JOHNSON, MEGAN: Larry’s Baptism

Hola y'all!

Monday was a pretty chill pday. We went to the store, Sister York bought some plants, I continued trying to bond with Sister Ward and Sister Angilou and found out that they are sending missionaries back to Argentina! I really need to keep on improving my Spanish! Then we all headed up to Farmerville to hang out with the district and found out some tea that Elder Cameron got emergency transferred from his last area because a sister really liked him…oof…I didn’t even know that could actually happen :/ But it was fun because in Farmerville we went to this lake and there was a BEACH! Like with seashells and everything! Sister York even made a sandcastle! She’s so funny. Then we all went on the dock for a bit before exploring the nearby forest next to the dam. Then it turned into a war of seafoam when Sister York threw some foamy stuff in the water at Elder Cameron and then he tried to get her back with Elder Grant's help so me and the West Monroe sisters (Sister Smith and Sister Young) ran for it jaja until the Elders cornered Sister York and got her, totally hilarious and made for some good district bonding (minus the Bastrop sisters who were kinda off doing their own thing). Then Sister York and I had to leave in order to make it to MLC (Mission Leadership Council), we drove to Alexandria to pick up those sisters (Sister Despain and Sister Cowgill) and Brother Green made us pot roast for dinner! He even remembered me! Then we all drove the 4+ hours together down to Pride to stay the night before headed to Baton Rouge the next morning. Once we got to Pride the sisters all kinda knew each other so there was lots of screaming when we first arrived while Sister York and I just went to set up our air mattresses and go to sleep while they all talked.

On Tuesday morning let’s just say it was an interesting night (the sisters talked for so long and didn’t come into our room until like 1am and were so loud that I was about to snap and pop off on them but luckily that comp unity kicked in and Sister York told them to be quiet, I even woke up a couple times to Sister Despain sleep talking lol). Then luckily Sister York brought some bagels to eat for breakfast since I didn’t know we had to bring our own food…awkward…anyways we made it over to Baton Rouge to be seated at 8:50am for MLC to begin. It all just seemed like a massive social event just a little bit but a lot of policy things also happened as well. It was overall very interesting, Sister Amos gave us all a COVID update, the LSU Sisters (where Sister Murdoch is serving, which was nice to see a familiar friendly face) gave an overview of what was covered in the last MLC which I literally didn’t know anything about (I guess I can blame that on my Alexandria Zone Leadership for not sharing or making clear for everyone)! But it only stressed me out even more, feeling like I knew nothing, hence I didn’t say a single word the entire conference. Then the AP’s talked about specific questions from the Zone Leadership where we decided to change our pday the week of transfers from Tuesday to Monday, which I wasn’t quite a fan of but didn’t have enough solid evidence as to why I wasn’t a fan. Then each zone took a turn standing up and sharing their baptism goals and everyone seemed to have a plan and to be really moving on it and had some great ideas for zone unity. Also President Amos chimed in and totally called everyone out on not using “Elder” and “Sister” lol (as in just calling missionaries by their last names). It was just overall cool to see what Zone Leaderships were doing that we could apply to our own zone. When we talked about bikes Elder Tubbs got up and was like “EVERY area should be biking”!! Which was hilarious because he was my Zone Leader in El Dorado when we were biking like crazy people, he is very passionate about missionaries being outside. Then we all had Cane’s for lunch together which felt like Zone Conference. President Amos even came and sat by Sister York and I and was asking us about the areas we had served in and stuff which was just a total testament that where we serve truly comes from the Lord. Sister Amos joined us too after returning from the hospital with stitches in her finger from slicing it up preparing our lunch. Then we helped bring out Blue Bell ice cream sundaes and we all threw Mardi Gras beads everywhere! It was so fun! I even got to see Elder Jacobson who was my very first district leader in El Dorado! Then we all went outside to take pictures in front of the Baton Rouge temple! Then we made the long drive back up to Monroe. When we finally got home, I was so tired but so excited to go say hi to the Bastrop sisters because I really missed them while we were gone! The rest of the day was chill, we had dinner, contacted people, did a pass off for Sister Angilou’s training (the STLs are in charge of passing off the new sister missionaries training which is kinda fun for me since Sister Farris created the training program), then Sister York, Sister Angilou and I had ice cream together to help bond (while minus Sister Ward since she already brushed her teeth and goes to bed early).

Wednesday morning we had district council in West Monroe (it literally feels like I go to so many meetings now) and had a great discussion on obedience which is always a favorite subject of mine but hard to do when others have different standards or expectations than I do…Then the West Monroe Sisters made us lunch with mac & cheese, broccoli and salad while the Elders secretly cooked brownies for us all. Even though this district is small they are all very close and super nice! Once we got home we had a practice baptismal interview with Larry and it went so good! He literally knew everything so well! Although he did tell us some stuff that Elder Cameron will have to talk with him about just to double check that we don’t need additional approval for Larry to be baptized. Then after dinner we had a lesson with Sadie which went well. She was struggling to see how helping in missionary work applied to her since she isn’t a member (she is a transgender woman who was excommunicated from the church but wanting to come back). She explained that she is "open to baptism" but is on "indefinite probation" and has done everything on her end…oof. So I gave my whole disciple spiel and she really liked it, even saying she'd study it up more! Then we had stewies (stewardship calls that STLs do with each companionship of sisters in their zone) with the El Dorado 1 Sisters who are so cute! Sister Quindo and Sister Rosas are both from Texas and are absolutely hilarious! Sister Rosas is training Sister Quindo and they are in my old area so we got to talk about some of the people I know there which was kinda weird but fun to hear about the Nashs and Ms. Pat and all those good folks. Then we did stewies with the other El Dorado Sisters, Sister Holloway, who is one eager new missionary who likes to talk and is so sweet, and Sister Munford, her trainer.

On Thursday morning we went outside for exercise time and boy was it FREEZING! Also during breakfast while our companions were showering, Sister Ward asked me to talk about 4 eyes (the policy of having 4 eyes on your screen at all times so your companion knows what you’re doing) during our exchange with Sister Angilou because she was struggling with it. Dude it is so weird to have people come to you and lead the exchange with a secret agenda in mind! For lunch apparently every week the sisters go to this restaurant called the Daily Harvest owned by some members and meet with the ward mission leader and his wife (Brother and Sister Holt). It was super fun and they were very nice. At home we did weekly planning, Kacey canceled our lesson, we worked on Larry’s baptismal program, called the Zone Leaders about giving an MLC report to the zone and the new way to do media orders for the zone (where we record what media they need like Book of Mormons, pamphlets, pass along cards, etc.), then we called Elder Oswald since my phone had been weird and I may not be able to make it work with the SIM card in it…awkward…then after dinner we had MCC with the Winnsboro branch and the Winnfield Elders since we share the Winnsboro branch with them. Brother Hathcock is honestly one of the best mission leaders I’ve had, he led the whole thing, planned a spiritual thought and kept track of people previously talked about! Then we called the zone to talk about what happened at MLC and the Elders did most of the talking. Then that night we woke up at 11:30pm to call all of the sisters in the zone while the Elders called all of the Elders essentially for an emergency drill to see who would answer their phones after hours, which sadly a lot of people failed to answer our surprise call…

Friday during comp study Sister York had a little breakdown about trying to be more charitable and how she doesn’t think she should be an STL, even though I think that she is literally so sweet so I distracted her by asking what she thought of the talk I have to give in church on Sunday. Then since we were driving to Winnsboro we stopped in Columbia to drop off a Book of Mormon to this lady we’re teaching named Sharon. Then we drove 45 minutes to get to the Temples, we had to wait for Betty to get home (since we can’t go inside without another woman) but we were able to pet all their dogs and talk with Casey who is searching for a girlfriend who is a member of the church which was really cool to hear from him as a recent convert! Then we all had a great lesson together about virtue since we are going through the Christlike attributes in Preach My Gospel. AND we were able to involve Betty more this time! Then we drove home and had a meeting with the whole zone and Brother Moore who is on the Stake High Council over the missionary work in the Stake. He was super young and had a Tony Stark goatee and asked each missionary in the zone what reality they would live in if they could choose…very interesting guy jaja. Then we had a short discussion on how he can help the missionaries get stuff done and what help we need. Also during dinner Sister Ward told us that she is leaving for San Francisco on the 23rd to complete all of her visa stuff to go to Portugal! Ahhhh! So exciting! And during that time Sister Angilou will be in a trio with the Baton Rouge sisters for the week. Crazy! Then we had stewies with the West Monroe sisters who had some funny stories to share.

On Saturday morning during personal study I finally got to start writing my talk since being asked to give it yesterday on “How to Give Christlike Love”, in theme with it being Valentine’s Day lol but I really only saved myself like 10 minutes to do it so that was a fat rip. Then we had the usual Saturday social media call, some compy study, Crystal rescheduled our appointment after being sexually assaulted and placed in a safehouse (please pray for her, she is so sweet), then we swung by Walmart to get cupcakes for Larry’s baptism before heading to the church. Then we began filling up the font, printing out the programs but we didn’t know the password so I kinda flipped out since the baptism was in a couple hours, we said a prayer that something would work out, called the West Monroe sisters to see if they knew but didn’t, then I tried all of the supposed passwords again to no avail, got frustrated and clicked some random button and we were in! MIRACLE! The spirit works in mysterious ways y’all! Sadly our call with Brittany fell through, so we decorated the church building for the baptism trying to make everything look cute which probably annoyed Sister York a little but whatever jaja I just need everything to be perfect. Then the Elders showed up, Larry showed up (the most stressful part is waiting for the person getting baptized to arrive), we got the baptismal form signed, Larry changed into his white baptismal jumpsuit, and everyone else arrived (Bishop, Sister Poulsen, the Reeves, the Holts, etc), we got people to join the zoom link including Sister Andrews who taught Larry zooming in from Korea at 6am! Twas good. Then Brother Holt got in the font to baptize Larry and apparently the water was totally FREEZING! Whoopsie. But it happened and it was awesome and the spirit was there! Then while they changed we had time to share testimonies and I got to share my testimony too! Then literally once everything was over Bishop decided to interview Larry to get the Aaronic Priesthood and issued him a limited-use temple recommend!! Man is Bishop on top of things! Then we came home to find Sister Ward left us little Valentine's Day chocolates on our beds with some hearts! So sweet!

Sunday was Valentine's day!! We had zoom Ward Council at 8:30am and went until almost 9:30 but it was really good and super productive! Everyone was basically having regular meetings that we would have during normal church, with BYC and all that jazz. What a great ward! Then I had like 30 minutes to finish up my talk literally 2 minutes before 10am (when church starts) and it was just written down notes, so I didn't have a script, nor had I practiced it to time it to see if it was enough time or not…oof. The Bishop's son gave a youth talk before me for what seemed like 2 seconds and I didn’t know if there would be another speaker after me either so the timing was a little interesting. Nevertheless I gave my talk and it went great, the ward really liked it and sent us messages afterwards saying that it was good. It was definitely like 20 minutes long though. Brother Rennick talked a bit afterwards and said he served a mission in San Diego!! Dude crazy! Then we went to the church building for sacrament and Brother Holt didn't bring his wife this time and complained to us about having to have another woman in the room and how they should just trust him...it felt so wrong…then we grabbed the baptism jumpsuits from yesterday to take home and wash. After lunch we had a good Come Follow Me call with the Winnsboro Elders and the Temple family. Then us Zone Leadership had a call with all the district leaders to discuss a zone vision which was good because they definitely seemed to know their districts a lot better than we knew the zone. Then we did the zone report summary together, a little more successfully than last time. Then the quad ate our Valentine’s Day cake that Marianne (literally JUST got back from her mission in San Bernardino) and Sarah Coenen dropped off since Sarah makes cakes. Although the cake seemed to be missing an ingredient and was kinda hard, but the frosting was BOMB!

Man oh man what a week here in Monroe! It feels like sometimes there isn’t a lot of time to breathe and we are just go go go with a bunch of meetings and lessons and stuff where the Lord is really pulling me through it all. I’ve learned so many new things this week about how to be an STL, how to help the zone, what is expected of me as a leader, etc. it's crazy! But all the work was worth it when I saw Larry get baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and now is preparing to receive the priesthood! The church is true y’all and the book is blue!

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,

Sister Johnson

February Bug Bite Count: 1 bite

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