April 5
I have been transferred to East San Antonio to a ward called Windcrest. My new address is
6700 N. Vandiver #905
San Antonio, TX 78209
Hey! I saw Klark Brinkeroff on the screen singing in the institute choir! Crazy.
My new companion is Sister Green from St. George, Utah. She's very mellow and chill--and doesn't show a lot of emotion, so when she tells jokes it's really funny because either she will randomly throw out a dry-humor kind of comment that you'll miss unless you're listening closely or she will suddenly erupt into craziness and start speaking in a British accent. Very funny. She was adopted when she was 8 years old and afterwards she was baptized. At the baptism her dad told Sister Green's biological brother who had also just been adopted and baptized that someday he could go on a mission and help others to know about the gospel. Eight-year-old Sister Green piped in, "What about me? Can girls go on missions?" When he affirmed that girls could go on missions Sister Green decided right then that someday she would go on a mission and share the truths that she had found.
Windcrest is unlike any other area I've served in. It's an inner city area, so it's rough. Not too rough, but rough. the weird thing is that right next to the really rough areas is the nicest and ritziest neighborhood in San Antonio, Terrel Hills. this is a half bike area and half car area. We share the car with the elders who are in our same ward. We get the car for half of the week. Let me just tell you about riding a bike in a skirt...actually nevermind. Luckily I've put together the sister missionary version of a skort (skirt and short combination). I call it Skants.
On my first day went to visit an investigator, but she wasn't home. So we went to talk to two guys playing basketball at a near by court. We called to them and told them we had a message to share. One of them declined saying that he had had friends that were LDS and he wasn't interested. The other guy, though, came running up to talk to us. He was totally drenched with sweat, losing a bunch of teeth even though he's only in his late 20s, and he was wearing pretty worn clothes. We started with a prayer and taught him the restoration right there in the basketball court and it was one of the most profound moments of my life. His name is Derrick and ask we taught he listened intently and it was obvious that he was pretty well versed in the bible and the non-denominational religion. He listened to us like pearls were dropping out our mouths. As Sister Green recited the first vision she was overcome with emotion and we stood in silence enjoying the sweet spirit that was present. He was very touched and agreed that the Spirit was there confirming our words. We set up another appointment to meet him at the basketball court the nest day. We showed up and he wasn't there. It happens. Sometimes, well, alot a times we are ditched on return appointments. darn. we thought he'd be ther for sure. So the member we brought with us drove us around in her airconditioned car (it is so hot right now...it's beautiful!) and nothing happened so we drove back and lo and behold there was Derrick and his friend playing basketball. We ran up to him and he found out that he had pulled up as we were pulling out. We asked if he still wanted to learn more and he said he did. He ran to his car and got out his book of mormon and the pamphlets we left. He had read everything and we had another great lesson.
On Saturday night after conference we knocked and tried contacting people on one side of our area and nothing happened. I kept exclaiming, "Where is everyone! Does anybody live here?" It was prime time and it was a pretty busy section of town so we were wondering where the party was that we obviously weren't invited to. So we left after a couple hours, discouraged and trying to figure out what to do with the 30 minutes we had left. We walked past our apartment and crossed the street and saw a couple in thier late 30's walking their bikes. We went up to them and asked to share a message and the guy looked like something amazing had just happened by us talking to him, his girlfriend on the other hand looked like she was having a bad day. After talking to her a little the guy convinced her to listen to us and we started with a prayer in the parking lot and taught the restoration. After we were done we asked if he had any questions. "No, I don't have any questions, just a statement." Then he went on to tell us that he had been searching all types of religions within the last few months trying to find where God wanted him to be. He said that someone showed him the Mormon bible and he said to himself, "We already have a bible. Why do we need another bible." Then he told us he flipped open the book of mormon and landed on a phrase similar to his own and God answered saying he could give more scripture 2 Nephi 29. He then told us that he didn't think anything was a coincidence and he felt like God had sent us. We told him about conference and he said he'd try to make it. The next day it was crazy and it was two mintues before the morning session and I ran out to call Matt (the guy's name) to remind him of conference. Usually investigators have to be reminded a lot at first. So I called and to my despair, no one answered. I left a message inviting Matt and Nicki and hung up the phone. I turned to the Elders to show my disappointment when suddenly behind me I heard someone say, "Sorry, Nicki couldn't make it." I whipped around and there was Matt dressed to the nines in a very nice dark suit. I almost fell over. "Whoa!!! I didn't see you!" So he watched conference and it was amazing!
this was my best Easter ever! I'm so grateful for Christ's Sacrifice and fopr heaven's help!
sister johnson
Monday, April 12, 2010
can I shake your hand?
So last week we were teaching Jennifer Lopez but then she dropped us....over a text. Lame. But so much other cool stuff happened this week! First of all, it is transfer week: I am getting transferred and Sister Latimer is staying. In the last 4 1/2 months I will have had 6 companions! Compare that with the first 12 months of my mission: I only had 4 companions. Crazy. I could go to one of four places, Windcrest, San Marcus, Pleasanton, or Anderson Mill. I've already served in Pleasanton and in Anderson Mill so it will be interesting to see if I get transferred to one of those places again. Chances are I'll go to San Marcus or Windcrest. Where ever I go it will probably end up being my dying area!!!!! Weird.
Last week we were going to an appointment and it fell through. Sister Latimer felt strongly that the appointment fell through so that we could see another investigator, Tim, who lived in the same apartment complex. We walked over to Tim's apartment. He answered the door and looked terrible. He said he was feeling really tired and it was just not a good time for us to come over. We said we hoped he felt better and we left. Sister Latimer was a little confused why she felt so strongly to go over to Tim's apartment, but we shrugged it off and started walking back to the car. Suddenly I felt a really strong impression that there were a lot of people in this apartment complex who were ready to accept the gospel. As we were trying to decided if we should start knocking doors we saw a guy across the apartment complex so we went to talk to him. We taught him a lesson about the restoration right there in the parking lot. His name is Mosa and he's studying to be a police officer. He said he was interested in learning more. After that we started knocking and we met a ton of people. We were giving out cards left and right and setting appointments. The next few days we followed up on all the people we met and nothing came of it. One guy totally lied to us and gave us a fake number and a fake address. Someone else called to cancel. We couldn't ever get a hold of Mosa. Yesterday morning we went to one last appointment, but the lady wasn't home. I was so confused why I had felt so strongly about this apartment complex when everything fell through. We were going to leave, but Sister Latimer wanted to try Mosa's apartment one more time. We knocked a couple times and no one answered. We walked downstairs and looked at our map trying to figure out where to walk next (We're doing a lot of walking right now cause our car is in the shop for a week to repair damages from our accident last transfer). While we were deciding to go next we heard Mosa's door open. Sister Latimer ran back up the stairs and there was Mosa! So we taught him about the plan of salvation and called his boss to get Saturday off so that he could watch conference. Neat. We started walking out of the complex after that, but we saw a lady walking in so we went to go and talk to her. Her name is Amy and she speaks a little English, but mostly Spanish. She said we could come and share a message with her and she directed us back to her apartment chatting all the way about her 13 year old son who is autistic. She is so neat. When we came into the apartment complex we saw her husband, George. We suddenly realized that we had talked to him before! That first day we started talking to people at the complex we saw him on his phone and he was throwing out his trash. He looked very busy, but we still went up to him and introduced ourselves. He was very nice, but said he didn't speak English and neither Sister Latimer nor I speak Spanish so we just gave him a card and that was it. So we were so surprised to see him at Amy's house. She said that he had taken the card home to show Amy and they hung it up in their car cause it's a nice picture. So here are: they want to learn more about the Church, we want to share more about the Church, but we can hardly, hardly communicate at all.....this is where the gift of tongues is supposed to come in. I started speaking English hoping that somehow it would translate into Spanish, and guess what! They didn't understand a single thing I said. So we put in the Restoration video and played the Spanish version. It was great. Afterwards they asked us where the Church was located and we gave them a map, but then we remembered General Conference which complicated things, but we set a follow-up appointment and we're going back! yay! They are super sweet people and we are pretty excited about them. Also, the day before we were around Tim's apartment again. I didn't want to go back over, but Sister Latimer felt like we should. He answered and looked terrible again! We apologized and were going to leave, but suddenly he said, "just so you know. I trying to quit smoking right now so I'm locking myself in my apartment and I'm having a pretty rough time." We were dumbfounded. What do you say in a moment like this? What do you say when an investigator tells you that he is taking steps to live the word of wisdom? I didn't know what to say, so as usually I just started talking to fill up space. "Wow, good for you! Can I shake your hand?" "Uhhh...I guess." I am so glad that Sister Latimer followed the prompting to keep going over there, cause I know that it was one of God's ways to remind him that he loved him. I love it when God uses us! It's the best feeling in the world!
So here is the moral of the story: follow the promptings of the Spirit even when you don't understand why. There having been numerous times when I have a prompting, I follow it, and nothing happens. Or at least I don't think anything happens, but I am learning more than ever that things happen for a reason, especially when you are a missionary. Every now and then we are blessed with the "why," but mostly the Spirit just gives us the "what" and it's up to us to trust the Lord. Easier said than done. The Spirit doesn't seem to care one bit about social policies and procedures. Oh well.
Calen came to church, and Zach. Zach is a less active member we found and we're teaching his girlfriend's family now! Cool! Other awesome stuff happened. This is the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. I love being a missionary
I love you all
sister johnson
Last week we were going to an appointment and it fell through. Sister Latimer felt strongly that the appointment fell through so that we could see another investigator, Tim, who lived in the same apartment complex. We walked over to Tim's apartment. He answered the door and looked terrible. He said he was feeling really tired and it was just not a good time for us to come over. We said we hoped he felt better and we left. Sister Latimer was a little confused why she felt so strongly to go over to Tim's apartment, but we shrugged it off and started walking back to the car. Suddenly I felt a really strong impression that there were a lot of people in this apartment complex who were ready to accept the gospel. As we were trying to decided if we should start knocking doors we saw a guy across the apartment complex so we went to talk to him. We taught him a lesson about the restoration right there in the parking lot. His name is Mosa and he's studying to be a police officer. He said he was interested in learning more. After that we started knocking and we met a ton of people. We were giving out cards left and right and setting appointments. The next few days we followed up on all the people we met and nothing came of it. One guy totally lied to us and gave us a fake number and a fake address. Someone else called to cancel. We couldn't ever get a hold of Mosa. Yesterday morning we went to one last appointment, but the lady wasn't home. I was so confused why I had felt so strongly about this apartment complex when everything fell through. We were going to leave, but Sister Latimer wanted to try Mosa's apartment one more time. We knocked a couple times and no one answered. We walked downstairs and looked at our map trying to figure out where to walk next (We're doing a lot of walking right now cause our car is in the shop for a week to repair damages from our accident last transfer). While we were deciding to go next we heard Mosa's door open. Sister Latimer ran back up the stairs and there was Mosa! So we taught him about the plan of salvation and called his boss to get Saturday off so that he could watch conference. Neat. We started walking out of the complex after that, but we saw a lady walking in so we went to go and talk to her. Her name is Amy and she speaks a little English, but mostly Spanish. She said we could come and share a message with her and she directed us back to her apartment chatting all the way about her 13 year old son who is autistic. She is so neat. When we came into the apartment complex we saw her husband, George. We suddenly realized that we had talked to him before! That first day we started talking to people at the complex we saw him on his phone and he was throwing out his trash. He looked very busy, but we still went up to him and introduced ourselves. He was very nice, but said he didn't speak English and neither Sister Latimer nor I speak Spanish so we just gave him a card and that was it. So we were so surprised to see him at Amy's house. She said that he had taken the card home to show Amy and they hung it up in their car cause it's a nice picture. So here are: they want to learn more about the Church, we want to share more about the Church, but we can hardly, hardly communicate at all.....this is where the gift of tongues is supposed to come in. I started speaking English hoping that somehow it would translate into Spanish, and guess what! They didn't understand a single thing I said. So we put in the Restoration video and played the Spanish version. It was great. Afterwards they asked us where the Church was located and we gave them a map, but then we remembered General Conference which complicated things, but we set a follow-up appointment and we're going back! yay! They are super sweet people and we are pretty excited about them. Also, the day before we were around Tim's apartment again. I didn't want to go back over, but Sister Latimer felt like we should. He answered and looked terrible again! We apologized and were going to leave, but suddenly he said, "just so you know. I trying to quit smoking right now so I'm locking myself in my apartment and I'm having a pretty rough time." We were dumbfounded. What do you say in a moment like this? What do you say when an investigator tells you that he is taking steps to live the word of wisdom? I didn't know what to say, so as usually I just started talking to fill up space. "Wow, good for you! Can I shake your hand?" "Uhhh...I guess." I am so glad that Sister Latimer followed the prompting to keep going over there, cause I know that it was one of God's ways to remind him that he loved him. I love it when God uses us! It's the best feeling in the world!
So here is the moral of the story: follow the promptings of the Spirit even when you don't understand why. There having been numerous times when I have a prompting, I follow it, and nothing happens. Or at least I don't think anything happens, but I am learning more than ever that things happen for a reason, especially when you are a missionary. Every now and then we are blessed with the "why," but mostly the Spirit just gives us the "what" and it's up to us to trust the Lord. Easier said than done. The Spirit doesn't seem to care one bit about social policies and procedures. Oh well.
Calen came to church, and Zach. Zach is a less active member we found and we're teaching his girlfriend's family now! Cool! Other awesome stuff happened. This is the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. I love being a missionary
I love you all
sister johnson
Monday, March 22, 2010
Every day isn't always a stamp day
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.”
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 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
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