"Eva Was Venezuelan"

I am currently writing this from the National Gallery of Art and I feel
so fancy haha. But this week has just flown by! I was so surprised
when I realized yesterday was Sunday. It seems like I just wrote you
all. But thankfully this week has been a great one. We saw so many
blessings which has reminded me of a scripture in the Book of Mormon
in Ether 12:12 "For if there be no faith among the children of men God
can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until
after their faith." I have definitely learned that as we stay firm in
our faith throughout our challenges and setbacks, we will always see
the blessings in the end. There are always good things to come!
Some of those miracles have been going to the Visitors Center with
Oneyda and Alex who have been some pretty difficult people to teach.
But both of them felt the spirit so strongly there as we talked about
the blessings of the temple. Oneyda kept thanking us profusely after
for inviting them there. Still not on a baptismal date, but they are
slowly preparing their way there. We also got to see Ingrid and George
even if it was just for a moment in the doorway, but we have been
praying to make contact, and we did!
We also had some awesome lessons this week. And through those lessons,
we managed to meet almost all of our goals! We picked up a new family
that hasn't really been to church since coming to the States, and have
another señora who committed to be baptized! Overall my testimony of
the fact that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers, even about
the littlest things, has grown significantly. Sometimes it is easy for
us to pray and pray, but never look for the answers, or forget to
recognize them when they come, but I know that as we look for the
answers to our prayers, we will always find them. I love being a
missionary and feel so privileged to be doing this great work. Sister
Case, my roommate, just hit her year mark and we were talking about
how incredibly fast it all goes by. The time really just flies! I'm
not sure how it happens! That's about all I can think of for this
week. It's been a fantastic one. Les quiero mucho y ojalá que tengan
una buena semana!

Oh! To explain the title, we were checking up on this less active lady
and some random guy was outside her house lifting weights, which we
kept telling him we couldn't do in skirts despite him telling us
exercise is good for you (haha). But then Hna Rivas said her family
was from Venezuela and he starts going off about how beautiful the
women from Venezuela are (slightly weird) and tells us that Eve was
Venezuelan. I was dying and Hna Rivas felt really uncomfortable. Gotta
love days like that.

Hna Yonson

All the Spanish Missionaries in the zone

 Us at the VC with Oneyda and her boys.

I need one

Atheists, Opposition and Goodbyes

It's weird to think transfers were just this past Wednesday since not
much has changed on our front. We have a new roommate, since Sister
Maire went home and Sis. Cooper came in. Our new apartment is still
treating us well.

Our week itself has been pretty rough. We decided to finally talk to
Oneyda and Alex about baptism again, hoping to get Alex excited about
something since they are now coming to church every Sunday. And Alex
said he's never once thought about baptism before (not true) and it's
not something he wants to do. Stab wound number one to the heart.
Number two and three occurred on Saturday when we hadn't heard from
Ingrid and George for a few days, which was getting us kind of worried
since they are preparing for their baptism in July. So we stop by and
Ingrid answers the door and says she cannot see us today tells us
everything is fine and closes the door. She also told our member she
couldn't come to church. Needless to say we are racking our brains
trying to figure out how to help her which is difficult when you don't
know what's going on. And number three happened just a few hours later
when Erik, who we were planning on inviting to be baptized on July 23
texted us out of the blue saying that he doesn't want to keep learning
more because he really feels like atheism just makes more sense.
Despite our best efforts to convince him to just come to church, he
said he wasn't interested anymore. Needless to say, it has been a bit
of a difficult week but amidst all of it we still have been able to
see little miracles such as sharing a message of eternal families with
an elderly man who's wife recently passed away, receiving a giant bag
of chocolate covered mangoes from the nicest atheist man I've ever
met, and having 4 investigators at church. It's an amazing testimony
to me that even in the middle of opposition, the Lord still shows us
that He is at the head of this work. We will be praying for the people
we have been working with, and to find some new people this next week.
We have some appointments set up for this next week that I am pretty
excited about.

We also got to hear President and Sister Cooke speak last night and it
was great. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity I've had to
serve under their guidance and direction. I am both sad to see them
leave and excited for President and Sister Johnson to come in. It will
be a very interesting transition. Well that's all for this week. I
hope you all have wonderful weeks and see the blessings of your own
missionary efforts. Les quiero mucho!

Hna Yonson

I Speak Hispanic and Happy Fathers Day!

I can't believe it's Monday again! I swear some weeks just fly and
this was one of them, and so much happened in just one week. The
biggest pressing news is that the Lord heard and answered the many,
many prayers of His servant, and I am staying in Silver Spring! We got
the call on Saturday night, and all day Saturday I was a ball of
nerves. Hermana Rivas had just finished training and I have been in
the zone my whole mission and my area for 3 transfers, which isn't a
ton of time but enough that President will move you. So needless to
say the entire zone was telling me I was out of here, and I was so
nervous that that would be the case. I've felt like there is still
work here for me to do, and apparently the Lord did too!! I am so
excited, and much to our surprise, Hna Rivas and I are staying
together as well! We're both pretty pumped.

In other news, we moved this week, so Tuesday was just a bunch of back
and forth from our old apartment to the new one. But we managed to get
it all done in one day like we had hoped, and the new apartment is in a
really central location, so I can't complain.

And...Ingrid and George officially have a baptismal date! We went to
go teach them on Tuesday and George told us he wanted to get baptized,
which Ingrid said is the first time he's said anything about that. We
ended up teaching about modern day prophets and Thomas S. Monson, our
prophet today. As we were talking Ingrid told us she had listening to
one of His testimonies just earlier that morning without having any
idea of who he was. We started talking a little more about her
baptism, and she started to cry and bore the most sincere testimony
that she knew the Book of Mormon was true because it had given her the
desire to change her life, and she said that she will get baptized in
July 15! Needless to say we are really excited that it's finally set
in stone.

And to explain the I speak Hispanic. I ended up translating for the
adult session of Stake Conference this weekend....I desperately pray
that the spirit somehow adjusted my words because simultaneous
translation is just not my forte haha. But the guy I was translating
with served his mission in "Barthelona" and so he told me that he
spoke Spanish and I spoke Hispanic. Only slightly offended jajaja.

But overall, it has been an awesome week and I continue to feel more
and more blessed every single day by Heavenly Father. There is no
greater joy than losing yourself in the service of others. So serve
those around you, and President Hinckley said, I know no greater cure
for the troubles in life than to help someone in greater distress than
you. Paraphrasing. But it's true. I love the opportunity I have to be
a missionary and serve others and God every day. Les quiero mucho! Y
espero que tengan una buena semana! Hasta luego!

Hermana Yonson

El distrito!

 La zona

 El area

Let Us All Press On

I'm really not sure how this week came and went, but it's Monday
again! I feel like not too much has happened this past week, but it's
been a good one that's for sure! I guess I'll just give a highlight real
for the week...
We are still working a lot with Ingrid and George. They are both
progressing SO MUCH. Ingrid now texts us randomly out of the blue to
thank us for helping her and her family find the gospel. She is still
concerned about her baptism, she was baptized in another church and
wants to make sure it is completely right for her before she makes
that step. So she is still praying for that, and we are as well. This
past week though we had an awesome lesson about temples and how
because of the temple ordinances, those who passed away without a
knowledge of the gospel have the opportunity to accept it later on.
She started crying and then told us about how her dad and brother had
both passed away and this had always been a big question of hers. She
had always heard that those who didn't accept in this life were just
lost souls until now. It made me incredibly grateful for the message
of the Restored Gospel that allows us to have precious truths such as
the Plan of Salvation in our lives.
We also got to go to the temple not once, but twice this past week!!
(man we are so spoiled haha). It was an awesome uplifting experience
just as always, and makes me even more excited for the many members we
have that are preparing to enter the temple with their families to be
sealed for time and all eternity.
Lastly, we had some awesome meal appointments with members this past
week and have been giving them all a challenge. We have been giving
them a Book of Mormon and asking them to prayerfully select someone
with whom they can share that Book of Mormon and then set a date by
which they can be taught by the missionaries. A little confusing, but
it's what President has asked us to do, and we have seen so many
miracles from it! We normally don't get too many member referrals
(people members refer to be taught by the missionaries) and every
single one of the members we have given this challenge has either had
a referral that same day, or a few days later! It is incredible to see
how the work of the Lord progresses when we all work together. I know
that this gospel is true. I wouldn't give up a year and a half of my
life for something that I thought was just beneficial. It is true,
100%. Estoy tan agradecida por la oportunidad que tengo de ser
misionera y compartirlo con mis hermanos y hermanas. Yo sé que
Jesucristo vive. I hope you all have a wonderful week! I look forward
to hearing from you! Les quiero!

Hermana Yonson


A member told us to just show up at the restaurant and they would have food ready.  We weren't hungry the rest of the day haha.

 

"Knock and it shall be opened unto you"

Temple trip #1

There Can be Miracles and Taylor Swift

¡Hola Gente! It has been a fantastic week. It's funny how regardless
of how long or difficult a week may have felt, by the time P-day rolls
around, I can't help but count my blessings and realize how much the
Lord has helped us in the past week. But that being said, this week
flew by! Not to mention the month of Mayo. I can't believe it's about
to be June! So, now for the week:

Lesson # 1: the scriptures have the answers to everything.
We have seen many miracles from using the words of God rather than our
own. I'll just give one example. Tuesday we met with out investigator
Ingrid who has been praying about a baptismal date. She is still
praying and hasn't officially decided yet, but we talked all about the
Plan of Salvation. She has a good Biblical background so she had some
questions about our stance on the Fall of Adan and Eva. We went to 2
Nefi 2 and she was amazed at how well the scriptures explained it and
answered a lot of questions she has had. This week in general we've
been focusing a lot on using the scriptures to answer our
investigators and members questions.

Lesson # 2: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, behold I will
be in the midst of them"
For whatever reason this scripture has come up multiple times this
past week, and it has been proved very true. We had Zone Conference on
Thursday. It was our last one with the Cooke's and we learned so much.
Ingrid and her son Jorge also came to church! They loved it! She said
she just felt the difference of being in a church, and we testified
yet again of the feelings of the Holy Ghost. It also has proven true
for many of the lessons we have had. It's funny how we normally meet
people in groups of three, us two and them. And this week it has been
proven again and again, that the spirit is always there. We found an
awesome new investigator last night named Erik who was referred to us
by a member in one of the English wards. He is a really intelligent
guy and was asking all the right questions, which thankfully we were
able to answer for him. We are really excited to meet with him later
this week.

Lesson # 3: I apparently look like Taylor Swift.
The ward clerk and his girlfriend spent all of 3rd hour last Sunday
pulling up pictures of T-Swift and telling me I looked just like her.
I am convinced that a large number of Hispanics think any white girl
with curly hair is identical to Taylor Swift.

Other cool miracles that don't quite fit in a category but are worth
mentioning:
Oneyda is doing awesome! She wants to learn how to have FHE with her
family. Also we got to meet with her younger brother who is a member
of the church and is now coming to church again! Her husband was also
there for both lessons, and she told him how much she loves this
church. Neat.
Christian is also doing great. He has been able to overcome his
challenges with drinking and is now doing even better than before. He
 attributes it to prayer and scripture study.
Our investigator Carmen, who told us she didn't want to meet anymore,
is now letting us come over tonight to answer some of her questions.
We are praying all goes well.

Well this is a much longer email than I anticipated, so I don't blame
you for not reading it all. I hope you all have had a great week, and
continue to do so this coming week. Les quiero y les invito que pueden
encontrar los Milagros en su vida diaria esta semana. Yo sé que esta
iglesia es la iglesia de Jesucristo restaurada en la tierra hoy y que
somos dirigidos por un profeta viviente que fue llamado por Dios.
Testificó de esto en el nombre de Jesucristo. Amen.

Hermana Yonson

Grab Your Shovel

I'm not really sure where this week has gone, or the past nine months
really. Time does fly when you are having fun, and when you add on
that being extremely busy, the time goes by real quick! I'm still not
really sure what happened this week. It wasn't one of the best weeks
we've had,  but it was definitely an improvement from last week
because we were able to work in our area every single day of the week!
On another note, it has been raining here for about the past month,
but not the fun down-pouring kind of rain, just the drizzling kind
that makes everything wet and cold but not too exciting. So that has
been fun, thankfully I love the rain and I've always thought the East
looks gorgeous in weather like this because of all the trees. There's
always a positive side, but I will not be upset when the warm weather
starts again and people are outside.
As far as miracles go for this past week, C came to church!
After a long struggle with drinking, he finally got his footing and is
returning slowly but surely. You can already see such a difference in
his face, and his attitude. We've also been trying to work with his
sister in law to help her return back to church. It's been over 10
years since she has been, but she came to the Visitors Center last
night, so we're working with her little by little.
We also got a lot of difficult questions this week, mostly about
church history and things that our investigators had read online. A
word of caution to everyone, never search for things about the church
on random websites. It will always leave you confused and with a very
skewed perspective. But thankfully we were able to focus their efforts
on the Book of Mormon, and that when we have that testimony in place,
we cannot fall.
And for a very interesting thing I learned this week from this less
active hermano we are working with. We were talking about faith with
their family, and he was talking about how faith is one of those
things that everyone will claim they have, but very few will take
action on it. As a missionary, I can testify that is true, but what he
said after is what really stuck out to me. He said that he has often
heard the phrase from others that if we have faith we can move mountains.
But so many of us will just stand there next to the mountain, tell it
to move, and then be horribly disappointed when nothing happens.
Perhaps the example of moving mountains with our faith does not imply
that the mountain will do whatever we want. Roughly translated, he
said, "how do we move mountains? Shovel by shovel. The faith part is
that we don't give up shoveling because we know that with our
diligence, and the help of Lord to give us the strength and energy,
that mountain will move." This gave me an entirely new perspective on
faith. If we want to move mountains, let us roll up our sleeves, grab
a shovel, and get to work, trusting that God will give us the capacity
to accomplish the impossible.
Yo quiero testificar que yo sé que este evangelio es verdadero. Que
esta es la única iglesia con la plenitud del evangelio de Jesucristo.
Que no vas a encontrar la felicidad eterna en ninguna otra lugar o
doctrina. Testifico que Jesucristo vive, que tenemos un Padre
Celestial quien nos ama. Le agradezco a El que tengo la oportunidad de
retirar de El y Su evangelio perfecto cada día a las personas que lo
necesitan. Les quiero a cada uno de ustedes y yo sé que esta obra es
la obra de la salvación. Sigan adelante mis amigos.

Hermana Johnson

We went and saw Einstein in DC last Pday

 Ladders

Probably the Busiest Week of My Mission

Well this has been one eventful week. Sometimes I wish Heavenly Father
could give me a warning before weeks like this so I can prepare
myself. On Tuesday we got a call from President saying that we are
moving apartments...in 2 hours. So pack up all of our things and get ready
to head out. I think I can now empathize just a little more with the
pioneras. So all day Tuesday and all day Wednesday we spent packing,
moving, and then moving some more. Missionary apartments are always a
lot of work to move out of and into, because they have the weirdest
arrangement of furniture and so you have to take out the old broken
stuff and move in the new stuff. Needless to say, I now know exactly
how much can fit in the back of a Corolla. So we are now in a
temporary apartment in Langley Park (the elders area that president
doesn't let us proselyte in) for 2.5 weeks and will be moving back to
our area at the end of this transfer. Lots of fun haha! The hardest
part about moving is that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are our busiest
days and the days that our investigators normally meet with us so we
were only able to see one of them this week. We definitely saw the
affects of that when none of them came to church this Sunday. It just
goes to show how important frequent contact is with these people who
are at such a pivotal stage in their conversion to the gospel.
Thankfully our phone has helped us quite a bit to at least touch base
with them a couple times throughout the week. Thank you technology!
On a brighter side, we got to meet with a less active family that had
kind of dropped us a few months ago, and the mom, who we thought was
done hearing from us, kept talking about how badly she has been
wanting to come back to church! Now we just need to get her husband on
the same page.
Balmore also got to go to the temple to participate in baptisms for
the dead for the first time, an ordinance where we are baptized as
proxies and in the name of those who have passed away without the
chance to accept the gospel. He loved it and it was so exciting to see
him get to experience the temple and the peace that you feel that.
Another happy note is that our recent convert, is doing a
lot better. He has been struggling a lot lately and hasn't been to
church in almost 2 months. He had told us about 2 weeks ago that he
just didn't anticipate seeing any changes in his situation soon so we
should stop trying, but this week he has finally come around! He has
starting putting in his part of praying and reading the scriptures.
It's awesome to see not just the forgiveness part of the atonement,
but the eternally important power it gives us to change our thoughts,
behaviors and actions. While he still did not come to church this
week, he came to an event called Why I Believe at the Visitors Center
last night. Baby steps!
Other than that, not too much new. I've had a nice cold the past
couple days which have made me sound like a man, so that's been
exciting. I hope everything is going well at home. I'm thankful that
Heavenly Father has really put me out of my comfort zone this past
week. It helps me to stretch and grow in way that I really would not
have had to previously. The gospel is all about helping us change for
the better, and I know every trial we have in this life is intended to
help us do exactly that. Yo sé que este evangelio es la verdad. Que
tenemos un amoroso Padre Celestial y un hermano quien sufrió y murió
para nosotros. Estoy tan agredecida por ser misionera aquí. Hasta la
próxima semana!

Hermana Yonson

Balmore at the temple

 Cool rainbow we saw going down the freeway.