Make it 100%

Hello my wonderful, favorite, best family in the whole world!!

I had another great week! I got to play my flute in church which was so wonderful and it went well! I sure do love using the instrument in my hands to be an instrument in His hands:)

So Sister Bongolto doesn't like raw vegetables because I guess in the Philippines they always steam their vegetables instead of eating it raw. She thought I was crazy to eat raw carrots and cauliflower... but I'm starting to rub off on her and I'm getting her to eat it now too! The other day she actually WANTED a salad for lunch haha!! But now her friends in the Philippines call her a goat for eating raw vegetables;) 

We were teaching one of our investigators about faith in God and Jesus Christ. He's used to math where he can have a concrete answer, so he has a hard time understanding things without having a clear answer sometimes. We read Alma 32:21 which explains that faith is believing in things we can't see. He turned to me and asked, "So is your faith 100%?" I was kind of caught off guard at first by his question. At first I thought of how faith is something we're always developing and strengthening like a seed or a muscle. So my initial response was that I know God and Jesus Christ are real, but it's something that I'm always still developing and strengthening. So he asked what I was uncertain about with it. I realized and me and Sister Bongolto were able to bear testimony that our faith IS 100%. I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are real and they love us! They always have and always will, it will never change. But the beautiful thing about this gospel is that we always need to be progressing. We always need to be testing that 100% to keep it there. If we get to 100% and stop, it will go down. Just like a muscle we need to keep strengthening it and keeping it fit. So, my question for you this week is, "Is your faith 100%?" If it is, Keep it there! Keep strengthening it! If it's not, how can you build that faith and come closer to Jesus Christ?

Yesterday we had a powerful zone study with President Smith that strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration to 110%!!! Joseph Smith History 1:1-20 is so wonderful! Learning about Joseph Smith's life as a boy, reading his experience of questioning, deeply pondering, and asking God for help, and seeing his faith and courage to act is so humbling and full of power. I know Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I felt it yesterday on the 5th floor of the Harlem chapel. As we all bore simple, yet fervent testimonies of this event, the room was filled with the Spirit. This is why I'm here. Because a boy who lived in upstate New York, not far from where I am now, prayed. All he was doing was seeking the truth, trying to know what was right and what he should do. His answer was far greater than he expected, but he knew and I know, that this IS the truth. Because Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us so much they appeared to this young boy, and through him they restored the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary and sharing the wonderful hope of this message!

I love you! Good luck with school/work and keep praying! Make it a great week!:)

Love, Sister Johnson

I went on a split with Sister Roper this week which was fun:)

The best one of our comp unity from last week! 

Hola!!

Hola family!!

I had a companion exchange on Friday with Sister Derzon in the Spanish zone! So Spanish all day!! It was super fun and I learned a lot from her! She actually was one of the young performing missionaries at Nauvoo last summer when we went! So we totally saw her:) She's wonderful and she taught me a lot about prayer! Heavenly Father really is there listeniung to our prayers, so if we take time to pray, we really need to take time to listen as well! He should be our best friend! Who else understands exactly what we're feeling, doing, going through, and yet is still willing and wanting us to tell him everything! He wants us to communicate with Him because He wants to communicate with us! If we pray for guidance, He really will guide us. 

It was also amazing on the split to experience a little bit of the gift of tongues! In the morning Sister Derzon prayed that even though I may not be able to know what they were saying, that I would be able to understand! And I did for the most part! It was so surprising how much I was able to understand. Sister Derzon would give me key words or say "Okay now we're talking about tithing" and then I was able to follow along pretty well! And I still got to bear my testimony and teach because she would translate for me! It was a wonderful day and a great experience!

It's amazing how much we learn from our investigators! This week was angel week! We had so many different people pretty much tell us that we were angels! We are Heavenly Father's ministering angels! But the other lesson we learned was how important baby steps are. Heavenly Father doesn't expect us to run, he just wants us to always be trying, and always taking those baby steps. Every time we fall he will always be there to help us back up! So keep progressing and taking those little steps to come closer to Him!

I love you! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Johnson

The few from one of our less active members house!

Comp unity for days:)

Our fancy dinner to celebrate that I've been a missionary for 2 months!!

Our picnic at Central Park!

 Me, Sister Bongolto, Sister Roper, Sister Robison

Remember Him!

Hello Family!!

Surprisingly I'm still here and I haven't melted into a puddle this week:) It's been sooo hot!! It's been in the high 90's these last few days which isn't terrible, but it's the humidity that makes it so hot haha! Especially in the elevators, it's like going into a suana! But being a missionary is literally the coolest thing in the world, so it makes up for all this heat;) I really do love it so much, so it's all good:) And guess what! I've been in New York over a month! Crazy! I made it through my first transfer!! (This transfer was only 5 weeks instead of 6, so next transfer will be 7 weeks). 

Honestly though, missionary work is the best! This is a once in a lifetime chance where I get to become a part of so many different people's lives. We connect with and get to know so many different people and it's amazing! We enter their homes, hear about their lives, and become their friends. We get to feel God's love for them and see how the gospel is able to change their life. It's so amazing!

I had a cool little lesson on the street the other night! We had just walked out of an apartment building and  guy walked past so we said hi. We were checking our schedule and map and then he walked back a minute later and started talking to us. He thought we were from the church around the corner, so we explained who we were. He asked what we teach so we gave him a Book of Mormon and explained that it's about Christ visiting the ancient Americas. He's pretty interested in history so he talked to us a bit about Columbus and how he was spiritual and had written a few times that he felt God had led him to the Americas. So I explained how coming to America and having religious freedom led to lots of churches, which led a young man in upstate New York to ask God which church was true. I was able to teach and bear testimony of the First Vision and how God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith. The fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through Joseph Smith. And it's amazing to see back to Columbus that God was preparing for this wonderful moment. Even before that! God has every little thing planned out! He has a plan for us and he has made it possible for every single one of us to be happy! That happiness comes from our Savior and the sacrifice He made for us:)

I learned a lot about the sacrament this week. Sadly I can't remember it all right now... but basically the sacrament is so wonderful:) We get to celebrate and honor Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us every week! There's a wonderful talk that I learned a lot from - "This Do in Remembrance of Me" Oct. 1995 General Conference. You should read it:) Also it's by Elder Holland, so you should definitely read it;) One part talks about how the perfect resurrected Christ decided to keep the wounds in his hands, side, and feet as a sign that painful things happen to good people. Pain in this world is not a sign that God doesn't love you. It's the wounded Christ who is the captain and Savior of our souls. One request Christ made to his disciples the night he suffered, and that he asks us every week in our Sacrament meeting is, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" Spend time in that hour as you partake of those sacred emblems that represent his body and blood, and remember the sacrifice He made for you!:)

I love you all and the church is true! Have a wonderful week and enjoy the last little bit of summer!:)

Love, Sister Johnson

Me and Sister Bongolto:)

My awesome district! Harlem English District forever!!

The best zone ever! There are so many amazing missionaries here in this mission!

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Laugh and Learn

Hey Family!

I'm sorry I don't have a lot of time to email today. We went to the temple which was so amazing! It felt like I was home:) And then we spent the rest of our P-Day at Chelsea Market and the High Line farther downtown! There's so much to do on a P-Day in New York! But here are my two big stories of the week:)

#1 So I went on a companion exchange with Sister Terry, one of our sister missionary roommates. She leaves at the end of this transfer so she's been here a while and she's great! They decided to have me stay in our area instead of going to hers, so I led our area for a day! I was excited and sure that I could do it! We went to a building to try and see a few of our investigators there. We kept knocking but a lot of people weren't there or they would tell us that the person we were looking for didn't live there anymore. I was so confused because we had seen them just a week or two before and they had lived there! It wasn't until one of the last people on our list that I realized WE WERE IN THE WRONG BUILDING!! The one we were supposed to be in was one building over haha! So we spent an hour in the wrong building... that was a super greenie moment for me haha! But we went to the right building for the last ten minutes we had and we were able to teach a great lesson so it's okay:) And Sister Terry was wonderful and just laughed about it haha! So I learned, when you make mistakes just LAUGH AND LEARN!!:)

#2 We had our first FaceTime lesson!!!! It was with a lady we tracted into while trying to find some less active members. The less active didn't live there anymore, but Shakeima works there so we got her number. She's pretty busy but we were able to teach her with our technology which was way more convenient for her. It was a miracle and so wonderful! Even though we weren't with her, the spirit was still there for our lesson. She is so prepared and we even invited her to be baptized and she said yes! This really is the Lord's work and this helped strengthen my testimony that technology is a part of His hastening the work.

Sorry this isn't very long, but I love you so much! Youre always in my prayers:) Make it a great week! I love you to heaven and back!!

Love, Sister Johnson

Gotta love Harlem artwork:) And Samsung for a nice little filter:)

Manhattan Temple!!

High Line

High Line

JUKE! :)

Hey Family! 

It's been a great week and let me tell you, THE WORK IS HASTENING!!! We had an amazing zone meeting where we learned all about how we can better use our technology in this wonderful work. And it makes so much sense! Every single day these people in New York use technology, so that's what they're comfortable with. So many people are too busy or not home, but even with a busy schedule people always have time to check facebook or do a quick skype lesson during a lunch break. We're going to start using Facebook, Facebook chat, and Skype for lessons and contacting our investigators! It's a little weird and definitely different than traditional missionary work that I'm used to, but I'm super excited to start trying it! I know Heavenly Father put this tablet in my hands for a reason. We have them so we can reach so much more of His children! 

So we go to a bunch of different apartment buildings every day all over the place. There's so many people here and it's amazing! But especially in the summer lots of people aren't home to answer the door when two lovely Sister missionaries come knocking:) We call this juke. When you knock and knock but no one answers. Yesterday (Tuesday) we were juke all day until dinner at 6! But the night before I made a nice little acronym for juke. It stands for Jesus Understands, Keep Enduring. There were people who even rejected Jesus Christ himself when he was on the earth. We are here as representatives of Jesus Christ and sometimes they reject us or just aren't home, but Jesus Understands. He's been through it too. We just need to Keep Enduring cause He's here to help us. He never gave up so we should never give up! So when life is rough, nothing seems to be going right, and it's as if everything is yelling JUKE in your face, just remember Jesus Understands, Keep Enduring:)

But back to last night! We were juke until 6:00. We had our dinner and then we were back out at 7:00. Our goal for the day was to teach 6 lessons. So we decided we weren't going to come home until we reached that goal! We went to the apartment for our 7:00 lesson and on the way there we met someone on the bus Sister Bongolto had talked to last week, so she taught her on the bus. On the elevator ride up to her apartment we taught a lady! We got to our lesson and she wasn't there so we called and she said she was on her way. We were waiting out in front of her building and happened to run into two other people we had met the previous week or two weeks and we shared a message with them. Then we had our real lesson that we had planned. We got done and it was 8:50 so we had to hurry home to be back before 9:30. We had 5 lessons but we needed one more! On the bus me and Sister Bongolto were both able to talk to wonderful people who were so open and prepared to hear our message! So... 7 lessons from 7-9:27!! Wahoo!! We were so happy and amazed at how Heavenly Father again and again placed these people in our path. Even though we weren't able to take time to go to all these people, Heavenly Father found a way to bring them to us! We had a goal, and He helped us reach it! 

I love being here! It's so much fun and so amazing to see God's hand in this work every day! Also, it's Sister Bongolto's birthday today! Wahoo!!:) 

Make it a fabulous week! Trust in the Lord! I love you so much!:)

Love, Sister Johnson

Johnson and Johnson:)

Our super wonderful and beautiful church! 128th and Lenox:)

We taught primary about temples so I drew this and made it into a puzzle. We cute these pages into half pieces and wrote steps they can take to get to the temple on the back and then we put it together in sharing time like a big puzzle and talked about it. It was fun and they were so cute!