Little Armenia is White Already to Harvest

Legitimately, it says "little Armenia" on google maps and that's, like, right where we are.
I LOVE my new area! Life here in the Arroyo area is amazing and I didn't think I'd love it as much as I do :) When I got transferred over here last week I wasn't so sure I'd like it. But things like this always remind me that the Lord knows what's best for me and I usually don't!!! So I'm loving life and the work is good :) It's also a lot of fun because I'm living in an apartment with two other sisters who are fantastic. There's Sister Hobbs who's from New Zealand and goes home with me, and then her trainee Sister Ti'a who's Samoan :) living with them is a hoot.
Anyway, it's really beautiful here, with weather currently in the low 70s 👍🏼 qué bendición! You wouldn't believe it, but there was FROST on our CAR earlier this week. What the what??? It's not supposed to get that cold here ;)

I'm really excited because the Lord's work is HASTENING. We had a world-wide missionary broadcast this week and some changes were made to the schedule of how we'll do a typical day. Namely we get to choose when to do our studies (instead of having a huge 3-hour block in the morning) and planning for the day will be in the morning and not the night before which is beautiful and also a miracle. Any RM can tell you that nightly planning is the worst because you're just so tired from everything that day and you don't really wanna put in the effort to really figure out what you're gonna do the next day. So I'm looking forward to that!! Wish they'd've change it a year ago though ;)

We found some really neat people this week, one in particular named Rosy :) she's so sweet and she's been taught a lot before, but after our first visit with her she said (mostly to herself) "something has to change..." it's so neat for us to see the Spirit working in people. I know Rosy will go far. She has a lot of potential :)

So that's life on our end! We also broke into our apartment after locking ourselves out. hope you're having better luck than we did! ;)

-Hermanita Johnson

Transfer Trash

In our mission, we have a term that is well-known but not well-liked because of what it entails... That term is "transfer trash," which is when a missionary going into their last 6 weeks of the mission gets transferred to a completely new area. It's generally looked at as "unfair" because it's nigh unto impossible to really get to know an area or the members of a ward in only 6 weeks.
And I, my friends, and the latest and greatest transfer trash! I've been called to finish a new missionary's training out in the Arroyo area--literally the absolute furthest I can get in the mission from where I am now. But! It's also right next to Pasadena #promisedland, and this means I get to have another kid!! :)

So obviously, I have a lot of mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's going to be really hard to leave my dear child Hna Zohner and all of these amazing members who've been my family these last 6 months. They're all mad I'm leaving because they wanted me to finish out my mission there. Many have even threatened to talk to Presidente Villanueva about it 😂 but they've also all invited themselves to my wedding and expect me to come back here ASAP, which I'm absolutely planning on. I love all these people so much. And it'll be hard leaving my investigators here.... but I'm also very excited :) I'm so happy to be back in East LA, especially because that's where I'll have spent the majority of my mission (a whole year man!) and I'm going to be serving around some really amazing missionaries :) and like I said, I'm excited to have another kiddo too! And as much as I truly love La Puente, it'll be nice to have a change of scenery. It's easy to get burnt out and start to lose ideas of how to help an area when you're there for so long.

Last goodbye with my Los Altos family <3

In other news, the heavens have opened and a torrential downpour has been unleashed upon us. I haven't seen so much rain in a long long time. It freaks me out and makes life hard. But at least our apartment is dry!! ;) and everything is so green too, which is kind odd for it being January. I guess things are different outside of Utah.

But yeah! My new hija is Hermana Green from Colorado :) I'll be serving in the lovely city of Glendale, CA which is, like I said, really close to El Molino (still my favorite area). I'm so excited even though the change will be hard.
The way I see it, I'm needed over here for something and the Lord trusts me enough to do it :) sometimes when missionaries get "transfer trashed" they make it an excuse to not work as hard your last transfer. And that would be really easy... you're already getting trunky for home and it would be pretty easy to just hang out and have fun instead of work as hard. Plus, you can't really get to know anyone or any of the area in such a short time, right? That's a fairly common mentality among missionaries who get trashed... But again, I think the Lord trusts me enough to keep working hard even with the enormous temptation to go easy and give up a little. With this being my last though AND having a cute new missionary to train, there's no way we're taking this easy!

Incidentally, Hna Blanchard (blue shirt next to me) and I are just trading kids!

Here's to a great 6 weeks :)

-Hermanita Johnson

When Your Ox Is In the Mire

Hello my dear friends and family! Boy am I excited to tell you 'bout my week 'cause it was something' else...

Primero, I'd just like to start with a quote from Elder Richard G. Scott that goes "Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more." That is what we faced this week!!

First, we had MANY lessons set up and a few members ready to come help us, but despite our best efforts, very very few of those lessons actually went through. Part of the problem was the excessive amount of rain. Apparently it hasn't rained this much here in over like 40 years, so everyone is freaking out and there's been lots of flooding and it's a mess. No one likes the rain even though they need it so badly. So everyone hides inside and doesn't wanna talk to a pair of soaking wet missionaries. Bummer :P

Then we had a real surprise about 2 AM on Saturday... I was happily asleep when I woke up to the weirdest noise (seriously that sound will haunt me forever)... It took me a minute to really wake up and check it out, but it turns out a pipe in the bathroom ceiling busted and water was just pouring in through the light fixtures. By the time I figured out what was going on, the whole bathroom had a solid inch and a half of water, and it was quickly spreading throughout the rest of the apartment. That's when Hna Zohner woke up (she said at first she thought I was in the shower and was just really confused...). And then the fire alarm started going off because the water was really hot and creating lots of steam, because winter and cold. We scrambled to throw the windows open and get the thing to shut up, which thankfully it did. And then we called the manager who--miracle!--actually answered his phone at 2 AM. He came and turned the water off and fixed the pipe, but not before the entire house was flooded. We did our best to run around and get important things off the floor so they wouldn't get ruined. So we were exhausted and couldn't get back to sleep until like 5 because that's how long it took him to fix everything.

By lunch time we didn't have a table to eat on anymore...

Then we spent all of Saturday making calls to the zone leaders, the housing coordinator, and Hna Villanueva and then packing everything up because the floor was ENTIRELY ruined--meaning we'd have to move. It was such an exhausting day, especially running on my grand total of like 4 hours of sleep. :P

Then Sunday we were in a real pickle. Because of how bad the flooding was, we needed to move ASAP, but with it being the Sabbath we didn't want to move--preferably we'd wait until today. But the apartment was SO messed up we just couldn't stay there. Our figurative ox was seriously in the mire (which is actually a fairly good word to describe the state of our apartment!) So after stake conference--which PS was amazing, we had an investigator come and it was super great--we did what you do when your ox is in the mire: get it out. We called the troops together and went to work. Major shoutout to our zone leaders, Elders Patterson and Low, and also Moises--a young man from the ward. The were incredibly helpful and went above and beyond to make sure everything was okay. Those boys are a blessing. And we managed to get everything moved in about an hour, and now everything's okay :)

Here's to life in #2 now

Throughout the whole ordeal we saw a TON of blessings and tender mercies. For one, there was another apartment in the same complex that was available for us to move into (which honestly is probably the biggest blessing of them all). Also, nothing was seriously ruined in the flooding aside from the floor. Plus we received all the help we needed (and more) to make everything work out okay. We definitely we able to see the Lord's hand in a lot of ways :) I'm so grateful we were protected in all of it and that we were able to fix everything so quickly. Blessings, my friends. Blessings. :)

....here's hoping it never happens again though! ;)

-Hermanitas Johnson and Zohner, who somehow aren't dead

Also, funny story. Zohner forgot her tag and took mine, so I took Sister Oh's extra one. I'm Chinese now

ET Phone home

Hello friends!! El tiempo está VOLANDO y no sé a dónde va. I keep being reminded (mainly by members) that I go home soon. Bleh. I'm only just starting to feel like I'm actually good at what I'm doing!!! But I guess that's life, eh?

Anyway, this week was fairly normal. We were able to do service helping a member clean out their crazy messy garage. I love service because it gives me an opportunity to wear pants ;) I almost feel a tiny bit like a normal person! But it was fun :) we threw away a LOT of junk and I probably breathed in a pound of dust (okay not really but you get the idea). The elders were there as well and it felt good to just go to work and get our hands dirty! Also as a side note, one amazing member made us RIBS for dinner because mija, little Zohner, has NEVER eaten ribs??? So that was awesome :) we don't get food like that very often....

The next day we had an ET, or emergency transfer. ETs can happen for a myriad of reasons. We don't know what caused this one specifically, but the elders' trio is down to two now. Elder Davis was sent to another area last night. ETs are always hard because they just kind of mess you up because they're so sudden and unexpected. This one's especially hard because the other elders, Pastrana and Burk, both have only been in the area for like 3 weeks, so they don't know it very well yet, which makes things really difficult. Struggles...

Saturday we took Diana with us the whole day :) She's only like 14, but she's gonna be such a great missionary one day! We love having her come with us. Her desire to do the work is contagious and we all just get so excited! :)

As far as investigators go, we're still teaching Felipe who has a baptismal date for the 21st of this month!! Please pray for him that he'll be able to make it!! He dines't have any bit obstacles right now and he's taken everything we've taught really well, so we're really hopeful with him! And we're trying to plan a trip out to the LA temple visitor's center soon :) because that would be awesome.

Oh and we broke our phone this week... right in half! Good times!

-Hermanita Johnson

I Remember 2016 Almost Like It Was Yesterday

Feliz año nuevo! If I were guaranteed one perfect day every time someone said that this last week, I'd basically have a solid year's worth of perfect days (which would be amazing.)

Anyways, what a week!! It was a good one for sure :) we got to enjoy the leftover tamales from Christmas and bask in the after-Christmas feeling of "holy cow we ate way too much."

We had some really perfect weather a few days this week--like high 70s. It was gorgeous and such a nice break from the cold!! However, the rain came back full force and soaked us through and through. It was still fun though, somehow :) haha. We had a lot of opportunities to work hard and be happy even though it was definitely a lot easier not to. We saw a lot of blessings from that. Like we found a couple of new investigators who seem really cool and interested :) one is a girl named Gissel (that's how she spells it I promise) and she has a lot of really good really sincere questions and we're hoping she'll realize that we have all the answers!

We also had exchanges this week (on New Years Eve!) and it was a lot of fun! I stayed in the area and Hna Wilde came here with me :) It was great, except that we had almost no miles left to use on the car this month, so we ended up walking around in the rain so much that my shoes leaked a stream of water when I took them off and I literally had to wring them out... yikes. But at the end of the night we had pupusas and arroz con leche from my favorite little restaurant here in the area :) it was a great way to end the day, and the year!

I'm really excited for this new year :) it's crazy to think I spent the WHOLE of last year here on my mission, but I feel so blessed to have been able to! I've learned countless lessons and grown so much in ways I know I wouldn't have quite yet if I were back at home. I know this last few months of the mission will include many lessons, much more growth, and many miracles as well :) and who know what'll happen after that!! I know that if we move forward with faith into this new year, the Lord will be able to do so much with us :) what a blessing!

Well, here's hoping you all start off your 2017 awesomely!! We sure are!

-Hermanita Johnson