Another Week, Another Year!

so yes, it is true... im officially an old lady apparently... :P haha my week was awesome! and yes of course, my birthday was fabulous too! :) The week was crazy- lots of cancellations (normal for Rose Park), lots of treats- and cake. lots of cake... but lets start at the beginning... of the week... ;P

SO! Awesome things that have happened this week:

(I normally edit out the names on this blog for privacy but these ladies from the Congo have such beautiful names and I felt inspired to keep this paragraph unedited.)

Monday night we had a FHE with a member of the bishopric in the 3rd ward and Godelive and her three girls (Emmerance, Confiance, & Claudine) came as well. We taught the Plan of Salvation and explained from beginning to end with Claudine translating and at the end of the lesson, without us even inviting/asking, she just said (through her daughter translating)... "I want to be baptized". It was one of those moments where you know that what you are doing is SO WORTH IT, no matter what the trials, or how many people slam the door in your face or don't let you come back when the spirit testifies to them that its true, or anything. You could just feel its all true and we both almost cried... and the member, Brother Youngberg was just like, "all right!" :P haha. It was amazing- we're still working with the girls but they will follow.

Tuesday we were on exchanges and guess who i got to be with for the day?? Thats right, my trainer, companion, and friend- Sister Taylor :) its funny because almost her whole mission she was an STL- now i'm hers!! It was so cool- and weird... because it just felt like normal life, back to how it was, same-old-same-old :) we were really happy to be able to spend a whole day together, she only has 1 1/2 transfers left!! :( but we worked hard in her area and had a good day :)

Ok, now i can talk about my birthday :) IT WAS SO FUN! :D so i woke up to Sister Tranchine (one of the YSA sisters we live with) whispering to Sister Pearson to wake her up, trying to not wake me up (i dont think they know i was awake the whole time :P hahaha) but they came in a bit later and sang me happy birthday to wake me up, then we exercised and came back in, when i was in the shower they made me breakfast and it was delicious!! :) then we got ready for the day, did our weekly planning, had district meeting, went out to go and watch the movie "meet the mormons"... and there was my packages- and letters- and A CAKE!! it was all so awesome, and the movie was awesome too!! just like dad and mom (apparently :P) i as able to hold it together till the missionary mom, although the reactions of seeing salt lake city on the movie were different- more "woot-woots" and catcalls :P hahaha it was really good though- really glad it came to the Burlington theater! then our dinner actually cancelled that night- and they are tongan- so they gave us money and we went to apollo burger for dinner :) Got home and ate cake(s) and celebrated more :) it was a good birthday and thanks for everyone who made it amazing!! :)

Most everyone is progressing really well and we've found new people to teach this week! hard part- we lost contact with one of our investigators, she wouldn't return any of our calls or txt us back- turns out she had a drug relapse, with drugs we didn't even know she'd struggled with in the past- and she's definitely not getting baptized this coming saturday :( she could use prayers, her name is M.)

On a lighter note, I also got to go out to lunch with Sister Tyler and Sister Pearson!! it was awesome to see them and i got updates on Stansbury Park and how its doing :) i love MISSIONARY WORK!! :)

R*, the autistic girl is also doing really well, she's 20 and getting baptized on Nov 1st :) 

Its amazing to see our area from where it started to where it is now- we've just been building it up, finding people, referring people to other missionaries, and getting the area ready for a baptizing spell :) its amazing to see so many people coming unto Christ, even the members as they come out with us and help fellowship they get more of a spirit of missionary work and feel the saviors love for others :) 

Love you all and have a fantastic week!! :)

Look at this darling banner that they made her!

Opening her Birthday Package at the Mission office!

I love that she used a little jar candle I sent as a B-day candle. 

Apparently is was one yummy b-day!

I made this card for her forever ago... she loved it and I saved it to send while she was on her mission. 

The note describing my gift to her... an Ipsy subscription. I think she likes it! LOL!

What a great photo of the birthday girl and her companion!

Sis. Pearson and Sis. Tyler from Stansbury Park took her to lunch. So great to have her being loved!

(I also received some lovely email notes and photos from Hannah's Birthday and week! Also a sweet email from someone who visited with Hannah while her companion was at the dentist.)

"Lisa, your daughter looked especially beautiful this morning.  She had taken time to put a gorgeous  french braid in her hair and it was flawless.  She and Sister Pearson are working miracles together and I just love hearing how the Lord has a hand in their area and with their investigators.  I'm sorry you couldn't "listen in" this morning but it was such a great way to start off my day.  And by the way, after I sent you pictures a couple of weeks ago, I had a member send me my first ever picture of my daughter from her mission.  I also served a mission in Guatemala in the early 80's.  It's wonderful to see how missionary work has become so much more than tracting! "

Week 3, Transfer 8: So good, So CRAZY! :P

hi mom!! ok, i wont open the package till fri, we actually get to watch meet the mormons on fri too! :) so fun!! 

few things:

can i get the cheeseball recipe and stuffing recipe?

can you look up on pinterest/google a simple/easy tulle skirt pattern? we (us and sisters) want to make them :)

is your back ok? hopefully pepper is getting better, i have been praying :)

i got a card from sis kargbo? is she in yw with you or just the ward? seems cool, tell her thanks! 

well, missionary life is always crazy, so thats nothing new :P but it was a great week, we definitely stayed very busy and mom, dad, you would be proud of me: i ate trout for dinner. enough said O.o

So, last monday was really fun! we actually were out of the mission... in sugarhouse... with permission!! Sister pearson had a dentist appt. with a family friend, so that was fun and kept us busy for much of the day :) Other fun stuff this week: we had a stake presidency/missionary bbq which was so fun! we went on exchanges and i was in the area with sister stratton (from Roseburg, Oregon), found lots of new investigators, made crepes for breakfast, biked a lot and... get THIS. Gave THREE talks in church on sunday. Yup. ALL of our wards asked us to speak O.o we were pleased as punch to do it, we were just so spiritually drained afterwards. Never again. plus, now i can use my personal study on the things that i really NEED to, not that talks aren't important, they are... just draining.

also... lost half of our car... :) not literally though. the plastic above the drivers front tire came COMPLETELY off one day when we went over a curb. the day or so before we'd gone over a dip and a piece had come loose... then the whole thing... it was funny, but we were worried... elder tucker in charge of cards said its not a big deal though, so... yup. not worried :)

HIGHLIGHTS: 

one of the girls we are teaching, her name is A*. She is 11 and has been taught by missionaries for awhile and hasn't wanted to be baptized... but she had some concerns and we were able to discern them and now she wants to be baptized! But her date is March 10th, her birthday... hopefully we will be able to move it sooner because she is more ready than she thinks she is :)

G* and family: they are doing so well! We had a lesson with them and taught tithing which went really well, they paid it in africa in their catholic church so something they are used to  :) we had another lesson with them, and this just goes to show that communication is important, especially when your investigators dont speak english... we went over to the lesson and they were having a baby shower in their house!! :P we got to have african food which was fun, but we also had african food earlier that day. we had taken a member out with us, her dad was from africa and mom from tonga- and when we got back she gave us a little to eat- stew and rice. little did we know that it was going to be spicy as HECK! YES I ATE SPICY FOOD, LIKE BURN YOUR ESOPHAGUS to shreds kind of hot. ya, sister pearson likes spicy and it was too spicy for her. you can imagine my reaction when we got back to the car. laughter and tears :P haha

but they also came to church for the first time, which was awesome! we had 7 of our investigators at church yesterday! it was so great, plus, we talked in ALL the wards! :P haha

Vietnamese family update: everything was great, we got them a Book of Mormon and pamphlets in their language and then, dad said no, they can't learn anymore. :( we were so sad, but we still have hope for them :)

R* is doing really well too! (the 20 year old with autism) :) she is so sweet and so funny, she literally says the funniest things- yesterday she said three prayers at the end of the lesson: the first one was to pray for the member we had brought with us (had knee surgery last winter), she said "please bless his knee will get better" and thats it. haha :P then she did a normal one (for her at least :P) and THEN prayed to know if fasting is a good thing for her :) she is adorable...

cool thing- we have 30 SET THINGS (lessons, etc.) THIS WEEK ALREADY!! this is what happens when you show the lord you are willing to work hard and trust in his will and timing- we have been so busy, but still manage to find new people and testify on the streets :) i have to remember that about 50% of appts in rose park fall through, but most of these are pretty solid :)

I love this work, i love the lord, and i love having this time to dedicate to the Heavenly Father, as short as it is, and bring others unto christ :)

and thanks for all the birthday wishes! :) i can't believe im going to be 20 on Oct 17th!! O.o crazy, but alas, tis life :) have a great week and Keep the Faith!! :)

♥SISTER JOHNSON :) 

one more thing: can you email a couple cute pumpkin carving patterns? zone activity next week :) or pumpkin recipes are good too :) LOVE YOU!!

♥DAUGHTER :)

These photos were sent by a sweet member... Such a treat!

AMAZING!! Transfer 8 Week 2 :)

so we had yet ANOTHER great week with miracles. i don't have too much time to write, so i will be quick and just tell a few highlights :)

we had a leadership meeting and got to watch a clip from the movie "Meet the Mormons"- its really amazing. i want it to come to our theater in anacortes, and i think if enough people in an area request it to come through their website (i think its just meetthemormons.com) it will come :) 

it shows that we are normal people... good thing :P haha

M* is doing well, we had to move her date for baptism because she has been rescheduling a lot of lessons, but there has been a lot going on in her life and lots of trials for her in the last few weeks, so one day she called almost in tears and we went over before dinner and said a prayer with her, and you could just see how much it helped her, just that simple act of calling down the powers of heaven. Prayer is real :)

We also went on exchanges this week with the Spanish Hermanas. definitely a difficult thing, i can imagine how it is to be called spanish speaking and not know what anyone is talking about or what to say when you want to bear testimony. it was really cool though, and even though i couldn't speak very much, i was able to bear my testimony about the holy ghost and say prayers... even though they were in english, the spirit knows no language. many times i didn't know what was being said, but i knew the spirit was there and i knew they were understanding the principles we were teaching. we also contacted some people in our area and got a referral, so we'll see what comes out of that :)

Ok. so we were biking home to get our car for dinner and we saw these two girls standing on the sidewalk. we stopped to talk to them and one of the girls was the WML's daughter and the other was her friend Annie. Annie and their family are from vietnam and don't have a christian background, but said we could come back and share a message. So we did! and in the first lesson we taught about jesus christ and the atonement and how the gospel brings our families closer together... and they agreed to be baptized on nov. 8th if they know its true! it was amazing and heavenly father definitely blessed us for our diligence and obedience and hard work :) they are a great family and we are excited to teach them.

G* and their family are doing well too! we had a lesson and told them we had THREE tickets for them to go to conference and so they decided who would come. so on our way to conference we get a call from the fellowship asking if we had picked her up yet... we explained that we can't give investigators rides in mission cars. apparently there was a miscommunication and they didn't have a ride down! Soooo... we got them a ride.... and FOUR of them showed up, which meant we were just going to give them our tickets and watch it in the theater or something. It was hard though because their english is VERY limited and they didn't really know what was going on and conference is ALREADY crazy. FINALLY we got them in and went to go find another ticket... and we did! It all ended up well and we all got to watch conference (this was the sun afternoon session). They couldn't really understand because they speak kinurandan and the mom speaks swahili as well (they didn't have to capabilities to translate, their system was down), but the spirit was definitely there and the openening prayer specifically asked for the spirit to speak to us and tell us what we need to know. it was amazing :)

Whelp, i think thats enough for this week! we'll keep working hard and sharing the gospel with others and bringing others to the knowledge of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Keep the Faith and Come Unto Christ, as the prophets, seers, and revelators urged us to do :)

♥ SISTER HANNAH JOHNSON :)

Hannah and her companion, Sis. Pearson

At General Conference with an investigating family!

Pres. Hansen. No clue what's going on here. LOL!

Beautiful!

WEEK ONE of TRANSFER 8: CRAZY MIRACLES!!!!

so, our new area here in Rose Park is absolutely AMAZING!! not that the other one wasn't. this one just has so much work popping out of nowhere!! 

we got into the area on tuesday and got to work planning right away. the elders hadn't left any appointments for us so we started calling auxiliary leaders, bishops, WML's, etc. we just got out and started working. It produced so many miracles this week, here are just a few :)

Miracle #1: We called the bishop of the 3rd ward to set up a time to meet him and his family and he gave us a referral for a lady he had met when making visits, her name being G*. We went to see her that night and took a girl with us from Sister Pearsons YSA ward (luckily, the girl lives in our area too!) we knocked on her door and she let us in... but she hardly spoke any english... luckily, Ines, the girl we brought with us, was from Etheopia and spoke the SAME language, which was a miracle in and of itself!! She translated the first lesson for us as we taught it and when we got to the first vision sister pearson recited it and Ines asked if we wanted it translated in Kindurandan (not sure if thats how you spell it...) and we said just ask her how she felt. G* (in slightly other words) said "when someone ushers the word of God, you just know it". Such a testimony that the spirit works on people hard and knows NO language. we are now teaching her family and they are going to pray about baptism- there is her and her 5 kids! :) a whole family, and from the CONGO too!! :D

Miracle #2: the next night we went to a YM's activity for the 2nd ward by invitation from the Young Mens President... i think they were expecting elders...but... surprise! they got sisters!!! it was amazing, they did Q and A's towards us and we bore testimony SOO many times of the truthfulness of the gospel and of prayer and missions. The spirit was so strong the whole time. We challenged everyone to go home and pray if a mission is right for them. Then, after the activity, one of the young men came up to me and said that he had never felt a desire to serve a mission or felt the need to, but he felt something spark recently and especially that night and said he wanted to come out and teach with us. Forward to sunday- fast and testimony meeting! The same young man got up and bore his testimony about how he never had a desire to serve a mission and might have even had negative feelings towards it, but now is committed to serving a mission and wants to go. I looked over at the bishop as this young man was bearing his testimony and he was just smiling and in tears. I started tearing up too, because my testimony was just so strengthened, how as missionaries we really just instruments in the hands of the Lord and how we just get to help people change their lives for the better :) AMAZING.

MIracle #3: Finding miracle! we went to go teach a lesson to a few former investigator girls who's dad in the past hasn't let them get baptized, but they really want it. one of the girls, Jayna, brought a friend in the lesson with her named Hailey. For some reason, both of us thought that the friend was a member (i have no idea why) but when sister pearson asked her how her baptism was, she said "i haven't been baptized yet!" it was funny, then we realized that she would occasionally go to church on her own and we got permission from her dad to teach her as well! :) 

Miracle #4: too bad im not going to have time to write down all the miracles we had this week... anyways! Sunday night we were out making visits and we stopped by the house of two Muslim girls we had contacted and were able to share the message of the Plan of Salvation... again, neither parent spoke much English, so one of the daughters translated the whole time. It was interesting to hear some of what they believed as they shared some about their religion and how they are similar and different. but they said they would like to come to church and watch conference.. and we get to go back and teach them about the Restoration this week! 

So many miracles, so little time to type! but we worked so hard this week, biking around, contacting, contacting everyone, asking everyone for referrals, finding like crazy... we found 9 new investigators and taught so much... and our planner for this week is almost already full!! the Lord has so much in store for this area and i can't wait to see how else he is going to use me as an instrument to bring others unto Christ :) Keep the Faith!! :)

♥ SISTER JOHNSON :)

Also… i met people from the following countries this week!! Somalia, the Congo, Bolivia, Samoa, Ethiopia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia, Vietnam, Ukraine, Germany, and other countries in Africa- it’s so diverse here, it’s amazing!!! :)

goodbye to clausens and spencer! for now... :)

getting our toes and nails painted by a youth in one of the wards- chevron and m&m toes!!

bye to eubanks :(

goodbye to elder revoir :(