JOHNSON, MEGAN: Finished The BoM!!!

Hola y'all!

Monday we drove up to Alexandria for Zone Conference the next day. On the way up we called Darlene and Robert…Robert was a little worried about our “rules and laws'' since we had described those as lessons 4 and 5 that they needed to know before being baptized…that was awkward…(literally they are called Lesson 4: The Commandments and Lesson 5” Laws and Ordinances). We tried to reassure him the best we could, it was kinda funny though since we were calling Darlene and Robert was just speaking in the background at us the whole time lol. Once we got to the Alexandria building for pday with the zone we played volleyball for like 3 straight hours I thought I was gonna die! Then we played just me against Sister Lynch with Elder Kephart as the setter for both teams…now that was interesting and very tiring! So Sister Lynch and I took a walk outside so we could take our masks off and get some fresh air. After pday activities the AP’s came to give us our mini Zone Conference minus President and everyone else. It was bomb though! The Ap’s were totally led by the spirit talking about our missionary purpose and real intent (aka President Amos’ motto #Moroni 6:8). During some of it I got called out and asked when I remembered hearing our mission’s baptism by February goal and was essentially like bruh I don't know and asked Sister Lynch who proceeded to give me a “Sister Johnson what do I do?!” look but it worked out fine. Then the Zone leadership talked on this devotional about loving yourself and leaving the place better than you found it which was a good reminder. Then Brother Boswell from the Alexandria ward spoke to us on setting and accomplishing goals, something I absolutely suck at. Then we went to the Green’s house where the Alexandria sisters stay and I got to play with their adorable puppy Billy!

On Tuesday morning we woke up to Brother Green making us breakfast sandwiches at like 7am! While the other sisters were out exercising we chilled with Brother Green and he even had Billy out for us to play with! On our way out he helped us with our bags and hugged us and kissed us on the head…now that’s Brother Green for ya! But honestly he and his wife care and love us missionaries so much it is the best! During our personal study back at home the power went out for like 20 minutes and totally gave me hurricane PTSD yall…very wack. During our companion study we worked on that goal setting thing the AP’s asked us to do because Sister Lynch is real big on keeping commitments and is so good at remembering to do them. Like I said before, I suck at making goals so it was a little rough, but I did make a personal goal to journal at night from 9-9:30 then have a reward treat from 9:30-10 and then go to bed. We had some training time, Sister Lynch roleplayed teaching me how to pray, had another person not answer our phone call lesson and decided to work on our Restoration Jenga game which is turning out pretty cool. After language study we took a walk and saw our little friend, Corbyn, from when we were looking for plants for a FB post. He is in fifth grade and has a sister in eighth grade, we also think his parents might be split up. Anyways we were walking around the complex and just kept seeing him. Then we saw our old neighbor Sean outside!!! He said hi and even came down to talk for a bit. I was reminded of old times with Sister Teague and I talking to Sean and Josh while they smoked and sharing about our religion…and the time Josh’s friend asked Sister Teague out…good times. It was nice seeing him and I sure do miss our neighbors over in our temporary apartment, then Corbyn asked for our number so being the struggling missionaries we are, we gave it to him…big regrets there…Once we were back at our apartment he called us and texted us and even came and knocked on our door to see if we got his messages to come play with him. Sister Lynch just straight up told him that we are working and that we woul be busy because we work long hours…awkward…Then we did some paper areabook calling and accidentally called the same guy twice! It was literally so embarrassing!! Also Sister Lynch reminded me of me calling people with Sister Farris and saying that I just wasn’t ready to talk to someone yet. Oh how the tables have turned! During our daily call with Brother Larimer we all ended up sharing our testimonies of Joseph Smith and I shared mine that I didn’t even know that I had. I testified of my witness that God magnifies our efforts and how Joseph Smith having only a 3rd grade level education proves that after he was able to do so much in the hands of the Lord. After dinner we got a text from Corbyn asking us BOTH to be his GIRLFRIENDS!! We both totally flipped out and didn’t know what to do…the district had a good laugh at us though…can’t say many missionary companions have been asked to by polygamy girlfriends to a fifth grader…

Wednesday morning while we listened to our daily dose of Saints, we listened to the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and my ancestor John D. Lee’s involvement in the slaughter of the Arkansas immigrants…maybe me serving in El Dorado, Arkansas was a sign…We got ready and drove over to God’s Food Bank to do some service but they were closed due to COVID, so we went to For The Critters but they were also closed which was a fat oof. But we came home and did personal study and I read the last chapter of the Book of Mormon!!! I finally finished the whole thing! Cover to cover! Word for word! It was pretty good and I liked Moroni 10:4 about asking God if these things are NOT true and that He will manifest the truth to you. Then in Preach my Gospel I read in the Pray with Faith section and read verse 4 one more time before getting on my knees to pray. That was the most crazy spirit-led prayer of my life man! I was definitely feeling the spirit there! I told Heavenly Father about verse 4 and asked “is The Book of Mormon true?” and the words “you know it is”came to my mind. I knew it was true the whole time, I don’t necessarily know at what point in my life I knew it was true but I know now. Feelings of the spirit were guiding my prayer and my words completely. I even teared up a little bit! Later after lunch we did some training, Sister Lynch practiced the Word of Wisdom and I did the Restoration for our lesson with the Partins tonight. Our lesson with the Partins that night ended up being a GREAT LESSON! Their daughters Robin (whom we never met before because she was always hiding in the back room) and Melanie were out front with the cats when we pulled up so we got to talk with them for a bit and got to bond. Inside we got to talk with Sister Partin since Brother Partin was not home yet, then once he got home we taught the restoration simply. When we asked them how the gospel blesses their family Sister Partin said that it makes them more unified. Robin even read a scripture for us in Moroni 10:3-5 and Brother Partin shared about when he read the Book of Mormon and got a good feeling that he knew it was true or, as Melanie described it, the feeling like when you eat a brownie (this was when we asked about how praying about her baptismal date was going). Afterwards we played our Restoration Jenga game which was fun and emphasized each point a little more. At the end Melanie even said the prayer (with a couple do overs) which was huge!! Brother Partin even said it was impressive that we got Robin to stay for so long! Then we came home, had dinner, did some Facebook and journaled while eating Blue Bell cream cheese ice cream! Good times

On Thursday morning I did my personal studies with a brand new, fresh Book of Mormon which was so weird! I decided to make it my “testimony” Book of Mormon marking people’s testimonies and how they grow their testimonies, and I also am gonna use the blank pages in the back for my companion’s to write their testimonies in too. Basically The Book of Mormon is bomb and it is so cool to see that while studying a new topic I can see things differently and it’s like “whoa have I read that before?!” Pretty cool stuff yall. Sister Lynch and I started looking into all of our addiction recovery and stop smoking program stuff to finsd something to help Sister Hancock stop smoking but it took a lot more prepartion than we had planned out before having to drive to Leesville for interviews with President Amos. The Leesville sisters were there and while Sister Lynch was being interviewed they left and then it was eventually my turn. President asked about the usual things like my spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health. Then I got to tell him how I finished the Book of Mormon yesterday and he was so happy! He said I have basically left the old Sister Farris and am the new and improved version of her, which is like the highest of compliments so that was like whoa. I asked him about the first time he prayed to know that the Book of Mormon was true (he became a convert later in college after several years of missionaries) and he said that he had to do it a few times with real intent in different ways; once to know it wasn’t “hogwash” lol then if it was the word of God, if it was inspired, if the man translate it was inspired, etc one thing at a time, little by little building his testimony. He then proceeded to give his little spiel about his “repentance timer” that keeps his meetings on time and how repentance really just means to change and improve, nothing super scary. He told the story of how a missionary couldn’t wake up until 8:30am but started waking up 10 minutes earlier each day and by the end of the transfer they were waking up at 7:30am. That’s what the repentance process is and what us missionaries are being asked to do, little changes over time and to help call other people to repentance or to change. He even mentioned an example of a smoker making specific, measurable goals and he asked me my thoughts and I immediately thought of Sister Lynch and I trying to plan a lesson for Sister Hancock only a little bit before our meeting! Crazy miracles yall! The spirit really does work! Essentially God wants us to improve and change little by little and an inch is still improvement! President Amos is literally the best ever! I can tell he really listens and cares about what I’m doing. Then later that day we got to have our lesson with Sister Hancock. We shared the story of when Alma was commanded to return to Ammonihah and he speedily returned. We asked her what she thought she could do to be more obedient to the commandments. She said that she felt pretty good about being obedient 90% of the time but the other 10% were the "big/hard things"...and somehow we got onto keeping the sabbath day holy and she thinks that her neighbors actions make it harder and that she feels like she doesn't put her foot down. So we are working with her one step at a time, even if smoking was not on her list of hard commandments she doesn’t follow…Then for miles sake since we were in the Leesville area, we went to the Nances’ house. Her little kids, Ashlyn and Connor, were a little crazy, showing us their trampoline and dance moves and toys. They even have a bird, Coco, that we got to hold and a HUGE great pyrenees dog named Max who was just a total lapdog without realizing how huge he was lol. We played our Restoration Jenga game in hopes that the kids would pay attention but sadly it didn’t quite work…but she asked about having us over for dinner so something went well!!

Friday morning we went outside in the 42 degree weather which I am still shocked is a thing here in Louisiana. We had a full day planned out with 6 lessons!! But of course all of them fell through except for our daily call with Brother Larimer. So we went to Walmart to buy cards and paint for another game to teach Melanie, called a bunch of people including Darlene who was in the hospital from a car accident! Jeez we are never gonna meet with these people again.We also had an accountability call with Elder Engler which is always interesting, not super helpful but interesting.

On Saturday morning we went to For the Critters to help out and ended up literally taking all of the stuff from inside the store outside! Bruh! We cleaned up shoes, belts, hats, purses and all that jazz and I got to pet the resident cat!!...who laid on top of all the clothes...ehhh. At home we had a call with Judy where we're pretty sure she straight up lied to us about having her Book of Mormon by her when she said she keeps it in her room...as we were about to read she had company so she had to go...what an interesting lady. As we planned for our lesson with Sonja who asked us to talk about backsliding (which we thought meant the Fall) we realized, from our Pastor friend Little Jerry, that backsliding actually is related to repentance and salvation…so we had to change up our lesson plan a bit. She was super busy so we agreed to meet her at her work. We pulled up to this slightly sketchy looking house with a singular car in front..we had kind of imagined a whole team of people working there so that was strange but we found Sonja in the yard singing and painting! She invited us in and said she was remodeling the place for the lady who owns it. We sat in the front room, Sister Lynch sat on a chair, and I sat on a kids rolly thing and Sonja on a paint bucket…gotta love being a missionary in the South! We were able to talk with her and got to know her. She really opened up and she has had a rough life but she is one tough gal!! And she LOVES God! She "found" God about 7 years ago but she really wants to do what's best to please Him. Also... she REALLY knows the Bible. So when we pulled out our scriptures and she saw a quad (containing Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants), she was like "what's that?"...oof…so we literally listed off the standard works..she's heard some rough stuff about the “mormons” and Joseph Smith... but she seemed open-minded because we seemed pretty normal (not like the supposed “crazy mormons” she had met) and explained it well (about Christ coming to the Americas and Joseph Smith’s first vision). She did know a bit about the first vision, about Joseph going to the grove to pray and stuff. So we taught a little of the Restoration and brought up some scriptures in the Bible. After we had been three for like an hour she was like “ok what’s next?” so we asked if we could meet up another time to talk more. She was super sweet and open to what we had to say! Then we got in the car and SIster Lynch got kinda mad at me for talking the majority of the time even though I kept looking at her to talk and she never caught on…She even said she was about to speak but then I started talking and cut her off. Man I didn't even know! So when we got home, we made goals and I think I took it too far when she tried justifying that usually on a first lesson with someone she doesn't talk much until she knows them better and she started crying. Dude I literally felt so bad! What kind of mother makes their child cry! I'm the worst! That was not what she needed! She walked away and started her scripture flashcards so I just did my language study…what a rough and weird day…

Sunday morning we had an MCC (missionary coordination meeting) with literally just the Bishop and Sister Pontiff which made it hard since they didn’t know many of the part-member families we brought up. Also Sister Pontiff just fell and broke some ribs and Bishop is just getting over COVID! He totally had it while we were there before Christmas…so we’ll see how that goes…Later we went to the Partins but Melanie and Robin weren’t there. At first it was just Brother Partin and his ex-wife, but we were able to get the sacrament and share a spiritual thought with them. Also we discovered that Melanie and Robin are both Tessa’s daughters! We totally thought they were Dan’s! Wack! Then we went to the Lyons house who are awesome! All of their kids talked A LOT! Little Lyla literally stuck to me like glue, and just talked to me the entire time while Sister Lynch got to know Sister Lyons better. But bruh their tacos were freaking delicious!!! Seriously looked like restaurant tacos!! We played our favorite Resto jenga with them and the kids literally knew so much about the gospel! It was so fun!

This was a big week for me, finishing reading the Book of Mormon for the first time all the way through, cover to cover, for MYSELF was an amazing experience! For anyone who hasn’t read my new favorite book (which is saying a lot because I hate reading) I invite you to because it WILL change your life, it changed mine.

Have a blessed week!

Smile because God loves you and remember that I love, love, love y'all too!

Love,

Sister Johnson

January Bug Bite Count: 2 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