Sister Johnson goes to Arkansas!

Hello, hello! This week has been crazy busy, but way good. I went to Harrison (my home)! I love that place, and the sisters there are incredible. We have been doing a ton of service and meeting new people, and just going hard. With so much going on, it's easy for me to feel so busy and pretty stressed. I was reading in Alma 37 this week, and a verse really touched my heart. It said, "Remember... that God has entrusted you with these things, which are sacred." The Spirit hit me hard, and I remembered how sacred what I do really is. This is God's work. My whole purpose is to help people come closer to Christ. And the people I am entrusted with are amazing! Such a sacred responsibility. I have felt this sacredness a couple times this week. One was Tuesday. My friend Cassidy got baptized! She has been meeting with other missionaries but has started coming to church with my congregation. And she just glows. Seeing her take this step to promise to follow Jesus Christ f...

  Wow, SO much has happened this week! First, last Monday we went hiking and waded in some beautiful water and enjoyed the old district. Aw, I love those guys. Tuesday, Sister Horspool and I cleaned out gutters ALL DAY. Cleaning out gutters makes you  very  dirty. Who knew? I'll send pictures. I also said goodbye to some of my favorite people in the whole world. I cried. Wednesday, Sister Horspool and I drove up to Bentonville, and I got SISTER HESS!!!!! Y'all, she is incredible. Dream team right here. She just got out of home MTC. She's going to go to Sante Fe, Argentina, but until then, she got to come here to Missouri!! Lucky her, coming to the best mission. :D She is a distance runner. Like, takes her water bottle with her everywhere she goes, has a garmin, runs (or used to run) 55 miles a week, and is on the UVU cross country and track team. So, pretty much, we get along great and are going to start running lots more. She's also really g...

My people, hello! This week has been crazy busy and very exciting. Looking back on it, it is easy to see that God's hand has been in my life this week. And I am so grateful.  First I'll tell you about all the craziness. :) Monday, we went to Branson for a sister's p-day. SO fun! We roasted hotdogs, went hiking, and rode the ferris wheel. With all my favorite people!  Then Tuesday, we went up to Bentonville for a training. There was some solid content and wonderful people, but the best part was that the Spirit was really speaking to me, giving me all kinds of ideas and impressions about the Southern Hills ward.  Wednesday I was back in Branson with Sister Ivie. She is cool! She is such an example of faith to me because she keeps going even when she doesn't have all the answers and everything figured out. We did such hardcore service that day. And it was so hot!!! I got back to my area the rest of the week. We did service like crazy! We got 20 hours...

Good morning! What a week it has been. We've been using social media a lot lately to try and talk with people. A couple weeks ago, a guy posted on a Springfield page that he was looking for a church. Of course, I reached out to him to tell him about my church. Well, this week, we had a video call with him. He had a ton of questions, but they weren't seeker of truth questions, they were prove you wrong questions. So, not far into the conversation, Sister Horspool asked him why he was meeting with us. It told us he wanted to convince us that we were wrong! We were very polite and said sorry, no thanks, and left.  This experience wasn't crazy out of the ordinary, but it really made me think about why people do things and why I do things. Why do I want to teach people Christ's gospel and why do I serve people? Sister Minor (the legend!) asked a question a few weeks ago that changed my life. "What if your only motivation was love?" This really st...

Hey everyone! How are you? I am so excited for the 4th of July! Here in Missouri, people have been lighting fireworks every night for weeks. So it makes me very excited for America day. :) We did a ton of service this week! It was actually so fun. Well, Tuesday we sewed 100 masks. That was medium fun. But we gardened at Catholic Charity, sorted shoes and Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Saturday, we mowed a lady’s lawn. She called us her yard angels. 😊 And she gave us some beautiful glass artwork she made! I'll send pictures. I love all the service we do. When Christ was on the earth He went about doing good. And as missionaries we are representatives of Christ. It just feels good to serve too. Speaking of representing Christ, I've been thinking a lot about how there has always been opposition to Christ and His church. People hated Christ and even killed Him! As a missionary, I've seen a lot more how that's happening now. It makes me sad. But I found a scri...

Hello!!! So good to talk to y'all.  This has been a solid week. I learned a TON. We had a mission meeting (in person-- it was amazing!!!), and we talked about diligence. Diligence is "careful and persistent work or effort," and it is powerful. 1 Nephi 16:29 says, "by small means the Lord can bring about great things." I think a big way the Lord is able to make greatness out of our small things is if we do them consistently. For example, before my mission, I couldn't do pushups. Well, I could do maybe 3 if I tried really hard. Then, I met my good friend Sister Kershaw, and we decided we wanted to do pushups. We couldn't yet, so we'd set our hands on a table or stair step or something. We did 20 a day. Then, I moved to Springfield, and Sister Horspool told me that she does 100 pushups a day. As you know, I'm a pretty competitive gal, and I didn't want to be left out. So, every week I went up by 10. Now I do 100 pushups everyd...

Good morning!! I'm writing this from a rolly massage machine in a chiropractor waiting room. I have a good life. 😊 I never know what to write about on Mondays cause I'm just living the same life, but everyday is different! And so wonderful. I've realized that people really don't know what we do. People always ask us if we're okay and think we're dying of boredom or something. Weird. So, I decided to tell you about Wednesday. It was a pretty normal missionary day, but quite different from normal life. :) Wednesday, I woke up at 6:30. We call the sisters closest to us every morning and pray and read from the missionary handbook together to help us wake up. Then we did yoga over Facebook messenger with our friend Sister Campbell. We take turns leading. THEN, we went to the park and ran and worked out with our friend Kelcey. She just graduated and is so buff. Then we had breakfast (probably avocado toast and eggs), studied the scriptures, an...