Turkey Day!

This week was Thanksgiving and it was totally great!!
First off, I LOVE Hna Hernandez!!! She's super sweet and she's helping me a lot :) she's a great example and I can tell we're gonna be good friends :)

It was kind of a rough week because we basically had to start over--a lot of our investigators dropped us or we had to drop them, so we did a ton of finding and walking all over East LA. It was hard, but it was good :) we have a lot more set lessons for this coming week already. So yeah! There won't be quite as much to tell from this week. However, this one dude showed us how to put air into a tire and told us "being ignorant is forgivable. Being a moron is not." And then we got hugged by a random homeless guy... that was awkward! I also ate pumpkin pie, and it wasn't even nasty ;) Then we had another random guy tell us his whole life story and after he turned to me and said "you're a beautiful gem of righteousness" and then "your inner soul shines brighter than your outer soul," and that that's why I stand out in East LA (definitely not because I'm the only blonde, white girl here).
Thanksgiving!!! It was so awesome. We had dinner #1 with the familia Gonzalez and it was a lot of fun :) then we had dinner #2 with an investigator and their whole family, which was also a lot of fun. It made me really excited to have my own family one day :)

Elder Ricks has a kid now, too. He's training Elder Burrenatu from Hawaii, and he's super cool :)
In other news we found a house that literally has like 20 cats... Yuck.
Saturday I ate menudo, aka, the lining of a COW STOMACH??? Bleh! Taste-wise it wasn't horrible... but the texture was awful. BLEH. But to make up for it, we had dinner with the familia Tzarax again too :) I adore their family and I just feel at home with them <3 Also, there's this sweet member who always calls me her princesita, or little princess :)

So one thing Elder Burrenatu asked us (being a greenie) was "what keeps you going everyday?" I thought a lot about that--because it is really hard to keep going with this work. It's not an easy thing. But I can easily say that it's the love I have that keeps me going through all the rough, discouraging times. Love for the members, our investigators, and especially the Savior :) This work is all about love, and so love is what gets me through it. It's amazing :)

-Hermanita Johnson

Me La Quitaron

Another week here in East Los down! And so many things happened.
Last Monday I bought an excessively Mexican dress!! :D I love it.
Tuesday was a pretty slow day and Wednesday we taught our Peruvian grandpa Rafael! Rafael is basically the best. He stopped us during the lesson to call a friend of his to invite them to listen to the missionaries. How great is that?? :) It's neat to see people's desire to share the Gospel themselves grow and grow the more their testimony of it does! Then after teaching Rafael we got to make brownies at an investigator's house :) They're for district meeting on Thursday, and really, they were quite delicious. And that night a member made us alphabet soup! :D it was actually really yummy and we had a good lesson with her afterwards.
District meeting Thursday was really good and we had our brownies and a cake the elders made. Then we went to a training meeting at the office in Arcadia. And we made friends with one of the security guards at the Nike store! Nice!
Friday we made friends with a fruit stand man who sells fruit on the corner. Seeing as we were friends, he gave us a bunch of fruit for free :) It was super good, let me tell ya.
Saturday I ate pupusas (LOVE) and tried tamales for the first time. Both were delicioso :) and we also randomly had a bunch of people tell us we need to hurry up and get married... Actually, we hear that like every other day from people we don't even know... It's odd.
Sunday was rough because we found out they're transferring Hna Evanson :'( I'm gonna miss my momma a lot, but she's still in the zone, so at least I'll get to see her on p-days :) My new companion is Hna Hernandez and she seems really great so far :) she's short, from Mexico, super cute.

So some thoughts: I've decided my favorite chapter in the BoM is 3 Nephi 22. It's an Isaiah chapter, but it's really comforting and I really like it :) also remember the story of Peter walking on the water? It was the early hours of the morning (think 3-4) and there was a pretty bad storm. Well that's when Peter tried to walked on the water--in a storm, way early in the morning. He started sinking and Jesus immediately pulled him out and together they walked back to the boat, and the storm stopped. There are a lot of storms in life, and sometimes they come up at the worst times, they show up in the fourth watch. Through these storms we try our best, but sometimes our doubts get the best of us and we start to sink. But. Our Savior is right by our side, and is ready to immediately pull us out of the water. And when we exercise our faith in Him, He'll help us walk back, through the storm, on top of the water to the safety of the boat. And once we make it through all of this, the storm will die down and we'll be alright :) It all hinges on our faith in Christ though. Through our faith in Him, we can walk on the water and we can make it through the storm to Christ. So when the winds and the waves get crazy, remember that our Savior is there, for all of us :)

-Hermanita Johnson

Week of a Thousand Tacos

What a week!!
So last Monday I think I mentioned Daiso??? It's this amazing Japanese dollar store. It's super weird, super Asain, and it's lovely. I want to live there. We got to go today and I just love it :) After all that we taught Franklin and Astrid! We Loe them so much :) they're doing great, but they've been sick so we didn't get to see them much this week. Tuesday was a rough day--all our lessons fell through :( oh well. We keep tryin

Wednesday was good, but sad. Or baptism for Rodolfo fell through :( a lot of rough things happened in his family, so he couldn't do it at all this week. He says he still really wants to be baptized though, so that's good. However, another of our investigators, Rafael, committed to be baptized on the 29th! :) He's really great and we love him. He's been reading the BoM and he's come to church too!

Thursday. Lots happened Thursday. We had our district meeting and it was lovely! But afterwards we started talking to a guy on the street and he asked us if we could drive him back to his hotel, and he pointed to his car across the street. It was this gorgeous red Camaro (aka my dream car, though maybe not in red...) Dang though! It was hard to tell him no (we have rules against that sort of thing). So that was a really interesting encounter...

Friday was slow. All of our appointments fell through again and so we tried to find a lot of the potentials in the area book. It was just kinda rough. But that night we had exchanges! I went with Hna Cook to her area :) she's super cute and (wait for it...) I love her!

Saturday we made like a hundred thousand tacos. There was this stake Relief Society activity and they needed help preparing all the food--so that's what we did! I helped chop up the meat and I didn't even cut myself ;) #progress. We put together around 300 tacos, but it felt like a jillion. And the whole time, for whatever reason, I was having crazy guitar withdrawals. I need to find a member with a guitar!

So then one thing I've been thinking about... During the encounter with the Camaro guy he asked us "if there were some crazy extremist people with guns to your head, would you still say you believe in Jesus and all this?" It made me think about what I would do or say in such a situation... We live in a world where it's hard to stand up for what we believe. But we need to take that stand, no matter the worldly consequences. Also I've been reading in Alma where it talks about them buying their weapons of war (chapters 24-26ish) and y'all should just go read it. Super good stuff :)

So that's it for the week! Love y'all!
-Hermanita Johnson

Identity Crisis?

I survived another week and it was great!
Tuesday I was so are from Monday's soccer that it hurt bad to even laugh, which was a struggle since I taught so much. AY. But we had this potential investigator, se llama Ever, and we got to go help her kids do their homework :) yay simple service! But because of that she let us teach her the first lesson too! It went really well. Then later we were able to do the ward noche de hogar (family home evening) with the elders. Good stuff :)

Wednesday was excessively cold. I didn't sign up for this when I came to Cali ;) but I borrowed a sweet sweater from Hna Evanson. I feel like a hobo when I wear it and I love it! Then we got a new potty! It's more efficient or whatever, I dunno. We also met a really sweet old lady with some...interesting beliefs. She was fun to talk to though :)
Lately we've been struggling to get people to have us back for a second lesson, so we spend a lot of time trying to find new investigators. But we did get to teach the family that came to church, Franklin and Astrid! They're amazing and we love them so much :) they were going to come to church again this last week but they were all sick :( pray for them! Then at the end of the night a neighbor kid came over for help with his homework and his mom rewarded us with hot chocolate :)

Thursday we had a zone meeting way up at the stake center and we got to take the train! (I LOVE the train). It was a really good meeting and I learned a lot. Afterwards though we went to Pollo Loco for lunch and I had the biggest identity crisis of my life: what do I tell the Pollo Loco guy my name is for the order?!?? The struggle is so real. I blanked and he just put Johnson since it's on the tag :P Anyways, we got to teach Elpidia a little more and her daughter Stephanie was there too :) They're both really great and understand all the things we've taught really well.

Friday was lovely. Hna Chino fed us dinner and it was delicious! It was also the first time I haven't been able to finish all the food that was given to me ;) Like I said, there's a reason people get fat in this mission. But we had 2 members come with us for lessons, Carla and Gabby :) they're cute little young women and they're so great. We've been working really hard to get members out with us more, so it was really good that they could come :)

Saturday we had a member feed us French toast for brunch and it was so yummy :) and then we got to teach 2 cute kids, Josh and his little sis Sammy. They both know a lot about the Bible already and they understood the Restoration really well! I love them!

Not much happened on Sunday :/ we only had one set lesson, which was hard. But we're doing our best and working hard :) there's this talk from conference by James B Martino that I really love. He talks about faith and finding answers. I encourage you all to go read/watch it again :) Also look up Romans 15:4. It's good.
And to end, a quote from Confucius: "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." I know our Savior's always there to help life us when we fall :)

Ciao!
-Hermanita Johnson

Halloween

Another week down here in East LA!
Goodness lots happened. So for starters on Tuesday we went down to Commerce, another city in our area. It's all suburb-y and there are a lot of semi trucks. Not many people wandering round for us to talk to though. But we made friends with a doggy by our investigator's house :)

Wednesday we found out my companion's driving privileges were revoked for an accident that happened months ago. So guess what? I have to drive now :P It's scary, but it's really not too awful. The worst is learning how to parallel park. Ay ay ay! And then we got lost of the freeway in the dark. How's that for your first day learning how to drive in Cali? But we made pancakes after that, so that was fun :)

Thursday I got my bike! Not that I'll use it here, but still exciting nonetheless. We also had a really good district meeting and we made French toast for lunch :) then we planned our "Road Trip of the Americas" that Evanson and I are gonna take. It consists of seeing a bunch of random places in the states, Mexico, and Guatemala. Neat, huh? ;) But then we met this super amazing lady named Elpidia! I super love her. Yeah, Thursday night I just LOVED every person we met and it was awesome! That's what the work is about: loving the people :)

Friday the sister trainers, Hnas Cook and Budding, came to do studies with us! They're cute and we love them :) Then we went to see a less active member, Hno Romero, and the lesson went pretty well considering we're still totally unsure of how to help him. But of well. We got breakfast burritos and shakes after--yum! :)

HALLOWEEN!! We didn't get to dress up or anything, but it was good anyway :) we loved seeing all the kiddos dressed up. We talked to some really cool people on the street and then had dinner with the Tzarax family again. We love them and I think they love us just as much :) I ate 3/4 of a pizza that they got for us too. Ay ay ay! Getting fat is a real issue in this mission ;) Then our investigator Rodolfo had his baptismal interview after dinner! So he'll be getting baptized this Sunday. So exciting! :)

And then November! Yesterday we had 4 investigators come to church! MIRACLE! :D Oh my goodness it was amazing. We had Rodolfo, another investigator named Rafael, and then a cute family: Astrid, Franklin, and their two boys Derek and Christopher. AND Hno Romero came! It made us so happy :)

So yeah! Just to end here I'd like to invite you all to go read Elder Anderson's talk from the priesthood session of this last conference. It's amazing! In it he invites us to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover, and I'd extend the same challenge to you :) I know the Book of Mormon will strengthen our faith and bring us even closer to our Heavenly Father EVERY time we read it. It's a great book (and that's an understatement).

Love you guys!
-Hermanita Johnson