January 25, 2010
This has been an awesomely awesome week! We were on our way to visit a potential and we passed three women who were having a ‘ladies night’ and we were sure that they wouldn’t be interested in a message about Christ, but we talk to everyone we see so we talked to them. And guess what? They weren’t interested just like we expected. We had a nice conversation with one of the ladies who told us about her “Mormon” friend has two wives. “Uhhh…If he has two wives then he’s not Mormon.” “Nope, he’s a Mormon. I’m sure of it. And he has two wives and he is so in love with both of them and the new wife that he just married is super sweet and nice and—” “Okay, well we gotta go.” So we smiled and started to walk away and see our potential investigator and we were so distracted by the conversation we forgot to ask for a referral which we usually do. But suddenly one of the ladies stopped us and said, “y’all should go to that apartment with the light on.”
So we walked up to the apartment and knocked on the door and asked if we could come in and share a message about Christ. Heidi, a sweet, down-to-earth woman in her early 30s, looked down at her happy 8 year old daughter, Alexis, and asked, “Do you want them to come in?” To our excitement the 8 year old smiled and said yes, so we went in and taught them the restoration lesson. Then we came back the next day with Sister Stucki who has kids same age as Heidi’s kids and Sister Stucki took the kids to church that Wednesday to let them play with the scout and achievement day girls. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and Heidi thought it made a lot of sense. This is huge. She’s pregnant and on bed rest which complicates things, but nothing good came cheap. We took dinner over for her and her family and the ward is now going to bring her family dinner every Friday until the baby comes. Coolio.
Next cool story: Saturday is finding day and we weren’t finding anyone. So we started knocking at 8pm to finish up our night. We met a woman and her 20 year old son and they let us in. Her name is Angela and she has no legs because of diabetes and she has little use of her arms. She is very down to earth and has great faith in God and has been looking for a church. We invited her to church and her response was, “How are you going to get me there?” referring to her inability to walk, and the fact that they don’t have a car. “If you want to go to church Angela, we’ll get you there.” So she agreed and we got some members of the ward to come and pick up her heavy wheel/scooter chair, and some to bring her and her son to church. It was awesome! I think she really liked church. She fell asleep during sacrament meeting but who doesn’t? But she and her son really enjoyed gospel principles because our ward missionaries rock. Anyways, it was awesome!
WE also had this boy that we taught a while ago randomly show up for church. He’s dating a less active member, but became interested in the doctrine. He’s about to go to military boot camp and he wanted some religion in his life and mormon doctrine made a lot of sense to him. So he arranged for us to come over and teach him. We invited him to be baptized and he said that he’d probably like to do that. But the following Sunday he couldn’t come because his parents didn’t approve. Blah. He said he’d call us when he could see us again. Well he just randomly showed up to church yesterday and gave us big awkward hugs when he saw us. As we were awkwardly escaping his hug he told us that he was going to into boot camp on Monday (today). WE told him to look for missionaries at the base and to get baptized when he gets there. Wahoo!
Then we had another investigator randomly show up to church. Annette Flechas is married to less active member. Over the last few years the Flechas have pushed away from the ward, but for some reason we stopped by at the right time and things are moving in their lives as to allow for us to teach them . Jaime, Annette’s husband, just had his 17 year old less active daughter move in with him from her mom’s house. He wants to help his daughter so he asked us to come and teach his daughter and he annouced that he would be coming to church. We invited Annette, but she said she had work so she couldn’t come. But come Sunday, she and Jaime woke up early and drove to her work to check her schedule and she fould out she could at least make the first meeting. So in walks Annette, Jaime, and his daughter! Sister Hill and I were dying. Best day ever.
One more story: This is Super cool!
I called Sister Dodge (my companion in Pleasanton who is still serving in Pleasanton) to ask her some things. After I was finished she said, “I’m glad you called because I wanted to tell you something. Janie came to church today and she brought her daughter faith.”
Background:
When Sister Dodge and I were in Pleasanton we worked sooooooooooo hard. We had two baptisms together which were awesome, but we also had a ton of heartache because of the dozens of other people who fell through. It was hard. One of the disappointments was having Janie reject the gospel. The sisters before us knocked into her but they could never get a hold of her again. But Sister Dodge and I were able to get a hold of her and we taught her the lessons. She had issues with every single commandment. We poured out our souls to her telling her that she would be happy if she would just let go of all these sins. I’ve never been so bold with any investigator like I was with her. She came to church a few times, but just couldn’t change. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she didn’t want to give up the lifestyle because it was fun and exciting to her. She didn’t want to go to our church because we expected her to give up her sins and become a new person. Pride. We’ve all had issues with pride before. We rely on our own wisdom more than God’s. Pride is nothing more than self-inflicted pain. We loved her so much, but she was tripping herself up and it was so sad to watch her and her kids suffer.
We had one last lesson with her last October where we just bore our souls to her about how she needed to change. Sister Dodge told her that her goal should be to marry someone for eternity and commit herself completely to that person. She deserved fidelity and eternal love and she was capable of fidelity and eternal love. We told her about the spiritual and physical damage that comes with putting harmful substances into your body. We put everything out there and invited her to be baptized….but she couldn’t do it….she couldn’t do it, because she didn’t want to.
So we left. We told her we loved her and told her how to get in touch with us if she was ever ready to change. We walked out of there thinking that nothing had sunk in. We thought that everything we said just bounced off her conscience. But we were wrong. I’m not sure what followed in the months to come, but she told Sister Dodge that one day she woke up and had a huge desire to change. She wanted to be a better person. She immediately exclaimed, “Where’s my book?” She dug through her stuff until she found the Book of Mormon we had given her. She read every reading assignment we had given her. She pulled her 9 year old daughter, Faith, out of catholic school (Janie wouldn’t let her come to church with us because she wanted Faith to be catholic). Janie felt like Faith should decide for herself what religion to join. Then Janie talked to her mom about our church and her mom gave her blessing for Janie to go to the Mormon Church. Her mom said, “we all worship one God. It doesn’t matter which church you go to” (I usually hate hearing that comment for obvious reasons, but in this case I was super happy!)
So she decided to go to Church because she was ready to change. Sister Dodge must have fallen off her horse when she saw Janie at church (if she was sitting on a horse). Sister Dodge hadn’t talked to Janie since she and I had spoken to her almost three months before so this was huge!!!!
All I have to say is that I have faith that people can change. She was the last person I would have thought to change in this short amount of time, but Christ’s Atonment and His spirit can work miracles. Don’t give up on anyone who is holding on to self-destructive sins and thought processes (including yourself). Change is possible! Happy day.
Friday, January 29, 2010
:)
January 18, 2010
Ahhhhh…I just looked at all the family Christmas pictures yall sent and it made me so happy to look at them. Our family produced the best surprised-faces ever. I was laughing really hard.
We gave Annette (who’s a catholic) and Jaime (who’s a less active Mormon and an active catholic) a Book of Mormon and invited them to read from it. They said they would and we’re hoping to see them to night to see how it went.
This week we tried to get in contact with families in the ward that are made up of members and non-members. Everyone is so nice. One of the families we met knew one of my sociology professors back at BYU really well so we talked a lot about that.
We taught Jeff, the youth pastor, this week also. He is really nice and open. His wife and kids are really sweet as well. He likes the dialogue between us, but has said he’s not interested in changing religions. We basically told him we’re here to help people be baptized so we decided we’d come over one more time after he read and prayed some more and we’re hoping that maybe he’ll be a teeny bit more open to switching religions…we’re hopeful, but it’s not our choice to make. People have a hard time understanding why we want them to switch religions when they are in a good religion…or, my bad, a good church (no one likes to claim a religion down here. It’s out of style. The “in” thing right now is to be non-denominational because people believe religion is too restricting and gets in the way of your relationship with God. The problem is objective reality is impossible. We are subjective and finite individuals who live in a finite and subjective world. God is full of truth without limitation and He’s infinite, so try as we might, we cannot understand Him objectively. It’s impossible. But I don’t really think objective-ism is our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to live with God again and to be happy. He’s given to each of us a paradigm that we are constrained by, but also enlightened by. He sends prophets to our paradigm to speak to us in a way that we understand and He also sends us the Holy Spirit to help us connect with ultimate truth. We are not capable of objective-ism, but through God, we are capable of understanding ultimate truth. Non-denominationalism’s goal is promote peace within the religious turmoil of modern Christianity, and it does a really good job in my opinion. However, the truth still remains the same, the attempt is man-made and false ideas and concepts eventually creep in because the loving correction given by God through prophets is non-existent. Although Christ often does His work through man, and we learn the most when He works through us, if He is not present through direct revelation, then apostasy threatens truth. Without prophets, false ideas and concepts would infest the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well. We are constantly given direction to keep us on the path. But even we as members of the Church falter and ignore the prophet’s counsel and personal apostasy creeps into our hearts and our homes. Paul wrote to church members, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel….But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul was called of Christ to preach, so were the other apostles. We can hear their claim and then work it out in our minds and reason until we are satisfied with our own personal conclusions about who these prophets and apostles truly are, but we don’t have to rely on reason alone. We can tap into ultimate truth and receive direct revelation for ourselves through prayer and the Spirit.)Son Anyways, Jeff feels at peace with his beliefs and doesn’t understand why we would try and pull him away from his happy, Christian life. We showed him a picture of Christ and covered two thirds of the picture and explained that He should feel at peace with His beliefs about Christ, because the part of the picture he can see is true. We told him that we weren’t trying to get him to look at another picture, but the restoration is an uncovering of the rest of the picture of Christ...(or at least more of the picture). A simple object lesson we learned in primary, but it made sense to him.
We taught some other cool people this week too.
sj
Ahhhhh…I just looked at all the family Christmas pictures yall sent and it made me so happy to look at them. Our family produced the best surprised-faces ever. I was laughing really hard.
We gave Annette (who’s a catholic) and Jaime (who’s a less active Mormon and an active catholic) a Book of Mormon and invited them to read from it. They said they would and we’re hoping to see them to night to see how it went.
This week we tried to get in contact with families in the ward that are made up of members and non-members. Everyone is so nice. One of the families we met knew one of my sociology professors back at BYU really well so we talked a lot about that.
We taught Jeff, the youth pastor, this week also. He is really nice and open. His wife and kids are really sweet as well. He likes the dialogue between us, but has said he’s not interested in changing religions. We basically told him we’re here to help people be baptized so we decided we’d come over one more time after he read and prayed some more and we’re hoping that maybe he’ll be a teeny bit more open to switching religions…we’re hopeful, but it’s not our choice to make. People have a hard time understanding why we want them to switch religions when they are in a good religion…or, my bad, a good church (no one likes to claim a religion down here. It’s out of style. The “in” thing right now is to be non-denominational because people believe religion is too restricting and gets in the way of your relationship with God. The problem is objective reality is impossible. We are subjective and finite individuals who live in a finite and subjective world. God is full of truth without limitation and He’s infinite, so try as we might, we cannot understand Him objectively. It’s impossible. But I don’t really think objective-ism is our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to live with God again and to be happy. He’s given to each of us a paradigm that we are constrained by, but also enlightened by. He sends prophets to our paradigm to speak to us in a way that we understand and He also sends us the Holy Spirit to help us connect with ultimate truth. We are not capable of objective-ism, but through God, we are capable of understanding ultimate truth. Non-denominationalism’s goal is promote peace within the religious turmoil of modern Christianity, and it does a really good job in my opinion. However, the truth still remains the same, the attempt is man-made and false ideas and concepts eventually creep in because the loving correction given by God through prophets is non-existent. Although Christ often does His work through man, and we learn the most when He works through us, if He is not present through direct revelation, then apostasy threatens truth. Without prophets, false ideas and concepts would infest the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well. We are constantly given direction to keep us on the path. But even we as members of the Church falter and ignore the prophet’s counsel and personal apostasy creeps into our hearts and our homes. Paul wrote to church members, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel….But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul was called of Christ to preach, so were the other apostles. We can hear their claim and then work it out in our minds and reason until we are satisfied with our own personal conclusions about who these prophets and apostles truly are, but we don’t have to rely on reason alone. We can tap into ultimate truth and receive direct revelation for ourselves through prayer and the Spirit.)Son Anyways, Jeff feels at peace with his beliefs and doesn’t understand why we would try and pull him away from his happy, Christian life. We showed him a picture of Christ and covered two thirds of the picture and explained that He should feel at peace with His beliefs about Christ, because the part of the picture he can see is true. We told him that we weren’t trying to get him to look at another picture, but the restoration is an uncovering of the rest of the picture of Christ...(or at least more of the picture). A simple object lesson we learned in primary, but it made sense to him.
We taught some other cool people this week too.
sj
frozen pipes
January 11, 2010
It is freezing down here. I don’t think I ever complained about the heat in any of my summer letters. It apparently was the hottest summer on record. There was a month where the temp was above 100 and I loved it. It was awesome. But this cold weather is terrible. This is Texas! This apparently has been the coldest winter on record. On Saturday it dropped down to 16 degrees. SIXTEEN DEGREES! Temps have been below freezing for 3 days! (For San Antonio that’s outrageous). We figured out that it was colder in San Antonio than it was in Orem--There is something sick and wrong with that. The pipes froze on Saturday morning so sister Hill, the Smiths and I were all outside with blow dryers trying to melt the ice so we could take showers. Holy Moly. but luckily today it will be back in the 50s which makes me remember why I love texas so much. Winter may exist, but it comes in 3-day chuncks instead of 9-month bouts.
So anyways, my new comp is Sister Hill and she is Awesome! She’s from Orem Utah. Her family lives by Harmon’s. She’s on fire and she’s a really hard worker. We are finding, finding, finding. WE had a cool lesson with a woman named Annette who is married to a very less active, but nice member of the church. We invited her to take the lessons and read the book of Mormon and she agreed. WE are also going to start teaching a non member couple who’s son is in South Africa on an LDS mission. They aren’t necessarily interested, but since our teaching pool is low and sister Hill needs practice teaching (she’s really amazing at teaching already even though she’s only been out 4 days) this couple agreed to let us teach all the missionary lessons to them. Cool. They can see what their son has been doing for 18 months in Africa.
To give you an idea of Sister Hill’s personality I’ll tell you a few stories about her. The night before going to the MTC her family went to a fancy seafood restaurant. She walks in and sees a tank of live lobsters so she goes to the tank and pulls one out and then walks to the table with her family and sits down. The waitress suddenly noticed and asked where she got the lobster. “From the tank.” Apparently the waitress wasn’t too happy, but to get a good tip she asked, “So what are you celebrating tonight?” “I’m going on a mission tomorrow.” “Oh really? Have you filled your canteen?” (For those who are unaware….well nevermind.) Sister hill responded, “Nope, but I’ll do it right now.” And she took the lobster and gave it a big kiss…
Another story, last year at the Utah/BYU basketball game (where apparently people boo-ed a prayer?) The half time show people were looking for 5 guys to do a café rio eating contest. Sister hill was wondered why it had to be a guy and she volunteered herself…and guess who won the contest….yes… my trainee, Sister Hill beat out 5 other guys in a mexican food eating contest. So basically my companion rocks.
Hahaha. Oh wow. By the way, I love being a missionary. Can I just tell you how great it is doing what I do everyday? Even when appointments fall through and investigators hide from you, the moments where you can feel the spirit speak through you and enter someone's soul makes it totally worth it.
It is freezing down here. I don’t think I ever complained about the heat in any of my summer letters. It apparently was the hottest summer on record. There was a month where the temp was above 100 and I loved it. It was awesome. But this cold weather is terrible. This is Texas! This apparently has been the coldest winter on record. On Saturday it dropped down to 16 degrees. SIXTEEN DEGREES! Temps have been below freezing for 3 days! (For San Antonio that’s outrageous). We figured out that it was colder in San Antonio than it was in Orem--There is something sick and wrong with that. The pipes froze on Saturday morning so sister Hill, the Smiths and I were all outside with blow dryers trying to melt the ice so we could take showers. Holy Moly. but luckily today it will be back in the 50s which makes me remember why I love texas so much. Winter may exist, but it comes in 3-day chuncks instead of 9-month bouts.
So anyways, my new comp is Sister Hill and she is Awesome! She’s from Orem Utah. Her family lives by Harmon’s. She’s on fire and she’s a really hard worker. We are finding, finding, finding. WE had a cool lesson with a woman named Annette who is married to a very less active, but nice member of the church. We invited her to take the lessons and read the book of Mormon and she agreed. WE are also going to start teaching a non member couple who’s son is in South Africa on an LDS mission. They aren’t necessarily interested, but since our teaching pool is low and sister Hill needs practice teaching (she’s really amazing at teaching already even though she’s only been out 4 days) this couple agreed to let us teach all the missionary lessons to them. Cool. They can see what their son has been doing for 18 months in Africa.
To give you an idea of Sister Hill’s personality I’ll tell you a few stories about her. The night before going to the MTC her family went to a fancy seafood restaurant. She walks in and sees a tank of live lobsters so she goes to the tank and pulls one out and then walks to the table with her family and sits down. The waitress suddenly noticed and asked where she got the lobster. “From the tank.” Apparently the waitress wasn’t too happy, but to get a good tip she asked, “So what are you celebrating tonight?” “I’m going on a mission tomorrow.” “Oh really? Have you filled your canteen?” (For those who are unaware….well nevermind.) Sister hill responded, “Nope, but I’ll do it right now.” And she took the lobster and gave it a big kiss…
Another story, last year at the Utah/BYU basketball game (where apparently people boo-ed a prayer?) The half time show people were looking for 5 guys to do a café rio eating contest. Sister hill was wondered why it had to be a guy and she volunteered herself…and guess who won the contest….yes… my trainee, Sister Hill beat out 5 other guys in a mexican food eating contest. So basically my companion rocks.
Hahaha. Oh wow. By the way, I love being a missionary. Can I just tell you how great it is doing what I do everyday? Even when appointments fall through and investigators hide from you, the moments where you can feel the spirit speak through you and enter someone's soul makes it totally worth it.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
it would have been on like Donkey Kong
alrighty. I have a lot to say:
First of all, I loved the family movie you sent me! It was great. I was a little freaked out by Andre and Brian, but other than that it was great to see everyone. I laughed so hard when I watch Clint sing Silent Night and then "everyone" joined in. Who was singing with Clint? Please, please, please tell me it wasn't Andre. Caleb's songs were awesome! HOly moly. When'd he get so good? Marci looked super cute singing in choir and I thought it was cool seeing short little marci pass up all the tall girls on the basketball court. Woo! Brian was by far, by far the best dancer in his little group. That was awesome. I loved Andre's song...his voice is really low. Jaron has a lot of hair, but cute as ever. Caitlyn looks exactly like Catherine when she was a baby and I think you should get a video of her playing the baby violin when she’s old enough. Bryant is cute. I like him. Kevin has a beard! What the hey? Well, it actually looks good. Did you have to shave it for school? I liked the Alyse Navidad song. I sang it all that day and really annoyed my companions which was awesome. I’m glad that I got to see what Lindy and Justin look like. And Michelle, that blue dress was cute. Mom, you look really good. Kirsten, you’re still on Mark’s lap every time I see you which is really cute. And Mike, I’ve missed you. Okay…and the Barbershop quartet was awesome!!!!!!!!! I thought the checking it twice, checking it twice was pretty cool. Ya’ll sounded great. Dad, I was very impressed by the chorography (I’m assuming you did it). Overall, it was great. Thank you, thank you.
Clint, best Christmas present ever!!!!! He gave me a mission countdown thing (which I was a little frightened about because I’m trying not to be trunky) but really it’s a quote calendar he made. Every day I get to read something Clint wrote or a quote he picked out. I am so excited to read it every day…except today: He wrote: “Be careful today. Be cautious, but don’t worry.” What’s that supposed to mean? Anyways, best present ever.
So transfer calls were last night hence the pday on Tuesday…Anyways, this has been the most interesting transfer my whole mission. I’m going to tell you all about it even though you probably don’t care. So I’m with two other sisters right now who cover two wards. Really they only cover one ward because they don’t have enough miles to get to the Bulverde ward area. Well, the Bulverde Bishop wanted the sisters to work his ward more, but the sisters just couldn’t cause of miles. Well Bishop kept talking to President Cutler about it. So transfers were coming up, and President had a dilemma: there were three sisters coming in and only one sister who left (sister Kleisler). That means there would be two sets of Sister three-somes (which can be very scary) or President would have to open another area…the problem with opening another area is that in 6 weeks SIX sisters are going home! So if president opened an area he’d have to close it again in six weeks. So all of us sisters were assuming he wouldn’t open another area so we were all dreading the possibility of us being put in a three-some. Well, guess what he did? He opened up Bulverde to sisters and he’ll close it again in six weeks. The Bulverde ward is SO excited. They did not like elders and they’ve wanted sisters forever…. Guess what else President did? He closed a Sister area up in Austin and opened another one down here in San Antonio! None of us expected that.
Isn’t that exciting!!!!??? …….Alright…I realize no else finds that as interesting as I do, but this info is the highlight of my life right now. But none of that news affects me at all. I’m going back to Encino Park and I’m going to be training one of the new sisters. Yay! I’m excited to have a greenie full of missionary fire! It’s going to be awesome! Plus, I’m the oldest child---I love bossing people around (ask Kirsten). Haha…okay, I’m just joking. I’m not going to boss her around. Mostly I’m going to try and suck up as much greenie fire as I can so I can end the last third of my mission with a bang.
I’m not trunky…don’t worry. I’m actually in denial. I feel like I’m going to be on a mission for the rest of my life and I’m perfectly happy thinking that because my life rocks.
This has nothing to do with anything but I thought it was cool: Kristy, the lady who just got baptized in Canyon Lake ward, was telling us this cool story about how she found this ugly blog that her sister in law had written her a year ago. It said lots of mean things about Kristy, but Kristy never saw it until yesterday. She told us that her life has gone through such a dramatic change the past year (including her conversion to the gospel of Christ) that when she read it she just laughed and shrugged it off. She said, “I’m glad I saw it now, cause if I had've seen it last year, it would have been on like Donkey Kong!”
Love ya all!
Sister johnson
First of all, I loved the family movie you sent me! It was great. I was a little freaked out by Andre and Brian, but other than that it was great to see everyone. I laughed so hard when I watch Clint sing Silent Night and then "everyone" joined in. Who was singing with Clint? Please, please, please tell me it wasn't Andre. Caleb's songs were awesome! HOly moly. When'd he get so good? Marci looked super cute singing in choir and I thought it was cool seeing short little marci pass up all the tall girls on the basketball court. Woo! Brian was by far, by far the best dancer in his little group. That was awesome. I loved Andre's song...his voice is really low. Jaron has a lot of hair, but cute as ever. Caitlyn looks exactly like Catherine when she was a baby and I think you should get a video of her playing the baby violin when she’s old enough. Bryant is cute. I like him. Kevin has a beard! What the hey? Well, it actually looks good. Did you have to shave it for school? I liked the Alyse Navidad song. I sang it all that day and really annoyed my companions which was awesome. I’m glad that I got to see what Lindy and Justin look like. And Michelle, that blue dress was cute. Mom, you look really good. Kirsten, you’re still on Mark’s lap every time I see you which is really cute. And Mike, I’ve missed you. Okay…and the Barbershop quartet was awesome!!!!!!!!! I thought the checking it twice, checking it twice was pretty cool. Ya’ll sounded great. Dad, I was very impressed by the chorography (I’m assuming you did it). Overall, it was great. Thank you, thank you.
Clint, best Christmas present ever!!!!! He gave me a mission countdown thing (which I was a little frightened about because I’m trying not to be trunky) but really it’s a quote calendar he made. Every day I get to read something Clint wrote or a quote he picked out. I am so excited to read it every day…except today: He wrote: “Be careful today. Be cautious, but don’t worry.” What’s that supposed to mean? Anyways, best present ever.
So transfer calls were last night hence the pday on Tuesday…Anyways, this has been the most interesting transfer my whole mission. I’m going to tell you all about it even though you probably don’t care. So I’m with two other sisters right now who cover two wards. Really they only cover one ward because they don’t have enough miles to get to the Bulverde ward area. Well, the Bulverde Bishop wanted the sisters to work his ward more, but the sisters just couldn’t cause of miles. Well Bishop kept talking to President Cutler about it. So transfers were coming up, and President had a dilemma: there were three sisters coming in and only one sister who left (sister Kleisler). That means there would be two sets of Sister three-somes (which can be very scary) or President would have to open another area…the problem with opening another area is that in 6 weeks SIX sisters are going home! So if president opened an area he’d have to close it again in six weeks. So all of us sisters were assuming he wouldn’t open another area so we were all dreading the possibility of us being put in a three-some. Well, guess what he did? He opened up Bulverde to sisters and he’ll close it again in six weeks. The Bulverde ward is SO excited. They did not like elders and they’ve wanted sisters forever…. Guess what else President did? He closed a Sister area up in Austin and opened another one down here in San Antonio! None of us expected that.
Isn’t that exciting!!!!??? …….Alright…I realize no else finds that as interesting as I do, but this info is the highlight of my life right now. But none of that news affects me at all. I’m going back to Encino Park and I’m going to be training one of the new sisters. Yay! I’m excited to have a greenie full of missionary fire! It’s going to be awesome! Plus, I’m the oldest child---I love bossing people around (ask Kirsten). Haha…okay, I’m just joking. I’m not going to boss her around. Mostly I’m going to try and suck up as much greenie fire as I can so I can end the last third of my mission with a bang.
I’m not trunky…don’t worry. I’m actually in denial. I feel like I’m going to be on a mission for the rest of my life and I’m perfectly happy thinking that because my life rocks.
This has nothing to do with anything but I thought it was cool: Kristy, the lady who just got baptized in Canyon Lake ward, was telling us this cool story about how she found this ugly blog that her sister in law had written her a year ago. It said lots of mean things about Kristy, but Kristy never saw it until yesterday. She told us that her life has gone through such a dramatic change the past year (including her conversion to the gospel of Christ) that when she read it she just laughed and shrugged it off. She said, “I’m glad I saw it now, cause if I had've seen it last year, it would have been on like Donkey Kong!”
Love ya all!
Sister johnson
Sunday, January 3, 2010
:)
It was so good talking to y’all on Christmas. I loved hearing everyone’s voices—especially Andre’s and Brian’s! Whoa! They sound like old mountain men. Anyways, we had our Christmas conference on Tuesday. We met at the Temple and took a picture of the whole mission. Then we drove over to the chruch to have some fun. President addressed us and it was good, and then Sister Cutler, and then we had lunch, and then the best part: the Christmas show. Anyone who wanted to could perform for the show. I was worried because I was supposed to sing a song with my last companion, Sister Dodge, but I have algeries which results in a really annoying cough that basically destroys my vocal chords…but it ended up being fine so I really worried about nothing as usual. Then I sang a song with Sister Kleisler. We sang Santa Claus is coming to town, but we switched the words to President Culter is coming to town. We added in all the phrases he always says during interviews or zone conferences. It was so fun and Sister Cutler was laughing so hard and President’s face was red…good times. After the show we watched Elf. We get to watch a movie once a year and this year it was Elf. I don’t think I’ll be able to watch movies again when I get home because I felt uncomfortable watching Elf. At one part an Elder got up and covered the screen and we all cheered. We are really weird. Finally Christmas conference was over and I said goodbye to my comp, Sister Kleisler. It was sad.
Then I drove off with my new companions, Sister Christensen and Sister Harward. They came out together 6 months ago. I love them! Sister Christensen is super chill and hilariously sarcastic and slides through life like honey even when she comes up against a lot of bumps: she’s got a great shock system. Her voice sounds exactly like the older sister on the Incredibles—I’m dead serious—it’s amazing. Sister Harward is out of control hyper. She stresses about everything but she’s happy at the same time. She’s not super annoying happy (You know the type where you’re like, “Stop smiling! You’re making my mouth hurt just looking at you! And the fluffy bunnies and rainbows that are following you around have got to go!”). Sister Harward’s not that kind of happy, she’s just fun-happy. She loves everyone and everyone loves her back. It’s funny seeing the two interact together. Sister Harward runs around crazy and Sister Christensen tells her to calm down. And now you throw me into the mix…and well…I’m not sure how to describe myself so I don’t really know how to describe our companionship. I seem to fluctuate depending on what companion I have. With Sister Kleisler I was the mature, obedient one. With Sister Dodge I was the hyperactive, immature one. Basically it feels like we are having a really long sleep over. It’s fun. We had three baptisms yesterday in their ward and I have decided that I love have three missionaries at a baptism. It was way less stressful.
Oh yeah! Guess what else. I was in Bulverde ward and they had a special musical number. Mallory Facer who is now Daines (I went to high school with her) stood up with her sister and they sang this gorgeous hymn. Crazy! I used to work as a teacher’s assistant for her dad at BYU until he was called to be the institute director in San Antonio. “I’ll never see them again,” I thought at the time, but now I’m serving in his ward and his daughter came down from Colorado to visit. It was cool. I got a picture.
The other day we were teaching a family and they asked Hunter, the 7-year-old ADHD boy to say the prayer and here’s what he said in his loudest, most sincere voice: “Jesus!!!! We’re sitting here at the table praying!……(long awkward pause and we all open one eye to see if he’s still there, but there he is, hands clasped together thinking real hard about what to say next)—and I’m fixing to eat some chocolate!………………..” –“Alright you’re done praying,” his dad cut in. Haha. It was amazing. I love little kid prayers.
Well, not much else to say. I’m having fun and I love you all. Thank you for all the packages and love!
Love, sister johnson
Then I drove off with my new companions, Sister Christensen and Sister Harward. They came out together 6 months ago. I love them! Sister Christensen is super chill and hilariously sarcastic and slides through life like honey even when she comes up against a lot of bumps: she’s got a great shock system. Her voice sounds exactly like the older sister on the Incredibles—I’m dead serious—it’s amazing. Sister Harward is out of control hyper. She stresses about everything but she’s happy at the same time. She’s not super annoying happy (You know the type where you’re like, “Stop smiling! You’re making my mouth hurt just looking at you! And the fluffy bunnies and rainbows that are following you around have got to go!”). Sister Harward’s not that kind of happy, she’s just fun-happy. She loves everyone and everyone loves her back. It’s funny seeing the two interact together. Sister Harward runs around crazy and Sister Christensen tells her to calm down. And now you throw me into the mix…and well…I’m not sure how to describe myself so I don’t really know how to describe our companionship. I seem to fluctuate depending on what companion I have. With Sister Kleisler I was the mature, obedient one. With Sister Dodge I was the hyperactive, immature one. Basically it feels like we are having a really long sleep over. It’s fun. We had three baptisms yesterday in their ward and I have decided that I love have three missionaries at a baptism. It was way less stressful.
Oh yeah! Guess what else. I was in Bulverde ward and they had a special musical number. Mallory Facer who is now Daines (I went to high school with her) stood up with her sister and they sang this gorgeous hymn. Crazy! I used to work as a teacher’s assistant for her dad at BYU until he was called to be the institute director in San Antonio. “I’ll never see them again,” I thought at the time, but now I’m serving in his ward and his daughter came down from Colorado to visit. It was cool. I got a picture.
The other day we were teaching a family and they asked Hunter, the 7-year-old ADHD boy to say the prayer and here’s what he said in his loudest, most sincere voice: “Jesus!!!! We’re sitting here at the table praying!……(long awkward pause and we all open one eye to see if he’s still there, but there he is, hands clasped together thinking real hard about what to say next)—and I’m fixing to eat some chocolate!………………..” –“Alright you’re done praying,” his dad cut in. Haha. It was amazing. I love little kid prayers.
Well, not much else to say. I’m having fun and I love you all. Thank you for all the packages and love!
Love, sister johnson
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