the steady march

I AM STAYING IN PLEASANTON FOR ANOTHER SIX WEEKS! Yay! I was afraid I was going to be transferred this time, but nope. I get to stay which has made me very happy because I love it here. This week was very good. I went to the Temple on Saturday morning. Sister Swaim took us up and then she took us out to lunch. Sister Davenport (my trainer) and Sister Kleisler (my last companion) serve in the area where the Temple is so they joined us for lunch which was really fun. I love my companions so much. I miss Sister Denison. I haven’t seen her but once since we were together. Basically all my companions instantly become my best friends for life. Where it would usually take me about a year to become really good friends with someone, it now takes about 6 weeks with a companion because we spend every second together and we somehow really enjoy it. Even the hard times are fun. Rambling…I’m done

So this week started off blah. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t super amazing either. That’s how most days are. These kinds of days are the ones where you learn the most. They are days void of interesting stories, but they are the days where your true character is shaped. So basically it was boring and hard to keep going but you just keep going because you have to and you want to because, who knows…the next person might be ready to listen. Well, day after day after month and finally we have a day like yesterday. Yesterday was awesome. We taught Becky, Jared and Nicholas in the morning: Becky is a young single mom living with her two cute sons Jared (10 years old), and Nicholas (3 years old). She let us come in last week and we’ve been teaching them every day since then. Jared asks a million questions and I am letting him borrow my little kid Book of Mormon so he can read it with his mom. They are really sweet and as of right now they want to get baptized.

Then we saw Anna Hopp. She had her back surgery this last weekend. Everything went well and she was so excited to see us. She loves us and needs us and it makes me feel so good to feel loved and needed. We found out that her distant LDS family members are in fact RLDS, but she feels like she is where she needs to be. The ward is awesome. They are taking her dinners and she is loving it.

Then after Anna we went and taught Laura. We met Laura knocking on Saturday. It was raining and before we even introduced ourselves at the door she let us in, sat us down, and gave us some ginger ale. She’s really nice. She’s Baptist and her husband is a very catholic Catholic. She believes in Christ, but has been searching her whole life trying to find something to feel a void in her heart. Yesterday when we saw her for the second time she had read the Book of Mormon and had written down a bunch of questions. One of her questions was “what does the Holy Spirit feel like?” We explained that it was sometimes a peaceful warmth, or a stream of ideas, or a feeling that gave you goose bumps. She said she didn’t really know what that felt like, but she said that when we were over teaching her the day before and as she was reading the Book of Mormon and as she was talking to us right then she felt excited and could talk fast enough to ask all of her questions. She had so much excitement to learn more. She said this excited feeling was unusual for her because normally she was very calm and mellow. “That’s the Spirit,” we exclaimed. I like the way she put it because I’ve felt the Spirit like that. Since I’ve been on my mission, I feel like I’ve gotten better at recognizing the Spirit. I’m still not very good at it, but I’m a little better than I was before my mission. Anyways, back to Laura. So we taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ AND the plan of Salvation and she was very touched by the things we said. Things were just clicking. Yes! I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see someone have it click. Especially if all day long you are meeting amazing people who are not ready yet. Who don’t understand with their heart the things we are saying. It was awesome…and then Laura’s husband came it. “Are y’all Jehovah’s Witnesses?!” “no…,” we meekly replied (well kinda we are but in a different sense than he was asking). Then he grunted and stormed off. All I have to say is that I’ve never been more grateful not to be a Jehovah’s Witness than I did in that moment. Needless to say, her husband isn’t thrilled with us coming over so that will add some complications, but it just shows that he loves his family because he wants to protect them…I can respect that.

After Laura we taught a lesson to a woman named Monica. Sister Ashley has been inviting her friend, Monica, to church activities and last night she let us come over and start the lesson with her. Wahoo! It was awesome. It’s days like yesterday that get me through the drudgery of routine. Consistency is the greatest lesson I’ve learned while out here. And the reward isn’t necessarily the good/amazing days, but the reward is the person/people that me and my investigators are becoming because of the steady march.

I just wanted to say real quick how much I miss my family. I love all of you and I miss you a lot. I’m not trunky, but I do miss you guys just in case you thought I forgot about you.

Love, Sister Johnson