AND Larry even had some really good questions for us because his family had been asking him questions about the church and Larry wanted to know the best way to answer them. So sweet! AND Brother Poulsen just kinda took over answering all of Larry’s questions which was amazing because we were hoping that Brother Poulsen would be a good fellowshipper for Larry! Then that night we had my first ever zone report call where the STLs and ZLs (Zone Leaders) do a video call to collaborate on a weekly report of the zone to send to President Amos. I felt really bad because I had no idea how to contribute and the Elders (Elder Rogers and Elder Read) were like "sisters please help" since they were kinda doing everything. And then Elder Rogers was too sweet, saying he would have to pray about it all later while Sister York was a little too chill saying that President wouldn't even really look at it that much...oof..AND the call went until 9:51, when we’re supposed to be in bed by 10:30!
This week involved a pretty big change, meeting lots of new people and figuring out all of my new duties as an STL. It was crazy but I made it through - definitely only with the help of the Lord because each day here in Monroe was jam packed full of stuff. It's been crazy trying to remember who everyone is but I’m slowly figuring it all out…hopefully ;)
Have a blessed week!
Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!
Love,
Sister Johnson
February Bug Bite Count: 0 bites cuz them bedbugs didn't follow me to Monroe!!
January Bug Bite Count: 28 bites
December Bug Bite Count: 12 bites
November Bug Bite Count: 18 bites
October Bug Bite Count: 39 bites
September Bike Mileage: 0.0 miles
August Bike Mileage: 46.9 miles
July Bike Mileage: 161.0 miles
June Bike Mileage: 61.6 miles
Pictures!!!
1. It was Elder Miyasaki’s birthday so his parents treated our entire district to sushi
2. Getting goodbye selfies with my favorite people, Sister Murdoch and Sister Hansen
3. It was so sad to say goodbye to Sister Hansen after knowing her for so long
4. For Sister Lynch and my last meal we wanted crawfish and they happened to have some at this Mexican restaurant
5. CRAWFISH
6. Cool sunset picture on the bridge crossing the Mississippi River
7. Comp selfie on the tiny Monroe couch with Sister York as my new comp
8. Selfie with the Temple family
9. A silly pic of Sister York and I waiting for one of our video calls
