Coparenting and Trio Perks

Good afternoon amigos!!! As you all know, today is Halloween! Hope y'all have a fun one :) my companion and I were going to carve a pumpkin, but Walmart (or only local pumpkin supplier) failed us and was all out :( oh whale. It's cool. Knowing me, I probably would've accidentally cut myself or something anyways!

So this week some crazy things happened! It started Monday.... My companion got a call letting her now she'd be training a new missionary!!! It's so exciting! :) But it was also way unexpected because A) those calls usually come on Thursday B) this is her last transfer and C) she still has a concussion??? Oh well. So we've been preparing for that all week (mostly by resting even MORE because Hna Villanueva said so). We've bought things for the new hermana and I've been going through all my stuff so that packing would be easier when transfer calls come and we find out where I'll be going.

Flash forward to Saturday. We had Diana, one of our young women, with us all day as like a sort of "mini mission." She LOVED it and I've never seen a girl with a greater desire to serve! :) makes my heart happy. It was a lot of fun! And then that night was our ward Halloween party combined with the English ward we share the building with! It was a lot of fun :) We couldn't dress up much, but we did what we could! And then that night was transfer calls (funny story--usually the Zone Leaders call us around 9:30-10 to tell us where we're going, but the last 2 transfer calls we've been at some sort of event together, so they just tell us in person which is nice because it's MUCH less nerve-wracking for us.) Anyways, WE'RE STAYING TOGETHER!?!?! We'll be in a trio! :D Christensen is still the "designated trainer" which makes me the babysitter/chauffeur/weird aunt of this whole scenario, but I couldn't be happier!! We always make bets (sort of) as to what'll happen at transfers and we always joked about trio-training... Now it's happening!!! I can't believe it :D We are SO excited! This also means Hna Christensen and I are going on 4 1/2 months together and it's going to be awesome. It also means I get to kill her ;) (missionary speak for send her home her last transfer). But anyway, trios are great because it means we can go in any house (there has to be a third woman in the house or we can't go in, no matter what), we can get in any car (same reasoning as the house thing), and we can more easily go on splits, especially when we have the car.

We couldn't be happier and this is certainly a tender mercy of the Lord :) I've been seeing LOTS of those lately and I can't help but smile because I know none of us are ever left alone :) certainly He knows exactly what we need. This whole thing is one big miracle for all of us. It's a best-case scenario, which NEVER happens at transfers. 

Oh, and a Chick-Fil-A just opened in our area. It's gonna be a good transfer :)

-Hermanita Johnson

Mucho Tiempo de No Hablarles, Verdad?

Hey friends! So, not much has happened between today and Thursday.... so I thought I'd share some random tidbits about mission life with y'all!

First, I'd just like to say that the scriptures in Spanish are totally hilarious. Maybe it's just me, but as far as I'm concerned everything is just so much sassier when you read the Book of Mormon in Spanish! It makes for really fun companionship study, which basically turns into "The Gospel According to Hermana Johnson" ;) like in recent reading, Amulek is teaching the people, they don't want to listen and are yelling at him and Amulek "les gritó con mayor fuerza" meaning he basically yelled at them louder than they were yelling at him 😂 which is definitely not how it comes across in English. I'm so blessed to have learned Spanish <3

Other fun things: our mission is an iPad mission (another blessing for me!) and we're all required to have the same password on it. So, my companion and I have become fond of a little game where we sneak other missionaries' iPads when they're not paying attention and change the home screen background to weird pictures we find in Gospel Library or on LDS.org--because why not?? The reactions we've gotten are beautiful ;) and for some reason they still trust us around their iPads! They've retaliated and done it back to us a few times too. It's great.

One of the better pictures we've used ;)

We also watched the Studio C "Face-to-Face" this week :) it was lovely, hilarious, and quite touching. Y'all should go watch it if you haven't. Anyways, that's about all I've got right now. This coming week is transfers, so we'll see what happens!

-Hermanita Johnson

Between the Heavens and the Earth

Hello friends!! :) As a preface, this'll be a long one. Sorry.
So last week's email was titled "All is Well, Yea, Zion Rejoiceth." Usually that phrase, when used scripturally, is accompanied by a pretty big WO. Wo unto them who say silly things así, wo unto them that think they're find and life is good or whatever. Just, wo. Well, this week we definitely felt that WO. Except it was more like a WHOA.

STORY TIME: Last Tuesday (the 11th) we were riding our little bicycles on our way to dinner after interview with Presidente Villanueva. Interviews had gone great and we were just telling him about how great we were doing and everything. Anyways, I was riding in front and went over some train tracks (that we cross regularly). But today there were a ton of big rocks in the road on the other side. With my mountain bike ti was sketchy at best, but I was fine. Hna Christensen was less fortunate and hit a rock funny with her skinny little road bike tires. Basically I heard a giant clanking sound of death, looked back, and saw my companion's face against the road. Yikes. Ran back to her, pulled her and her bike out of the road, and proceeded to call the zone leaders to rescue us (which seems to happen a lot...) So they came and helped us out a TON (eternal shoutout to Elders Bentley, Low and Pao.) They're gems and got us dinner since we obviously weren't making it to ours. Then we left our bikes at the church (hers wasn't functional at this point) and took a bus home.
Next day things were funky (namely she couldn't focus at all and her head hurt) so we called the nurse who said "Go to the hospital now you probably have a concussion." Turns out my dear sweet companion did, in fact, have a mild concussion :(

So that all being said, we've been stuck in the house (she can't bike, walk too much, or work much in general at the moment--nurse's orders) for the majority of the last week. It's a little tough because we'd both rather be out working. But we've seen such an amazing outpouring of love and little miracles that I know the Lord is aware of our situation :) I'm so grateful for all the help we received from everyone. For example, one random truck dude behind us who saw my companion go down immediately flipped around and started honking at everyone else behind us so they wouldn't accidentally run my companion over--since the tracks are raised a little and she fell right after them, nobody would've even seen her while she was still in the road. Also the elders brought us Krispy Kreme donuts when they found out :) they're gems

It's been an incredibly hard week and a half. Probably the hardest of my mission. But there's still been SO MUCH good :) like we got to teach a lesson to 7 cute little boys--2 of whom are 8 and will be baptized soon. That was SO fun!

Another miracle: the stars aligned so perfectly I nearly cried :') I have a slight obsession with/addiction to Cafe Rio pork salads. But there's not really Cafe Rio out here. There's one in the whole mission, but it's never been close enough for me to go. Anyways, one of my fillings randomly fell out for no reason... weird. So I had to make an appointment to go to the dentist. Ew. BUT. MY FRIENDS. The one and only Cafe Rio within MILES was RIGHT NEXT TO THE DENTIST! :D so after getting my tooth filled again by an incredibly nice member with some crazy mission stories of his own, Christensen was kind enough to agree to getting lunch there <3 I haven't been so happy in so long and I enjoyed the heck out of that salad. What a blessing.

And then today we had the temple!!!
That's where my subject line comes from. I came upon the phrase in Alma 1:15. Here it's used talking about making Nehor confess his crimes before suffering "an ignominious death." But still. I love it because the temple is our connection between the heavens and us here on the earth :) it's such a beautiful place.
And it was really fun because our stake president's wife, Sister Rozsa, somehow got permission for us and 4 other sisters to sleep over at her house so we didn't have to get up quite so early this morning! That was SO fun and such tender mercy for all of us <3 This woman is a SAINT. And then she drove us all plus 7 other missionaries (13 total) to the temple this morning! I am so incredibly grateful for her and for the temple and for the opportunity I get to be here! :)

-Hermanita Johnson

All is Well, Yea, Zion Rejoiceth

Hello friends! We had such a good week! Our basic highlights include:
-CAR!! We're sharing the car with the elders now, so that's fun! It makes life a little bit easier for us now and it means less time on those darn bikes ;)

-Elders had a baptism wich we helped with!! I love baptisms :) it was for a 15-year-old boy and a 78-year-old lady. Neat to see how really the Gospel is for all of us, no matter our age or background or whatever. And it's NEVER too late! :) it doesn't matter if you make an appearance in the vineyard of the Lord at the 11th hour or the 1st hour. What matters is that you're there by the end of the day and that you choose to stay there. Cool stuff :)

-We also cleaned out the closet. And by "we" I mean Hna Christensen ;) I was too tired and she likes organizing anyways. Yeah, we as missionaries have this bad habit of leaving random junk in the apartment when we're transferred so we don't have to deal with it. So there was A LOT of junk in that closet. It looks much nicer now ;)

But yeah, that's about it. It was just really nice not to have problem after problem after problem this week, ya know? Anyways, I won't be talking to y'all next Monday because we're going to the temple!!! So it'll be till next Thursday :)

-Hermanita Johnson

Two Conferences are Better than One

This week the stake center became my second home! Aside from the women's session of conference last Saturday, we also had zone conference and the rest of General Conference this week! And all of it was amazing!
Zone conference was really good. Our mission has the goal of having a "white Christmas:" every companionship in the mission baptizes in the month of December! (It certainly won't be white from snow though! Learned that last year.) It was a very good meeting and I'm so excited to start working harder towards that goal! How amazing will it be to have 75-80 baptisms mission-wide that month?? I can think of no better gift for Christmas! :)

And then General Conference!! I loved it so much. The words were powerful and inspiring. I love that when we listen to conference our hearts are touched and we are changed! I especially loved the talks given by Elder Christofferson and President Nelson.
Anyways, I'd encourage you all to go listen and re-listen to the talks, especially if there were any you missed.

-Hermanitas Johnson and Christensen