Early Summer? (March 5, 2012)

Dearest Family and Friends,

The weather here was fantastic this past week! We enjoyed 70's and 80's for most of the week. I am a little worried about what summer will bring though...
We are now back to the 50's and 60's though. I felt like we were camping when I woke up this morning. We decided to not turn on the gas heater last night. When we woke up this morning my nose was frozen! It was just like camping! I never thought I would get the camping experience on a mission. I guess that will make up for the lack of camping that was done pre-mission...lol

This past week was a bit challenging, but we persevered! Monday we made a trip to the chiropractor. I got a haircut. It is really short. It's wonderful! I don't know why I didn't cut it all off sooner...
In the evening we met with a less active sister. She has a lot of personal struggles and past events that make it hard for her to go back to church. My heart ached for her. She is a convert to the church and she really knows that there was something to it because of the feeling she got when she was confirmed. I know she'll come back.

Tuesday was deep clean day! We did A LOT of cleaning. We cleaned the magic closet out and now have several bags of junk to take to the Goodwill store ( it is like the DI out west) We made plans to go and see our investigator, Denise whom we have been unable to get a hold of since we set a baptism date with her. She wasn't home. :(

Wednesday we had another spirit filled district meeting focusing on the doctrine, principle, and application of the topics in Preach My Gospel. Apparently, there is a talk about this called, "Increase in Learning" by Elder Bednar.It was so exciting because Sis. Matthews and I have been working on figuring out these elements for each of the topics taught in PMG chapter 3. Afterwards, we had a picture taking extravaganza because it was the last district meeting of the transfer. I'll bet we took a hundred zillion pictures (that might be a slight exaggeration). I was all pictured out by the end! My shins hurt too because I had the brilliant idea that we should do jumping pictures. We ended up doing several. Ouch. We contacted a lot of referrals during the afternoon. Unfortunately, most people told us they were not interested before we even got to say much of anything. But, that is okay. No effort is wasted. We had dinner at the Grays. Spaghetti! Mmmm! I don't even know when the last time was that I had spaghetti...we eat collards and pork and corn bread a lot though. The YW in the Woodington ward asked if we would be able to play a song for their New Beginnings program so we ended up at the church that evening practicing with them. One of our potential investigators was there. Her name is Amber! She is a cute 12 year old girl. Her parents are recent converts.

Thursday we went and saw Clara. She still hadn't had Julian! (her baby). We had a good lesson with her about the Proclamation to the Family. That is a very bold statement given by Pres. Hinckley. She loved it. We brought her a framed copy and she put it in on top of their entertainment center in the very center of everything else that was there. She said she wants to make sure her boyfriend will see it and read it. They are still working on getting the last passport...
We had lunch with Sister Anderson (who is from Denmark) and Sister Stainback who is just plain awesome. We ate french onion soup which was yummy and quiche. The quiche was good. My tummy did not like the quiche though. I was sick the rest of the afternoon and our appointment with potential investigator Amber fell through as did our appointment with Greg.

Friday we received a phone call from Pres. Cotterell and were both panicking because Saturday was "black saturday" and we were worried that one of us was going to be transferred. We called him back and after discussing some things for a few minutes he asked us what we thought about staying together for another transfer. We were both like, "yeah!" So, Sis. Matthews and I will be together for yet another transfer! That means I will be in "God's country" (aka Deep Run) for 6 months! We did library service. When we walked into the library, Tasha was sitting at her desk reading the Ensign! The gospel changes lives. I could say that a million times. I probably will. It is so exciting to see how she has changed from when we first started talking to her at the library. We talked to her about stake conference. She loved it! She said Elder Scott's talk was definitely her favorite. We met with less active Sister Nichols in the evening. She loves the church, but has a hard time getting up and going to get there in time. She is also quite downtrodden about life. We talked about tender mercies of the Lord. I've been learning a lot about tender mercies this week. (see 1 Nephi 1:20 and Alma 34:38) I read a good talk from Pres. Monson about having an attitude of gratitude and we talked about that and the things we were thankful for that day. We have so much to be thankful for each day. Some days it is harder to pick out the things we are thankful for, but when you do figure out those tender mercies, they become so precious. It is something Sis. Matthews and I have always done and it puts a smile on your face when you can look around and see how wonderfully blessed we are. Sometimes I think I forget that, but then there is always someone or something there to remind me of what I know.

Saturday it poured buckets of rain! Luckily it was warm rain. We even had some thunder and lightening! We decided to stop by Denise again. She wasn't home so we drove a ways down the street and stopped at a less active family's home. They let us in and as we were talking, another car pulled up and three people came into their house. We invited them to sit in and listen. Then, as we were getting ready to share our scripture, another car pulled up and the in-home nurse came in and they invited her to listen to our message. It was pretty neat! We got to teach the gospel to four people who had never even heard much about the church. We decided to drive the long way around to see if Denise was home. She was! We quickly jumped out of the car and with our umbrellas, trudged through the mud and puddles to her doorstep. She just so happened to be getting out of her car right as we walked up. So, we talked to her for a bit...which then turned into almost an hour. She has been reading some and there have been a lot of good things that have happened to her! (prayers are answered!) We were able to set up a return appointment and went on our merry way in the rain and mud. The elders had a baptism so we went to that. It was a very sweet spirited baptism. The lady that was baptized had been investigating the church for YEARS and finally decided it was time to kick her habits and do what she knew was right. It was so neat. We had dinner with Recent convert, Jennifer. We watched Saturday's Warrior with her. It brought back a lot of good memories as a child....that movie is hilarious.

Sunday every feasible plan that we had made was completely foiled except for church. Clara had her baby! (prayers answered!) Sister Matthews and I realized that we have a lot of work to do here in strengthening members' faith as much as nonmembers' faith here. We have a new goal to make sure we are extending commitments to everyone we talk to.

Well, my time is far spent. I love you all so much. Thank you for all you do! Go serve your neighbor!

All my love,

Sister Johnson