Tue, Jul 21, 2009
Transfer calls came yesterday: Sister Kleisler and I are staying in Pleasanton.
I got to go to the San Antonio temple for the first time on Tuesday! It was awesome. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Sigh. Wednesday was district meeting and a senior couple paid for us to eat out at a steak buffet. Yum. That night we taught Toby, Mallory, and Billy Boy. We painted prayer rocks and those boys ended up being quite the little Picasso’s…
Thursday: Sister Kleisler’s teeth have been hurting. I inspected her teeth and noticed that part of a filling had chipped off so there was a large hole in her tooth. So arrangements were made for her to go to the dentist. He took one look in her mouth and said, “That’s not a chipped filling, that’s a huge cavity.” Apparently her last dentist didn’t do a very good job so now she’s got a mouth full of cavities. The dentist filled some, and then prescribed her heavy pain pills to ease her mouth pain. The pills did a good job at getting rid of her pain, but she was a zombie. So we did splits with some sisters from the ward. Sister Kleisler laid on Sister Swaim’s couch while I went out with other sisters in the ward. I went with Sister Midget(a sweet 78 year old woman who loves people and loves to share her testimony) for half the day, then the second half of the was spent with Vanessa.
I have to tell you a little about Vanessa because she’s one of my favorite people in whole world. She’s been a member her whole life, but had a rough childhood which led to her falling away from the Church. She had some terrible, terrible things happened to her as a result of the choices she made while she was away from the church. Ten-ish years later she’s got two kids from one marriage and two from her current boyfriend. Last fall, she was in the depths of humility, I suppose, and she was super depressed standing outside her toaster (what she calls the trailer she lives in) when she saw two sister missionaries knocking door across the street. She prayed and reasoned with the Lord that she would go back to church if He would send those two missionaries to her door…So guess what happened??? They never showed up. Bad missionaries? nope. Vanessa’s awesome and she went to church anyways because she knew she was supposed to go and she didn’t need a sign to realize that. She walked into Church with her boyfriend and four kids and the sisters immediately ran over to them because here in Pleasanton new people are gold. So now 9 months later she is very active and her boyfriend wants to get baptized…as soon as they get married which can’t happen because…well that’s an incredibly long story that I won’t go into. I’ve learned a very important lesson from them. Even though they have sincerely repented of their sins and want nothing more than to live righteously now, they still have to suffer the consequences of their decisions. They can’t get out of it—these consequences will be stuck with them for their entire life. However, they are at peace. Vanessa is surrounded by chaos, but she is at peace because she knows now that she is on good terms with God so she can trust that he’ll help her out in the exact way the she and her family need. What's neat now is that we often get promptings to go see Vanessa right when she needs us. Even though the Lord didn't send the missionaries to Vanessa the first time she asked, He has since sent us several times. So she is the awesomest member to take with us to appointments because she has a tough life so she can relate to the people we teach (everyone who listens to us have very difficult lives) and when she bares her testimony you can feel her sincerity and her peace.
So Vanessa and I did splits for part of Thursday and part of Saturday. On Saturday we went knocking. Usually when we’re with members we take them to solid appointments, because finding people to teach is awkward for them, but our teaching pool has dried up so we have to find more people. Plus, the zone leaders wanted all of us to set someone with a baptism date before the 19th. Okay…that probably sounds weird, and it is. How can you have a goal that depends on another person’s agency? Well, the answer is that the “goals” are more like promises to the Lord that we will do everything in our power to bring people to Christ and then we trust that he will lead us to those people who are ready to make that step—cause we don’t know where they are! I wish we had radar that gave us coordinates to all those people who are ready to hear this message…and I guess in a way we do—the Spirit. But I’ve found that if we make no effort, no plans, and no goals, we don’t find anyone. It’s like God wants us to actually put forth as much effort as we can before he’ll help us out…weird. But with that said…sometimes we DO put forth all of our effort and we still don’t find anyone! But such is life—I have a feeling that something greater than my perception detects is going on here, but that’s just me.
Wow, today’s the letter of tangents. Anyways, on Saturday we weren’t teaching anyone who was ready to set a date to get baptized. But the zone leaders were praying, Sister Kleisler was praying, and I…well I was skeptical because we had three hours and I wasn’t in the mood to convince someone to get baptized just so I could turn in pretty numbers. So we were knocking and an older woman opened the door. She invited us to sit down on her front porch and we asked if she was interested in our message (after explaining for a couple minutes) and she said, “I have different beliefs than you.” She said she had been studying with the Jehova’s witnesses for several years which to us is a big red flag that she likes to learn, but doesn’t like to commit. At this point I normally would have said “thanks for your time” and then would take off down the road to find someone else, but for whatever reason, I decided to read out of the Book of Mormon. Partly because I can tell if people are ready by how strong the Spirit comes while we read from it. Well it came strong. Holy Moly. Wasn’t prepared for that at all—neither was she. Vanessa bore her testimony about the Book of Mormon and about the church and as she did so I got the impression to set her with a baptismal date. Of course I talked back to the thought in my mind, “Are you serious?” “Yes.” Well, I couldn’t argue with that. So I asked her if she wanted to be baptized. “You mean I can be baptized again?” So I explained priesthood and as I did she said, “I keep getting goose bumps while y’all are talking.” So were we. Anyways, we explained that we had a lot to teach her before she was baptized, and that we wouldn’t baptize her until she understood more of what she was getting into, but the feeling that she was getting right now was the Lord telling her that this road was good. Okay, disclosure: we didn’t push her, we didn’t manipulate…she wants to be a part of Christ’s Church—all we did was read from the Book of Mormon and she knew. I love that Book! Our meeting was 25 minutes long. We sat down, felt the spirit, and then we were gone. Sister Kleisler cam with me the next day to visit her to make sure she was legitimately interested and she agreed that Melrose (that’s the woman’s name) was ready to set a baptism date. She had already read 16 chapters in the Book of Mormon and told the Jehova’s Witnesses that she was going to try something new. So her baptisms set for Aug 30th. Whoa.
At church I walked in and saw a woman sitting by herself who I didn’t recognize. I figured out that she was a Methodist who just wanted to come to our church meeting. I asked her if she attended other religious meetings frequently and she said “No, just this one.” She said, “I came here a couple of weeks ago for a funeral (Brother Bishop had died) and the meeting truly touched me. You go to all these different place and don’t feel anything, I feel something when I am here. So I wanted to come again. I came last Sunday, but showed up at the wrong time, so I came again this Sunday.” …Well, I rambled off something like, “Yeah…cool.” But inside I was like, “Um….am I trapped inside an Ensign-Magazine-vortex or is this reality?” So I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but it was cool.
Okay one more story. A lady in our ward was telling us how her father would sometimes punish her and her siblings. I guess he would use the belt often (in a non-abusive way I’m assuming??), but on special occasions when the kids were being extra bad, he would make them talk to the wall. She said it happened when the other siblings were around so they could watch. He would start, “Alright…go to the wall.” “Daaaaaad…noooooo (said in a very whiney teenager voice)” “It’s the wall or the belt.” They shot to the wall.
“Repeat after me”
“Oh my gosh (rolled eyes)”
He starts in a deep, provoking voice, “Hello wall.”
“Hello wall,” the punished kid would say in a small, embarrassed voice.
He would then say, “It’s me again.”
“It’s me again” Meanwhile the other siblings are rolling around on the floor laughing.
Gruff-father-whose-having-way-too-much-fun voice: “I’m back…”
I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this voice:“I’m back”
Then the climax “Cause I’ve been Bad!!!”
Kid would sigh and in a little bitty itty voice, “Cause I’ve been bad…” Other kids would erupt into more laughter. He did it to them well into their teens, but she said they have a recording of her when she was only three.
“Hello Wall.”
“He-woa wah” (in a cute little guilty voice).
“It’s me again.” “It me again.”
“I’m back.”
“I back.”
“Cause I’ve been bad.”
“Cause I be bad.”
Well I love you all! Hope your having a fabulous day. Thanks for your prayers and support! Until next week.
sj
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mon, Jul 13, 2009
This week started off right with a quadruple-zone dodge ball tournament. I hate dodge ball, but I got to see my trainer Sister Davenport!!! So we talked for a bit and that was cool. We had a member from our ward drive us up there. Her name is Sister Partridge (Her son is Edward Partridge the 7th. If Edward Partridge the 1st was a king, then Edward Partridge the 7th would be his successor…hmmm, random analogy…but it really wasn’t an analogy, I was just trying to illustrate the direct lineage—okay, I ‘m done). She and her husband are very nice to us and help us out a lot. She is a recent convert of 4 years so she loves sister missionaries cause we were the ones who found her. I like being a missionary cause everything good that preceding missionaries have done gets passed down to you…on the other hand anything bad other missionaries do gets passed on as well).
On Tuesday we got a sad phone call from Corina who is a woman we found last week. We had an incredible lesson with her and she knew it was something she wanted in her life, but her husband came home later and was very offended that she had let us in. She called to tell us that because of her husband she doesn’t want to continue lessons. Sad day. But we have to respect her and her husband so all we can do is pray that someday her husband will be willing to listen.
On Wednesday we spent half the day driving around San Antonio after our district meeting to pay for Sister Kleisler’s ticket that she got last transfer. As a result of all that, I am now the driver to protect her from getting another ticket. Yay! I get to drive the big black truck! Well it’s actually a small gray pickup, but it’s still cool. We had our new member lessons that night with a bunch of recent converts and investigators in the ward. We had Brother Silvester give a lesson on prophets, but apparently the Spirit had other plans. Brother Silvester tried to talk about prophets, but he ended up talking mostly about the atonement of Christ. The things he taught that night were exactly what these converts and investigators needed to hear. He didn’t realize how perfect his teaching was cause he knew nothing about the challenges and struggles of the people in the room, but we did. As missionaries, people feel comfortable telling us all their life stories, so when we heard Brother Silvester say something we’d casually glance to the person we knew it would apply to. It was so cool.
On Thursday we planned an amazing lesson to get Toby excited about his baptism. He’s still sweet and kind, but we’ve been able to tell a difference in him since he talked to his mom about being baptized. He lost the fire. When we saw him for this lesson he had started reading the book of mormon again and so his light started to return. We had the lesson at the church. When they walked into the gym we had set up a bunch of play tents (from nursery) and we acted out the story of Ammon the missionary complete with costumes, weapons, stuffed animals, and of course a fake arm. Toby and his brothers loved it. It was fun and he seemed his normal, happy self when it was over.
Friday was a finding day…bleck. We didn’t find any one.
Saturday was another finding day…bleck. We contacted a referral, but that was it. I had this brillante idea to get in service clothes and drive around the town and find people who were doing yard work or who were moving and pull over and offer to help them out. It would have been a great idea except for the fact that it was 108 degrees with 3000% humidity! Okay the humidity is an exaggeration, but it was hot. No one in their right mind should have been outside on that Saturday afternoon. Well, we learned our lesson and wasted a bunch of miles. :) Then we had a lesson with Toby again to make final preparations for his baptism.
On Sunday…Toby got baptized!!!!! And Clarissa got confirmed!!!!! We actually didn’t get to watch his actual baptism cause…all spare you the details but just know that baptisms are crazy and something always has to go wrong…but the adversary can’t win!!! Even though it wasn’t picture perfect and stuff happened that we didn’t plan on, Toby still got baptized!!!!! Toby’s mom was there and she seemed pretty uncomfortable at first. She was annoyed that we told her she couldn’t take pictures of the actual baptism. But by the end she was smiling and happy for Toby. The ward was really awesome at fellowshipping her. Brother and Sister Silvester took her around the church on a tour and everyone was very complementary of Toby (cause he’s awesome) and they were complementary of her for raising such a fine young man. All in all, it ended up being an awesome baptism.
Clarissa loved her confirmation, but it was a sad day for her as well. Gary was supposed to come and be there for it, but he got drunk the night before and said a lot of things to her that hurt her feelings. She realized that he wasn’t ready to change yet and that she was going to have to move on in the gospel without him. She’s going to have to find an apartment and job and everything cause she knows they won’t get married for a while. As missionaries we get to watch things like this. We can’t counsel her on these kinds of matters, all we can do is tell her to pray and read scriptures and find out what the Lord wants her to do.
I was thinking about Gary and how sad it was that he’s given up on progressing in the gospel. We had some incredible spiritual experiences with him and his family. He witnessed spiritual expression that some people wait their whole life to receive, but don’t. How could he turn his back on those things? I have a living example now of Laman and Lemuel denying the faith after seeing an angel. Poor guy. But I realized that as cool as the experiences have been, they are pointless unless your heart understands their significance.
I’ve noticed that since I’ve been on a mission I’ve witnessed a lot more spiritual experiences. At first I thought that it was because of the work I’m involved in. I just thought that missionary has more spiritual stuff than other areas of life such as school, work, and family. But now I’m learning that that’s not true. The difference is not the work I am involved with. The difference is me. The Lord has been around this whole time leading and directing his children through Angels and the Spirit. It’s all around me all the time, but since I’ve been on my mission, I’ve paid more attention and caught more experiences that otherwise may have just passed by without notice. All the experiences I’ve had haven’t been huge fireworks and loud noises. They’ve been very subtle and quiet yet incredibly profound moments that come and go without pomp. I just notice now because I’m aware of the needs of these people and what their lives and challenges entail. I pray for this people a thousand times during the day. I am studying and searching for God’s hand in my life as well as in my investigators and now I’m seeing it. I can’t help but see it because I’m actually looking for it. My days are long and filled with drudgery and boredom and then suddenly a small speckle of light breaks through all of that and if I wasn’t consciously looking for it I’d miss it.
We meet a lot of return missionaries who have gone inactive or fallen away from the church. And since I’ve been out I’ve been trying to figure out how they could fall away after all the miracles I’m sure they had seen on their missions. But it’s probably because they stopped looking or they forgot how…or maybe something else, I don’t know.
Well, I’m done rambling. Thank you for your prayers and emails and letters! I love you all! Talk to ya later!
Sister Johnson
This week started off right with a quadruple-zone dodge ball tournament. I hate dodge ball, but I got to see my trainer Sister Davenport!!! So we talked for a bit and that was cool. We had a member from our ward drive us up there. Her name is Sister Partridge (Her son is Edward Partridge the 7th. If Edward Partridge the 1st was a king, then Edward Partridge the 7th would be his successor…hmmm, random analogy…but it really wasn’t an analogy, I was just trying to illustrate the direct lineage—okay, I ‘m done). She and her husband are very nice to us and help us out a lot. She is a recent convert of 4 years so she loves sister missionaries cause we were the ones who found her. I like being a missionary cause everything good that preceding missionaries have done gets passed down to you…on the other hand anything bad other missionaries do gets passed on as well).
On Tuesday we got a sad phone call from Corina who is a woman we found last week. We had an incredible lesson with her and she knew it was something she wanted in her life, but her husband came home later and was very offended that she had let us in. She called to tell us that because of her husband she doesn’t want to continue lessons. Sad day. But we have to respect her and her husband so all we can do is pray that someday her husband will be willing to listen.
On Wednesday we spent half the day driving around San Antonio after our district meeting to pay for Sister Kleisler’s ticket that she got last transfer. As a result of all that, I am now the driver to protect her from getting another ticket. Yay! I get to drive the big black truck! Well it’s actually a small gray pickup, but it’s still cool. We had our new member lessons that night with a bunch of recent converts and investigators in the ward. We had Brother Silvester give a lesson on prophets, but apparently the Spirit had other plans. Brother Silvester tried to talk about prophets, but he ended up talking mostly about the atonement of Christ. The things he taught that night were exactly what these converts and investigators needed to hear. He didn’t realize how perfect his teaching was cause he knew nothing about the challenges and struggles of the people in the room, but we did. As missionaries, people feel comfortable telling us all their life stories, so when we heard Brother Silvester say something we’d casually glance to the person we knew it would apply to. It was so cool.
On Thursday we planned an amazing lesson to get Toby excited about his baptism. He’s still sweet and kind, but we’ve been able to tell a difference in him since he talked to his mom about being baptized. He lost the fire. When we saw him for this lesson he had started reading the book of mormon again and so his light started to return. We had the lesson at the church. When they walked into the gym we had set up a bunch of play tents (from nursery) and we acted out the story of Ammon the missionary complete with costumes, weapons, stuffed animals, and of course a fake arm. Toby and his brothers loved it. It was fun and he seemed his normal, happy self when it was over.
Friday was a finding day…bleck. We didn’t find any one.
Saturday was another finding day…bleck. We contacted a referral, but that was it. I had this brillante idea to get in service clothes and drive around the town and find people who were doing yard work or who were moving and pull over and offer to help them out. It would have been a great idea except for the fact that it was 108 degrees with 3000% humidity! Okay the humidity is an exaggeration, but it was hot. No one in their right mind should have been outside on that Saturday afternoon. Well, we learned our lesson and wasted a bunch of miles. :) Then we had a lesson with Toby again to make final preparations for his baptism.
On Sunday…Toby got baptized!!!!! And Clarissa got confirmed!!!!! We actually didn’t get to watch his actual baptism cause…all spare you the details but just know that baptisms are crazy and something always has to go wrong…but the adversary can’t win!!! Even though it wasn’t picture perfect and stuff happened that we didn’t plan on, Toby still got baptized!!!!! Toby’s mom was there and she seemed pretty uncomfortable at first. She was annoyed that we told her she couldn’t take pictures of the actual baptism. But by the end she was smiling and happy for Toby. The ward was really awesome at fellowshipping her. Brother and Sister Silvester took her around the church on a tour and everyone was very complementary of Toby (cause he’s awesome) and they were complementary of her for raising such a fine young man. All in all, it ended up being an awesome baptism.
Clarissa loved her confirmation, but it was a sad day for her as well. Gary was supposed to come and be there for it, but he got drunk the night before and said a lot of things to her that hurt her feelings. She realized that he wasn’t ready to change yet and that she was going to have to move on in the gospel without him. She’s going to have to find an apartment and job and everything cause she knows they won’t get married for a while. As missionaries we get to watch things like this. We can’t counsel her on these kinds of matters, all we can do is tell her to pray and read scriptures and find out what the Lord wants her to do.
I was thinking about Gary and how sad it was that he’s given up on progressing in the gospel. We had some incredible spiritual experiences with him and his family. He witnessed spiritual expression that some people wait their whole life to receive, but don’t. How could he turn his back on those things? I have a living example now of Laman and Lemuel denying the faith after seeing an angel. Poor guy. But I realized that as cool as the experiences have been, they are pointless unless your heart understands their significance.
I’ve noticed that since I’ve been on a mission I’ve witnessed a lot more spiritual experiences. At first I thought that it was because of the work I’m involved in. I just thought that missionary has more spiritual stuff than other areas of life such as school, work, and family. But now I’m learning that that’s not true. The difference is not the work I am involved with. The difference is me. The Lord has been around this whole time leading and directing his children through Angels and the Spirit. It’s all around me all the time, but since I’ve been on my mission, I’ve paid more attention and caught more experiences that otherwise may have just passed by without notice. All the experiences I’ve had haven’t been huge fireworks and loud noises. They’ve been very subtle and quiet yet incredibly profound moments that come and go without pomp. I just notice now because I’m aware of the needs of these people and what their lives and challenges entail. I pray for this people a thousand times during the day. I am studying and searching for God’s hand in my life as well as in my investigators and now I’m seeing it. I can’t help but see it because I’m actually looking for it. My days are long and filled with drudgery and boredom and then suddenly a small speckle of light breaks through all of that and if I wasn’t consciously looking for it I’d miss it.
We meet a lot of return missionaries who have gone inactive or fallen away from the church. And since I’ve been out I’ve been trying to figure out how they could fall away after all the miracles I’m sure they had seen on their missions. But it’s probably because they stopped looking or they forgot how…or maybe something else, I don’t know.
Well, I’m done rambling. Thank you for your prayers and emails and letters! I love you all! Talk to ya later!
Sister Johnson
Monday, July 6, 2009
:)
Clarissa got baptized yesterday!!! She still has to be confirmed next week. They have the baptisms on Sunday right after church otherwise no one can come because the ward boundaries are so huge that it takes a lot of members 30-45 minutes to get to church. It was beautiful. My favorite part of baptisms (at least for the women) is meeting them in the bathroom right after the baptism while they’re still sopping wet and there’s still sparkles in their eyes from the water and tears, and then giving them a big huge wet hug. Ahhhhh……
Toby didn’t get baptized. It was really weird this week because everything leading up to the baptism was so awesome unlike other baptisms where the week leading up to it is chaos. But then the phone call came. “Toby’s mom changed her mind. She doesn’t want Toby to get baptized.” Sister Kleisler and I immediately got in our truck and drove all the way to her house to talk to her. But she was actually at the apartments where we live(That’s where Shaun—Toby’s Dad—lives). Anyways, we had just had an amazing day so we weren’t very stressed about it. Later Shaun called us and said that they had made an agreement and she, Toby’s mom, promised not to change her mind. The agreement was that Toby would get baptized next Sunday and Shaun couldn’t baptize him. Not sure what that’s about but I don’t care as long as he gets baptized. I’ve never met a ten-year-old that was so ready for that commitment. We’re always scared baptizing kids cause we don’t want to manipulate them into doing it, but this last week confirmed to us that he understood the commitment he was making and was committed to sticking with it.
We had so many experiences this week where the spirit led our path. The first was meeting Corina. She let us come in and teach her. We taught her the restoration and she was really interested and believed us. Then we asked her to pray and she said she didn’t know how. So we taught her and then she gave her first prayer and bawled the entire way through it. That’s not an exaggeration. It was beautiful. It was like she was connecting with a loved one that she had forgotten about—oh wait, that is what she was doing. Anyways, prayer is amazing. Sister Kleisler and I teach really well together, but our teaching is pointless unless we get them to read the Book of Mormon or pray. We can have the most eloquent and interesting lesson ever and it will be completely useless unless the Spirit is there to touch their hearts. We can’t manipulate when the Spirit comes either. We can pray really hard and work our hardest to create an environment for him to come. But in the end it’s up to the Spirit when he is going to come…And how he comes has everything to do with what the individual needs at that very time which is often a surprise to us. Anyways, the spirit touched her heart…now getting her to act on that is a different story…
Later in the day we had 20 minutes before an appointment. 20 minutes is not a huge chunk of time so we didn’t really know what to do. Sister Kleisler hates knocking, but for whatever reason, she decided we should knock. So we pull up to a street really close to our apartments. Go up to the first door we see and knock. A girl comes and says she already goes to church. I gave up on her and was ready to wrap things up, but then randomly Sister Kleisler asked about her family, then I asked about the challenges she was going through and I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but she let us come in for a lesson. Her ex-husband was hanging out there (there’s a lot of interesting family circumstances in this area). He had a friend who was mormon who talked about it a lot with him and even gave him a Book of Mormon, but they had lost track of each other. Anyways, amazing lesson and the spirit was there. Who knows if anything comes of it, but God was reaching out to them through us. I love that.
The next day we had knocking planned, but Sister Kleisler felt like we needed to see Clarissa. She felt really strongly about it. On the way out to our truck I felt like I needed to grab a talk that I had randomly had sister partridge print out for me the day before. So we went to Clarissa’s house and she wasn’t there. But then Sister Kleisler had a feeling to go to Clarissa’s friend’s, Vanessa, house. So we did and lo and behold there was Clarissa’s car. We went in having no idea why we were going there. Sister Keisler had me play guitar…I played that cowboy song. Haha. Sigh. I had to change the words to churchy words--which was interesting. Anyways, for whatever reason it brought the Spirit. And then sister Kleisler said some things that Clarissa needed. Then we were about to leave and suddenly Vanessa asked us a question that we had no idea how to answer, however the question had everything to do with the talk I brought. So I pulled it out and told her to read it and pray about it and she would receive her answer.
These experiences on paper aren’t anywhere near as powerful as they are in person. And the reason they are powerful in person is not because there’s lights, gushes of wind, or voices of angels. They’re powerful because we suddenly witness God’s hand in our lives. He cares about us and loves us enough to guide us in the smallest ways, and to speak to our hearts with that small voice. We had a baptism this week which was great—it’s our main goal. However, my favorite part of this mission thing is not the baptisms. They are actually super stressful. My favorite part is seeing the spirit work in these people’s lives and having the opportunity to sometimes be the vehicle that the spirit uses to touch others. I don’t know if the people we saw this week will get baptized. I hope they do, but it’s so wonderful to see how much God loves his people that he’ll go through the trouble of getting us into these people’s homes and then making up for whatever flaws we have in teaching by bearing powerful witness of the things we teach. These moments strengthen my testimony just as much as their’s. It’s also interesting because it seems like the spirit comes right after I have just been severely humbled. Right when I think, “Okay! I get it! I’m a prideful idiot. I’ll stop being selfish and I’ll listen to you.”—bam: blessing of the Spirit. The blessing doesn’t come as a result of self-degradation, but as a result of self-realization combined with the pleas to change my heart for the better.
Thank you for your prayers and letters. It means a lot. I love you all!
sister johnson
Toby didn’t get baptized. It was really weird this week because everything leading up to the baptism was so awesome unlike other baptisms where the week leading up to it is chaos. But then the phone call came. “Toby’s mom changed her mind. She doesn’t want Toby to get baptized.” Sister Kleisler and I immediately got in our truck and drove all the way to her house to talk to her. But she was actually at the apartments where we live(That’s where Shaun—Toby’s Dad—lives). Anyways, we had just had an amazing day so we weren’t very stressed about it. Later Shaun called us and said that they had made an agreement and she, Toby’s mom, promised not to change her mind. The agreement was that Toby would get baptized next Sunday and Shaun couldn’t baptize him. Not sure what that’s about but I don’t care as long as he gets baptized. I’ve never met a ten-year-old that was so ready for that commitment. We’re always scared baptizing kids cause we don’t want to manipulate them into doing it, but this last week confirmed to us that he understood the commitment he was making and was committed to sticking with it.
We had so many experiences this week where the spirit led our path. The first was meeting Corina. She let us come in and teach her. We taught her the restoration and she was really interested and believed us. Then we asked her to pray and she said she didn’t know how. So we taught her and then she gave her first prayer and bawled the entire way through it. That’s not an exaggeration. It was beautiful. It was like she was connecting with a loved one that she had forgotten about—oh wait, that is what she was doing. Anyways, prayer is amazing. Sister Kleisler and I teach really well together, but our teaching is pointless unless we get them to read the Book of Mormon or pray. We can have the most eloquent and interesting lesson ever and it will be completely useless unless the Spirit is there to touch their hearts. We can’t manipulate when the Spirit comes either. We can pray really hard and work our hardest to create an environment for him to come. But in the end it’s up to the Spirit when he is going to come…And how he comes has everything to do with what the individual needs at that very time which is often a surprise to us. Anyways, the spirit touched her heart…now getting her to act on that is a different story…
Later in the day we had 20 minutes before an appointment. 20 minutes is not a huge chunk of time so we didn’t really know what to do. Sister Kleisler hates knocking, but for whatever reason, she decided we should knock. So we pull up to a street really close to our apartments. Go up to the first door we see and knock. A girl comes and says she already goes to church. I gave up on her and was ready to wrap things up, but then randomly Sister Kleisler asked about her family, then I asked about the challenges she was going through and I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but she let us come in for a lesson. Her ex-husband was hanging out there (there’s a lot of interesting family circumstances in this area). He had a friend who was mormon who talked about it a lot with him and even gave him a Book of Mormon, but they had lost track of each other. Anyways, amazing lesson and the spirit was there. Who knows if anything comes of it, but God was reaching out to them through us. I love that.
The next day we had knocking planned, but Sister Kleisler felt like we needed to see Clarissa. She felt really strongly about it. On the way out to our truck I felt like I needed to grab a talk that I had randomly had sister partridge print out for me the day before. So we went to Clarissa’s house and she wasn’t there. But then Sister Kleisler had a feeling to go to Clarissa’s friend’s, Vanessa, house. So we did and lo and behold there was Clarissa’s car. We went in having no idea why we were going there. Sister Keisler had me play guitar…I played that cowboy song. Haha. Sigh. I had to change the words to churchy words--which was interesting. Anyways, for whatever reason it brought the Spirit. And then sister Kleisler said some things that Clarissa needed. Then we were about to leave and suddenly Vanessa asked us a question that we had no idea how to answer, however the question had everything to do with the talk I brought. So I pulled it out and told her to read it and pray about it and she would receive her answer.
These experiences on paper aren’t anywhere near as powerful as they are in person. And the reason they are powerful in person is not because there’s lights, gushes of wind, or voices of angels. They’re powerful because we suddenly witness God’s hand in our lives. He cares about us and loves us enough to guide us in the smallest ways, and to speak to our hearts with that small voice. We had a baptism this week which was great—it’s our main goal. However, my favorite part of this mission thing is not the baptisms. They are actually super stressful. My favorite part is seeing the spirit work in these people’s lives and having the opportunity to sometimes be the vehicle that the spirit uses to touch others. I don’t know if the people we saw this week will get baptized. I hope they do, but it’s so wonderful to see how much God loves his people that he’ll go through the trouble of getting us into these people’s homes and then making up for whatever flaws we have in teaching by bearing powerful witness of the things we teach. These moments strengthen my testimony just as much as their’s. It’s also interesting because it seems like the spirit comes right after I have just been severely humbled. Right when I think, “Okay! I get it! I’m a prideful idiot. I’ll stop being selfish and I’ll listen to you.”—bam: blessing of the Spirit. The blessing doesn’t come as a result of self-degradation, but as a result of self-realization combined with the pleas to change my heart for the better.
Thank you for your prayers and letters. It means a lot. I love you all!
sister johnson
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Greetings from Pleasanton: The Birth Place of the Cowboy.
Monday: We went to the Marcado…holy cow that feels like ages ago. It’s a Mexican market wanna-be. Actually it was cool because they were selling a lot of the same kind of stuff that I saw at the markets in Mexico when I went this summer: wooden dream animals, black pottery. Anyways, the most important thing is that I got my TSAM ring. There is a guy there that said as soon as we walked up:” TSAMers right?” (Texas San Antonio Mission). He knew what we wanted by our tags. Its kind of tradition that when you serve in South zone, which is the zone I am in, you go to the Marcado and get a hand carved silver ring that says TSAM. So now that I have that I consider myself a true TSAMer and I have officially grown out of greenie-hood. Yay! We had FHE with Toby and his brothers, and the Swaim family and we did a reenactment of Nephi building his boat.
Tuesday: We had dinner with the Browns who live under a hill (like hobbits) and have a lake in their front yard and said we could go fishing there sometime. I love fishing! Tuesday night we had a lesson with Gary and Clarissa about eternal marriage and we brought the Partridges, a young couple. It went pretty good…she wants a forever marriage, he would like it too, except he’s still at level one in trying to decide if he even believes the Book of Mormon. But he really wants to know and encourages Clarissa to read the Book of Mormon with him every night.
Wednesday: Zone Conference!!! It was awesome. President told us that he felt impressed that we need to encourage our investigators to pray more during the lessons. He said that until they ask God themselves, they will never get an answer. Then we had New member lessons in the evening. (There are a lot of converts in the ward so we set up a class every Wednesday night to re-teach the lessons to the converts). And Gary came! When the sisters first met him he was a huge jerk to them and to Clarissa and wouldn’t even talk to them, but now he’s coming to new member lessons and reading the book of mormon and spending more time with the kids and Clarissa.
Thrusday: Tschetter’s for dinner!!!! Brother and Sister Tschetter had three kids that all grew up. I guess they decided the house was too quiet so they decided that they wanted more kids so they opened up their home to foster care. Originally they wanted to take in 3-6 year old kids, but over time their house turned into a last chance house for teens. The Tschetters get all the teens who were kicked out of all the other homes for bad behavior…but the Tschetters are awesome and the kids change when they come to their home. So now the Tschetters have 12 kids (excluding their biological three). They take up an entire bench at church. When I saw that I thought, “Hey! I know what that’s like.” I feel like I can relate a lot to this family. They are so cool.
Friday: We went over to Gary and Clarissa’s hoping to just catch Clarissa so we could talk about one of them moving out so Clarissa could get baptized on the 19th. But providence ruined our little plan and as we pulled up we saw Gary’s motorcycle out front. Great…should we bring up the moving out thing again with Gary? We didn’t want to offend by being too pushy…but we decided that we would talk about the stuff we had planned and just prayed that the Spirit would direct us if we were supposed to do something different. So we went in a taught a good lesson. I love teaching with Sister Kleisler because we thing the same way. We smoothly transition from one topic to the other. We know what questions we are supposed to answer and what questions are for the other companion. It’s neat. So we reemphasized the need for them to separate and asked them to pray about it and they agreed.
But anyways, at the end of the lesson we asked Gary to say the closing prayer. “No, I don’t think I’m ready. I get nervous and embarrassed.” Well, we had just had a zone conference all about getting our investigators to pray so he wasn’t going to get off that easy. After some gentle prodding and after we fell to our knees waiting for him to pray he finally knelt to the floor himself and began to pray. It was the sweetest prayer ever. He was talking straight to God and told Him how thankful he was for his blessings, and then told Him how much he wanted to be a good father and a good husband to his future wife (meaning Clarissa), and then he asked for help in knowing how to handle the situation of them separating so Clarissa can get baptized. It was so sweet and when the prayer was finished I looked up and Clarissa was just in tears. It felt really peaceful and joyful, but nothing super amazing. Then Sister Kleisler asked, “Gary, how do you feel right now?” BAM! As soon as she said that the entire room filled with the Spirit and suddenly we were kneeling on sacred ground. I felt like I was in the temple. The feeling was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Our hearts brimmed with pure love straight from our Father. I was so happy and my heart got so full that it starting leaking out my eyes. We all just looked at each other in wonder and we couldn’t stop smiling. “I feel really warm right now and really happy,” Gary replied. “That’s the Spirit!” we chimed. Wow, I didn’t want to leave because I just loved the way I felt. I wish I could send that feeling to all of you so you could feel it. It would dispel any doubt that may plague your mind. Unfortunately the greatest poet in the world could never describe the joy and the clarity that rested on our hearts in that moment, and that feeling only comes when God wills it. I feel so blessed to have been lucky enough to be a part of that experience. It was as if eternity opened and poured out pure truth upon all of us. We had a heavenly confirmation that our Father in Heaven approved of what had just taken place.
The rest of the week blurred by until Sunday. The week before Toby’s baptism has begun. Ugh…I had the week before baptisms. We were worried about Toby not being ready, but we went through the baptismal interview questions and we determined he is more than ready to make the commitment. But Sister Kleisler felt awful after church. During lunch she was on the couch in some kind of despair and agony because she was worried about Clarissa’s life that seemed to be falling apart. We started talking about Clarissa’s Baptism and how it was three weeks away. I had been having thoughts about moving it up, but I wasn’t sure if it was the Spirit or if it was my own selfish desire to get it over with. I started saying to Sister Kleisler, “ I don’t know if this is a good idea but—“ “You want to move up the baptism?” I was worried cause I didn’t want Sister Kleisler to think I was trying to push it up for numbers so I squeaked a little, “yeah.” She all the sudden jumped up and said, “I was thinking that too!” We felt so good and peaceful and all our worry about Clarissa disappeared as soon as we said it. So immediately we ran over to Clarissa’s and told her that we think she should move up her baptism to this next Sunday. She had been having a really hard week because they have tons of debt and their rent is overdue and then we kept telling them they had to separate. Because of all of this we were nervous that our suggestion would push her over the top, but on the contrary, her eyes lit up and she seemed relieved. She liked the idea and said that her a Gary would figure out their living situation before Sunday. Yay!
Then we went knocking. Our phone rang about an hour after we left Clarissa’s. She was calling us, “Hi guys, I just wanted to let you know that after you left I got a call from Gary saying that all the meat cases in the grocery store went out and since he’s the manager he has to stay late and they’re going to pay him over time! The extra money will really help with our finances.” She felt like it was a blessing because she moved the baptism date up. Then we hung up and were super happy and kept knocking and then she called again and left a message, “Sorry I keep bother y’all, but after I got off the phone with you I started praying to thank God for blessing us with the overtime and as I was praying I got a call from my aunt who needed a babysitter next week and she said that she would pay me for it.” Holy moly cow! Is this not awesome to anyone else??? Heavenly Father is blessing this couple so much. I’m getting chills as I write this now. What an awesomely awesome week! Two baptism next Sunday!
Well, it’s time to go. Today for Pday we’re going to the Tschetters to play kick ball since they have an entire team. Wahoo!
Tuesday: We had dinner with the Browns who live under a hill (like hobbits) and have a lake in their front yard and said we could go fishing there sometime. I love fishing! Tuesday night we had a lesson with Gary and Clarissa about eternal marriage and we brought the Partridges, a young couple. It went pretty good…she wants a forever marriage, he would like it too, except he’s still at level one in trying to decide if he even believes the Book of Mormon. But he really wants to know and encourages Clarissa to read the Book of Mormon with him every night.
Wednesday: Zone Conference!!! It was awesome. President told us that he felt impressed that we need to encourage our investigators to pray more during the lessons. He said that until they ask God themselves, they will never get an answer. Then we had New member lessons in the evening. (There are a lot of converts in the ward so we set up a class every Wednesday night to re-teach the lessons to the converts). And Gary came! When the sisters first met him he was a huge jerk to them and to Clarissa and wouldn’t even talk to them, but now he’s coming to new member lessons and reading the book of mormon and spending more time with the kids and Clarissa.
Thrusday: Tschetter’s for dinner!!!! Brother and Sister Tschetter had three kids that all grew up. I guess they decided the house was too quiet so they decided that they wanted more kids so they opened up their home to foster care. Originally they wanted to take in 3-6 year old kids, but over time their house turned into a last chance house for teens. The Tschetters get all the teens who were kicked out of all the other homes for bad behavior…but the Tschetters are awesome and the kids change when they come to their home. So now the Tschetters have 12 kids (excluding their biological three). They take up an entire bench at church. When I saw that I thought, “Hey! I know what that’s like.” I feel like I can relate a lot to this family. They are so cool.
Friday: We went over to Gary and Clarissa’s hoping to just catch Clarissa so we could talk about one of them moving out so Clarissa could get baptized on the 19th. But providence ruined our little plan and as we pulled up we saw Gary’s motorcycle out front. Great…should we bring up the moving out thing again with Gary? We didn’t want to offend by being too pushy…but we decided that we would talk about the stuff we had planned and just prayed that the Spirit would direct us if we were supposed to do something different. So we went in a taught a good lesson. I love teaching with Sister Kleisler because we thing the same way. We smoothly transition from one topic to the other. We know what questions we are supposed to answer and what questions are for the other companion. It’s neat. So we reemphasized the need for them to separate and asked them to pray about it and they agreed.
But anyways, at the end of the lesson we asked Gary to say the closing prayer. “No, I don’t think I’m ready. I get nervous and embarrassed.” Well, we had just had a zone conference all about getting our investigators to pray so he wasn’t going to get off that easy. After some gentle prodding and after we fell to our knees waiting for him to pray he finally knelt to the floor himself and began to pray. It was the sweetest prayer ever. He was talking straight to God and told Him how thankful he was for his blessings, and then told Him how much he wanted to be a good father and a good husband to his future wife (meaning Clarissa), and then he asked for help in knowing how to handle the situation of them separating so Clarissa can get baptized. It was so sweet and when the prayer was finished I looked up and Clarissa was just in tears. It felt really peaceful and joyful, but nothing super amazing. Then Sister Kleisler asked, “Gary, how do you feel right now?” BAM! As soon as she said that the entire room filled with the Spirit and suddenly we were kneeling on sacred ground. I felt like I was in the temple. The feeling was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Our hearts brimmed with pure love straight from our Father. I was so happy and my heart got so full that it starting leaking out my eyes. We all just looked at each other in wonder and we couldn’t stop smiling. “I feel really warm right now and really happy,” Gary replied. “That’s the Spirit!” we chimed. Wow, I didn’t want to leave because I just loved the way I felt. I wish I could send that feeling to all of you so you could feel it. It would dispel any doubt that may plague your mind. Unfortunately the greatest poet in the world could never describe the joy and the clarity that rested on our hearts in that moment, and that feeling only comes when God wills it. I feel so blessed to have been lucky enough to be a part of that experience. It was as if eternity opened and poured out pure truth upon all of us. We had a heavenly confirmation that our Father in Heaven approved of what had just taken place.
The rest of the week blurred by until Sunday. The week before Toby’s baptism has begun. Ugh…I had the week before baptisms. We were worried about Toby not being ready, but we went through the baptismal interview questions and we determined he is more than ready to make the commitment. But Sister Kleisler felt awful after church. During lunch she was on the couch in some kind of despair and agony because she was worried about Clarissa’s life that seemed to be falling apart. We started talking about Clarissa’s Baptism and how it was three weeks away. I had been having thoughts about moving it up, but I wasn’t sure if it was the Spirit or if it was my own selfish desire to get it over with. I started saying to Sister Kleisler, “ I don’t know if this is a good idea but—“ “You want to move up the baptism?” I was worried cause I didn’t want Sister Kleisler to think I was trying to push it up for numbers so I squeaked a little, “yeah.” She all the sudden jumped up and said, “I was thinking that too!” We felt so good and peaceful and all our worry about Clarissa disappeared as soon as we said it. So immediately we ran over to Clarissa’s and told her that we think she should move up her baptism to this next Sunday. She had been having a really hard week because they have tons of debt and their rent is overdue and then we kept telling them they had to separate. Because of all of this we were nervous that our suggestion would push her over the top, but on the contrary, her eyes lit up and she seemed relieved. She liked the idea and said that her a Gary would figure out their living situation before Sunday. Yay!
Then we went knocking. Our phone rang about an hour after we left Clarissa’s. She was calling us, “Hi guys, I just wanted to let you know that after you left I got a call from Gary saying that all the meat cases in the grocery store went out and since he’s the manager he has to stay late and they’re going to pay him over time! The extra money will really help with our finances.” She felt like it was a blessing because she moved the baptism date up. Then we hung up and were super happy and kept knocking and then she called again and left a message, “Sorry I keep bother y’all, but after I got off the phone with you I started praying to thank God for blessing us with the overtime and as I was praying I got a call from my aunt who needed a babysitter next week and she said that she would pay me for it.” Holy moly cow! Is this not awesome to anyone else??? Heavenly Father is blessing this couple so much. I’m getting chills as I write this now. What an awesomely awesome week! Two baptism next Sunday!
Well, it’s time to go. Today for Pday we’re going to the Tschetters to play kick ball since they have an entire team. Wahoo!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Marci, you are awesome and I’m so proud of you for your decision. I’m also glad it worked out so well. Your rock. Andre, you have really been beat up this year. Holy moly. Hope everything calms down a bit for you. Michelle, I’m sorry your face hurts. I’ve had a lot of surgeries, but getting my wisdom teeth out was by far the worst one. Yucky, yucky, yucky, smelly. Mom, I’m sorry about your sickness and I’m glad you’re feeling better. Dad, it’ll get better and when it does it will have all been worth it. Kirsten, is mark back yet? How’s Jaron? Catherine and Adam, what’s up? Mike, please write me a song. Clint, please write me a song too. Kevin, write me a letter...I know I don’t deserve one because I only sent you like 3 letters your whole mission, but I’ve been out for a third of my mission, so it’s about time for my first letter from you :) Lauren, you should send me pictures from your wedding because I haven’t got any. Brian, congratulations on the play. Caleb, you’re awesome. Y'all are wonderful...okay, so I know I sound like a dork when I say y'all, but I love that word. Eventually I will refine my country speak'n and be able to say it so it doesn't sound like I'm a utah transplant.
So I‘ve transferred to a small town named Pleasanton and I love it!!!
701 Oakhaven #402
Pleasanton, Texas 78064
Its nick name is “the birthplace of the cowboy” and I believe it. I live in the place all the country songs sing about. It’s tiny town, population like 1500 or something. Our area is huge. The size of our area is bigger than the entire city of San Antonio so we cover a bunch of these po-dunk specs on the map. We are the most South our mission goes. Everyone waves as they drive by. There are a lot of trailer parks complete with the old couches and dirty toys scattered in the front lawn. There are also the sweet little country homes with real wood teas porches where you can sip pink lemonade and bask in the heat. It’s hot and humid! I love it!
We live in some apartments across from the church which makes things very nice. When I walked into church it was full of cowboys. Brother Chandler is the epitome of cowboy—he’s got a handle bar mustache with big curls at the ends, a leather vest and a cowboy hat. Grumpy would have fit in nicely here. Is this what Beeville was like? Speaking of, someone mentioned Beeville, but now I can’t remember who. We sang the National Anthem as our closing hymn at church...priceless. Some ward members have to drive about an hour to get to church. Most of the people in the ward are pretty quirky which is great for me because I’m pretty quirky so I feel like I fit right in.
Sister Kleisler is my new companion. She’s great and we get along really well. She’s from Mesa, Arizona and has been on her mission for 10 months. She’s a fantastic missionary and we teach really well together which is good because there are so many people here to teach. First there is Clarissa and Gary. Clarissa was referred to the other sisters by Vanessa, a recent convert. Clarissa is about 20 years old and lives with her boyfriend, Gary. She has completely embraced the gospel and has pretty much decided that she wants to get baptized. Sister Kleisler warned me that Gary was a jerk and she wanted Clarissa to break up with him, but our first lesson together Gary listened as we taught the word of wisdom and he even said he would try it for a week. He asked if wishing on stars was considered praying and we told him that even though we don’t remember God from before, part of us is always trying to connect with God and when we have an urge to tell our troubles to a heavenly orb in the sky, we really are reaching up to our Father in Heaven even though we don’t remember Him. Then we had another lesson where we taught Gary the restoration and at the end of it he said, “So I guess now what I need to do is pray to find out if this is true.” Wahoo! They both are pretty awesome and we’ll see if they decided to get married or separate, because one of the two has to happen.
The next person we are teaching is a 10-year-old boy named Toby. He and his two brothers just moved in with their father for the summer. His father, Shaun, was just baptized a month ago and asked the missionaries to teach his kids. Toby wants to get baptized, but his mom (they’re divorced) wants to make sure he knows everything before he makes the decision. So we are teaching him a lot. He’s only 10, but he is super smart and asks amazing questions and understands the significance of the things we are teaching. A very elect kid.
Yesterday Sister Kleisler had the feeling to visit this one couple, but they weren’t home so we decided to visit a less active member across the street. She said that her and her husband needed a spiritual kick to get them out of a rut. Her husband (a non member) let us know that he wants to eventually get baptized. Sister Kleisler said that this was a miracle because before he wouldn’t even talk to the missionaries, but now he’s decided to open up. It’s not because of anything we did. We just followed Sister K’s prompting and it happened to be just the right time. Cool. There is so much going on here.
The other day we were eating a member’s house. AS she was serving us she said, “most people hate this meal, but I love it so that’s why we’re going to eat it.” Oh great. Well, it was chicken with a peanut butter sauce. It wasn’t too bad for me because I ate chicken with peanut butter sauce in Thailand all the time, but Sister Kleisler thought she was going to gag. Usually when I’m served gross food I can wash it down with liquid so I was really excited to be served our drink. She pulls out this pitcher of brown juice. “What kind of juice is that?” I asked. “Try it first and guess. It’s a surprise.” So we sipped some and it was pretty good, but we couldn’t figure out what it was. “It’s green tea with tamerindo (sp?)” What!? Oh great, we had just taught the word of wisdom that morning and here were are breaking it. The situation was such that it would have been really awkward to ask for water instead, so I just went with out drinking and had to force the food down dry. Sister Kleisler I don’t think really understood that the drink was tea…the kind of tea we’re not supposed to have, because she was guzzling it and pouring more so she could get the food down. Hahaha. I tried making eye contact with her trying to let her know what she was drinking, but it was to no avail. Later she told me that she thinks the Lord will forgive us for breaking the word of wisdom unknowingly, but now I know. I’m in South Texas, and they drink tea instead of water here and I’m pretty sure tea comes out their sinks and shower heads as well, so I need to be extra cautious.
Whelp, its been a long week, but I’m so glad that I’m here. I feel so much more comfortable here than I ever did in the other wards, not that I didn’t like the other wards, but here is just more my style. Slow, personable. The other wards were also in an area that was very similar to the area I lived in Utah, so it was weird serving there because I felt like I was serving at home, with just different faces. Here in Pleasanton I feel like I’m back in Thailand—a completely different world that is easier for me to relate to. I feel like I’ve got enough room to spread my wings and unleash my ideas and personality.
Love you all,
Sister JOhnson
Reply Forward
So I‘ve transferred to a small town named Pleasanton and I love it!!!
701 Oakhaven #402
Pleasanton, Texas 78064
Its nick name is “the birthplace of the cowboy” and I believe it. I live in the place all the country songs sing about. It’s tiny town, population like 1500 or something. Our area is huge. The size of our area is bigger than the entire city of San Antonio so we cover a bunch of these po-dunk specs on the map. We are the most South our mission goes. Everyone waves as they drive by. There are a lot of trailer parks complete with the old couches and dirty toys scattered in the front lawn. There are also the sweet little country homes with real wood teas porches where you can sip pink lemonade and bask in the heat. It’s hot and humid! I love it!
We live in some apartments across from the church which makes things very nice. When I walked into church it was full of cowboys. Brother Chandler is the epitome of cowboy—he’s got a handle bar mustache with big curls at the ends, a leather vest and a cowboy hat. Grumpy would have fit in nicely here. Is this what Beeville was like? Speaking of, someone mentioned Beeville, but now I can’t remember who. We sang the National Anthem as our closing hymn at church...priceless. Some ward members have to drive about an hour to get to church. Most of the people in the ward are pretty quirky which is great for me because I’m pretty quirky so I feel like I fit right in.
Sister Kleisler is my new companion. She’s great and we get along really well. She’s from Mesa, Arizona and has been on her mission for 10 months. She’s a fantastic missionary and we teach really well together which is good because there are so many people here to teach. First there is Clarissa and Gary. Clarissa was referred to the other sisters by Vanessa, a recent convert. Clarissa is about 20 years old and lives with her boyfriend, Gary. She has completely embraced the gospel and has pretty much decided that she wants to get baptized. Sister Kleisler warned me that Gary was a jerk and she wanted Clarissa to break up with him, but our first lesson together Gary listened as we taught the word of wisdom and he even said he would try it for a week. He asked if wishing on stars was considered praying and we told him that even though we don’t remember God from before, part of us is always trying to connect with God and when we have an urge to tell our troubles to a heavenly orb in the sky, we really are reaching up to our Father in Heaven even though we don’t remember Him. Then we had another lesson where we taught Gary the restoration and at the end of it he said, “So I guess now what I need to do is pray to find out if this is true.” Wahoo! They both are pretty awesome and we’ll see if they decided to get married or separate, because one of the two has to happen.
The next person we are teaching is a 10-year-old boy named Toby. He and his two brothers just moved in with their father for the summer. His father, Shaun, was just baptized a month ago and asked the missionaries to teach his kids. Toby wants to get baptized, but his mom (they’re divorced) wants to make sure he knows everything before he makes the decision. So we are teaching him a lot. He’s only 10, but he is super smart and asks amazing questions and understands the significance of the things we are teaching. A very elect kid.
Yesterday Sister Kleisler had the feeling to visit this one couple, but they weren’t home so we decided to visit a less active member across the street. She said that her and her husband needed a spiritual kick to get them out of a rut. Her husband (a non member) let us know that he wants to eventually get baptized. Sister Kleisler said that this was a miracle because before he wouldn’t even talk to the missionaries, but now he’s decided to open up. It’s not because of anything we did. We just followed Sister K’s prompting and it happened to be just the right time. Cool. There is so much going on here.
The other day we were eating a member’s house. AS she was serving us she said, “most people hate this meal, but I love it so that’s why we’re going to eat it.” Oh great. Well, it was chicken with a peanut butter sauce. It wasn’t too bad for me because I ate chicken with peanut butter sauce in Thailand all the time, but Sister Kleisler thought she was going to gag. Usually when I’m served gross food I can wash it down with liquid so I was really excited to be served our drink. She pulls out this pitcher of brown juice. “What kind of juice is that?” I asked. “Try it first and guess. It’s a surprise.” So we sipped some and it was pretty good, but we couldn’t figure out what it was. “It’s green tea with tamerindo (sp?)” What!? Oh great, we had just taught the word of wisdom that morning and here were are breaking it. The situation was such that it would have been really awkward to ask for water instead, so I just went with out drinking and had to force the food down dry. Sister Kleisler I don’t think really understood that the drink was tea…the kind of tea we’re not supposed to have, because she was guzzling it and pouring more so she could get the food down. Hahaha. I tried making eye contact with her trying to let her know what she was drinking, but it was to no avail. Later she told me that she thinks the Lord will forgive us for breaking the word of wisdom unknowingly, but now I know. I’m in South Texas, and they drink tea instead of water here and I’m pretty sure tea comes out their sinks and shower heads as well, so I need to be extra cautious.
Whelp, its been a long week, but I’m so glad that I’m here. I feel so much more comfortable here than I ever did in the other wards, not that I didn’t like the other wards, but here is just more my style. Slow, personable. The other wards were also in an area that was very similar to the area I lived in Utah, so it was weird serving there because I felt like I was serving at home, with just different faces. Here in Pleasanton I feel like I’m back in Thailand—a completely different world that is easier for me to relate to. I feel like I’ve got enough room to spread my wings and unleash my ideas and personality.
Love you all,
Sister JOhnson
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