September 21st, 2020

 Well, good afternoon folks,

(Or whatever time of day it is for you)

Busy, busy week here. But at the same time, not too much to report. We did a lot of visiting families in the ward this week, which was really good. We have a goal of meeting 10 families each week and sharing a message with them. It's been really nice as I've started to actually meet people who live in the ward😂.

We started Jerry's new member lessons this week, which has been good. We also celebrated his birthday with him, as well as some members who invited us and him. He is very popular in the ward, so the members just love to shower him with attention and love.

Funny story. It's kinda short, but on Saturday, we had planned on seeing a less active and had planned to be there 30 minutes to an hour. Well, about an hour before we are supposed to come over, he texts and wants us to come a half hour earlier and stay for 2 hours. And to eat dinner with him outside (He wanted us to come at 3pm😅). Problem was that we had a dinner and teaching appointment right after and were busy before, so we could only do the one hour. But, he still wanted to feed us. So what do we do? We eat 2 meals in a row, that's what we do. I was soooooo full. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do that again on my mission (yes. Unfortunately, this has happened before. A couple times) I could barely bring myself to eat anything the next day.

Heavenly Father loves us all so much. Even when we don't think He does, or we forget, or when we do something wrong. He still loves us. And He has a plan that is going to make everything work out. I've been worrying about a lot of things lately, but I just have to remember that whatever happens is going to be better than anything I could have ever imagined.

I love you so so so much!!!!

Love,

Sister Savannah Johanson

September 14th, 2020

 Hi Friends!

Oh, it's been a beautiful week!!! Jerry was baptized on Saturday and it was so wonderful. There were so many people who loved him who were there, and overall, he seems pretty happy. Now we just gotta start getting him working towards the temple!!

There was a lot of fun stuff that happened this week. We had a photoshoot on Wednesday with some missionaries in our stake. We needed some updates stuff for our Facebook page, so we recruited one of the wonderful members in our ward to come and take some family pictures of us. Sister Higley coordinated (sort of. Elders aren't the best listeners) the outfits.

We've had some service and we have been baking zucchini bread for members and people we are teaching. We also gave some to our neighbors, who we are making friends with. There is a lady who lives above us with the cutest little boy ever! He says hi whenever we walk past.

We heart attacked our apartment building, leaving little notes and our names on our doors. People have definitely noticed and seem to like it. One lady sneakily dropped off a present at our door thanking us, as she had had a rough day and felt so blessed when she came home to see our encouraging thoughts.

One night, we had just randomly gone outside our apartment and started talking with this one girl and ended up having an impromptu bible Study with her. She loves the Savior and has been wanting to go to church. We are hoping we can keep meeting with her.

There are so many blessings and amazing things going on. I hope y'all are seeing them too! J love you!

Love,

Sister Savannah Johanson

September 7th, 2020

 Wow Friends!

Oh my goodness, this was a busy week! When you are training someone, you have loads more stuff you have to get done and we for some reason have a bunch of other stuff too.

Okay! First off, fun new thing, we've started doing chalk every night. We have been trying to talk to people more and we always see these kids playing in this parking lot near the apartments, so we decided to do something that would let us be out there and try talking to people. It took a couple nights, but eventually the kids came up and talked to us and now we are bestie pals with them! Their parents also made friends with us and it was pretty cool and fun. The kids are SOOO cute.

We had service at a food pantry, which was so fun! I love that kind of service. It was a drive by sort of thing, so our job was to put together the stuff on a table for the people to drive up and grab it. I felt like I was back in Arkansas. Since I've gotten to Bentonville, I've felt like I was back in Utah, cuz it's so similar. But I was able to feel like I was back in my mission environment.

We slowly started getting to know the ward more, which is nice. It's so weird not knowing anyone and having to slowly figure out who people are. It usually takes a minute anyway, but now it's a little longer. But we've gotten to know some awesome people. This ward is so amazing! I love them so much!

Jerry is all set for his baptism! He had his interview, which he did great at. He was sweating buckets about that bit, but he did just fine. Now we wait for the big day on Saturday.

I've been learning about hope this week and what that means. The tricky thing about hope is that it's so similar to faith and they are so closely related that we sometimes think they are the same thing, when in all actuality, they aren't. Faith is knowing God and Christ and trusting who they are and acting with little to no understanding besides knowing that God will take care of it. Hope is trusting God and Christ when we can't do anything and we don't know what's ahead. Hope is related to a brighter future and hoping, believing that what we give Him to work with will be made enough through Him. At least that is how I like to see it.

I love you all! Until next time, adieu!

Love,

Sister Savannah Johanson