"I Like Birds and Flowers"

Well, this week has been a solid week, like most weeks. We taught a
lot of lessons, we went to find some people, basically your usual
missionary work. Some of the more exciting stories from the week are
that Balmore and Christian are getting baptized next week! We have
just seen miracles working right and left through them. We were a
little concerned because last week we learned the Christian hasn't
been reading the Book of Mormon or living some of the commandments,
and Hna Castaneyra and I fasted for them, and they have read every
night since and haven't had a single problem with anything!! I have
developed such a strong testimony of fasting from being on my mission.
It really does bring about milagros. They are so incredibly prepared
for the gospel and I feel so blessed to be a part of it. Another cool
thing is that Jain and Brisa got married! Brisa is the relief society
president and Jain just got baptized a year ago. It was an awesome
night and I wish them the best of luck. They'll be getting sealed in
the temple in May.

On a funnier note, I learned how to make tortillas yesterday from
Rosie, one of the hermanas that always picks on me. She's hilarious,
and kept telling me my future Latina mother in law would  never approve
because my tortillas are too ugly. The struggle of not being Hispanic
hahah.

We went into the city today, so I have some cool pictures from that! I
hope everyone had and continues to have a wonderful week! Look for
opportunities to serve those around you every day!

Hermana Johnson

The boda!!

Gorgeous DC

Hna Castaneyra y yo

Here Comes the Sol

Happy Lunes gente!

It's been an awesome week here in DC, and the weather has been crazy!
So last Monday we were snowed in for the day and then Saturday was 70
degrees, so it's been super nice all weekend and I'm pretty pumped. It
means a lot more people are outside and people are just generally in a
better mood. The sol is good for you!

So we've had so many awesome things happen this week! First off, Judy,
the amazing human being that chose to be baptized last week got a
calling! She will be working with the primary kids which is perfect
for her. I love seeing her progress, it really is just uphill from
here! We also did a ton of finding this week so we knocked on a lot of
doors, and as always, got met some cool people, got some funny
comments, and got a lot of rejections. But the best was on Saturday.
We go to knock on a door and this kid, J..., answers. He says his mom
is sleeping right now, so we ask if he knows if any of his neighbors
are Spanish, he says yeah and then comes and knocks on all of their
doors for us and stands there with us in the door! Haha he was awesome
and will be the greatest future missionary :)

We are still working with Balmore and Christian to help them
prepararse to be baptized in March. I know they can do it, but they
have a few more things to work on before then, so any prayers are
welcome. Balmore is just so prepared for the gospel, and he is being
an amazing example to his brother.

We have a lot of new people to meet with this week, so that is really
exciting! And we are continually praying and fasting for Balmore and
Christian so they can keep going. I love being a missionary and
knowing that the truths that I am teaching can change these people's
lives forever. I am really so blessed! Thank you all for all the
support y siguen adelante!! Él vive!

Hermana Johnson

J... the kid who knocked puertas with us!

Bautismo! Bautismo!

Buenos lunes gente!

As usual this week went by insanely fast, and I'm struggling to
remember what all happened. In our area, the ward asks us to visit a
lot of families that haven't been coming to church in a long time, so
we spend most of our time working on helping them. It's fun but also a
little difficult, because you know how much really living this gospel
will really bless their lives, but it's up to them to really make that
decision. And it's a much slower progression than teaching people who
know nothing about the church, but it really is just as important.

But the coolest news for the week....Judy was baptized!! So a little
bit on Judy, she's the older sister of an RM, who came home from his
mission about 5 months ago, and she has been investigating the church
since right before he came home. So she finally made that first step
with her Heavenly Father and Carlos, her brother, was the one who got
to baptize her! It was such a cool moment to be a part of. On the
funnier side, we got there 2 hours early to start filling the font,
right? And after about 30 minutes the hot water runs out. Like
completely gone. So Bishop tells us to turn it off and wait for a
while to see if it comes back. Well in the meantime, since the font is
very old and the drain isn't the greatest, the water starts draining
slowly. So the baptism was supposed to start at 5 and it is now 4:30
and we test the water again and it is still the equivalent of a frozen
creek. But the font must be filled so we start filling again. But it
still doesn't fill in time for the baptism, so Judy and Carlos had to
kneel, because when we are baptized, our entire body must be under the
water just like our Savior was baptized. So we felt so bad for her and
her freezing cold baptism experience, but the Spirit was still crazy
strong and I am so happy for her!!

Other than that, all is pretty quiet here in Maryland. It's
exceptionally cold, which makes finding people very hard, but we are
working as best as we can to find those who are preparing to hear the
gospel! I hope you all have a wonderful week and look for missionary
opportunities around you, they are everywhere! I know that there are
so many people looking for the happiness that the restored gospel of
Jesucristo can bring! I love being a missionary, and wouldn't want to
be anywhere else right now! I know my Savior lives and I testify that
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church on
the earth. Les quiero y tengan una buena semana!

Hermana Johnson

The wonderful Judy!

Do Missionaries Watch the Super Bowl?

The answer is no, but you would be surprised the number of times we
were asked. Congrats all you Bronco's fans out there.

Well, hopefully the missionary email site is getting itself together this
week, but I guess we'll see! (There were several delays and partial letters sent last week.)
 So this has been a pretty exciting week,
I got transferred and am now in the Silver Spring Ward which is funny
because like half of the members of Glenmont used to go to this ward
before they changed the boundaries so I have heard so many great
things about it. I still am working on getting faces to names, and it
is way harder than I expected. You just meet so many people and I can't
for the life of me remember their names, so pray for me! My new
companion is Hna. Casteneyra and she is awesome! It's super sad
because she goes home after this transfer so I only get her for one
transfer. She has been in this area for a long time so she is helping
me out a ton and she is an amazing missionary so I'm super excited for
all I can learn from her!

Well as for a miracle this week, I got a call from the Elders in my
old ward yesterday and they told me that a man came into the chapel
yesterday and no one knew who he was. So, of course, the missionaries
went up to talk to him. He said he had gotten a pass along card from
two girls about 3 months ago. The cool thing is that I was the one who
gave him the card! He is apparently super solid and now meeting with
the English missionaries. It's such an awesome testimony that every
person you talk to matters! Yay for missionary work! Well I love being
a missionary and am super pumped for this transfer and this area. I
love my Savior and this gospel! Keep staying strong mi gente!

Hna Johnson

                         So we saw this house that was completely burned out, and then the
                                    house next door is completely fine so we took a picture.

 Another one of my families from Glenmont, the family G.  They are getting baptized in March!

Como El Ejercito de Helaman

Well this has been one eventful week!

First, we were finally allowed to leave on Tuesday to go about our
regular proselyting, but a lot of the roads were still really bad, so
we spent the day checking on our members and the people we are
teaching to see if they needed any help digging themselves out and so
forth. By Wednesday everything was back to normal except for the
mountains of snow that still remain on the sides of all the roads. The
phrase, "where the lanes are made up and the lines don't matter"
applies very literally hahaha.

In other big news, I'm getting transferred!!!! I still don't know
where I'll be going, but I'm leaving this area which is very
bittersweet. I'm excited for all the new people I will get the chance
to work with, and for the opportunity to get to know another part of
Maryland, but I am going to really miss these people and this city.
It's funny how very quickly a place can become home to you, and that's
definitely how I feel about the Glenmont ward. Even more surprisingly
though is that my companion, Hna Pacheco is also leaving the area. She
has only been here three transfers and this is her third area, so we
were sure that she was staying here for a while (there's only 4-5
Hermanas areas in the first place) so needless to say, it was a huge
shock. I'm also praying very hard for all of the people we are working
with since there will be two new missionaries in the area, and change
is always something difficult, but I have faith that transfers are
always inspired, and whatever happens will be what is best for the
area. So I've starting saying goodbye to a few families that I was
really close to and its quite depressing. Definitely not one of my
favorite things. But like Winnie the Pooh says, "How lucky I am to
have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

So spiritual experience for this week. Wow there have been so many!
Yesterday was probably one of those days that I think I'll always
remember. I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting. Since it was the
fifth Sunday, and they asked a few of us missionaries to speak and do
a musical number. So of course, public speaking is not my favorite
activity, and now we must add that it needs to be in understandable
Spanish. Man I was so nervous. I had my talk all ready and had Hna
Minguito, one of my roommates read through it, and then I prayed real
hard. I spoke, and didn't struggle for words the entire time. It just
flowed. Afterwords, my trainer, Hna Acosts told me that was the best
Spanish she has ever heard me speak. She understood every word and I
barely had an accent. Let me just testify that the gift of tongues is
real! But even cooler was right after I spoke we did a musical number.
We sang llevaremos Su verdad al mundo, we'll bring the world his
truth, we sang the first verse in Spanish, second in English, and
third mixed. I could barely mouth the words of the second verse. The
spirit was so strong and I could barely keep from crying right there.
It was such an awesome experience.

Well I'll keep you all posted on what happens to me this next week,
it'll definitely be interesting to see where I end up, but I'm pumped
for wherever it is!

And now some photos:

 

 One of the families I've worked a lot with, Hna. K from Peru and one of her sons.

They are so sweet!

 The Criders!  They are my family away from family!  Cynthia returned from her mission in December and they have all been such an amazing example to me of Christ-like love.

 Zone picture.  We have English, Spanish, ASL and French all in one zone!!

 

Let it snow, let it snow.......

Well we have so far survived Blizzard 2016! We haven't been allowed to
leave since Friday at noon, so we've had some very nice
roommate/companion bonding time! We've watched a lot of Mormon
Messages, and I'm pretty sure I've seen Johnny Lingo more times than I
can count. And we spent all day yesterday shoveling out cars for
people and my back is definitely feeling it today haha. But it was
awesome to get outside and help out some people. I still have no idea
what the final count is for snow, but I would guess around 2 to 2.5
feet. It reminded of the good times back in Mass (my heart goes out to
you, keep shoveling strong). So that has been our weekend. The rest of
the week was just pretty normal other than the fact that all the
shopping centers were nuts because people were preparing for
Snomageddon We had a world-wide mission conference that got broadcast
from Salt Lake City on Wednesday, and it was really great to hear from
the apostles and other leaders that spoke. Those kind of conferences
are always just the biggest motivation for us as missionaries. You
always walk out of that feeling like you can conquer the world, so I
am grateful for that.


This week we also had a family who we are teaching, the familia
Gaitan, commit to baptism! They just moved here from El Salvador and
have an crazy story, but they are living with the friends, the familia
Hernandez, who are members of the church and have been coming with
them to church for the past month. They are so great and I am so
excited for them to prepare to make than essential step in their
lives, and begin changing through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
This week I have also realized even more (if that's possible) how
grateful I am for the Book of Mormon. I have been reading it a lot
this weekend with all the down time we have, and I feel like every
time I pick up that book my testimony of it grows. I know it is true,
I know it was writing just for our days. It has been one of the
biggest sources of comfort in my life. If you ever need a reminder of
who you are and how our Savior feels about you, just pick up the Book
of Mormon and start reading. I promise you will feel it! He loves us
each individually and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to share
that with the people here.

Les quiero a todos y tengan una buena semana! Vayan bien!

Hna Johnson

Unfortunately I took most the photos
on my camera, and will not have access to a computer today :/

The Week it Snowed!!

Buenos días familia!

This has been a really good week and I can't believe it went by so
fast! It seems like I was just writing people yesterday. But this week
we've seen a lot of progression in the people we are working with, and
we found 4 new people who would like to learn more and who we have
starting teaching! I absolutely love each one of them, and I am so
excited for their future progress in the gospel, and pray that they
will have to hearts open to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I guess one cool example from this week is we were visiting a family,
and the padre almost never comes to church, but we were teaching the
Restoration to them (the story about the Church of Jesus Christ was
restored). And the Hermana's brother in law was there, and after we
had taught the whole lesson, I felt like I should ask him if he would
like a Book of Mormon and he said yes! He even came out to the car
with us to grab one! I hope he really takes the chance to read it and
pray about it.

Something cool I learned this week was from last night. Every month we
have an event called Why I Believe at the Visitor's Center where
recent converts and a special guest are all invited to share why they
believe. This month it was a man named Terryl Givens who is the author
of a couple different religious books. But he said something that
really struck me. He was talking about the story of Jonah and the
whale, and he said that this story invited us each to ask ourselves
the question, "How do we respond when others are seemingly blessed or
appreciated more than we think they deserve?" I really thought about
this and realized how often I fail to feel joy when Heavenly Father is
merciful towards others. We need to recognize that in His eyes, we are
all on the same playing field, no one of us better than the other.
Much easier said than done right? But hey, there is hope through the
Atonement of Jesus Christ!

I know that this is the only true church on the face of the earth and
that Jesus Christ is at the head of this church. I pray that you all
have a wonderful week filled with testimony building experiences! I
know I will :) until next week!

Hermana Johnson