Pray for a missionary experience!

Hello Family:)

This week was another great week full of adventures:) One thing me and Sister Israelsen have really been focusing on is our referrals. Some missionaries don't get any referrals, but not us! We are blessed with a million! The thing is they pick one companionship in the area and then send all the referrals there, and since we're the best (haha just kidding, we just happen to be the first on the list probably) we get ALL the referrals! They keep coming and it never ends. We got up to 21 this week... what! (They add on to each other if you don't contact them, so we didn't actually get 21 in one week, we just had 21 total of referrals that we still haven't been able to contact). So we've been working hard on those. We're now down to 14 so we've contacted a few which is awesome! Media referrals are the best, but we're also running out of Bibles to give them so that's a problem cause they all want Bibles (and they secretly want a copy of the Book of Mormon;)

Krystal is doing good:) She's gone through and is going through a lot, the mists of darkness are a real thing! But we're working with her and she's super excited and still wants to be baptized! Speaking of baptism, we had a baptism in the YSA Ward and Me and Sister Israelsen were blessed with the opportunity to teach the Restoration while they were changing after the baptism. It was such a wonderful experience and we really felt the Spirit work through us as we testified and taught the wonderful message of the Restoration. I know that it's because God loves us so much that He called Joseph Smith to be a prophet so that we could now have everything we need to know how to get back to Him:)

We got to wear PANTS on Saturday! Real live pants! It was pretty crazy. We helped a member in our ward with some community service and we decorated part of the city for Halloween! It was cute and super fun:)

One struggle about the city is learning all the busses and transportation. It took me a while but I've got it down now! With Sister Bongolto I always tried talking to people on the bus, and then I had no idea where we were so I would just get off when she got off. But when I realized I would eventually take over the area I tried to be better at knowing where we were, so then I had a hard time talking to people because I was focused on where we were. I felt like I couldn't share the gospel and know where we were at the same time haha! I've been doing better until the other night. We were talking to a lady on the bus and I totally wasn't paying attention to where we were until right after our bus stop. Which is unfortunate because if you miss the stop on the M60 bus, you go to Queens... So that was an adventure! We saw a wonderful night time view of our beautiful area and mission as we accidently traveled over the freeway to the New York, NY South Mission. But luckily there was a bus right there heading back, so we made it back safe and we weren't even late past curfew:)

Have a wonderful week! I love you all so much! Pray for a missionary experience:)

Love, Sister Johnson

p.s. Sorry to get your pumped about Hope in Harlem, but it is now post poned for the time being. I'll let you know updates if that starts up again:)

BONUS PICTURE!! We were videoing ourselves teaching so we could evaluate ourselves and for some reason my tablet took a random picture haha!! But this picture is seriously a gem. Just look at that! I'm all bugging out, making a weird face, and Sister Israelsen is just like "Oh Sister Johnson, what in the world."

PANTS for service! Wahoo!

Fanciest/cutest project building door I've ever seen:)

3. What we look at most days:) Project building halls!

4-5. Our little accidental adventure to Queens...

6. Our super fancy panini waffle sandwiches:)

Nihao!!

Hello Family!!

This week was wonderful! Sister Israelsen is so amazing and I really feel like we'll be able to do a lot of great work with her here:) We get along really well and I know we'll be able to learn lots from each other and accomplish much so I'm excited! We exercise a lot in the morning and eat healthy which makes such a difference! We're finding ways to improve our teaching and skills as missionaries every day and it's wonderful! Also, Sister Bongolto went to the Bronx, so she's not too far away from us! 

Big news of the week... I cut my own hair this morning haha! (I'll send pictures!) and I finally ate a NY bagel and they seriously are as good as everyone says they are! So yum. Another thing is the weather! It's starting to get chilly! In church we had ward conference and the Stake President talked about how our life is a process like the refiners fire. We have intense heat and then intense cold as part of the purifying and refining ourselves to be who God wants us to be. My first 3 months were filled with some intense heat days... these next few months will have quite a few intense cold days I can tell! I'm so excited and this will be the best winter of my life!! Wahoo!! 

We're starting a new little booth called Hope in Harlem where we plan to have a permanent location where people can see and we can bring hope to those here in Harlem! We'll have a table set up on the corner with things to bring people hope. Either an uplifting spiritual thought or information for the many many resources we have available for them (family history, English classes, Hotdogs and homework, addiction recovery, self-reliance...)! We're super excited to get this started so I'll let you know how it goes:)

Our amazing investigator Krystal is going great! She is so prepared and still moving forward with her baptism coming up on November 5th:) She has had a hard past, but her faith and determination to overcome those struggles is amazing! I'm so happy and excited for her:) We currently have 3 investigators who have accepted the invitation to be baptized! So I hope we can really help them take the steps they need to reach that goal! We're pushing hard for more member involvement which is so exciting and amazing! This is the best work ever, so everyone should be involved!!

We're in China Town right now! What?! I know how to say I'm a missionary and Jesus Christ in Chinese! It sounds like "Woah sure chuan (like John but with a Ch) jow (like jousting) sure" and "Yay sue Gee do" NYNYN Mission is the best! Where else can I be an English missionary with a day being a Spanish missionary and a day being a Chinese missionary?? I'm in love:)

Make it a great week!

Love, Sister Johnson

More pictures from Central Park

I cut my own hair!!! I was so excited! I've been planning this for weeks and I finally did it! Wahoo!
The width of a pass along card is how much I cut haha;)

The Brooklyn Bridge

Bridge in China Town

China town!

Transfers/Conference

Hello Family!

My new companion is SISTER ISRAELSEN!!! I'm so excited and so happy to work with her! She's from North Logan, Utah, she's a swimmer, the oldest child of 5, and she is so sweet and amazing! Her last area was actually the MTC... so the Lord has called me to be a trainer!:) It's very humbling, exciting, and wonderful to have this new call. A few times this week I wasn't sure if I was ready for this, but God is good. So good! He will help me, no doubt about it:) He's given me this call so I can trust in Him more and truly become the missionary he needs me to be! And more than anything, I want to become that missionary so bad! I need her and she needs me and we'll be able to learn and grow together. I really feel so blessed knowing that he sees my potential and all that I've become and will be able to become is because of Him. I love being a servant of the Lord and I'm excited to see what's in the journey ahead:)

Our investigator Krystal had her baby this week which is very exciting! She sent a picture and he's super cute:) We haven't been able to see her for like a week and a half though which is sad, but we're excited for her!

General Conference!! Where do I even start? We're so blessed to have this guidance from Heavenly Father for what we need in the next 6 months. It answered so many of my questions and I hope it helped you with yours! Here are a few of my favorite tid bits:)
- Love Christ more, suffer less.
- A loving God is as close as a prayer.
- When you pray are you really praying or just saying a prayer?
- If you're trying, repenting, and doing your best you will positively make it home! 100%!
- Be ambitious for Christ.
- Members and Missionaries need to work together!!
- Focus on JOY!!
- True worship transforms us to become true and sincere disciples of Christ.

Isn't Conference wonderful? Now take that beautiful inspiration and revelation you received and use it! It's for you! I love you all! Thanks for your support and love! Make it a wonderful week:)

Love,

Sister Johnson

Me and Sister Bongolto 

Me and Sister Israelsen!!!

Investigators are better than alligators :)

Hello my wonderful family!

This week was so so great! Our investigators are awesome and im going to update you on lots of them and tell you some stories about them today:) The email title... Alligators was the only thing I could think of that rhymes with investigators haha! But the weather is cooling down which is nice! And transfers will be this week on Tuesday, so it will be exciting, different, and nerve-wracking to see what happens! :) :/ :D But whatever happens will be great:)

We have the cutest investigator named Krystal. She's been the Elders investigator for a while but they passed her off to us. She has a baptism date which we're so excited for!! She's also super pregnant and is due on October 4th. We've taught her a few lessons, but the other night we were able to teach her AND her husband! They're married and so cute and the spirit was so wonderful in that lesson. We didnt know he would be there for the lesson, but what we had planned for Krystal ended up being perfect for him! The spirit was able to guide the lesson and we taught about how scripture study and pray can help us come closer to Heavenly Father and closer to each other as a family. They were so supportive of each other and so cute! 

So two Fridays ago we were on our way home at night and we met a guy on the street named Jose. The next Sunday he came to church which was so crazy and awesome! We've taught him a little and he came to church again this Sunday which was our fast and testimony meeting. But what was so cool is that HE BORE HIS TESTIMONY!!! What?! After a few people had gone up he just stood up and walked up there haha! Me and Sister Bongolto looked at each other and we were a little nervous at first cause he usually talks a lot in our lessons, but his testimony was short and sweet. He did great! And he even talked about his two beautiful angels, Sister Bongolto and Sister Johnson (as he points to us in the congregation haha!) who brought him to the true church. It was awesome haha!

We had a great lesson with our investigator Shanessa. She's been an investigator for a while, so we had just had a nice lesson to try to understand her concerns and expectations. I had asked about her expectations and she was saying she knows she can do better, but she can't be healed. We all have sicknesses that can be improved but can't be healed because we're human. I said "Shanessa, the church is kind of like a hospital. We all have our sicknesses and weaknesses, but I promise you that you CAN be healed. Through Jesus Christ you can be completely healed..." and then after a little pause she said "Then I need to get to the hospital fast." We can all be healed. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone and no matter what our weaknesses are, we can all be healed:)

GENERAL CONFERENCE IS THIS WEEK!! Wahoo!! We're about to receive guidance for the next 6 months of our lives! What I plan to do, and what I invite you to do is imagine you're standing with Heavenly Father. If you were standing with Him, what would you ask him? Write it down, and take that question or questions to conference!:)

I love you so much! Thanks for all the love, prayers, and support! Make it a great week:)

Love, Sister Johnson

Have JOY!!:)

Hello Family!

I love you all and I'm glad you're all safe! Thanks for all the prayers and love:) Yes there was a bomb in lower Manhattan, but we're at the top so we're happy and safe! I'm sad there were people injured though:( It's crazy that things like that happen here, sometimes I forget I'm in New York! But we're safe and protected and I'm still a happy missionary:)

Now that summer is over and everyone is back for school and work, the busses and trains and everything are so busy! I've now experienced what it's like to really need to shove yourself in a train haha! This week I feel like I passed some baby test of being a New Yorker! So we were on a super packed bus and we all had to move to the back to fit everyone in. I ended up getting trapped in the middle of the isle and I had nothing to grab on to except for the Book of Mormon I was holding in my hands haha! All the seats, poles, and handles were covered or too far away to hold on to, so... I just kind of stood in a little power stance, knees kind of bent, weight on the balls of my feet, and I made it to the next stop without losing my balance haha! The real challenge would be doing that on a subway though!

One thing I've really been trying to think about and work on is becoming who God wants me to be. I want to change and I want to be better, but sometimes it's hard to even know where to start! I remembered President Monson's talk last conference about choices and how if we don't know where we want to go it doesn't matter which path we take. It's the same with our lives. If we don't know who we want to become, it doesn't matter where we start or if we start in our process of change! I came across a verse in the Book of Mormon that I liked for this, 2 Nephi 1:23. It says "Awake, Sister Johnson (put your name here), put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound..." Wake up! It's a new day:) We need to shake off what's keeping us from progressing. Shake off what we don't want to become, what we're not happy with, and put on the armor of righteousness. 

I learned a profound but simple truth this week! The greatest and only way to have real JOY is to love Jesus, Others, and then Yourself. We can't put our life in any other order. We can't love ourselves, then others, then Jesus. That's YOJ. That doesn't make sense! We must put Jesus Christ first in our lives. Have your eyes focused on your goal, have your heart focused on Christ. He should be the center of our lives and who we are. Next we should turn out and focus on others. It can be hard to focus on others when there's so much that we need to do for ourselves every day, but I realized this week, we are never NOT going to be busy! Life is never going to slow down so that we have time to do everything else we want to do! We need to make time to serve others! Even if it's just a minute or two to send a text to a friend who might need it, give someone a call, write a little note. And then we still need to take time for ourselves! Because without yourself it's just JO. (Who's Jo?) Take time to love yourself, personally evaluate what you need to do to be happy and do it! These three things are our two greatest commandments! 

Matthew 22:37-39
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Love Jesus Christ, love Others, and love Yourself. You can't love others as yourself if you don't love yourself in the first place!

So, have JOY!! I love you and the Lord loves you! Make it a great week and stay safe:)

Love, Sister Johnson

Me and Sister Bongolto

This is my map of the busses we take! I'm still trying to figure it out, but now I don't think I'll get lost anymore:)

We had a rainy day and we got to wear our rain jackets!!

Natural History Museum for some P-Day fun!

Book of Mormon

Hello Family!!

First exciting news of the week! As a mission we are doing a 100 Day Book of Mormon reading challenge and it's the best thing ever! We're only on Day 7, but I've learned so many new things from the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon really is for us and it can answer our questions. One thing I noticed was in 1 Nephi 11 it talk about Jesus Christ. Every time it talks about him, He's in action. He was going forth among the children of men (v.24), he went forth and was baptized (v.27), he went forth ministering unto the people(v.28), he was going forth among the children of men(v.31). Jesus Christ always WENT FORTH to the children of men. Always in action. He didn't stay there and make people come to Him, but He went forth to them. We can be more Christlike by going forth and helping others! Be anxiously engaged in a good cause!:)

So, funny story of the week!! Haha this is so good! Me and Sister Bongolto were crying cause we were laughing so hard! So we ride the busses everywhere, and we were in line to get on the bus. We were next and for some reason the door started closing! Sister Bongolto tried to stop it so she stuck out her hands out but they kept closing. We thought it would be like a sensor and open again like an elevator door when you stop it. But it didn't... so her hands, well more like her fingers and her metro card, were stuck in the door with her metro card sticking out on the inside haha! Both hands! And she goes "I'm stuuuck!" I thought at first it would open but it didn't so then I was like, what if it cuts off her fingers! I said "are you stuck?!" and I tried to help her pull her hands out haha! The bus driver opened the door and we got in, and then he just looked at us and didn't even say anything to us haha! We went to the back and we couldn't stop laughing about it haha! What if he drove away with her hands stuck? Haha! Maybe you just have to be there? But it was super funny:)

Yesterday we taught a powerful Restoration lesson and the Spirit really testified to me that its true! The Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is for each one of us. No matter who we are, where we are, what we're struggling with or succeeding at. God has followed a pattern of love by calling prophets to teach us how to live with Him again and be happy! Nothing will take away God's love for us, and that's why He appeared to Joseph Smith with Jesus Christ and they called Him to be a prophet. I know it's true! And I know it's true because I know the Book of Mormon is true! 

Make it a great week! And make it an even better week by reading from the Book of Mormon every day!:) Wahoo! I love you guys!

Love, Sister Johnson

Counsel with the Lord :)

Hello Family!

Merry Christmas!! Haha just kidding;) But Sister Bongolto taught me that once we hit the -ber months (September, October, November, December) it's Christmas in the Phillipines and they start celebrating! Wahoo! 

This week was so good! I don't even have like five big lessons I learned in the week or anything, it was just a really successful and good week! We met one awesome lady who is struggling with some health issues and we were able to call up our elders and set a time for them to come with us to give her a priesthood blessing. It was so wonderful and I'm so grateful for the priesthood power, the power of God, that we're able to use and enjoy here on the earth!

We had a baptism in our ward this week! Yay!! Sister Bongolto and her previous companion were actually the ones to find Michael, but the Elders have been teaching him! He's so amazing and it's so cool to see the change that's been able to happen with him even just in these last two months that I've known him. He is amazing and we're so proud of him and excited for him:) He's a great new addition to our ward. The Spirit and the light of a new convert is so precious and amazing as they enter into the fold of God through the gate of baptism! I loved being at his baptism and couldn't stop smiling!

Funny story:) We got an investigator from the Spanish Elders in our mission. She's this sweet old lady who wants to come closer to Christ and strengthen her faith. We showed her the video of Jesus Christ being baptized and the whole 3 minute video she was whispering "yes. yes... Yes! Oh yes." Haha! It was so cute and so funny, but she definitely loved it and felt the Spirit:)

We had a less active member teach us a really cool analogy about our loving Heavenly Father. We're here in a maze, and He's looking at us from above. We may think we know where we're going, but ultimately he has a plan for us. We may turn one way and find a dead end. He may close one door in our life, but he always opens another. No matter which way we turn, we can get going in the right direction again because of Jesus Christ. We can counsel with the Lord to understand which direction he wants us to go so we don't keep running into walls. There's always a way and He will help us make it to where we need to be because he sees the whole picture. I know if we counsel with the Lord He will help us see how we can improve and what we need to do to become better.

I love you all! Thanks for your support and love!
"Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good." -Alma 37:37

Love, Sister Johnson

p.s. I saw Esther!! Wahoo!! We got to eat lunch together, catch up a bit, and then we went to the church inside the temple and shared a quick message about Jesus Christ's role in God's plan for us! It was so fun to see her! 

Matching outfits:)

We had a picnic at the projects;)

We met with Esther!!

Best Trainer Ever Award!

The Baptism!!