:)

Clarissa got baptized yesterday!!! She still has to be confirmed next week. They have the baptisms on Sunday right after church otherwise no one can come because the ward boundaries are so huge that it takes a lot of members 30-45 minutes to get to church. It was beautiful. My favorite part of baptisms (at least for the women) is meeting them in the bathroom right after the baptism while they’re still sopping wet and there’s still sparkles in their eyes from the water and tears, and then giving them a big huge wet hug. Ahhhhh……
Toby didn’t get baptized. It was really weird this week because everything leading up to the baptism was so awesome unlike other baptisms where the week leading up to it is chaos. But then the phone call came. “Toby’s mom changed her mind. She doesn’t want Toby to get baptized.” Sister Kleisler and I immediately got in our truck and drove all the way to her house to talk to her. But she was actually at the apartments where we live(That’s where Shaun—Toby’s Dad—lives). Anyways, we had just had an amazing day so we weren’t very stressed about it. Later Shaun called us and said that they had made an agreement and she, Toby’s mom, promised not to change her mind. The agreement was that Toby would get baptized next Sunday and Shaun couldn’t baptize him. Not sure what that’s about but I don’t care as long as he gets baptized. I’ve never met a ten-year-old that was so ready for that commitment. We’re always scared baptizing kids cause we don’t want to manipulate them into doing it, but this last week confirmed to us that he understood the commitment he was making and was committed to sticking with it.
We had so many experiences this week where the spirit led our path. The first was meeting Corina. She let us come in and teach her. We taught her the restoration and she was really interested and believed us. Then we asked her to pray and she said she didn’t know how. So we taught her and then she gave her first prayer and bawled the entire way through it. That’s not an exaggeration. It was beautiful. It was like she was connecting with a loved one that she had forgotten about—oh wait, that is what she was doing. Anyways, prayer is amazing. Sister Kleisler and I teach really well together, but our teaching is pointless unless we get them to read the Book of Mormon or pray. We can have the most eloquent and interesting lesson ever and it will be completely useless unless the Spirit is there to touch their hearts. We can’t manipulate when the Spirit comes either. We can pray really hard and work our hardest to create an environment for him to come. But in the end it’s up to the Spirit when he is going to come…And how he comes has everything to do with what the individual needs at that very time which is often a surprise to us. Anyways, the spirit touched her heart…now getting her to act on that is a different story…
Later in the day we had 20 minutes before an appointment. 20 minutes is not a huge chunk of time so we didn’t really know what to do. Sister Kleisler hates knocking, but for whatever reason, she decided we should knock. So we pull up to a street really close to our apartments. Go up to the first door we see and knock. A girl comes and says she already goes to church. I gave up on her and was ready to wrap things up, but then randomly Sister Kleisler asked about her family, then I asked about the challenges she was going through and I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but she let us come in for a lesson. Her ex-husband was hanging out there (there’s a lot of interesting family circumstances in this area). He had a friend who was mormon who talked about it a lot with him and even gave him a Book of Mormon, but they had lost track of each other. Anyways, amazing lesson and the spirit was there. Who knows if anything comes of it, but God was reaching out to them through us. I love that.
The next day we had knocking planned, but Sister Kleisler felt like we needed to see Clarissa. She felt really strongly about it. On the way out to our truck I felt like I needed to grab a talk that I had randomly had sister partridge print out for me the day before. So we went to Clarissa’s house and she wasn’t there. But then Sister Kleisler had a feeling to go to Clarissa’s friend’s, Vanessa, house. So we did and lo and behold there was Clarissa’s car. We went in having no idea why we were going there. Sister Keisler had me play guitar…I played that cowboy song. Haha. Sigh. I had to change the words to churchy words--which was interesting. Anyways, for whatever reason it brought the Spirit. And then sister Kleisler said some things that Clarissa needed. Then we were about to leave and suddenly Vanessa asked us a question that we had no idea how to answer, however the question had everything to do with the talk I brought. So I pulled it out and told her to read it and pray about it and she would receive her answer.
These experiences on paper aren’t anywhere near as powerful as they are in person. And the reason they are powerful in person is not because there’s lights, gushes of wind, or voices of angels. They’re powerful because we suddenly witness God’s hand in our lives. He cares about us and loves us enough to guide us in the smallest ways, and to speak to our hearts with that small voice. We had a baptism this week which was great—it’s our main goal. However, my favorite part of this mission thing is not the baptisms. They are actually super stressful. My favorite part is seeing the spirit work in these people’s lives and having the opportunity to sometimes be the vehicle that the spirit uses to touch others. I don’t know if the people we saw this week will get baptized. I hope they do, but it’s so wonderful to see how much God loves his people that he’ll go through the trouble of getting us into these people’s homes and then making up for whatever flaws we have in teaching by bearing powerful witness of the things we teach. These moments strengthen my testimony just as much as their’s. It’s also interesting because it seems like the spirit comes right after I have just been severely humbled. Right when I think, “Okay! I get it! I’m a prideful idiot. I’ll stop being selfish and I’ll listen to you.”—bam: blessing of the Spirit. The blessing doesn’t come as a result of self-degradation, but as a result of self-realization combined with the pleas to change my heart for the better.
Thank you for your prayers and letters. It means a lot. I love you all!
sister johnson