Week Eleven and Baptism

Hola todo!!!

WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!! Congratulations to Ricardo WOOP WOOP!!!!!

So here's his story: On my first Sunday ever in Palma, we were waiting outside of our apartment building because we had arrived a couple minutes early and we were chillin outside and out comes Ricardo! He opened the door and told us that he wanted to come to our church and learn about what we do as missionaries!!! So Hermana Sperry set up a time to go teach him the next day (Monday). 

And that lesson was so great. We sat down with him and he just started talking for an hour about times in his life that he had felt the Spirit guide him and his religious history and literally everything. And he also told us that he wanted to get baptized! So we didn't end up having time to go through the whole first lesson, but we showed him a video of a reenactment of Christ's baptism and he started crying and told us that he had always wanted to be baptized like Christ was. So I invited him to be baptized and he said yes!!!!

And then with everything we taught him he just knew it was all true and with every commandment, he completely accepted it, no problem. He's incredible.

And his baptism was so great and so beautiful! He cried, and shared his testimony, and was just so so ready and so prepared. He told us over and over again that he had waited his whole life for this. He's so special and I know he will be SO blessed for his faith, humility, and desires to follow God.

And now the sad part of this whole thing. We completely lost Alex. He was supposed to get baptized on the 22nd also, but on Tuesday his phone turned off and since then we hadn't been able to get ahold of him. We literally tried everything. We went to his apartment multiple times, left a note at his apartment, went to his tai chi class (haha he wasn't there), and called him literally probably like 20 times over the course of 3 days. AND THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENED! On Thursday, Hermanas Barlow and Nelson were walking to the church building (a different way than they normally do) and they ran into him! So they made him call us on their phone and he explained that his phone had broken and he needed to get a new one. And he set up a time to meet with us on Friday. But then Friday came and he didn't come. So. We'll keep praying that he gets a new phone or one of us runs into him again. Good times!

This week has been so good though. Today we took a bus and did some shopping and sightseeing. Such a beautiful place ah I love it here! Preparation days are the best!

Also this week we had zone conference which is where are the island missionaries get together and our mission president comes and talks to us. It was SO good. He talked about Joseph Smith and the character of Joseph Smith. It changed my whole outlook. So many people look at church history and pick out the hard, controversial things, and then feel the need to "apologize" for him. But if you look at how much he sacrificed and went through throughout his life, eventually DYING for this gospel, there's no way you can deny that he knew that what he was doing was from God. And we can know TOO! That's the best part! I got a confirmation during President's lesson that Joseph Smith was actually a prophet of God. That he literally SAW God and Jesus Christ and they told him to restore the true gospel of Jesus Christ on the Earth with prophets and apostles who hold the proper authority to act in God's name. That's real! How great is it that we live in a time where we actually have the exact church of Jesus Christ on this earth and that we don't have to act blindly, we can come to know for ourselves. So great I love it.

  Our early morning run to the ocean.

Missionary life is the best! I love and miss you all and I think of you and pray for you:)))

Love!

Hermana Johnson

Week Ten Semana Santa

Hola familia y amigos!

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY TWO FAVORITE SISTERS IN THE ENTIRE PLANET! AUDREY ON WEDNESDAY AND SARAH ON SATURDAY!!!!! I love you two I sure got lucky. Everyone give them lots of love from me okay?:))

Also, HAPPY EASTER!!!!! So here in Spain, Easter is kind of a big deal hahaha. It's called the Semana Santa and they all get off school for like 2 weeks. AND the celebrating starts on Thursday. So Hermana Sperry and I happened to be passing by an apartment, and right there where we were they started a big parade!!! They had huge floats with statues of Christ and different Saints and with each float there was a full on marching band that played dramatic marching music. Everyone was dressed up in costumes with masks and they all carried the floats. Super heavy. It was very interesting. But since everyone's Catholic here, that's how they do it! 

So currently I'm actually eating an ice cream cone haha there's a gelato place right on the way to the church and we walk by it every time we go to the church building AND it's only 95 cents...so we get some a lot. It's so good hahaha. Also on the way to the church is the Plaza del Torros! It's this huge ancient-looking stadium thing where they used to do bullfights. So yesterday we walked around that a little bit since it was open. SUPER interesting. They actually outlawed bullfighting in Catalunya so that's good.

Oh man this week is going to be SO GOOD. WE HAVE TWO BAPTISMS ON SATURDAY!!!! Ricardo and Alex are both getting baptized this Saturday. :) It's the happiest thing ever.

Ricardo is doing so well. We met with him and taught him some of the commandments and when we walked in he was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and watching a slideshow on YouTube of pictures of Christ and Temples and such. He's so ready, he just soaks everything in. 

Alex is doing really well too. He had been addicted to cigarettes since he was like 16 years old and since meeting the missionaries has totally quit!!!! It's incredible. He has such a desire to be obedient because he's having a super hard time with his family trying to figure out child custody or something. So he's been sad and he knows that through being obedient and trusting in God, he can have peace. So that's so great!!!!

Ah man I love Easter. Church yesterday was so great because it was all focused on Christ and remembering His sacrifice for us, and that He truly lives! How blessed are we that God loves us so much to have given His only begotten son...we are a blessed people.

I love you all I hope you have the best week!!!! 

Love,

Hermana Johnson

Week Nine, On the Islands

Hola hola hola!!!!

April 7 I hit my 2 month mark!!!!! Whaaat??? So that's fun hahaha. Hermana Barlow and I made a sign (classic) so I'll send that hahaha.

 

So today we drove to the opposite side of this island and drove up a mountain to a lighthouse! And oh my goodness it was so beautiful. The views were just absolutely amazing. And we ate lunch right by the water and it's just so clear and blue and beautiful. Also Spain has the best fruit in the entire world probably. At the grocery store that we go to they will squeeze you fresh orange juice so we got some for our excursion. I had to include a pic just cause it's so beautiful and yummy hahaha. Such a happy day. So yay I love preparation day haha

This week was so good too. We have a new friend named Betzabeh who we got to teach! She's the CUTEST! She has some family who are Mormons so she knows a lot about the church and had come to church one other time here. Also she's MARRIED at the age of 24!!! Which is super uncommon because it's so hard for people to get married here that most of the time they just live together. So it's great that we don't have to worry about that. But anyways she's super super great and wants to get baptized on the 29 of April!!!! I can't believe how ready the people that we're meeting with are. It's great.

Sad story though. Ricardo update. So we have a rule that the people that we're teaching have to come to church at least twice before they can get baptized, and he called us Saturday night to tell us that he got called in for an emergency at work and wouldn't be able to go to church on Sunday. So we had to switch his baptism date to April 22 (happy birthday Sarah;)). But it's good that day is going to be a GOOD one. He is seriously incredible. We taught him the Word of Wisdom last night (which is a revelation that Joseph Smith received that basically tells us we can't drink alcohol, coffee, tea, or smoke, or take illegal drugs) and he totally just accepted it. He was like "I love that. I love that we have that revelation and I want to follow it all." What kind of person has that kind of faith I don't even know. He's such a great example of someone who's desires are in the right place to follow God. I just love it!

Oh also we did this fun thing called Enfoque de Zona which is where all the island missionaries get together and we have a conference where we share experiences and such. And it was really special one of the elders goes home in 3 weeks so he shared with us what he has learned on the mission. He said that he really came to understand the first two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Which I think is so great. This week I've been trying to focus on showing love even though I can't speak Spanish very well and I've been trying to focus on the language of love. People respond so well to a smile and friendliness and even just someone willing to listen. Which I can do haha listening is much easier than speaking at this point haha. But it's so great. That's a universal thing and I'm so blessed to know so many people at home in Texas and at BYU and all of my besties who are so good at loving. Keep it up! Brighten someone's day!!!:)

Life is just so good amigos. I'm loving it all. I hope everything is going well over there and you are all having the happiest of times. :)))

LOVE!!!

Hermana Johnson

Week Eight, On the Islands

Hola hola como esta!!!!!

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW MY CUTEST BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!! April 6th everyone! Tell him happy birthday and give him lots of hugs and kisses for me!!!!

Well today was so good. And it totally flew by I'm honestly still a little shocked that it's already Tuesday again. But that's how it goes I'm beginning to see hahaha.

So I thought I'd give a little more details about what my days look like and what exactly I'm doing over here haha.

So. I am serving in the Spain Barcelona Mission, but that mission covers a third of Spain (plus the islands) so throughout my mission I'll be serving in different cities around Barcelona. So that's why I'm currently on an island! And let me tell you, this place is BEAUTIFUL! I'm seriously in love.

So anyways. We wake up at 7:30 and go for a run and then eat breakfast and get ready for the day. Then we study the scriptures. 

And then we normally walk around and contact people. That's where we just stop random people walking on the street and talk to them! We'll normally share a little doctrine principle (for example: we have a prophet here on the earth today! Or, we know that our families can be together throughout the eternities, not just "until death do us part.") and then if they're curious and want to learn more, we write down their number and set up a time to meet with them again! And then we'll almost always pray with whoever we talked to. :) It's happy.

And then the other thing we do is citas (appointments)! Those are the times that we're meeting up again with the people that we found while contacting. During those, we teach lessons about the gospel of Jesus Christ and help them grow in their faith. Our purpose is to invite them to come unto Christ. And it's special because we just teach them these things and give them a Book of Mormon and then just tell them to pray about it. Because we're not here to force this stuff on them, and we know that if they pray and ask if what we teach them is true, Heavenly Father will give them an answer. And once they've received an answer, then they have a desire to be baptized like Jesus Christ was with the proper authority. It's incredible!!!!

So yeah those are are the main things that I'm doing every day as a missionary! I LOVE it!!!

Also. Yesterday we walked 11.8 miles and took 27,104 steps. So. There ya have it haha lots of walking.

Also Spanish is coming along so well holy cow. I can understand almost everything. Hermana Sperry speaks to me in only Spanish when we're on the streets, and it works! It's amazing. I'm improving so so much. And it's been nice also having Hermanas Nelson and Barlow in our apartment because Hermanas Sperry and Nelson speak Spanish so well so we know there's hope! Haha

And I gotta give you an update on Ricardo. Oh my goodness still don't know how I get to be the one to teach and have these experiences with him, but I must've done something right somewhere along the road haha. He's amazing. He came to general conference! (Which meant we had to watch it in Spanish cause we sat with him, but that's okay it was good listening practice). But he just absolutely LOVED it. At the end of the talk by the woman who spoke after President Monson (I don't remember her name ah) he turned to us and said "that was all for me." It's so great he was totally feelin it.

And also earlier this week he called Hermana Sperry and was just going on and on about how excited he is to get baptized and that he had told his whole family (keep in mind, we met him for the first time 8 days ago, so this is insane something like this never happens) about it. And he told us again how grateful he was for us and that when he saw her (Hermana Sperry) and her new companion (me) he knew that "we were his missionaries." Cause he had seen them before I got to the islands, and had just now felt like he needed to talk to us. I just feel so blessed I can't even tell you. So that's going really well. :))))

And update on Alex who is getting baptized on the 22, HE QUIT SMOKING!!!!! So that's incredible and it's the happiest thing that's ever happened. I love it!!!

Also something so sweet happened while we were contacting! We stopped this one lady from the Dominican Republic and talked to her a little bit and she ended up being interested so we got her number and such. And then we asked if we could pray with her and she said yes so I prayed and when I finished she was crying and told us that while she was walking, she had been praying to not feel sad (because her mom had recently passed away) and was praying to feel Heavenly Father's love. And then she said that we were an answer to her prayer and that we are her angels!!! It was so sweet. AND SHE HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE NOW TOO! AND HER DAUGHTER!!!!! April 22 (happy birthday Sarah!) So that's a happy happy thing. 

Life is soo good. I love everything! And I love you all and all your emails! Thank you for your kind and encouraging words and the experiences that you share with me. I read every email I get I promise! I wish I had more time to answer, but I do want you all to know how much you mean to me and how much I love and miss you all. <3

Also I have an assignment! Go to lds.org > general conference > April 2017 and choose a talk to read or listen to. :) They're all fantastic!

(ALSO SHOUT-OUT TO JANIE MY BEAUTIFUL COUSIN (and BYU choirs) WHO SANG IN THE WOMEN'S SESSION! TOTALLY SAW HER AHHHH!!!!!!!!!! It was beautiful!!!!!)

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Johnson

 And the bonus extras:

And yep without a dryer we hang our clothes on a clothes line on our balcony! Which is on the backside of the building. It's fun it's like we're pilgrims or something hahaha

 So yes life is so good. General conference was great! We watched the women's session and the Saturday morning session on Saturday, and then the Saturday afternoon and the Sunday morning sessions on Sunday. They don't show the Sunday afternoon one unfortunately so we'll have to do  that on our own time. Although on Sunday I watched it all in Spanish cause we had Ricardo so I'm gonna have to re-watch those anyways.

So in the chapel they just have a projector and then in the relief society room they had it in English. So on Saturday we sat in there with all the missionaries and watched it in English.

UGH I got so sad when the BYU choirs sang at the women's session. Those were the same songs that we had worked on all of last semester too so in my head I was singing along. And I saw Janie! And tons of other people that I love! And my choir director directed it! SO that was depressing. But ya know it's good I'd rather be here anyways so ha! Hahaha

But yeah what I did get to see of conference was great. I loved it all!!!! We bought tons of candy and treats too so that was fun. 

Oh! Preparation day today! We went to a Castle. It was super fun and big and beautiful! Also it's tall on a hill so from the top we had a view of the ocean on one side and on the other side could see the whole city. So beautiful. I finally figured out google drive again so all my pictures up till now are on there!

OH also! Yesterday Hermana Sperry went to concilio which is a meeting for all the zone leaders, sister training leaders, and president. So she flew up to Barcelona on Sunday night and was there all day yesterday. So she grabbed letters and packages there, but we don't get them until tomorrow at the zone meeting where they teach us the things that they discussed with president. So pumped to receive my curling irons! Hahaha. But yeah that was fun because yesterday I was in a trio with Hermana Nelson and Hermana Barlow! We worked mostly in their area and I taught a lesson to a family from Nigeria that they're teaching. It was in English yay!!! But that was super fun hahaha Nigerians are HILARIOUS! They have this funny African accent and are so smiley and laugh big loud laughs at EVERYTHING. It was a good time.

So yeah life's good! I'm still loving it! CAN'T believe this is already week 3 of training. I'm1/4 of the way done! I love Hermana Sperry though I don't want to leave her ever hahaha she's SUCH a good missionary too.

Alright that's all I got for now I think. I love you all TONS and TONS!!!!