Monday, June 24, 2013

No BIG DEAL ;)

GUESS WHO GOT HER VISA!! :D 
I leave for Argentina on July 1st. I'm off to Cleveland in the early afternoon then to Atlanta and then off to Buenos Aires . . . and then off to Resistencia! :D

Everyone's asking me how I feel about this and all I feel is very calm. Same way I felt when I got my call and when I was informed that I'd be serving in Ohio for a little while. It's not an "I'm nervous" feeling, it's more like an "alright, let's do this" instead. It's pretty great. 

They don't want to let me go here. It was the hardest thing to say goodbye to my branch yesterday, but I get one more Sunday with them so it's all good. I'll try to get some pictures with them to send home. It's so nice to have a mission that's so much easier to come back to.

I also had to say goodbye to one of our investigators in Euclid South, that was hard for both of us, but it was so good to know Ivy, she had such a desire to change and knew just by looking at us that we were representatives of Christ. We just love her. 

The S... family that I taught with Kirtland North are GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY!! :D I really really hope and pray that we'll get to go and say goodbye to them, they are the most amazing family ever!! 


I love you all my dearest family!

Hermana A. Johansen

Monday, June 17, 2013

Hey everyone at home.....

Hey everyone at home!

There's a lot that's happened this week, and I can't remember a lot of it. I'm really happy I've been keeping a journal as often as I have time to. Half an hour to write about a day or two isn't a ton of time. Speaking of journals, I may have to send one home, it's nearly full.
I've been going on exchanges 4/7 days of the week due to crazy days in Kirtland due to tours and having Sister Training Leaders for Companions. Everyone lives on site which makes it so much easier and I only have to pack my bags once a week for a formal exchange. I've gotten to see so many miracles with the other sisters and have such a hard time keeping my days straight  I've gone with mostly Euclid South and Shaker Heights East and I'm pretty sure I went with Kirtland North on Wednesday.

Euclid South found I'm pretty sure 9 new investigators this week at least! We found two families equaling 8 in one day, and then four more the next day I got to go with them! One of the most impressive things I got to be there for was our investigator Taivon. We met him at the bus stop on the day when it was just me and Sister Poppleton. We scheduled a return appointment with him at the Bus Stop AND HE ACTUALLY CAME! :D He's such a cool kid and works so hard. He's very quiet, but what he does say is worth hearing. He listens too. When we had our lesson another guy joined us, (his name's Isaiah, Oh my big blue head that was awesome!) he had a considerably louder personality and took up quite a bit of attention, I'd look over to Taivon and he's following along and looking through the pamphlet, made us so happy! They're both good kids I'm excited to see what happens.

With Shaker Heights East the other day we had the craziest experience! We were out contacting and had just finished sharing the Book of Mormon with two girls on their bikes (which is an amazing story in itself) we ran into a man by the name of Shrop? I'm not 100% sure. We offered him a pass along card of Christ in the Americas and he said that he already had a card. We've never seen this guy before! We asked him how and he pulls out his wallet. He then takes out a Finding Faith in Christ pass along card out and tells us that he'd found it on the ground one day and felt like it was trying to tell him something so he picked it up and decided to hold onto it until he figured it out. Oh boy were we as excited as ever!! Unfortunately to our luck we had every card but that exact one! So we have him the card we'd initially planned to and got his contact info :)

This week in Chardon, guess who found an AMISH INVESTIGATOR! :D We have been ever so blessed to meet a man named Dan who is the head of the house hold and that's exactly who you want to be open to us if we want anything to happen! He told us that he's come closest to Christ through his mother, and we told him about some stories in the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he believed that Christ could come to the Americas and he didn't see why not! We asked him if we could come back, and he didn't see why not! :D He gave us a day to come back when his wife was home! You've got to have been to Middlefield to know how we felt! Haha Sister Stoddard even forgot our number she was so surprised. The Riches (one of our Senior couples) happened to be driving down the road after we left the porch and they were almost as amazed as we were, they loved seeing us be so excited.

I just love my mission, the end! 

Hermana Johansen

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Rain....

Hola! 

It's raining a lot here in Ohio, I think that's a way of God saying how much he loves me because I love the rain and I am missing the beginning of an Argentine winter. I'm super happy that it's not as hot as it usually is here, I've felt very blessed especially during tracting.

The lessons I wrote about last week with Jennifer and Gloria sadly didn't happen. Something came up and Jennifer's son had to take the car she was going to take to the church tour, and we went to meet Gloria and she wasn't there. We were sad over both situations, but we're not giving up on them.

We had Zone Training Meeting this week and set goals for solid new investigators. Our two districts had quite the difference in the amount we desired to achieve. Haha that was a very exciting meeting to say the least, it was amazing to see the faith of our districts and how much we're all going to grow from this experience. We almost reached our goal! The Sisters all met/exceeded theirs! We met our two yesterday while contacting in Burton. We ran into an adorable family of four with a little boy on the way. We knocked on the door, I was expecting it to be the home of an old lady with the ramps that they had, and with the dog barking I thought she'll be angry like everyone else usually is, but that wasn't the case. Heidi opens the door and is actually really excited to see us! :D Yeah, blew my mind! She invited us to come in and we all thought she was talking to their dog Maggy. She was getting her little girls ready to go outside and see the chicks in the back, and told them "These girls love Jesus, wanna say hi?" OH MY GOODNESS!! Turns out she knows a family in the branch, went to school with one of their kids, has attended church before, and knows about the missionaries! Her husband Joe looks a lot like S. Allred which made me giggle. We had a lovely discussion about each other's beliefs and why we do what we do. They are the nicest, most open Catholics I have ever met! But here's the cool thing. Heidi's been praying for a little while to have help with the house before their son's born in about five weeks, she casually said something about renovating the basement while apologizing for the mess upstairs. I asked her if we could help her out, and that we could stop by the next time we're in Burton, You should've seen her face! :D She looked so happy and relieved, man it was great! We're going back this week and she said that she had some questions for us before we left, but that they could wait for next time. I AM SO EXCITED!! We'll see how this goes.

I did see the McClellans and Kenzie when they were on the church tour! If I hadn't seen Kenzie walking in we probably wouldn't have even seen each other. They're supposed to be saying hi for me. It was SO GREAT TO SEE THEM!! :D it was really funny how we had to work with only shaking hands we all had a good laugh about it and caught up with how the ward was doing and how things were with our other missionaries.

That's one exciting picture of me and Sister Nuttall! I got to see one of the Sister Nuttalls, turns out she was on my floor the whole time, and it took so long for us to figure that out. Jennifer was there too, but in a different building, sadly I didn't get to see her. That was my last night in the MTC and yes, I'd just finished showering :) which explains the wet hair. 

Love you all! Please keep safe! :)

Hermana A. Johansen

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Friends from home .....

Sister Nuttall and Hermana Johansen
Hermana Johansen ran into a friend from home, Sister Nuttall, in the MTC. Sister Nuttall's mom found Hermana Johansen's mom and gave me this sweet picture :)             
It's fun to be excited about our missionaries!

Monday, June 3, 2013

Howdy!!

Howdy!

Seems like you've all had an exciting week! Steven and Sabrina, congratulations on your jobs! Sabrina, you will never be able to make (or deal with) a bad sandwich again, once you know how to make a good one, you're basically set for life. Kevin, you're piano picture's very cute. HI, Grandmas! :)  We'll have to visit Park City for sure when I get back.

SO . . . I have a few stories to tell. It's pretty exciting. So this week we got a new Hermana, Sister Mertlich.  She's a sweet girl and a wonderful teacher. She's being trained by Sister Jones, who just finished being trained. I get to go on exchanges with them on Sundays when my comps are at the Sites. While we were out tracting we met a lady who had a doggy guard (you know the fences people have at the top of the stairs to keep their toddlers from falling? that's what it was) and I accidentally knocked it over . . . oops  . . . Sister Jones couldn't stop laughing while Hma. Mertlich and I attempted and failed to fix it. Then while Elder Wells called us for Key Indicators a bug flew down Hma. Jone's shirt and they couldn't find it until about 1.5 hours later after planning. This next part's the best. We were talking about different accents that we go into sometimes during different events of the day and we discussed the possibilities of tracting with accents. You'll never guess what they had me do, Steve. I tracked about five houses in the best Irish accent I could give. AND IT WORKED!! People would listen for about 10 seconds longer, and we got a return appointment with a JW!  We had a good time, it was fun. Now Hma. Mertlich knows why I love tracting, because there to get a door slammed in your face and still have fun. :)
And as for Jennifer ( our mom of 11 ) She's set up for a Church tour tomorrow. She was a little nervous about addressing her investigation with her family and finding time to discuss it with her husband. We prayed with her about it after our lesson and I invited her five year old to pray with us. He came in and laid down and we taught him the proper way to act during a prayer, and he was reverent the ENTIRE TIME! :D She loved that! She wants this for her family, what better thing can we do than to involve her family! Man we just love her so much and cannot wait for her to know what it is she has found. We went over the restoration with her again, and watched the restoration movie with her. She almost gave the movie back to us, and we told her that she could keep it. She liked that idea too!! She said that she watched it with her girls the other day when she texted us. We hope and pray every day that she's progressing by praying and reading. She's so honest! She almost canceled on us cause she didn't read the other day because she didn't read all week (thank heavens the sticky note I gave her was little and she lost our number so she couldn't call) and decided that instead of canceling she wanted to be honest and push forward to try again.

All is well in Kirtland, hope things are going well for everyone at home! I got to see the McClellan boys and Kenzy the other day! 
Aleen, if you read this, how are things going for you?? How are your papers, and the temple? I can't wait to hear from you. I pray for you and our friends often.


Kick butt at the Competition DAD :D LOVE YOU!!

Love you all!
Hermana A. Johansen