December 24, 2012

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas Eve!

 

I hope that you are all having a wonderful day! And just so you know, I cant wait to talk to you tomorrow! I thought I would do a small rundown of the things I have done this past week. We will see how good my memory is.

 

Monday- We had a great p-day. We went and ate at Olive Garden to celebrate Sis Holyan and I having one year in the field left. It was super good. I have missed eating there! I also got a package from Grandma Johnson with lots of presents in it! I am excited to open all of them tomorrow. We went to FHE and had a great time playing games.

 

Tues- We had district training. We always do role plays of situation that we might come across so we can improve our teaching skills. They have been my least favorite thing to do sense I have been a mission, but they help me the most. We were doing a role play with one of the zone leaders and I just started crying. I mean out of no where crying! It was not good. haha I think I just had a lot of stress or something inside that finally had to be released. It was a good time haha Elder Smoot will never forget me now. We also were taken out to eat by Trish. She is a member of the Davie Ward. I believe she was going to add you on facebook mom. She is in our room mates ward. It was really nice of her to take us all to lunch. She also got us each a Christmas gift. She is an angel. as we were driving around on Tues we saw one of our recent converts, Tavon, who we thought fell off of the face of the earth! We pulled over and talked with him for a bit. Heavenly Father answers our prayers! We had been praying all week that he would return our calls, or send us a text, so that we could come in contact with him. Sure enough we see him walking down the street! blessings :)

 

wed- I got an amazing package from Shine. It was hair product which was much needed! Shes knows me so well! I hope her and Matt are enjoying Hawaii for Christmas!  Also on Wed our recent convert Christopher gave us Christmas presents. He is so sweet. He got us both big stuffed animals. Mine is a bear and Sister Holyan got a turtle. I will send a lot of pics home sometime soon.

 

thurs fri and sat I cant really remember what happened haha. its all in my journal for the most part.

 

sun-church was great! Anderson gave a talk about Christ. it was amazing. you never would of guessed that he was baptized a month ago. Things here are going very well. I am happy happy happy and cant wait to talk to you all tomorrow!

 

loves,

 

sister Johnson

 

xoxoxoxo

 

PS in less than i year i will be home! kinda a big deal!

 

1. me and sister stegelmier

2. one year left

3. me and sonnel at church

4.silver bug

December 17, 2012

 To all Sister Brooke's friends and family . . . . . . .
Thank you so much for loving and supporting her on her mission!  I appreciate all your letters and boxes to her.  She looks so happy in her photos! 
 
FAMILY,

I will prob be calling sometime between 9-10:30 your time. I only have 45min max. Santiago said he would call this week to make sure everything is set up with skype but, maybe you could call him. I am SO SO SO excited to skype with you! Its going to be nothing less than amazing! I will email on the 24th although it prob won't be til around 9 your time that I am emailing. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the 24th day will be like I just know we will find some way to email that day.


Our Christmas party was so much fun! I loved being with all of the missionaries and it was great to see Sister Andrus again! I miss her! She gets to go home in April so that was the last time I will see her most likely until I come home. Last week flew by because we had a busy week. We had some kind of mission meeting almost every day and then we had the party too. I am grateful that it went by fast. I am excited to open the presents on Christmas! Due to the week going by so fast, I am unable to remember a whole lot of what happened. Everyone seems to be doing great.
 
I had a really great experience this week. we went to see our recent convert, Ricardo, and I realized that he is one of the reasons I am out here. I know that I was meant to share my testimony with him and to help him come unto Christ. He's incredible. During the week he invited someone to be baptized and then testified to them. He's so great, and he did all of that before he was confirmed on Sunday! Heavenly Father truly is preparing his children to receive the gospel at this time. Ricardo reminds me some what of Alma. He has experienced such a conversion that all he desires to do now is to help others come unto Christ. Ricardo is a great example to me and I am learning a lot from him.
 
We have been knocking on doors a lot lately. We always do at least one hour a day but, because we need to find people, we have been knocking more than that. I now have callus' on my knuckles. Pretty right? The mission is best thing that has ever happened to me. I am filled with joy each day knowing that I have the opportunity for the rest of my life to share the gospel with all of those that I come in contact with!
 
I love you each so much! I cant wait to talk to you in a week. Like actually talk to you. What a blessing! Best Christmas present ever for sure! I hope you have a great week!

xoxoxo
sister johnson

ps, Sister Holyan and I are definitely sleeping under the Christmas tree all week :)

I LOVE YOU FAMILY! TALK TO YOU SOON! WHOOO!

December 10, 2012

1. ricardo on left, matt on right
2. christopher on the left, was baptized into our branch but he was baptized on the same day as his mom
3 & 4. safety first


Family :)

We go to Nova State University (a collage campus) to email. We use the library there and its about a ten min drive from our house, so not too bad. The new temple that is being built is about 15 min from our house. I haven't seen it lately because we don't really have people out there to visit. I am hoping to see it soon though. I haven't seen Sis Andrus yet I miss her so much. The mission is having a Christmas party on Thursday from 11-3 and I will be able to see her there! I am looking forward to it! We are taking white elephant gifts. I am filling an old pill bottle with m&ms and writing on the outside "mission stress reliever" Sis Holyan is buying donuts and saying on it "donut forget to pray" haha we are nerds. It will be a lot of fun though and I will tell you all about it next week. We have a new roomie! The other sister is training now. I can't believe that there snow there. I don't even know what that is anymore ha. The other day I was dying of heat! It was 90 on Wed! that is unreal! last week i decorated 3 planners for some elders haha the asked me to so i did. they turned out really good! I will have to send one of my old ones home so you can see it! its about the only crafty thing i get to do out here. We biked 8 miles one day this week. It wasn't bad at all and I really enjoyed it. Other than it was super hott but that's normal. One of my recent converts is going to the temple for the first time this week. I am so excited for him. He will be the first of my recent converts to go do baptisms for the dead!

Things here are going very well! It doesn't feel much like Christmas yet but I am very happy and at peace. We were able to have 3 baptisms yesterday! It was such a miracle! We are truly blessed. I would like to share the story behind one of them that got baptized.

 We met Ricardo three weeks ago from yesterday. It was a Sunday night and we were out knocking on doors. It was getting close to the end of our harvest and we were walking up the stairs to knock on two doors upstairs. No one answered. As we walked down the stairs, we noticed that one of the doors were open so we started walking over to it and Ricardo walked outside. We blessed him and his uncle and they both immediately accepted baptism. We set return apts and were excited about the baptism date that we had gotten. When we returned to see him later on that week he said that he had been thinking about baptism and that it really was something that he wanted to do. We continued to teach him and he came to church that Sunday. He loved and said he felt at peace. We continued to see him this past week. He had his interview on Friday and everything went very well. He came out excited for his baptism and couldn't wait! We saw him again on Saturday and he had talked to some people and had felt unsure about his baptism. we testified and reviewed verses from 2 Nephi 31. At the end of the lesson he was back on track! Sunday came around and he was again excited for his baptism. During Sunday school we had a small testimony meeting and to my surprise, he got up! he shared a powerful testimony about how he had been talking with his friend last Sunday night and his friend was telling him that he needed to go to church. he had also been having dreams about being with people at church. Only a few min later after he had gotten off the phone with his friend, he felt prompted to step outside. and there Sister Holyan and I were. As he shared this the spirit testified to me that Heavenly Father truly is preparing his children to receive the gospel and that we were sent to that area that night for a reason and that reason was to find Ricardo. His baptismal service was beautiful and the spirit was very strong. A few hours after his baptism he send us a text that said, "I feel so good right now, thank you very much for that opportunity." I couldn't help but to thank my Heavenly Father for allowing me to be able to meet Ricardo and help him receive the blessings that Heavenly Father has been waiting to give him for so many years.

I was reading in the scriptures this morning in Alma 4 where it is talking about Alma's desire to go preach unto his brethren who had fallen away. In verse four it states,"seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them." This verse made me think about the experience we had with Ricardo. On Saturday night he was being tempted and was beginning to doubt. As we shared pure testimony with him, the spirit was again able to testify to him that this is what he needed to do and that he knew it! it brought to his remembrance of the feelings he had received after we left the harvest prayer and after he had attended church.

Johnsons, i love you and i appreciate all that you do for me! you are the best family ever! The mission is the best gift i have ever been given. I wouldn't be out here if it weren't for your love and support. thank you for helping me to be out here and have all of these wonderful, life changing, experiences! i am glad you got my Christmas package! i hope everyone likes what i got them! i cant wait to see everyone on Christmas day! that is going to be the best! i hope you all have a great week! i love love love you and will talk to you soon!

xoxoxoxox
Sister Johnson

December 4, 2012

 

 

 

 

1. Our most recent convert, Tavon, hes 19. Hopefully he will serve a mission! how cool would that be?!

2. Me lighting the tree

3. Crazy crazy Christmas lights, there were SO many

4. Santa baby

 

Hey best family ever,

 

First things always first, I love and miss you all! I hope that your holiday season is going very well and that you are able to feel of my love for you at this time of our distance! There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of each one of you individually and how or what you are doing at the time you come to mind.

 

I am in Nova YSA with Sister Holyan for another transfer! I've been here for quite a while now. I guess I have not finished the work I need to do in this area yet. I love it here though. Being with people my age is so much fun. I love sharing the gospel with others that I can really relate with. Its such a blessing in my life. We are being blessed with so many wonderful people to teach during the Christmas season! We are hoping to have a miracle baptism tomorrow for a young man that we met just a few days ago. His mom is moving on Thursday and he wants her to be there for the baptism so we got special permission for him to be baptized tomorrow! We will see how things work out! There is nothing in this world that brings me greater happiness than to see someone join the church and receive the blessings of the gospel in to their lives. Most of our recent converts are so incredible! They offer rides to our investigators when they themselves have only been baptized for 3 weeks! Its amazing what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do for each one of us in our lives. To see people apply to atonement into their lives has been a wonderful blessing to me. It strengthens my testimony and helps me recognize the love that our Savior has for each one of us. Things here are going very well and I am more than grateful for this opportunity that I have to serve.

 

I have had many challenges this past transfer that have caused me to kneel in sincere prayer every night to ask for guidance and direction. I read a talk by elder Holland just a few weeks ago that really offered peace and comfort to my heart. In this talk he says, "I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy.... How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?" I know that its through my Savior, Jesus Christ, that I can find peace and comfort during challenging times. He has felt what I have. He knows where I am and what I am doing at all times. Its trough the Savior that we are lifted in times of despair. He leaves an amazing promise at the end of his talk, one that I am especially grateful for. He says,"I PROMISE that because of your faithful response to the call to spread the gospel, He will bind up your broken hearts, dry your tears, and set you and your family free. That is my missionary promise to you and your missionary message to the world." What a powerful statement. I am thankful for the challenges and trails that come my way (maybe not so much in the middle of them) but, as I look back, I realize all of the many many blessings and growing experiences that came as I was passing through a specific trial or challenge. "No matter what trials or challenges we many face in our lives, the Savior and his teachings-the gospel-will help us." (PMG)

 

Each month I get a letter from the Thayne stake just giving me a few updates. This month Pres Hyde wrote and it was so good to hear from him. He shared a lot about Christmas and how important it is to give our hearts. That is what I am striving to do this Christmas season is to give the Savior my heart.

 

I am grateful for all of the support that I receive from everyone back at home. I am the luckiest missionary EVER! I feel your love and it keeps me going! There's nothing like receiving mail from home and loved ones. Family, I love you and pray for you always. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all that you do for me. We are one, without all of you I wouldn't be as strong as I am. I hope that you all have an incredible week! talk to you soon! :)

 

love always, sister johnson

 

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox