We went Swimming this week!....NOT!!!

Hello from Dunn again!

 

In the HUMIDITY! The air is SO thick. It is ridiculous. I guess it hasn't been much of a bother really except when we are trying to exercise in the mornings, but still. It is pretty humid.

We had a good week. It was ridiculously slow, but the things we did accomplish were really good. We had a great lesson with the Hudsons on the doctrine of Christ this week. It was great. Bruce told us that he feels like his testimony is growing. Margaret shared a scripture. It was fantastic!

 

We had a less active call us this week and ask us where in the world we had been and why we hadn't been to visit her. ( I was under the impression that she had moved...turns out she is back!) So we had a nice lesson with her. She talked about how she knew that the only way we can have peace and happiness is if we read and pray and come to church. She wants to make sure she doesn't lose that. It was really neat. I know that what she said is true. The restored gospel is the only way we can have true peace and happiness.

 

We had zone conference on Wednesday. Sis. Welch and Tillman and I all bought the same dress, but different colors. We thought it would pretty funny to wear them on the same day. It was pretty funny because a couple of the elders came up to us about half way through and were like, "Did you know that you all have the same dress on?" "Did you do that on purpose?"

Us, "No. We had no idea elders." Those elders are pretty funny sometimes.

I learned a lot of good things at zone conference. Mostly just the importance of finding balance in finding and making sure we turn every situation into a good one and using it as a finding opportunity.

 

We went with the Hudsons to a fireside last night. They bore their testimonies. It was really neat to hear them. Bro. Hudson talked about how he felt like he was making a decision for a the first time in his life. Margaret's testimony was very sweet too.

 

Well, I am running low on time!

 

I love you all. The Atonement is real and we can use it every day of our lives.

 

Have a great week!

 

Love, Sister J

July 23, 2012

Greetings from Dunn!

 

 

Another week has come and gone. It was definitely one of those "character building" weeks. However, it ended up being a really good week with many miracles.

 

Last monday we went shopping. Sis. Welch got lost in the store so we had to go to the front and page her. She didn't know she was lost, but Sis. Tillman and I were about to hyperventilate because we had lost one of us! She had been looking a clothes rack that went above her head and we couldn't see her. It ended up being okay in the end...thank heavens.

Our appointment with Lewis fell through so we went to contact a referral out in Benson. His name is Michael. He was a referral from a member in the ward and is really interested in learning more. We were able to set up a return appointment and it was a good day!

 

Tuesday we had a grrreat lesson with Jan. She asked us before we had even said anything about it if she could get her house blessed. I didn't even know they blessed inadimate objects until a few years ago. It was really neat. She said she just thought of it in passing and decided to ask us about it. We also talked about patriarchal blessings so she is preparing to receive one in the near future. She is so good. I love her a lot.

Afterwards we had a lesson with the Little family (a part member family). Sis. Little got really upset during the lesson and booted us out of her house and told us never to come back. It was rather discouraging. I was mostly just irritated. Poor Sis. Tillman was pretty torn up about it though. It was a rough day to say the least. Luckily we were able to go and do some service in the evening for a lady named Ellen. We read some from the Book of Mormon with her and sang "How Great Thou Art." I got a death glare from Sis. Tillman for volunteering us to sing. Oops! At least the spirit was there though. :)

 

We had a REALLY good district meeting on wednesday in which Sis. Welch received some great inspiration on how to apply the how to begin teaching bullet points to members. (they are in PMG in the teaching skills chapter...pg 184 I think). Anyways, she had this brilliant idea that we should change the bullet points into questions that we could use to ask members. It works SO well. It was amazing. We had a lesson with the Hudsons that evening. They are still plunking along. We talked about true conversion and read Alma 24. That is a great example of true conversion.

 

We had an appointment with Freddy on Thursday. He didn't come. :( Mona (his member friend) told us he still trying to sort through everything with the lady who told him a bunch of negative things about the church. (sigh). He went to Raleigh for the weekend too so he didn't come to church.

 

We finished up our service project for the Swafford family. We painted away and it was great! We had a lesson with a potential investigator that Sis. Wilson and I actually found via the area book. She is really interested! It was great! We had dinner with less active, Sis. Fredell. It was like thanksgiving. Yum.

 

Saturday was crazy busy! We had our lesson with Michael that we met on Monday. His wife also came. That was such a good lesson. We taught so unified-ly and they asked us about any "rules" our church has. We told them there are certain commandments that we live by. (we knew they had a pretty serious word of wisdom issue at this point). Then, Michael says, "So, is tobacco a sin?" I think all of us were scared stiff about what would happen if we said "yes", but we did. We were pleasantly suprised when Cheryl (Michael's wife) spoke up and said, "well, I guess you'll have to start praying for us that we can quite smoking." I was thrilled!

We had dinner with the Giddens (a less active family). They are hilarious. Bro. Giddens is a pretty recent convert of about 7 months. He is funny. He told us this funny story about how he tried to make salsa and instead of putting 1/2 tsp of salt in, he put 1/2 a cup. hahaha...so funny.

 

Sunday the Hudsons came to church, but no one else. We drove in a complete loop of our boundaries. We were supposed to meet with a lady named Yolanda but she cancelled so we drove up to Fuquay to contact a a referral, but they weren't home so we went home and studied. We ended the day with ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner. It was a good sunday.

 

I love you all. Have a wonderful blessed week.

 

Love,

 

Sister Johnson

Hello from Dunn, NC!! Woot! Woot!

So, here's the scoop: Sister Welch is the third member of the -panionship! I think I must not be learning the lessons I need to from my former comps. They just keep coming back! We are having a lot of fun though.. It's been quite the adjustment for all of us I think. Sometimes I wish I was a boy. No drama. That would be great. I think we are finally adjusting though.

 

Monday we went to the Trueloves who live in the boonies of Fuquay-Varina. We had dinner with them and the best pecan (it's pronounced pee-can) pie i've ever had. Don't worry. I did get the recipe. :) We went and saw a less active named DeeDee. It was kind of crazy because I told the Trueloves a couple of weeks ago that  I had a dream about her and that I was supposed to go and see her. I had never met her, but I felt like we really really really needed to go see her. It was an intense lesson. Sis. Tillman did a great job. She bore a powerful testimony of God's love and the spirit was SO strong in that lesson. DeeDee's husband who isn't a member told us as we were leaving, "you know, I was just thinking the other day that we should go to church. We haven't been in a while." It was amazing. They didn't show up this week, but hopefully they will come next week. :) Agency (sigh). Sometimes I wish there could be no opposition, but that would defeat the purpose of life.

 

Tuesday was crazy. We had a lesson with recent convert, Jan about the priesthood. It was really neat because she had just learned about the priesthood in church on sunday in the Fayetteville ward so it was a good review and we were able to clear up a few confusions. She is doing great! She loves reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. After our lesson we drove with Sis. Knight to Raleigh to pick up the mystery sister. It was pouring rain and we ended up being a little late (oops!) Sister Welch was drenched. She was so excited though! We got some dry clothes, changed quickly and headed over to the Andersons to have a lesson with the Hudsons. We read 3 Nephi 11 with them and talked about becoming as a child and how simple the gospel is. They are still being stubborn (AHHHHHH!).

 

Wednesday we had a zone training and Sister Tillman and I were asked to teach part of it on the doctrine of Christ. It went really well. I was glad when it was over. Did I mention that both of the zone leaders (elders Simmons and Schank) are from K-town (Kaysville, UT)? It's a small world. The district leaders in our zone each taught and it was so good! Elder Otteson is in my zone again. He is a district leader in Sanford or Raeford or one of those ford places. He gave a really good discussion on asking inspired questions. I learned SO much from that. It was amazing. He talked about how there are four types of questions; 1) soul searching questions 2) commitment questions 3) application questions and 4) verifcation questions. I learned this week that these principles of inspired questions asking can be applied in more ways than just with our investigators. I think they will definitely come in handy as a future parent. We had dinner with the Dominguez family. They are so great! Sis. Dominguez made jalepeno poppers again. I love those things! Mmmm! Afterwards, we went to teach investigators, Freddy, Charles and Bryan. They were all asleep. Bless their hearts. Mona told us that the nurse gave them their meds early that night. (sigh)

 

Thursday we met with the Little family. They are a part member family. It's a crazy situation. But, I know that true doctrine understood changes attitudes and bahavior. The boys L.H. and Bryan (ages 9 and 16) want to be baptized. They LOVE coming to church. I would too if I lived in their house. We are hoping to start having them taught in member homes so they can feel the spirit more.

Afterwards, we met with Lewis...finally! He has not been feeling well and therefore avoiding us. I guess. We had a great lesson on the Word of wisdom with him and he committed to give up his coffee! huzzah! He has come such a long ways. He is a prime example of how powerful the Book of Mormon is in conversion.

 

Friday we did service. We went to my favorite family's house, the Swaffords. Sis. Swafford is not able to do a lot of things because she is wheel-chair bound so we went and sanded and painted a whole bunch of her furniture. It was fun. I love to work like that. They are working of finding people to share the gospel with and we are excited for them! We had a ward missionary meeting in the evening. Only 2 of our 20 something ward missionaries showed up. Nevertheless,we had a great lesson with them about the Atonement and how that is related to missionary work. There is a great quote by President Hunter that says, "Anytime we experience the blessings of the atonement in our lives, we cannot hlep but have a concern for teh welfare of others...a great indicator of one's personal conversion is the desire to share the gospel with others."

 

Saturday was a really, really long session of weekly planning. It was so long that I had to go and walk outside. Sis. Welch is A.D.D. If that even is a real disorder. We were laughing our guts up all day. We FINALLY finished attempted to contact a referral out in Benson. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn which put us on the interstate going towards Raleigh. Even more unfortunate was that there isn't much inbetween here and there so, the next exit off of the interstate was about 10 miles later. This created a giant loop and when we finally got to the road the referral lived on, we discovered that the road was closed for repair. I don't think we were supposed to contact that referral that day. There weren't any houses close by so we just turned around and went to our coordination meeting. That was great because we were able to set up some great plans for a fireside. I am so excited! It's going to be amazing. There will be more details as the time draws closer. :)

 

Sunday was amazing. We had 7 investigators come to sacrament! Amazing! Freddy came thanks to the ever so diligent efforts of Bro. Dalton who went and picked him at the last minute due to a ride that bailed. The Little family all came to church. It was really neat to see how they lit up when they saw us. There is a lot of darkness in their lives. Lewis also came and the Hudsons came too! It was definitely amazing. The talks in church were really good. After church we went on exchanges with the Jesters. We ended up driving FOREVER because we got a phone call from a former who was dropped because he fell in love with one of the sisters. Anyways, he called to tell us that his mom (who was also a former) was on her last leg and wanted us to come and see her. He told us the address, but trailer parks are horrible for going a logical numerical order. We ended up getting lost and by the time we finally were able to contact Gary again, his mom had passed away. It was really sad, but a blessing for her. She had been very very ill.  We closed the day with a lesson with Charles and Freddy. Freddy LOVED church. A lady at the assisted living place did not approve of his decision and she made it very clear. He didn't originally show up to our lesson ,but about 20 minutes into it he finally came in. He told us what happened. We ended up having a great lesson on recognizing the spirit and how to tell whether something is good or not using Moroni 7:13-16. He feels good about his decision and recongized right off the bat that because he had felt the spirit so strong, that satan was working extra hard on him. He is great.

 

Being a missionary is the best. Hard? Yes. Worth it? Completely.

 

I know as we deepen our understanding of the Atonement our desire to share the gospel with others will increase.

 

Good scripture:

1 peter 4: 12-13

 

 

Loves to y'all!

 

Love, Sister J

The Most Bizzare Week....Yet! 7/09/2012

Okay... where do I start?

So, this week was incredible. It was the most bizarre week I think I have ever experienced thus far on the mission. We saw SO many miracles this week! It was amazing. It is amazing to me how much the Lord blesses us. Sometimes I don't feel like we are doing enough to deserve the many blessings we do receive, but I am thankful for how merciful the Lord is.

We had a fun preparation day last week! We went hiking with the Guymon family at a place called Raven Rock. It was so nice to be outside. Tender mercy of the day was that it had cooled off some so we didn't die in the heat. :) I still sweat more than I've ever sweat in my life whilst we were walking on the trail. It was so worth it though. The world and all of it's creations are amazing. If you don't think Heavenly Father is there, just go take a stroll outside and you'll come to know that He is there and loves you.  When we got to the top, we could see over the trees! The only other time that has happened was when I was in the plane. haha...

We did FHE with the Martin family and played Clue...with a spiritual twist! We talked about how we don't always know all the mysteries of God, but that they are given to us line upon line and precept upon precept. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday (Happy birthday Ashlyn! You're the best sister ever. :] ) we met with the Hudsons. We read 1 Nephi 4 and talked about following the spirit and making decisions based on what we do know is true. They said they aren't going to do anything until they know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. (sigh). I don't know what else we can do for them. I suppose we will just have to be patient.

 We have had so much support from the ward. We recieved so many referrrals this week. We were able to go and do some service for one of the referrals and talked to her about the Book of Mormon. She was very moved by our willingness to come and help her move into her house. She said she wants to come to church and learn more, but wants to wait until she gets feeling better (she broke her shoulder).

One of the other referrals from our WML is a man named John. He knows several ward members here in Dunn and has a lot of contact from them. Brother Christensen (our WML) has been sharing the gospel with him quite regularly now and gave him a Book of Mormon and he watched the Restoration video with him. He invited John to come to church. He is planning on coming on the 22nd of this month.

We also received a referral from our assistant WML. He told us that he wanted to invite his neighbor to come to church. So, he did just that. He also asked her if she would like to meet with the missionaries. She agreed. Our assistant WML is so excited! He text us yesterday and told us the news. We weren't able to get to our phone for a while and he text us again asking if we got his text. He is so excited to do missionary work. It's fantastic!

We had a training meeting on Wednesday (Happy 4th!) this past week and met Pres. and Sis. Bernhisel. They are great. It's definitely not the same as the Cotterells, but they are both wonderful people and full of love. I imagine (from the sounds and looks of it) Pres. Bernhisel is incredibly stressed out right now. I have been bothering our housing coordinator for a LONG time now about getting a new mattress because mine had seen better days. So, the assistants dropped off a nice new mattress at our house after training. I slept so good that night. We had an interesting lesson with a LA man named Eric. He joined the church when he was 15 or 16, but the JW's brought up a lot of questions when they talked to him once. So he decided he just wouldn't believe in God unless there was physical evidence. We told him we didn't have any physical evidence, but that even more important than physical evidence is knowing for yourself. He didn't really like that answer. He said it would be important to him to know that God is there. So, we are planning meeting with him later on down the road. His inlaws are in town and they are hard core Eastern Orthodox. So, he said it would be best to wait until they left.

We had 4th of July lunch with the Moodys. It was fun. We got to talk to a less active member that Sis. Moody invited. The Moodys are funny people. At one point the conversation turned to emergency preparedness and Sister Moody says, "well, we have to prepare for the zombie apocolypse." My first though was, "what are you talking about?" and "are we having the same conversation?" It was pretty funny. She calls her 72 hour kit a "go-bag". It was pretty hilarious.

To make things even more hilarious, the Moodys came on exchanges with us on Friday and we went and saw a less active named David. Somehow, this same conversation of emergency preparedness came up and he says, "we have to prepare for the zombie apocolypse!" Sister Moody thought that was great. I was dying of laughter. I think I missed something from being in the missionary world for so long. Are there zombies now?

Saturday was the dreaded Black Saturday. We got a suprise phone call from the assistants. Turns out that we are once again going to have an odd number of sisters in the mission and we are getting a third sister that will be with us for a transfer. No news on who it is, but it will be a suprise for next week! The ward found out and donated another bed. That mattress is also really comfy. So, we have had a lot of new mattresses come in this week! Sister Tillman isn't so sure how things are going to work out with this third sister. She is pretty anxious about it. I'm excited! I hope my excitement will rub off on her eventually.

One of the biggest miracles of the week was this past Sunday (the whole day was a miracle).  I was wondering what in the world we were going to do to find people this week because we had not been successful in finding new investigators this past week. I prayed and asked Heavenly Father for help and He most certainly answers prayers. The ward contacted a LA/PM family this past week and invited them to attend church. They showed up on Sunday! It was amazing! No one thought they would come. The mom wants us to start teaching her boys who are teenagers and she has a friend named Sherrie that also came with her. It is a unique situation that will require a lot of love and patience.

Afterwards, we had a lesson with a member who had told us a few weeks ago that she had been working with a few friends and they had accepted the invitation to listen to the missionaries. Sister Mona Johnson is the member and she lives at an assisted living place here in Dunn. She introduced us to her friends, Freddy and Charles.  We shared the message of the restoration with them and part way through, another man named Bryan decided to join in. They all just so happen to be looking for a church and upon inviting Freddy and Charles to be baptized, Bryan asked if he could be baptized too. It was the most bizarre experience I think I've ever had on the mission. People don't usually ask to be baptized! So, that was a miracle. Freddy accepted the message of the restoration from the very beginning. He had some misunderstandings which we cleared up, but he really is trying to find the "right path". They are excited to read the Book of Mormon and before we could even invite them, they all asked if they could come to church next week.

The Lord lives and He loves us each individually. I know that He is aware of our concerns and needs. He will bless us as we strive to do our very best in keeping His commandments and do what he would do.

Good scriptures to read is Moroni 9:6 and 1Nephi 13:37

have a great week!

Love,

Sister Johnson

So remember how I said the weather has been so nice lately? Well, it was a different story this past week. Yesterday I felt like we were in an oven that was like 5000 degrees. Baked Sister Missionaries! It was really 107 degrees with heat index making it like 112 or something. All I know is that it was HOT. H.O.T.

 

Today is quite pleasant though.

 

This past week was pretty good. It was long and hot. Last Monday after "preparing" for the rest of the week, we went out to the furthest corner of our boundaries in the city of Spring Lake. We had a referral down there named Shelby that we wanted to go and contact. We contacted her, she wasn't interested, but referred us to her neighbor (who is a member and was the one who told us to go see her) It was kind of funny that they referred each other. We went down the street a bit and contacted there and met some great potential investigators! One lady had read the Book of Mormon about 20 years before and wants to learn more. Unfortunately, they are going out of town for the next month. I love summer and being a missionary. :]

 

Tuesday: So, I know my middle name should be "grace". We were running (on a completely flat surface of course) and I definitely sprained my ankle. Thankfully it is not as bad as last year. No boot, but it is a hinderance and I can't run! :(

 We had a great lesson with Sis. Saylor on missionary work. She wants to come on exchanges with us! And she also had a chance to talk with Margaret (other investigator) after her baptism and told her about how she knew the Book of Mormon was true. We asked her how she felt as she was talking with Margaret and she said that she just "felt really good." It was great! Jan is amazing. She took us to lunch after the lesson. Did you know KFC has a buffet??? I didn't. It's prolly just a North Carolina thing. They had really good butter beans. I ate a lot of them and I'm pretty sure I met my sodium limit for the day. We had a neat experience with the Trueloves who took us to dinner at Subway. We were talking about missionary work stuff and this guy that was sitting across at a table by us overheard our conversation and asked to know more about the church. It was a great contacting moment. Especially since we were with members! It was really good. We met with the Hudsons afterwards and had a nice lesson about the restoration (again) and why the first vision was important to the restoration of the gospel. Margaret is still stuck. We decided that she just needs to make a decision. Bruce bore a great testimony about the Book of Mormon on Tuesday. It was very powerful. He has grown a lot. I just wish we could figure out what is preventing Margaret's faith from building...

 

Wedesday=district meeting. I think the heat was getting to everyone. We had a good lesson nevertheless on revelation through church attendance. All the elders told us we should teach it because we were the only ones who had investigators come to church this past week. We learned a lot from the lesson. :)

We talked with Deborah (former investigator). She has been reading the Book of Mormon and says that she agrees with everything she's read. She just has issues with Joseph Smith. We talked to her on the phone for about 20 minutes addressing concerns because she won't meet with us in person. She said she would continue reading, but that she wouldn't ever convert. (sigh). However, she did tell us that she had been doing some family history and wouldn't you know it, she has Mormon ancestors! How crazy is that? Deborah agreed in the end that we could continue to call her and help her with things she is struggling to understand. So I was happy that at least she is okay with having contact from us still! :D

We had dinner with the McAllisters that evening and had a great lesson about missionary work.

 

We had a lesson on Thursday with a man named Aaron. He is very less active. The last time he talked to missionaries was when the Elders were here..which was a while ago. He didn't understand why we should pay tithing. He said he isn't going to change his views even though we explained the doctrine behind tithing and he said he understood the purpose. I wish people would just be humble! We had a crazy miracle lesson that evening. We went on exchanges with the Daltons and Bro. Dalton felt impressed to go by a less active family (the Giddens). We had tried meeting with them before, but they work crazy hours and we hadn't ever been able to catch them home. Well, miracle #1: they were both home! miracle #2: they just hired a man named Enrique from Nicaragua and he is staying with them until his wife can come up as well. The Giddens have had several gospel conversations with him and he said he could feel something 'different' about them. (side note: bro. Giddens is a really recent convert...like only a few months. They just moved to Dunn from Durham). Miracle #3: Enrique only understands mostly spanish. Bro. Dalton speaks fluent spanish! It was amazing! We had a great lesson with them all. They came to church on sunday and Bro. Dalton bore his testimony in espanol for Enrique. I think my favorite part of the whole thing was how excited Bro. Giddens was to tell Enrique about the Book of Mormon. "This is good. You want to read this, okay?" It was really funny. :)

 

Friday we met with the Links. They are less active. Bro. Link is stubborn...with a captial S! It was a good lesson. We found out a lot about why he doesn't want to come to church. We also found out they have a non-member living with them. So naturally we set up another appointment and invited the Links to have them come for the next lesson. We are hoping it goes well!

 

Saturday was painfully slow and SO hot! We did a lot of contacting. We didn't have any appointments and I think everyone went out of town for the 4th of July. We had dinner in the evening with the Christensens and went and visited Bro. King (not the one that lives in front of us). We discovered that Bro. King is a man of many talents! He speaks spanish, and is a very well rounded guitar player. We enlisted his skills with Enrique on Sunday and it went perfect!

 

Sunday was a hard day. Sis. Tillman had a rough day, but all is well now. Everyone came to church so that was good. We had dinner and a lesson with Bishop Ginn and his family. I though I was going to pass out from lack of water and the heat. Hooray for the power of fasting though. :)

 

I hope you all have a great week. I love each of you and appreicate all you do.

 

The Book of Mormon is the word of God and Joseph Smith translated it. I do know that.

 

Have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister J