Hello Young, old, and undecided!
This has been a really good week. Every week is good as a missionary! As long as you keep your eye central to the mission blessings and joy will accrue and you can receive them by faith, patience, and dedication.
We have made so much progress on teaching this week and were able to meet our goal with finding 3 new people this week. Woohoo! Happy days! We actually have yet to not reach our goal (knock on wood). The people here are so wonderful and I love them so much!
We were finally able to meet with this guy Albert. We have been struggling for a bit to find time and meet with him, but when we finally got to, it was so good. He is still willing to listen to the gospel and is trying to understand his purpose for why he is till here. I just keep thinking, well buddy, we got this thing called the gospel of Jesus Christ. That might be the thing you is looking for.
Sadly, we had to drop our 2 golden investigators, Karen and Scott. We actually haven't seen or heard from them in weeks, but one final time when we tried to reach out, we got a text that we would have to stop coming by for awhile. The husband was having issues and the wife didn't think it would be good for us to come over until they got things sorted out. We were so sad! Needless to say, we had to come home that night and eat some ice cream as we cried our little eyes out. But we are okay now. After some scripture study, we came up with this is just a time trying our faith and that things would work out okay.
We had zone conference, which was pretty darn great! Learned some fun things and all about using the Book of Mormon in our lessons. Also, we talked a lot about having the members be a part of our missionary work and helping them to do their part in getting people to church and bring people to come and see. We actually talked about the come and see videos that came out and sharing it with the members we visited to help them be motivated to bring people. I really liked it! I'm super excited to get the members even more involved. We already have a really good ward who is good at accepting and welcoming people, but I know we can do so much more and I am so excited!
One of the fun cool things that I got to see on my way up to zone conference was the flooding. I don't know if you folks knew, but the Arkansas River is flooded. Majorly. Worst in all of history. Exciting! What a time to be out on a mission. There's going to be some major cleanup once the river drains out, but who knows when that will be. We've got more rain coming our way this week. Hooray!
We actually went to a meeting about flood clean-up on Sunday. Our bishop wanted us to learn how to help and what to do when such circumstances arise. Well, it was interesting to say the least. It was actually held at a Baptist church in Fort Smith, (so we had to get permission from our zone leader). Let's just say that Sister Nelson probably won't be helping clean the houses. It's way to dangerous with all the things that are in there. They basically talked about how you are gonna have to buy all this stuff, go in and clean, and then die. We will probably just help out by making sandwiches for the workers. Plus, the baptist church is weird. Did not feel the Spirit there.
But on a positive note, we are teaching this cute, teenage girl named Daisie! She is so smart and I can see the light and interest in her eyes. We found her by visiting with her grandma, who is a less active. Her name is Sister Spoon. It was kind of funny how it happened, because we were talking about her family and she turns to Daisie and asks, "Do you wanna be baptized?" Sister Nelson and I were like, woah, slow down. We can start by teaching her and then we will see if she's interested in being baptized. But she said she is interested in learning and she really has made progress so far.
One of my favorite things we did this week was have dinner with the Hugheys. They. Are. Amazing! I love them so much! Brother Hughey is so funny and he know A LOT about the gospel. If you have a question, you can ask him and he will have an answer. Guaranteed. So we talked all about the second coming and the signs of it. Truth is, he teaches us more than we teach him. But it was so good. Each of us have been chosen for this day and are warriors of the last times. It's going to get more difficult and scarier, but if we are each prepared spiritually, than it will be okay. I'm sure y'all talked about it in Come, Follow Me this week. ;)
This week, I really learned about how powerful faith and prayers are. I'm working right now to have better faith. Usually, we think that we do pretty good with faith and that we are good at where we are. Well, there's this saying that if your faith is the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Can you move mountains with your faith? I don't know about you, but I sure can't. But I'm working on it. I want to get to where I have little to no doubt on anything. I won't be perfect, but I can be the best that I can be.
So I have a question for all of you? How is YOUR missionary work going? One of the things I worry about as a missionary is whether or not the people we teach will feel like they belong when the go to church. I don't know how it is back home, but no matter where you are in the world, it is very important to be ministering to people and loving those people you come in contact with, member or not. Invite people to come and see, come and help, and come and stay. Make people feel loved and like they have friends who they can rely. Be an example of what you believe. Feel free to share what is in your heart. I hope you will take this into your hearts and find ways that you can love and serve those around you. Remember, every member a missionary.
I know this is the church of Jesus Christ. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer and that He lives. All things are possible because of Him. I know that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Him and that no matter what is going on in your life, you can find guidance, love, comfort and direction.
I love you all so much!
Sister Johanson
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