Sister Johnson goes to Arkansas!

  Hello, hello! The theme of my week is that I LOVE Jesus Christ so much and I love being part of His work. His gospel is so good, and seeing people come closer to Him and feeling myself come closer to Him is my favorite thing ever.    Jen showed us how to make the yummiest guacamole this week! She is so kind. Afterwards we were talking about what she's been reading in the Book of Mormon, and we started talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). We asked her if she wants to be baptized, and she said YES! She has a lot of physical challenges that will make baptism difficult, but she's shooting for June 5th. There was such a good Spirit there as we were talking. I'm so grateful I can be part of her journey as she moves closer to Christ.    Saturday we had dinner at the Kincades house, and they invited Val to come too. Wow, that was guided by God. Brother Kincade and Val hit it off hard! We re...

  I watched a devotional this week by Elder Gong. In it, he told a parable that has taught me a lot-- the parable of the pearl and the box. The story is, a merchant travelled so far and came back with a perfect, beautiful pearl. He wanted everyone to see it, so he hired someone to make a beautiful box to put it in, and he set it on display. Lots of people came to see, but the merchant was sad. He realized that the people weren't looking at the pearl-- they were focused on the box.  I've been pondering this parable a lot this week. I don't want to be guilty of paying more attention to the box than the pearl. I want to center my life on what matters most.  My "box" has been changing a lot this week. It's been wild! Sister Maxfield got all packed up and flew home to Utah on Friday! Aw, I will miss her!!! Now I have Sister Barlow, and she is good. She has a lot to offer and will be just what this area needs. Also, it has been COLD. Right now it is 5°, feels li...

  Missions are hard. You give your whole self every single day for a long time. You have to do scary things like talk to people you don't really know and have major changes in your life every 6 weeks and tedious things like create workshops plan. Yesterday, Sister Maxfield and I were both hangry and trying to plan a lesson and just started laughing at ourselves cause we were struggling so hard! But there are also times of complete, full joy that I can't even describe that makes everything else so worth it.  Cindy got baptized Saturday morning, and it was one of the most wonderful things I've ever been a part of. She's gone through a lot to get to where she is now and has a lot of hard things yet to come, but she is truly converted to Jesus Christ and cares more about following Him then anything else. There is such a light about her! After the baptism, she said she felt this weight lifted off her that she didn't even know was there. In church, she bore her testim...

What a week it has been! I love living in Arkansas. I am surrounded by such great people, and it is gorgeous here! We had lots of meetings this week, I went to 3 birthday parties, and I went to a cello concert!!  I have some funny stories that happened to me yesterday I wanted to tell you about.:) We were at Joanna's house for a Book of Mormon study, and she asked us to help her with a few things. So we took her trash out to the dumpster. When we were walking back, I stepped on this metal grate, and it tilted out from under me, and my leg fell into this pit up to my knee! I thought I was going to fall into an underground sewer and be stuck forever... but instead I just bruised my knee. The Book of Mormon study was really cool though. They are such sweet ladies and they recognize the Lord's hand in their lives. Joanna was asking all these questions about how we got the Book of Mormon and seemed excited to read it. I'm excited for her and her mom to read more. Reading the B...