Service for days! :)

Hello Family!!

This week was a week of service! There's lots of service to do when you serve here in New Paltz and I love it! No matter who it is or what you do, service brings good feelings cause it helps those you serve and you feel good doing it! We did service for an investigator, a less active, and a member this week:)

There's one little house across the street from our church and one day sweet Grandma Weed went and knocked on her door because she was worried her giant pine tree would fall on her house haha! She ended up needing other service done with her porch, so us and the elders went over to sand down and repaint her porch and help a bit with yard work around the house. It was super fun and she is so sweet! She was amazed by our quick and willing service, and loved what we do as missionaries! She could see the light of Christ and felt the spirit as we said a prayer with her at the end. We taught her a little about the restoration and she seems really open.  The sad thing is that she just found out she has to move in 30 days:(

We helped a less active family clean their house! They are in a little bit of a rough living situation, so it was good to be able to clean up around their house. When the house is clean the Spirit can dwell there more, so even service to clean someone's house brings them closer to Christ:)

Then we helped a sweet member of ours who has so much on her plate. She's an amazing, strong, hard working single mom. She needed helped moving stuff from her attic on the 4th floor down to her yard. It was so good to help her and I wish we could habe helped her all day! Service like that where you're able to lift someone's load and make their burden lighter is so fulfilling:) Try to find a way you can serve someone this week! 

For the beginning of our Book of Mormon challenge we've been studying a lot about the Atonement. One of my favorite scriptures is Mosiah 24:14-15 about Alma and his people in their trials and how the Lord strengthened them. This time as a read, something new stuck out to me in verse 15. It says "the Lord did strengthen them that they COULD bear up their burdens with ease" Could bear up their burdens, not did. It's still our choice, he doesn't force the blessings of the Atonement on anyone. Do you want to let the Atonement strengthen you, or do you want to do it all on your own? The Savior went through it all alone so you don't have to! There is nothing you will go through in your life that the Savior didn't experience first. He understands you perfectly. He can lift your burdens and strengthen you, IF YOU LET HIM!:)

I love you all, and I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ! Learn more about it, cause "ANY increase in our understanding of His atoning sacrifice draws us closer to Him." - James E. Faust

Love, Sister Johnson

p.s. We are going down to Manhattan to go to the temple next P-Day!! Wahoo! So I may not write much. If I write, yay! If I don't write, I'm okay! (More like great and wonderful and fabulous cause I get to go to the temple and go to my favorite city in the world!!) But I just wanted to let you know, just in case:)

PS - We went bowling today with our zone and it was super fun! I was given the nickname of John Cena?? But hey, it helped me score really well! It was Sister Ho's first time bowling so it was great and we loved it!

The week in pictures

Last P-Day I got to go to a WAL-MART for the first time in a year!! So that was exciting! We also enjoyed Petco! Real stores! And their big! But, we did have to drive 40 minutes to get there... so New Paltz is small.  But yay for upstate;)

We had a fun split this week and Sister Kelly came to New Paltz with me! We taught an amazing less active family, the Salinas family, the Restoration in a simple and relatable way reminding them of their spiritual experiences. We used "I Am A Child of God" to teach about how God gave us families kind and dear and he gave us prophets and Jesus Christ to lead, guide, and walk beside us. They remembered and talked about experiences going to the temple, reading scriptures together and individually, and one of the sons remembered his experience getting the priesthood. It was a great lesson and a great day, but it ended up crazy! When we went to meet up we were way behind schedule, it was pitch black, and raining. So we ended up just having a sleep over in Yorktown (approved by President don't worry) and drove back the next morning haha! 

Half of our cute branch is all one family! This picture is Grandma Weed's house and yard, 

and we're sitting on the porch of the Hekkings (her daughter and her family's house). Right down the road are 

The Weeds which is her son and his family. So fun and we love them!

Today for our P-day Adventures here in New Paltz we went on a beautiful hike! It was at a super fancy hotel preserve place in the mountain. (Mohonk Mountain Preserve). It's basically its own little town with all sort of fun activities and things to do. Our neighbor works there and was able to let us enjoy a day there. It's so fun being surrounded by mountains and trees again. It reminds me of Utah:) 

Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon

Hello Family!

So many great things happened this week:) Yesterday our little chapel was turned into a food distribution center as we put together the Bishop Storehouse food orders for members in our Newburgh Stake. The organization was amazing, and it was so fun to be a part of! Me and Sister Ho were in charge of bagging and weighing the fruits and vegetables to match each order. I loved it!

We have two sweet members, Sister Caraway and her daughter Lizzie (15), that we call every night and read family scriptures with them. We had a Family Home Evening with them about having effective scripture study cause they wanted to be better at that. Using Preach My Gospel ch. 2 we read a few ideas and they picked two things they wanted to try. That night they started their own scripture study journal. Sister Caraway writes just one of two things she gets out of our scripture study and then Lizzie tries visualizing what we read and draws a picture of it cause she's an artist. It's small and simple, but it made me and Sister Ho so happy! 

Sister Ho is so funny! Oh my goodness. All the english "rules" that get broken and the letters that you don't actually pronounce in a word, why? I even get confused when I try to explain something because there's always an expection. Anyways, She's helping me so much and I love her:) Heavenly Father is really helping me overcome my struggle to communicate with people because I have to communicate with her so she understands, and cause there's no one else in our apartment and no other sisters in our Zone! Just us two:) But we get along great and she's helping me communicate a lot so it's perfect! Tip from her: If it bugs you, talk about it. If you don't want to talk about it, don't let it bug you!:)

The greatest and most repeated lesson I have learned on my mission is that Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and he was called by God to be a prophet. The fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth though him, and the Book of Mormon is the word of God and was translated by the power of God. I know that and I love that:) We had Zone Conference this week and it really strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration. I love Joseph Smith and his diligence, faith, and trust. He wanted to know so badly which church was true and where he should go. He searched for so long and trusted the promise James 1:5 gives. He was so sincere and unwavering in his attempt to pray and know. He wasn't expecting to be called as a prophet of God, he was only 14! He boldly went through his life completely confident and with full trust in God. I love Joseph Smith and I am grateful for him. Every blessing and every good thing in my life, all that I love and have become, has been possible because of him, because of the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in these latter-days. 

Our fast and testimony meeting on Sunday was powerful as well as members from our cute little branch got up and bore their testimonies, all of them being about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. The last testimony was by Grandma Weed who is basically the Mom of our branch and was one of the first members here in New Paltz. She got up and said, "Imagine searching for something for 20 years, not knowing what it is. . . This is it." She held up her old, worn out blue Book of Mormon with the Angel Moroni on it and said with tears in her eyes, "The Book of Mormon means everything to me." I love our branch:) 

I love our Heavenly Father and His perfect plan, and I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church restored on the earth. I love you all!

Love, Sister Johnson