We are teaching Jennifer Lopez…yes…the real Jennifer Lopez…she’s real…but she’s not J-Lo.
This week was blah-ish, but good. Oooh! I went on exchanges with the Windcrest sisters. I went down to Windcrest and was Sister Green’s companion. Sister Green is super cool. I love meeting new missionaries because they are all so interesting. They all have crazy lives! Each missionary is unique, but we’re all united in one common cause. I love exchanges because it’s a fresh start. I am always a better missionary when I go somewhere I am not used to. I rely more on the Lord and I rely more on Preach My Gospel.
The ward choir sang in Church and believe it or not I felt the Spirit. They weren’t super amazing—they were a ward choir, but they sure sung their hearts out and you could feel it.
We went to the relief society president’s house and she was telling us about her 4 year old son who sometimes would come home from school sad because he didn’t get a stamp. He would get a stamp at the end of everyday if he accomplished a certain number of requirements during the day. He would come home sad and his mom told us that she would pull him aside and ask him, “Did you do your best today?” and he would reply that he had. “Then you’re okay…everyday isn’t always a stamp day.” Later that day we had some appointments fall through, I wasn’t accomplishing my personal goal of being a perfect missionary, and I was getting frustrated with myself. I turned and looked at Sister Latimer in a moment of overdramatized despair, “This isn’t a stamp day for me!” So this last week I’ve been trying to figure out how to be hopeful and happy when I’m not having a stamp day…because I’m not on a mission to earn stamps! I’ve learned that anytime I realize that I have something in my character that needs tweaking and I decide I want to be better at that certain thing, I immediately take five steps backwards. It’s like an invisible mirror from the land of honesty comes out from nowhere and shows me things about myself that I really didn’t want to know. Blah. But these things were always there and ignoring them doesn’t fix the problem. Finding out what they are, and then setting personal goals, and then, most importantly, praying like crazy helps me fix my problems. So that’s what this last week has been. I’ve had a very good dose of self-realization which is never fun. However, my self-esteem is still intact. I have faith that the savior can dissolve my selfish personality traits and I am so grateful for that! As soon as I recognize something I can work on I feel the Spirit testify that the Savior will help me do better. I’m dealing with the same traits I’ve dealt with my whole life, but I am changing and I’m doing better. And just so everyone knows, Me and my companion get along fine. Haha. I just read over this and it sounds like Sister Latimer and I got in a huge fight or something. Oh man, that’s funny. No, we get along great. No big event is triggering this email. Just a series of subtle internal moments of “I should do better.”
Monday, March 22, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
thank you
March 15
The Elders gave us a ride to the library today for email. Elder Najar is sitting next to me dramatically bemoaning the fact that he only got one email this week and it’s from one of his friends telling him that she’s engaged. Hahaha. Sad day. But he goes home in 2 months so he should just be lucky that he’s even getting any mail.
So this is a cool story: One of my recent converts from like a year ago named Joshua called me to get the number of the Elders who live in his mom’s area. His mom was sick and he wanted to give her a blessing, but needed another priesthood holder. The next day was p-day and I saw Elder Murphey, one of the Elders who went with Joshua to give the blessing. “So how’d the blessing go?” I asked. Elder Murphey smiled and said, “Well…He commanded his mom to be baptized…” hehe…I love recent coverts. Unfortunately his mom was too sick to and incoherent at the time to set up a return appointment with the missionaries. They decided to wait until she is feeling better before they followed up on that.
This week has been full of interesting-ness. On Tuesday we were walking down the street when suddenly a terminex truck pulled up and the driver called out, “Sisters! I have a referral for you!” That was out of the blue. It was a member in another ward. His wife is a convert and her family lives in our area. He said, “They aren’t interested at all, but you should still go over a visit.” So we tried two times and no one was there both times, but this Saturday we tried one more time. We knocked at the door and an older woman and her 23-year-old daughter answered. The daughter was beaming and smiling!...the mother was glowering and scoffing. So we introduced ourselves and asked if we could come in. The mom agreed to let us in, but then walked out to finish some yard work. The daughter ran after her, “Mom! This is for you!” So after some gentle proding we convinced her to come sit down with us. “So how did you join the church?” we asked the daughter, Kimberly. As soon as she started talking the mother jumped to her feet and went to the kitchen and started making cookies with a lot of vigor and venom…I was glad I was not that cookie dough. So we switched our conversation to the mom, Debbie. “So you’re Catholic? Have you been Catholic you whole life?” “My family has been CATHOLIC throughout the ages all the way back to ST. PETER!” We turned back to Kimberly and she smiled nervously. “Oh….hmmmm. So you weren’t happy that your daughter joined the Church?” Debbie just rolled her eyes…oh heaven help us. Well, we asked her about her Catholic beliefs and she opened up a bit. Suddenly she said, “One of my patients was your president.” “Umm….what? President Cutler?” “Yeah, I think so.” “The guy with the herniated disk?” “Yeah, I was his nurse.” (Quick back ground, President Cutler had spinal cord surgery last week because of a random herniated disk. It was a big deal among the TSAM). So I guess President had talked to her quite a bit and made a fairly good impression with her. Crazy! So we talked her into listening to a 10 minute first lesson. “Okay, 10 minutes. That’s how long the cookies will take.” I’m here to tell you that that was one powerful 10 minute lesson. I could feel years of prayers being answered in that 10 mintue chunk. Her heart was softened. We had her get one of the many copies of the Book of Mormon that had been given to her and we marked Moroni 10:3-5. We gave her some pamphlets and set another appointment for this next week. It was pretty cool. She was still grumbling and huffing as she handed us some cookies, but we could tell she was just a super sweet lady. Who knows…
One last story. This has kind of been a sad week for the Encino Park ward. Last Sunday Sister Walls, a recent covert of a few years, was taken by the ambulance to the hospital in the middle of Sacrament. She died on Thursday because of an unknown hole in her heart leaving her 16 year old daughter an orphan. The ward was at the hospital, the young women and seminary classes were writing Ashleigh, the daughter, letters and sending cards. The relief society has been making preparations for the funeral. Sister Wall’s siblings have flown into town and they’ve been having meetings discussing who Ashleigh is going to live with. It’s all very sureal and it has hit a little close to home. I saw Ashleigh yesterday for the first time after the passing of her mother. All I could do was give her a hug and I said, “Your hair looks cute.” She smiled and the young women in the ward surrounded her and led her to Sunday school. They asked me to go and talk to the mia maid class (while Ashleigh was in the Laurel class) and explain to the girls how they could help Ashleigh. I told them to show their love for her without limitation. I remember how wonderful and uplifted I felt when I received letters and presents from friends and church members. I told them to keep inviting her to parties and activities cause she’s going to need distractions and breaks from her grief. I told them that they would be extremely important friends to Ashleigh for the rest of her life. I told them that it’s okay to talk to her about it, especially in a few months when things will have calmed down. As I talked to them I couldn’t help thinking about all the people who helped me and my family almost 10 years ago when my family was in the car accident and I’ve just been filled with gratitude for all that help. I just want to publicly thank everybody who helped us in some way. Thank you Aunt Rachel for taking pictures of me and my friends, thank you Leslie Merkley and Sherri Cutler for staying by my bed at the hospital. Thank you Uncle Neal for calling me telling me that you wished you could be in Texas with us. Thank you to the city of McKinney. Thank you to all my teachers at the time who came to the funeral. Thank you to all my friends at school who came to visit me. Thank you for all my seminary friends who visited me and planned that party for me, and stayed in touch with me all these years. Thank you Uncle Jim for giving that beautiful tribute to my mother at her funeral. Thank you Mckinney 2nd ward. Thank you Grandma wiltbank for crying with me that one time. Thank you Sara for coming to get me when the doctors forgot about me in that hall way :) thank you Kirsten and Clint and Andre and Caleb for being salwarts. Thank you Lane and Marcia for taking us in. Thank you Catherine, Kevin, Mike, Michelle, Marci, and Brian for accepting us. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Johnson for everything. Thank you Ellen for staying with Caleb. I have a bunch more thank you’s but I’m running out of time. The computer is about to kick me off. But I just want everybody to know how much I am grateful for everything they did. It didn’t go unnoticed, but it was too hard to say thank you before and it still kind of is. I love all of you and I am on a mission because of your love and help
Love sister johnson
The Elders gave us a ride to the library today for email. Elder Najar is sitting next to me dramatically bemoaning the fact that he only got one email this week and it’s from one of his friends telling him that she’s engaged. Hahaha. Sad day. But he goes home in 2 months so he should just be lucky that he’s even getting any mail.
So this is a cool story: One of my recent converts from like a year ago named Joshua called me to get the number of the Elders who live in his mom’s area. His mom was sick and he wanted to give her a blessing, but needed another priesthood holder. The next day was p-day and I saw Elder Murphey, one of the Elders who went with Joshua to give the blessing. “So how’d the blessing go?” I asked. Elder Murphey smiled and said, “Well…He commanded his mom to be baptized…” hehe…I love recent coverts. Unfortunately his mom was too sick to and incoherent at the time to set up a return appointment with the missionaries. They decided to wait until she is feeling better before they followed up on that.
This week has been full of interesting-ness. On Tuesday we were walking down the street when suddenly a terminex truck pulled up and the driver called out, “Sisters! I have a referral for you!” That was out of the blue. It was a member in another ward. His wife is a convert and her family lives in our area. He said, “They aren’t interested at all, but you should still go over a visit.” So we tried two times and no one was there both times, but this Saturday we tried one more time. We knocked at the door and an older woman and her 23-year-old daughter answered. The daughter was beaming and smiling!...the mother was glowering and scoffing. So we introduced ourselves and asked if we could come in. The mom agreed to let us in, but then walked out to finish some yard work. The daughter ran after her, “Mom! This is for you!” So after some gentle proding we convinced her to come sit down with us. “So how did you join the church?” we asked the daughter, Kimberly. As soon as she started talking the mother jumped to her feet and went to the kitchen and started making cookies with a lot of vigor and venom…I was glad I was not that cookie dough. So we switched our conversation to the mom, Debbie. “So you’re Catholic? Have you been Catholic you whole life?” “My family has been CATHOLIC throughout the ages all the way back to ST. PETER!” We turned back to Kimberly and she smiled nervously. “Oh….hmmmm. So you weren’t happy that your daughter joined the Church?” Debbie just rolled her eyes…oh heaven help us. Well, we asked her about her Catholic beliefs and she opened up a bit. Suddenly she said, “One of my patients was your president.” “Umm….what? President Cutler?” “Yeah, I think so.” “The guy with the herniated disk?” “Yeah, I was his nurse.” (Quick back ground, President Cutler had spinal cord surgery last week because of a random herniated disk. It was a big deal among the TSAM). So I guess President had talked to her quite a bit and made a fairly good impression with her. Crazy! So we talked her into listening to a 10 minute first lesson. “Okay, 10 minutes. That’s how long the cookies will take.” I’m here to tell you that that was one powerful 10 minute lesson. I could feel years of prayers being answered in that 10 mintue chunk. Her heart was softened. We had her get one of the many copies of the Book of Mormon that had been given to her and we marked Moroni 10:3-5. We gave her some pamphlets and set another appointment for this next week. It was pretty cool. She was still grumbling and huffing as she handed us some cookies, but we could tell she was just a super sweet lady. Who knows…
One last story. This has kind of been a sad week for the Encino Park ward. Last Sunday Sister Walls, a recent covert of a few years, was taken by the ambulance to the hospital in the middle of Sacrament. She died on Thursday because of an unknown hole in her heart leaving her 16 year old daughter an orphan. The ward was at the hospital, the young women and seminary classes were writing Ashleigh, the daughter, letters and sending cards. The relief society has been making preparations for the funeral. Sister Wall’s siblings have flown into town and they’ve been having meetings discussing who Ashleigh is going to live with. It’s all very sureal and it has hit a little close to home. I saw Ashleigh yesterday for the first time after the passing of her mother. All I could do was give her a hug and I said, “Your hair looks cute.” She smiled and the young women in the ward surrounded her and led her to Sunday school. They asked me to go and talk to the mia maid class (while Ashleigh was in the Laurel class) and explain to the girls how they could help Ashleigh. I told them to show their love for her without limitation. I remember how wonderful and uplifted I felt when I received letters and presents from friends and church members. I told them to keep inviting her to parties and activities cause she’s going to need distractions and breaks from her grief. I told them that they would be extremely important friends to Ashleigh for the rest of her life. I told them that it’s okay to talk to her about it, especially in a few months when things will have calmed down. As I talked to them I couldn’t help thinking about all the people who helped me and my family almost 10 years ago when my family was in the car accident and I’ve just been filled with gratitude for all that help. I just want to publicly thank everybody who helped us in some way. Thank you Aunt Rachel for taking pictures of me and my friends, thank you Leslie Merkley and Sherri Cutler for staying by my bed at the hospital. Thank you Uncle Neal for calling me telling me that you wished you could be in Texas with us. Thank you to the city of McKinney. Thank you to all my teachers at the time who came to the funeral. Thank you to all my friends at school who came to visit me. Thank you for all my seminary friends who visited me and planned that party for me, and stayed in touch with me all these years. Thank you Uncle Jim for giving that beautiful tribute to my mother at her funeral. Thank you Mckinney 2nd ward. Thank you Grandma wiltbank for crying with me that one time. Thank you Sara for coming to get me when the doctors forgot about me in that hall way :) thank you Kirsten and Clint and Andre and Caleb for being salwarts. Thank you Lane and Marcia for taking us in. Thank you Catherine, Kevin, Mike, Michelle, Marci, and Brian for accepting us. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Johnson for everything. Thank you Ellen for staying with Caleb. I have a bunch more thank you’s but I’m running out of time. The computer is about to kick me off. But I just want everybody to know how much I am grateful for everything they did. It didn’t go unnoticed, but it was too hard to say thank you before and it still kind of is. I love all of you and I am on a mission because of your love and help
Love sister johnson
someone wants to talk to you
March 8
Well…I’m sitting at the library writing this email while the keys to our car sit comfortably in the trunk of our corolla. Sigh. This wouldn’t really be that big of a deal, but it’s the second time this week we’ve locked our keys in the trunk…I wrote a list of things I wanted to write about this week…but it’s in the trunk, so who knows what I’ll write about. I’m excited to see.
Last Monday was one of the worst days of my mission and looking back I’m trying to remember exactly why it affected my so terribly. We are working with an amazing woman named Wendy. She’s our best investigator right now. She studies everything we tell her to and she makes us food. She’s happily married to a police officer and she’s got three adorable children under 5. Wendy is amazing. Well, last week we made Wendy cry…and they weren’t good tears. It was a big misunderstanding, but basically we were idiots…mostly me… and we said some things that were pretty offensive. There’s no point going to go into it because it’s trivial now, but it was terrible. I felt like the scum of the earth. It wasn’t even that bad, but I’m a missionary. We shouldn’t be offensive or defensive, we should be the perfect examples of a disciple of Christ---and we aren’t! I have never been so aware of my inadequacies as I am as a missionary which seems really paradoxical, but it’s true. Ugh. The worst part was feeling like I had shattered her chances of having a fair opportunity to hear the gospel, which I realize is dumb. Her salvation does not rest on my stupidity, but still it makes you wonder…why does the Lord send us out when we seem to be hurting the work more than helping it?! Blah. All I could think of this whole last week wanted to send a huge airplane flyer message thing throughout the world that says, “In behalf of all the Mormons who stay and do dumb things when they should be representing the Lord in all things and in all places, I’m Sorrrrrrrrryyyyyyy!!!!!!!!” I was so afraid that she would be one of those people who years down the road missionaries would knock at her door and she’d respond, ‘I’ve talked to you people before and I don’t really think you represent Christ very well so obviously your church must not be His church.’ We wrote Wendy a little note to say sorry last week and this Saturday we showed up at her door with a little bag of starbursts and a hand written paper of the answers to some of her questions that we weren’t able to answer when we had talked to her last. As soon as she opened the door she smiled, “Hi! I just made cookies! You must have smelled them!” We just stood there eyes-wide and shaking. “Come on in!” As we walked in past her she smiled, “Don’t I get a hug?” oh man. It’s moments like that where I get a glimpse of judgment day and the relief that will come because of Christ’s mercy. Wendy is truly a good example of being Christ-like. We apologized again and gave her the starbursts and she appreciated it. We appreciated her. So, we’re back of okay-ish terms with Wendy. It’s interesting how we are called in our weakness. Wendy strengthened and taught us with her example and we have the privilege of sharing the restored gospel with her. I have been very blessed because of my investigators.
Right now the biggest struggle in missionary work is helping our investigators get to church. For weeks now we have not been able to help anyone get to church even though we are teaching a lot of people. It has been hard for me. I know people have their agency, but I can be doing more. This week we went around on Saturday and invited all of our investigators to church and we called our ward missionaries and asked them to fast and pray that our investigators would be blessed with circumstances and with an abundance of the spirit necessary to overcome any fears or inconveniences of coming to church. Church started and not one person showed up…again. I was ready to burst into tears but I didn’t because that would be weird. I kept thinking of things I could do better to help more people come to church. I know it is their decision and I only have control over me so I was formulated what I could say and do better this next week and I frankly felt terrible. Suddenly, in walked Mary Flemming. We’ve been trying to get her to Church for six weeks now! She stayed for 15 minutes!!!!!! But then she left cause I can’t remember but something came up, but she came!!!! At the end of church Brian Foote, a recent RM came up to us and said, “Cydni Gardner has a friend that wants to talk to you.” We to 18 year old Cydni and she said that her friend once jokingly said she wanted the missionaries to come to her door. So we went to her door and she was so excited. Her name is Riley. We have an appointment with her and all her Mormon friends are coming. Oh goody. I am super excited. Blessings. Blessings. The Lord loves me and He answers my prayers. I trust that. It is always an exciting ride to see how he decides to answer them.
A few weeks ago we contacted a guy at ‘The Estates.’ An apartment complex where a ton of our investigators live so are there all the time. He is a maintance worker for the Estates and the first time we met him he said he wasn’t interested. The second time we saw him we forgot that we had talked to him and this time his wife and three kids were out waiting to take him home. We talked to them and got their info…they lived outside their area, which was a bummer, but this family was amazing so we didn’t care that we wouldn’t be the ones teaching them. The third time we saw him at the apartment complex we gave him a Book of Mormon. A couple days later we got a message from the Stone Oak elders thanking us for finding the Perez family. They said that they had had one of the best lessons of their missions with the family and they were going to church. We were so excited. As a missionary sometimes you are blessed to be part of the entire experience of finding and teaching and baptizing, but usually you just get to be part of snippets…missionary work is not about us having cool experiences, its about us learning that we are not serving OUR mission, but HIS mission. We come and go almost anonymously. Hardly anyone will remember us, but being remembered isn’t the point—in fact were trying to forget ourselves completely and focus on our brothers and sisters. It is a trying, but beautiful experience
Well…I’m sitting at the library writing this email while the keys to our car sit comfortably in the trunk of our corolla. Sigh. This wouldn’t really be that big of a deal, but it’s the second time this week we’ve locked our keys in the trunk…I wrote a list of things I wanted to write about this week…but it’s in the trunk, so who knows what I’ll write about. I’m excited to see.
Last Monday was one of the worst days of my mission and looking back I’m trying to remember exactly why it affected my so terribly. We are working with an amazing woman named Wendy. She’s our best investigator right now. She studies everything we tell her to and she makes us food. She’s happily married to a police officer and she’s got three adorable children under 5. Wendy is amazing. Well, last week we made Wendy cry…and they weren’t good tears. It was a big misunderstanding, but basically we were idiots…mostly me… and we said some things that were pretty offensive. There’s no point going to go into it because it’s trivial now, but it was terrible. I felt like the scum of the earth. It wasn’t even that bad, but I’m a missionary. We shouldn’t be offensive or defensive, we should be the perfect examples of a disciple of Christ---and we aren’t! I have never been so aware of my inadequacies as I am as a missionary which seems really paradoxical, but it’s true. Ugh. The worst part was feeling like I had shattered her chances of having a fair opportunity to hear the gospel, which I realize is dumb. Her salvation does not rest on my stupidity, but still it makes you wonder…why does the Lord send us out when we seem to be hurting the work more than helping it?! Blah. All I could think of this whole last week wanted to send a huge airplane flyer message thing throughout the world that says, “In behalf of all the Mormons who stay and do dumb things when they should be representing the Lord in all things and in all places, I’m Sorrrrrrrrryyyyyyy!!!!!!!!” I was so afraid that she would be one of those people who years down the road missionaries would knock at her door and she’d respond, ‘I’ve talked to you people before and I don’t really think you represent Christ very well so obviously your church must not be His church.’ We wrote Wendy a little note to say sorry last week and this Saturday we showed up at her door with a little bag of starbursts and a hand written paper of the answers to some of her questions that we weren’t able to answer when we had talked to her last. As soon as she opened the door she smiled, “Hi! I just made cookies! You must have smelled them!” We just stood there eyes-wide and shaking. “Come on in!” As we walked in past her she smiled, “Don’t I get a hug?” oh man. It’s moments like that where I get a glimpse of judgment day and the relief that will come because of Christ’s mercy. Wendy is truly a good example of being Christ-like. We apologized again and gave her the starbursts and she appreciated it. We appreciated her. So, we’re back of okay-ish terms with Wendy. It’s interesting how we are called in our weakness. Wendy strengthened and taught us with her example and we have the privilege of sharing the restored gospel with her. I have been very blessed because of my investigators.
Right now the biggest struggle in missionary work is helping our investigators get to church. For weeks now we have not been able to help anyone get to church even though we are teaching a lot of people. It has been hard for me. I know people have their agency, but I can be doing more. This week we went around on Saturday and invited all of our investigators to church and we called our ward missionaries and asked them to fast and pray that our investigators would be blessed with circumstances and with an abundance of the spirit necessary to overcome any fears or inconveniences of coming to church. Church started and not one person showed up…again. I was ready to burst into tears but I didn’t because that would be weird. I kept thinking of things I could do better to help more people come to church. I know it is their decision and I only have control over me so I was formulated what I could say and do better this next week and I frankly felt terrible. Suddenly, in walked Mary Flemming. We’ve been trying to get her to Church for six weeks now! She stayed for 15 minutes!!!!!! But then she left cause I can’t remember but something came up, but she came!!!! At the end of church Brian Foote, a recent RM came up to us and said, “Cydni Gardner has a friend that wants to talk to you.” We to 18 year old Cydni and she said that her friend once jokingly said she wanted the missionaries to come to her door. So we went to her door and she was so excited. Her name is Riley. We have an appointment with her and all her Mormon friends are coming. Oh goody. I am super excited. Blessings. Blessings. The Lord loves me and He answers my prayers. I trust that. It is always an exciting ride to see how he decides to answer them.
A few weeks ago we contacted a guy at ‘The Estates.’ An apartment complex where a ton of our investigators live so are there all the time. He is a maintance worker for the Estates and the first time we met him he said he wasn’t interested. The second time we saw him we forgot that we had talked to him and this time his wife and three kids were out waiting to take him home. We talked to them and got their info…they lived outside their area, which was a bummer, but this family was amazing so we didn’t care that we wouldn’t be the ones teaching them. The third time we saw him at the apartment complex we gave him a Book of Mormon. A couple days later we got a message from the Stone Oak elders thanking us for finding the Perez family. They said that they had had one of the best lessons of their missions with the family and they were going to church. We were so excited. As a missionary sometimes you are blessed to be part of the entire experience of finding and teaching and baptizing, but usually you just get to be part of snippets…missionary work is not about us having cool experiences, its about us learning that we are not serving OUR mission, but HIS mission. We come and go almost anonymously. Hardly anyone will remember us, but being remembered isn’t the point—in fact were trying to forget ourselves completely and focus on our brothers and sisters. It is a trying, but beautiful experience
Feb 22
Elder Bednar came to our mission on Saturday. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget. President allowed the entire mission to attend so all 180 met in the chapel in complete silence studying the scriptures and listening to prelude music waiting to hear from an apostle. It was a very sacred and spiritual meeting. He’s just a normal man, but his calling is larger than life. He said some really cool things, but the Spirit was the main teacher in this meeting. In the middle of the discussion Elder Bednar said, “Raise your hand if you had a question answered today that was neither asked nor discussed.” Several missionaries raised their hands. Elder Bednar emphasized how we need to work as hard as we can to cultivate an environment for the Spirit to teach and then we need to get out of the way. If the Spirit isn’t teaching then all you are doing is talking to yourself in front of investigators. Nothing we haven’t heard before, but it was awesome to have an apostle with us and reminded us the reality of the message we share.
Everything else that happened this week is a blur. Sister Latimer is my new companion. She’s from American Fork, Utah. Woo Utah! She’s a lot more quite and reserved that Sister Hill, but she’s got a crazy side. This morning we were fixing our voicemail answering message. I started off by saying, “Hi! This is the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Johnson…” And then Sister Latimer said in her sweet little voice, “…and Sister Latimer. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you. And remember, if you don’t get baptized, you’re going to hell.” What?! Where in the world did that come from?! I looked at my quiet/shy companion like she was crazy and then she started to giggle. Oh… it was a joke I realized, but I was still taken a back. Just imagine my face. Well, we tried to change it, and we thought we did, but….The San Pedro Elders called us and left a message “um….sisters, you need to change that message now!” Hahaha. So we finally removed our pounding-at-the-pulpit answering message thingy and all is well, hopefully.
So that was my funny Sister Latimer story. I also have a funny Sister Hill Story. At the beginning of last transfer I mentioned the potato famine to Sister Hill. She started laughing histerically. “Oh a potato famine! Hahaha! Like they couldn’t eat anything else. Hahah!” I asked, “You’ve never heard of the potato famine?” Then she started talking and laughing in an Irish accent, “Oh no! I’m going to die because there’s no potatos! hahaha” I know there were Irish people rolling in their graves. So I had to listen to her make fun of the potato famine all transfer long cause she thought it was some kind of fabricated myth. On our last day together we were knocking in the morning and she started going off on it again. I turned to her and said, “The next time you meet and Irish person, you ask them about the potato famine and let me know how it goes.” She laughed and laughed. Later that day we picked up sister Forsey who was one of the 6 sisters going home this transfer. She would spend her last day with us. We were a three-some for the day. That night we were leaving an apartment complex and we saw an older gentleman walking so we went up to talk to him. After we introduced ourselves he introduced himself in a thick…Irish accent. He is a Catholic priest who had immigrated years before. “So. I’ve heard about some potato famine that was supposed to have happened in Ireland. Can you tell me a little about that.” Suddenly the sky darked as the Irish man’s eye furrowed and he began a dramatic monologue recounting the epic tale (that happens to be true), “The Irish people exported all the barley and wheat in nighty-turthy seven”(insert correct year cause I forgot). “There was a blight and the potato crops failed…” “In nighty-turthy seven Ireland had a population of 9 million. In nighty-turthy nine their were 3 million. 2 million immigrated……4 million died!” After he was finished I was beaming with the glow that only comes when you throw back “In your face!” Sister Hill was laughing so hard because it was so classic and couldn’t have been better timing. Now she knows about the potato famine.
Sister Dodge and Sister Davenport went home this week. Sad day.
sj
Everything else that happened this week is a blur. Sister Latimer is my new companion. She’s from American Fork, Utah. Woo Utah! She’s a lot more quite and reserved that Sister Hill, but she’s got a crazy side. This morning we were fixing our voicemail answering message. I started off by saying, “Hi! This is the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Johnson…” And then Sister Latimer said in her sweet little voice, “…and Sister Latimer. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you. And remember, if you don’t get baptized, you’re going to hell.” What?! Where in the world did that come from?! I looked at my quiet/shy companion like she was crazy and then she started to giggle. Oh… it was a joke I realized, but I was still taken a back. Just imagine my face. Well, we tried to change it, and we thought we did, but….The San Pedro Elders called us and left a message “um….sisters, you need to change that message now!” Hahaha. So we finally removed our pounding-at-the-pulpit answering message thingy and all is well, hopefully.
So that was my funny Sister Latimer story. I also have a funny Sister Hill Story. At the beginning of last transfer I mentioned the potato famine to Sister Hill. She started laughing histerically. “Oh a potato famine! Hahaha! Like they couldn’t eat anything else. Hahah!” I asked, “You’ve never heard of the potato famine?” Then she started talking and laughing in an Irish accent, “Oh no! I’m going to die because there’s no potatos! hahaha” I know there were Irish people rolling in their graves. So I had to listen to her make fun of the potato famine all transfer long cause she thought it was some kind of fabricated myth. On our last day together we were knocking in the morning and she started going off on it again. I turned to her and said, “The next time you meet and Irish person, you ask them about the potato famine and let me know how it goes.” She laughed and laughed. Later that day we picked up sister Forsey who was one of the 6 sisters going home this transfer. She would spend her last day with us. We were a three-some for the day. That night we were leaving an apartment complex and we saw an older gentleman walking so we went up to talk to him. After we introduced ourselves he introduced himself in a thick…Irish accent. He is a Catholic priest who had immigrated years before. “So. I’ve heard about some potato famine that was supposed to have happened in Ireland. Can you tell me a little about that.” Suddenly the sky darked as the Irish man’s eye furrowed and he began a dramatic monologue recounting the epic tale (that happens to be true), “The Irish people exported all the barley and wheat in nighty-turthy seven”(insert correct year cause I forgot). “There was a blight and the potato crops failed…” “In nighty-turthy seven Ireland had a population of 9 million. In nighty-turthy nine their were 3 million. 2 million immigrated……4 million died!” After he was finished I was beaming with the glow that only comes when you throw back “In your face!” Sister Hill was laughing so hard because it was so classic and couldn’t have been better timing. Now she knows about the potato famine.
Sister Dodge and Sister Davenport went home this week. Sad day.
sj
no offense
February 15
Hello everyone! Transfer News:
Sister Hill is getting transferred and I’m training again in Encino Park.
What in the world? I am so sad. I’m excited and I know it is the Lord’s will but I really like Sister Hill and this is the first time that I won’t have two transfers with one of my companions. I love second transfer with a comp! By the time the second transfer comes around the fluffy façade you try to fake in front of people is exposed and suddenly you go from being missionary companions to being best friends. That was cheesy, but it’s true. Oh well. All the sisters made the transfer maps to try and figure out where everyone is getting transferred to and we’re pretty sure that Sister Hill is going to either Anderson Mill or Pleasanton: the two area that I’ve served in! So even though she’ll be away from me, I’ll still haunt her with my presence (via the area book and former investigators) in those other areas. Bahahaha.
At district meeting this week we did some role plays with the San Pedro Elders. Our purpose was to ask questions that would help us figure out what our investigators’ true concerns would be. So the San Pedro Elders pretended to be investigators with a pretend concern and Sister Hill and I tried to figure out their concern. “Elder Hennessey, what brings you joy?” I began to ask. “What do you feel your purpose is in life?” Elder Hennessey paused and then looked up at Sister Hill and I and said, “Well…no offense to you sisters…but my girlfriend is hot!” A brief moment of stunned silence ensued while Sister Hill and I sat wide-eyed registering what he had just said and then we turned and both looked at each other and that was it. We burst out laughing and we could not control ourselves! I started convulsing silently because I was laughing so hard and tears streamed down my cheeks. Sister Hill kept throwing her head backwards shrieking with laughter struggling to get the air she needed in order to continue breathing. I don’t know why it was so funny to us. Maybe it was because we were tired. Maybe it was because of poor Elder Hennessey face: He was shocked because he wasn’t trying to be funny at all and he didn’t quite understand the abrupt repercussion that followed his statement. It probably isn’t that funny to any of you, but that moment has brought me so much happiness this week.
Needless to say, we were completely unhelpful the during the rest of the role plays because we just kept bursting in giggles and the redder Elder Hennessey’s face got, the more difficult our laughter was to control. Oh good times. I’ve never laughed so hard as I do with Sister Hill so it’s probably a good thing she’s getting transferred.
This week we got to clean the temple. We don’t usually help clean the temple because it doesn’t help us find new people to teach, but a bunch of temple workers are in our ward and they needed help so we went over and helped. It was so cool. We all dressed in white and together with the other ladies in the ward we helped to clean the house of the Lord. It was really a peaceful experience.
We contacted a lady named Julie on the street this week. She was painting her house and we offered to help. It was fun. Julie is originally from China, but then moved here and married an American. She divorced him awhile ago, and is now in the middle of her second divorce. She is struggling and really wants her 11-year-old daughter, Cailyn, to have God in her life. So we taught them the Plan of Salvation. At the end of the lesson Cailyn started to tear up and was a little embarrassed. We asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said she did. Julie was really excited for Cailyn. I’m not exactly sure why Cailyn started to cry. Partly I think she is overwhelmed with the stress that comes from watching your parents get a divorce and the message brought some relief to that stress. We had Cailyn go to activity days last Wednesday and she loved being with the girls. Julie doesn’t really want to start going to church yet, but Cailyn is working with her. A couple days later and Cailyn told us that she taught her mom how to pray. Cute!
The rest of the investigators are struggling right now. They’ll get through it, but everyone has hard lives and then trying to persuade people to rearrange their priorities is soooooo difficult! We are trying to show them that Church and prayer and scripture study should be at the top of the list, but they are too afraid to let go of the things that they’ve convinced themselves brings happiness. A lot of them are in somewhat stable circumstances so they don’t want to do anything to topple over their security but when you step back and look at their lives their foundation is completely cracked and decayed and it’s only a matter of time that it will come crashing down. It’s like they are living in these old buildings that are falling apart and as missionaries we are asking them to step out of the building and come over to new spot of ground with a solid foundation and help them build a new building with some new material and some of the old material that they bring over. That’s how we see it as missionaries, but the investigators see us threatening their safety. If you were in an old falling down building and someone was telling to get out of it wouldn’t you be scared that any sudden movement would cause everything to come crashing down? But what they don’t understand is that remaining in the old building is only putting off impending devastation—ignoring the problems doesn’t make them go away. It’s sooooooooooo frustrating!
One more interesting story. We knocked on an older gentleman's door and we extended an invitation to hear a message about Christ and responded that he already knew about Christ because he was catholic. "Have you ever talked to Mormons before?" We asked. "Oh yeah," he responded, "I know all about Mormons. You know the Angel Moroni on top of the temple?" We nodded our heads and I braced myself for a bunch of anti, but was surprised at his response. "Yeah, the angel Moroni actually appeared on some property owned my family..." We were not expecting that at all and wanted to ask him more questions, but he was in his pj's. Interesting and I don't really know what else to say.
Anyways, we gotta go. Thank you so much for the prayers! I can feel your love and support by them. I love yall a lot!
Sister Johnson
Hello everyone! Transfer News:
Sister Hill is getting transferred and I’m training again in Encino Park.
What in the world? I am so sad. I’m excited and I know it is the Lord’s will but I really like Sister Hill and this is the first time that I won’t have two transfers with one of my companions. I love second transfer with a comp! By the time the second transfer comes around the fluffy façade you try to fake in front of people is exposed and suddenly you go from being missionary companions to being best friends. That was cheesy, but it’s true. Oh well. All the sisters made the transfer maps to try and figure out where everyone is getting transferred to and we’re pretty sure that Sister Hill is going to either Anderson Mill or Pleasanton: the two area that I’ve served in! So even though she’ll be away from me, I’ll still haunt her with my presence (via the area book and former investigators) in those other areas. Bahahaha.
At district meeting this week we did some role plays with the San Pedro Elders. Our purpose was to ask questions that would help us figure out what our investigators’ true concerns would be. So the San Pedro Elders pretended to be investigators with a pretend concern and Sister Hill and I tried to figure out their concern. “Elder Hennessey, what brings you joy?” I began to ask. “What do you feel your purpose is in life?” Elder Hennessey paused and then looked up at Sister Hill and I and said, “Well…no offense to you sisters…but my girlfriend is hot!” A brief moment of stunned silence ensued while Sister Hill and I sat wide-eyed registering what he had just said and then we turned and both looked at each other and that was it. We burst out laughing and we could not control ourselves! I started convulsing silently because I was laughing so hard and tears streamed down my cheeks. Sister Hill kept throwing her head backwards shrieking with laughter struggling to get the air she needed in order to continue breathing. I don’t know why it was so funny to us. Maybe it was because we were tired. Maybe it was because of poor Elder Hennessey face: He was shocked because he wasn’t trying to be funny at all and he didn’t quite understand the abrupt repercussion that followed his statement. It probably isn’t that funny to any of you, but that moment has brought me so much happiness this week.
Needless to say, we were completely unhelpful the during the rest of the role plays because we just kept bursting in giggles and the redder Elder Hennessey’s face got, the more difficult our laughter was to control. Oh good times. I’ve never laughed so hard as I do with Sister Hill so it’s probably a good thing she’s getting transferred.
This week we got to clean the temple. We don’t usually help clean the temple because it doesn’t help us find new people to teach, but a bunch of temple workers are in our ward and they needed help so we went over and helped. It was so cool. We all dressed in white and together with the other ladies in the ward we helped to clean the house of the Lord. It was really a peaceful experience.
We contacted a lady named Julie on the street this week. She was painting her house and we offered to help. It was fun. Julie is originally from China, but then moved here and married an American. She divorced him awhile ago, and is now in the middle of her second divorce. She is struggling and really wants her 11-year-old daughter, Cailyn, to have God in her life. So we taught them the Plan of Salvation. At the end of the lesson Cailyn started to tear up and was a little embarrassed. We asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said she did. Julie was really excited for Cailyn. I’m not exactly sure why Cailyn started to cry. Partly I think she is overwhelmed with the stress that comes from watching your parents get a divorce and the message brought some relief to that stress. We had Cailyn go to activity days last Wednesday and she loved being with the girls. Julie doesn’t really want to start going to church yet, but Cailyn is working with her. A couple days later and Cailyn told us that she taught her mom how to pray. Cute!
The rest of the investigators are struggling right now. They’ll get through it, but everyone has hard lives and then trying to persuade people to rearrange their priorities is soooooo difficult! We are trying to show them that Church and prayer and scripture study should be at the top of the list, but they are too afraid to let go of the things that they’ve convinced themselves brings happiness. A lot of them are in somewhat stable circumstances so they don’t want to do anything to topple over their security but when you step back and look at their lives their foundation is completely cracked and decayed and it’s only a matter of time that it will come crashing down. It’s like they are living in these old buildings that are falling apart and as missionaries we are asking them to step out of the building and come over to new spot of ground with a solid foundation and help them build a new building with some new material and some of the old material that they bring over. That’s how we see it as missionaries, but the investigators see us threatening their safety. If you were in an old falling down building and someone was telling to get out of it wouldn’t you be scared that any sudden movement would cause everything to come crashing down? But what they don’t understand is that remaining in the old building is only putting off impending devastation—ignoring the problems doesn’t make them go away. It’s sooooooooooo frustrating!
One more interesting story. We knocked on an older gentleman's door and we extended an invitation to hear a message about Christ and responded that he already knew about Christ because he was catholic. "Have you ever talked to Mormons before?" We asked. "Oh yeah," he responded, "I know all about Mormons. You know the Angel Moroni on top of the temple?" We nodded our heads and I braced myself for a bunch of anti, but was surprised at his response. "Yeah, the angel Moroni actually appeared on some property owned my family..." We were not expecting that at all and wanted to ask him more questions, but he was in his pj's. Interesting and I don't really know what else to say.
Anyways, we gotta go. Thank you so much for the prayers! I can feel your love and support by them. I love yall a lot!
Sister Johnson
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