I don't need you

We invited Linda Sue to be baptized and she said yes!!!!! But we have a lot to help her understand before she can get baptized. Because of her stroke its hard for her to understand who Joseph Smith is and how his story relates to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm making a paper timeline with pictures of prophets. I'm going to make a little earth and show each prophet come to earth at different times to teach the people. Hopefully that will help her understand the time that separates Christ's ministry with the restoration of the gospel.

Linda Sue connects really well with Sister Green. They have a super sweet relationship, so it was really sad to find out that Sister Green is getting transferred on Thursday. I'm staying in Windcrest for the rest of my mission...but I shouldn't assume that cause anything could happen. :)

We are working with a family called the Kendziors. Did I talk about them last time? The mom is a less active member who is trying to come back and her husband is not a member. They have a pretty busy life, but they have decided to do family devotionals every morning. They read a scripture and talk about it and then pray. If your family is going through a rough time my suggestion is to read scriptures everyday. It will work wonders! Anyways, they have three super cute kids. Sister Kendzior wants to give me corn rows and braids because I told her that when I lived in Texas before, a lot of my friends had braids, and I really wanted to have braids too, but I was warned that I might get beat up if a little white girl like me showed up to middle school with corn rows and braids :) Now's my chance to fulfill my dream!!! But it's not going to happen. As soon as Sister Kendzior suggested the braids I looked at Sister Green and her mouth dropped, she closed her eyes, shook her head, and in a calm voice she said,..."no." "why not! they'd look so cute!"...."no." Haha...oh well, maybe someday.

Something I've learned on my mission: Being a wife and mother is hard. Holy moly. Oh man. we see people in all kinds of circumstances and oh man. it's hard. You give and give and your only motivation has to be love, because if you're motivated by appreciation and approval you will never receive the amount due. I also have a lot of respect for my moms, cause I've seen a lot of bad moms out here. no offense to them...a lot of them are just parenting the way that they were parented...they don't know any different. It's a good parent who respects their children like people, and disciplines out of love instead of anger. I've also seen a lot of good mom's out here. They're not perfect, but there's only one perfect parent. One of these mom's respected her kids agency a lot...she's not a member...but she respects their agency. For instance, her 18 month old was climbing up a ladder on a swing set. It wasn't super safe for the 18 month old to be on it so the mom ran out by the ladder. But instead of grabbing the kid and putting her back on the ground, she positioned her arms around the baby just in case the baby fell, and then instructed the baby to step down off the ladder. She never forced her kids physically unnecessarily to do something, but she was right their teaching them and helping them do what was right. Obviously if the baby was about to fall she would have grabbed her, but in this situation it wasn't necessary to grab her. so she helped the baby get of the ladder by the baby's own efforts. She probably doesn't always do that parenting style, but I learned a lot from watching her. I feel like that was how all my parents raised me. that's how I'm trying to work with my investigators. We guide them so they can do things on their own so that one day they don't have to rely on us anymore. When Elder Bednar came here he told us the best compliment we could ever receive as missionaries is, "Thanks, but you don't have to come over anymore because I don't need you. I've learned to do it myself."

love ya
sister johnson