Speaks little but with Power, Week 7

 HELLO FROM THE BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS OF SPAIN!!!!!

 Okay so wow so much has happened. We left the CCM and took a bullet train to Barcelona!!! President and Sister Dayton (my mission president) picked us up! I LOVE them. And then they took us to Montjuic Castle (not sure how to spell it). But that was really amazing.

And then that night I spent the night with the sisters serving right there in Barcelona and was assigned one of them as my companion and we went out and contacted and worked! It was incredible. ALSO from our piso (apartment) we were directly in sight of the Sagrada Familia! Which we also walked by multiple times. Holy cow that is a BEAUTIFUL building. I hope I get the chance to serve in Barcelona. Imagine the things we'd do for preparation day wow!

Speaking of, TODAY WAS SO FUN! We all rented bikes and rode them for a couple hours right along the coast! This place is absolutely beautiful. And the weather was perfect. Ah I LOVE Spain how did I get so lucky to serve here????

Anyways my trainer is Hermana Sperry! She's from Draper, Utah and has been out on her mission for a little over a year. We have already seen so many miracles together. She's seriously incredible. Best friends:)

ALSO Hermana Barlow and I live in the same piso! It's the four of us: me, Hermana Sperry, Hermana Barlow, and her companion Hermana Nelson. SO HOW CRAZY IS THAT! Also another elder from the CCM is in my district! So there are a lot of new missionaries here on the islands. It's kind of rare but I'M SO HAPPY TO BE HERE IT'S THE BEST!

Okay so I gotta tell you the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. Sunday. We had a really good day and then it was time to be back at our piso, but we got back like a minute and a half early so we just waited outside till the hour. ("cause in this mission we are exactly obedient" - love that btw:)) and out comes this man who started talking to us and told us that he had seen us and wanted to talk to us, but hadn't until then. And he just started going off about his life and how sometimes he has really good times and sometimes really hard times, and right now is a good time and he knows the only way he can keep it that way is through faith in Jesus Christ. And he told us he wants to come to our church!!!!!!!

So Hermana Sperry got his number and set up a time that we could meet with him to teach him!

So we went yesterday to his piso and were planning on teaching the Restoration, but we sat down and Ricardo (that's his name) just started talking. For literally an hour he told us his whole life story. And cried a couple times. And told us when he has felt the Spirit guide him. And he told us that he felt the spirit guide him to talk to us. So that was really special. 

And then finally when we could get a word in (haha) Hermana Sperry pulled out a video that shows a reenactment of Christ's baptism and as he was watching it, he said "I've always wanted to be baptized like Jesus Christ was." So we were like. WHAT PERFECT. 

And then when the video ended I said "Seguira el ejemplo de Jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguien que posea la autoridad del sacerdocio de Dios?" (Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who holds the authority of the priesthood of God) and he said "Si" 

HE'S GETTING BAPTIZED ON THE 15 OF APRIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited for him. He's so ready. It was literally a MIRACLE and it was so important that we had been exactly obedient and waited until it was exactly 10:00 before going inside, because that was the way that he could talk to us in the first place. So blessed.

Seriously this is the happiest time of my life. AND I even had a spiritual epiphany moment (which I know was the Spirit) while we were walking down the street. I was thinking about why the heck people say missions are so hard (because so far I've just had the time of my life), and was pondering on the phrase that we always say as members of the Church, "When you have faith and believe in Christ and turn over your burdens to him, you can still feel joy in the hard times." And i was just wondering how? How EXACTLY is that the case? AND NOW I KNOW!

We turn over our burdens to Christ by taking His yoke upon us. How do we do that? By walking beside Him. How do we do that? BY DOING WHAT HE WOULD DO! Which means being obedient, loving, and serving. There it is. Mosiah 2:41. We are happy when we keep the commandments (even in hard times) because at those times we are turning our burdens over to Christ and a direct result is peace and joy in our lives. BAM!

So yes I am doing absolutely wonderfully. Life is so good and I love being a missionary! And I cannot tell you how blessed I feel to be in El Faro, the lighthouse of Europe. This mission is very special and I love it. 

I love you all!!!! So so much!!!!

Love,

Hermana Johnson

BONUS extra info for anyone who is super curious:

Okay I made a list of just little detail things I want to tell you

1. FOOD! We've cooked for ourselves mostly. Except we have a couple investigators who own restaurants so they'll give us something to drink (like passion fruit juice) when we visit them.

2. there are tons of stores and GELATO ON EVERY CORNER! Italy mom! So we've frequented the gelato places don't you even worry!

3. We can see the ocean WOOOO!

4. We don't have a dryer or a dishwasher in our piso (apartment) but we do have a washing machine thank goodness!

5. Our district meetings are funny cause half of our district is on the other island. So our meetings are over face-time good times.

6. Elder Chin Ah You (from the CCM) is in my district! And my branch!

7. There's a senior couple on our island. The Nelsons They also live in our area so we go over there for bathroom breaks and they feed us and they're like our grandparents. It's super cute.

8. This mission is incredible. El Faro. We are exactly obedient. The second the hour for study time starts, we are on our knees praying. When the alarm goes off in the morning, we JUMP out of bed. If we are running late and might not make it home by 10 pm, we RUN home. We had to do that last night. Literally I was dying. But it's how we show our faith to Heavenly Father so any chance we have to do that is good because then we'll see miracles. And let me tell you. WE have seen miracles.

9. Also no English on the streets. So my companion and I speak only Spanish when we're walking around. I can understand everything she says. Minus a few words here and there. But it's amazing. I'm learning very very quickly and I can see the progression which is just amazing.

10. DOGS EVERYWHERE OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! It's amazing. Everyone on the streets has their dog. And Ricardo had a puppy so when we were teaching him the puppy just cuddled up right next to us! So happy I absolutely loved it.

So we spend a lot of our time on the streets finding new investigators. Which goes really well and we've found a ton. And then we'll go do pass-bys which is where we knock on people's doors that are either inactive, or stopped taking the lessons at some point and we just have a record of them. 

And then we have our investigators. There's Alex who we're hoping can get baptized on April 22 but he has to quit smoking first. He's on a goal right now to only smoke twice a day. So we're working on him.

And there's Sandra who's children have all been baptized, and she would TOTALLY get baptized tomorrow except for the fact that she's living with her boyfriend. They've been together for 26 years and have a family and everything but the dang man won't just marry her! It's frustrating. But she's great and she comes to church every week and LOVES everyone there. She participates in relief society and is basically a member. It's adorable. Also she's our mom. Sometimes we just stop by her house to say hi and leave a little message. I just love her. 

And there're others that I don´t have a lot of details for.

OH we had a special experience with one contact! Her name´s Virginia she´s from the Dominican Republic. We talked to her a little bit and then we asked if she wouldn´t mind if we said a prayer with her really fast. So I said it and she started crying and was like "My mom died and I was walking down the street praying to not be sad and then you two stopped me thank you so much". It was special. We think she´ll be super receptive to the lessons.

And then more details about Ricardo! So read my group email and then come back to this. So after his big long monologue about his life, we asked if we could start with a prayer, which I said (my companion has me say all prayers ever haha she´s cute) and he started crying and afterwords I just told him how special he is to His Heavenly Father and started crying (classic me) and that we have the true church (don´t worry, he had told us earlier that he wanted to know which church was true and felt like we had it. So it´wasn´t too overbearing for me to say that) and it was just really special. And then he went on a big monologue again. and then we did the whole baptism thing. And then towards the end he turned to Hermana Sperry and said "she speaks only a little, but with power". So that was nice haha. I like that. It was just really special. I love!

CHURCH! Haha I love my branch.  And the women are HILARIOUS hahaha. They´re so loving. And I got hugs and kisses from EVERYONE. And they´re loud and have opinions and I just love it. Sandra fits in perfectly hahah that´s why she´s basically already a member. It´s amazing. Also I got called up to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting. Good times.

And we went to a baptism on Saturday! The zone leaders investigator was baptized. That was super fun. Also the church is an actual church building not just the top floor of an apartment building or something haha. It´s really nice.

Also I´ve taken so many pictures but I haven´t been able to get them on my tablet. So. I´ll work on that. Sorry for the lack of pics right now. How was the blog? Were there details for you on there?

Also my favorite foods! Napolitanas and paparellenos. Look it up it´s heaven.

Madrid MTC Week Five/Six-Next week, Barcelona!

 First of all, BIG CONGRATS TO THE CUTEST NOAH FOR GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!! What a happy thing!!!!

Also tomorrow is officially 6 months since I got my mission call!!! What a happy time! that might've actually been the best day of my life:)) YAY BARCELONA!!

Speaking of...I go to that exact place in 5 DAYS! Ah WHAT! I've been in the MTC for 6 weeks already???? I do not feel ready. But at the same time I'm so excited. I'm excited to get to teach real people and watch them progress. It is kinda scary though. But I know it's going to be awesome. So we take a bullet train at 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday. So Monday's our last day! Sad:( I actually LOVE the MTC. I'm going to miss it. And I'm going to miss all the missionaries here that I've become so close with. Not to mention my teachers who I absolutely love.

OH ALSO! Once I get to Barcelona my p day will probably change to Monday. So I won't be able to write until then. Just so ya know :)

The PARK! So. I was companions with one of the sisters going to Russia. But thankfully she loves languages and wants to major in something with languages and actually plans on learning 7 languages so she actually does know a little bit of Spanish. Thank goodness. But we did pray to find Russian people in the park, and we did meet one guy who spoke Russian! And she absolutely killed it.

It's funny people are very willing to correct our Spanish. We talked to one lady who made it VERY clear that she didn't want us to talk to her at first, but we explained that we were here learning Spanish and we don't speak very well. And then we got talking about where we're from, where she's from (Madrid). And then she opened up as she corrected us when we said wrong things and was very patient with our lack of Spanish knowledge. It was actually really nice of her. And then we got onto the subject of religion. She was telling us that she had seen missionaries before, but never girls, just the elders. And also that "all of Spain is Catholic" and she just kind of does what everyone else does because it's the culture. Interesting. And then she asked me "Have you been Mormon your whole life?" And I said "yes" and then she said "Are your parents members?" And I was like "yes." And then she sat back like she had made some kind of point with that. And then I was able to say "BUT, I am not a member of this church and I am not currently a missionary soly because of my parents. I feel the Spirit testify in my heart that these things are true. I recieve a confirmation anytime I ask, and I know for myself that these things are real, and very true." And that caught her attention. The Spirit was so strong too it was awesome. But it was just so interesting to watch her change from the beginning of our conversation to the end as she opened up to us and our message. So cool.

We talked to tons of people, but there was this other guy who we spent like 20 minutes talking to. He was older so he didn't know any English. We actually taught him "flower," "love," and "missionary." Haha those are super hard for Spaniards to say we should've picked easier words, but I couldn't think of any. But it's okay he had fun with it. It was VERY hard to talk to him though because he had SO MUCH to say. He just went on and on and on and I have NO CLUE what he was saying. And Cecpta (pronounced siestra) Garcia didn't either. I picked up little phrases here and there and just kinda went with that. But it was cool we read some of 3 Nephi 11 with him because he told us he doesn't like to read. And then left him with a Book of Mormon yay!!!! Happy park times.


Also this week (yesterday actually) we got 5 new missionaries! They had gone to the Provo MTC the same day I came to the Spain MTC but just got switched over to us! 4 sisters and 1 elder. Super exciting they're super fun. All going to the Russia St. Petersburg mission! The missionaries going to

Russia who were already here knew them from the Provo MTC so they were PUMPED to see them. Happy happy.

Ah man I absolutely love my teachers. LOVE them. Spaniards are so dang funny. And dramatic. Apparently it's a thing. But it's just hilarious. Last night we taught one of them (Hermano Caetano) some English slang. We taught him "I'm down," "What's the move," "I'm game," and "You do you." It was so funny what a guy.

Also I love my district. I feel like this week was just a good bonding week for all of us. Also Hermana Notario (another one of our teachers) played a game with us where we practiced if/then statements in Spanish by figuring out which Disney character everyone is. I got Jane from Tarzan. It was interesting because this is the first time I haven't been Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel. I was curious to see what it would be with my new hair. I love Jane though so I'm so down.

Oh also P day last week! Oh my goodness favorite p day so far. We just went everywhere. We started by getting gelato at a place called Amorino's. Oh my word. Heaven. Also they're really cute and scoop your gelato into the shape of a flower! Love! And then we went to the Royal Palace of Madrid. Pretty sure it's called something along those lines haha. We couldn't go in but we took tons of pictures outside. It was big and beautiful. Then we went to the Royal Gardens. So pretty and GREEN! All evergreen trees and they keep up the grass so it looked and felt like spring. It was absolutely beautiful. Classic prince and princess place. Loved it. Then we went to a Cathedral. Not sure what it was called specifially but holy cow that took me right back to Italy. It was big and beautfiul and there was soft music playing and ah I absolutely loved it. I thought of you lil mama and all of Carroll choir partyin in Italy:) Such happy times.


Spanish! It's coming along haha. I'm terrible at understanding people, but I can talk. Which works great until someone responds to me. We now have a rule that we can't speak any English on the 4th floor of the MTC. Which is where all our classes are so we literally spend 12 hours a day on that floor. It's been awesome though. My mind just gets set into spanish and then it's like a switch to go back to English. Which is cool. Also my English is getting worse haha I can't structure sentences anymore. It's not actually that dramatic. But it's funny even just reading over this I feel like I don't make sense sometimes.

Also on Sunday President and Sister Pack came! They're the mission presidents of the Madrid mission. So they was happy for all the Madrid missionaries! And then they gave a devotional which was AWESOME about how to expect miracles while on our missions. And it really applies to life I think. When we are obedient and literally doing every possible thing we can to keep the commandments (not for the blessings, but because we love Jesus Christ), blessings and MIRACLES are a direct result! How cool is that that we can SHOW the Lord by our actions that we are expecting miracles. I love it. Mormon 9:19. Miracles haven't ceased!

Also I finished the Book of Mormon on Friday and started it again! I love that book. It's the words of God!!!!

Hey I love all you people and I miss you tons!!!
Love,
Hermana Johnson

Madrid MTC Week Four

 Hola mi familia y mis amigos! Que tal?

CONGRATS ALL SOUTHLAKE SENIORS WHO APPLIED FOR GETTING INTO BYU THAT'S HUGE!!!!!!! I'm SO happy for you guys!!!!!!

I'm gonna start with the park cause this week was such an awesome experience.

First, it's so obvious to me that God helps us out in the park. Saturday was the Russian and Italian sisters' and elders' (they're from the US) first time and they were super nervous. But Heavenly Father sent the English speakers to them and the elder from the Ukraine talked to a guy who was Ukrainian. When the Portuguese and French missionaries were here, they met people who spoke Portuguese and French. They even met people from Brazil-one elder met a couple who lived near his hometown. How cool is that??? I have never once talked to someone who didn't speak English or Spanish until I was companions with Soeur Yee On who spoke French. And then we met French people. Heavenly Father is preparing the people for us individually to talk to and is putting them in our paths. I love it.

So I was put in a trio for the park with Hermanas Jarman and Burnham. They're AWESOME! A trio is less scary than just two of us and we ended up just talking to everybody. It was cool because we'd start conversations with people the same way (Hola, como esta, de donde es, oh Romania cool habla ingles? Or oh aqui en Madrid? Then we'd talk in Spanish) but throughout our conversations we'd learn about their beliefs in God or Jesus Christ and the Bible. And every single time we'd talk about something different in the gospel. We gave the full on restoration story to someone, others we talked to about God's love, and mostly we talked about how Jesus Christ is our Savior and how the Book of Mormon testifies of Him. Afterwords I realized that it was totally the Spirit helping us out to know exactly what we needed to say to each individual. Our message was different for different people.

And that's how the gospel works. Different principles or doctrines in the gospel are more applicable to us at different times in our lives.

So STORY! We had done really well in our two hours, way better than I had done in previous weeks, but when it was time to start heading towards the fountain to sing with everyone, we realized we hadn't gotten a referral. And that was a goal that we had. So we stopped and said a prayer and just asked Heavenly Father to allow us to talk to someone as we walk back to the fountain who will want to learn more so we can reach our goal of having a referral. And sure enough we're walking and we go talk to this guy who's sitting on a bench. And throughout the conversation we learned that he had changed his mind about some things and was trying out different religions. How perfect is that. He loves God and believes very strongly in The Bible and Jesus Christ, so it was easy for us to tell him about the Book of Mormon and he was all about it. And then I got to say "quiere aprender mas?" (Do you want to learn more?) and he goes "si, claro" (yes, of course) and then i asked for his phone number and we told him that missionaries would call him and come teach him more!!!!! WHAT A MIRACLE!!!!!! We were so happy. Seriously so happy. Heavenly Father knows the desires of our hearts!

Also funny Spanish story-in our lesson I told Daniel (Hermano Perez) that Jesus Christ has felt our nurse's offices. Meant to say infirmities hahaha oops. Good times.

Also on Tuesday we hit our one month!!!  So of course we had a photo shoot. 17 to go. I now know why people say the mission flies by. This past month literally went by so fast. And all the days kind of blend together with (it seems like) little naps here and there so it's just felt like one really long day. And I've heard the field goes by even faster. 

This week was way good though. They're getting a little more creative with the food that we eat, but for the most part I'm liking it a lot. Gotta appreciate the 6 weeks where I don't have to make my own food haha

SYL (speak your language) is now from 8-1 and then 2-4. We're really good at it in the beginning of the week and then slowly we speak more and more English. Not good. Gotta be better at that. But really the language is coming along really well. I'm amazed at how much I know. Obviously not close to being fluent, but our lessons are in Spanish, I respond in Spanish, our teachers speak and teach us in Spanish. If you had told me 5 weeks ago that I'd be doing all that, I never would've believed it. But here I am!

Oh and P day! Last week we went to the Reina Sofia which was just kinda creepy. The Picasso stuff was awesome though! But then we went back to Plaza del Sol and we went to a frozen yogurt place called Llaullau which was super yummy. Happy times!

I just love life. This is the greatest time. I don't ever want to leave haha but we go to Barcelona in 11 days ahhhhh. Scary! But also I'm pumped it's clearly the best place in the entire world:)))

Also I cannot tell you how much of a love I have come to feel for the Book of Mormon. We get to read it for an hour every day and I'll finish it today. It's not even the first time that I've read the whole book, but I have learned so much and it's been really cool to spend a whole hour reading and understanding the full stories. I am 100% positive that anyone who reads it while actively trying to learn something will know that it's the word of God. 100% positive.

SO MUCH LOVE FOR EVERYONE!!!!!
Love,
Hermana Johnson

Week Three Madrid MTC

Hola!

Oh my goodness I'm onto week 4. Which means I have 2 weeks left in the MTC! Ah! We leave March 21. Can't believe it.

ALSO! You are currently hearing from the latest and greatest Sister Training Leader the Spain MTC has ever seen! Me and Hermana Clark just got called. At the 3 week point they switch the leadership positions. So here we are! Pumped!

So this week was really good. But also kind of sad. On Monday all the missionaries going to France and Portugal left:(( But then on Tuesday we got 6 new missionaries going to Russia! And one going to Italy!! YAY! They had been in the Provo MTC for the past three weeks and then have another 6 weeks to go here. Except for the Italy sister. She leaves when we leave. They're awesome it's so fun!

The Spanish is coming along really well. We got new investigators to practice with this week. And now we have two. It's just our teachers again acting as investigators.

But it was so funny yesterday Hermana Clark was telling our investigator that her cousin is an anesthesiologist (no idea how to spell that) but she didn't know the word in spanish so she said doctor of drogas (drugs) and he looked at her and goes "drogas???" it was HILARIOUS! And she was like noo no no and tried to explain it and then he got it and told us the Spanish word for anesthesiologist which is pretty similar to the English word. It was just funny hahaha he laughed at us.

Also Elder Castagnetto, an elder in our district had a lesson where he told the investigator that we have a cerveza bautismal instead of servicio bautismal which means beer baptism instead of baptismal service. SOOOO funny hahaha

But other than that it's going really well. Sister Clark and I have made it a goal not to use Spanish notes in our lessons and it's really paying off. We got feedback yesterday from our teachers for our lessons and both of them told us that our Spanish is fantastic. And one of our teachers is like super brutally honest about everything and makes fun of our Spanish all the time (he's great, love him) but it just meant so much more from him cause I know he'd only say that if he meant it. So that was a really good confidence booster.

THE PARK! Oh my goodness this week's park experience was the absolute best. I was paired with Hermana Peterson who is from Canada and hadn't taken Spanish at all prior to coming here. But she's the bravest person EVER. She just talks to everyone. So I was super excited to get to be with her.

So we get to the park and we say a prayer and immediately she's like "lets go talk to this woman" so we go over and she's sitting on a bench watching her kids play on the playground and we start talking to her about random stuff like where she's from, her kids, blah blah. At first she wasn't feelin it, But then she warmed up a little bit and we invited her to bring her kids and come listen to us sing (after our 2 hours walking around we all meet up and sing a few hymns next to a fountain). So she was like "sure!" and then her husband walked over and he speaks a tiny bit of English so it ended up being easier to communicate with them. They were both super impressed at how well Hermana Peterson could speak and understand after only 3 weeks. But then when they learned I had taken 3 years of Spanish before my mission I think they were a little disappointed at how much I didn't know hahaha. Good times.

But anyways so throughout that conversation we learned that they identify as Catholics but they hate the idea of a church and they don't like the Bible. So sad. But they LOVE Jesus Christ. They told us that He's their life. So. Interesting. So we gave them a restoration pamphlet cause they asked the difference between our church and Catholics. And then David (the husband) looked at me and then pointed to the picture of Jesus on the front of the pamphlet and said "When I eat the body of Christ I see him." (takes the bread and wine, like the sacrament) And I was like "really? In Heaven?" And he said "no, in my mind." and then he looked me right in the eyes and said "He's real." And I said "yeah He is" and he said "have you seen him?" And I said "no, but in my mind yes." And he said "That's faith!" and I was like "YES!" The spirit was so strong.

And then we told him that the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon testify of Christ and we can learn about Him and His dealings with people by reading those books. And he was loving it. And then we had him read Moroni's promise and gave him the Book of Mormon! He was SOOO grateful. And then he looked at us and said "When you walked by to talk to my wife I saw Jesus Christ's light illuminate in you." Oh. My. Goodness. That was the coolest moment of my entire mission so far. The fact that he noticed...oh man. I can't even tell you how cool that was for us to hear. And then we got their number so the Madrid missionaries can teach their whole family! What a happy thing!!!! So yeah that was the best!

I hope everyone's doing super well over there. I love you all TONS!!!!

AND CONGRATS ON MISSION CALLS TO KATE AND GRACE OH MY WORD!!!!! Chile and Arizona are getting good ones. And we can all speak Spanish to each other PUMPED!!!!

So much love,

Hermana Johnson