Sunday, June 29, 2014

¡Al mundo llevaremos!

We had a fantastic week and I'm sure I've never cried so much in my life. We had the farewell of the Heymans yesterday and we got to meet their son who just finished his mission in Chili. We sang the As Sisters in Zion/Sons of Helaman song in Spanish as a surprise for them and we all cried our eyes out. I´m so happy I've never been asked to participate in a special musical number cause if I was I wouldn't be able to do it. Hermana Heyman gives one of the best hugs in the world, strong and as long as you need it to be. It´s as close to a mom hug as you can get here. Saying goodbye to them has to be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Their example and the things they have taught me have changed my life forever, and I am eternally grateful for it. They've helped me strengthen what is most important to me in my life which is my testimony that my Savior lives and that we CAN become like him through acting like him and becoming better than we were yesterday. I talked to Hermna Young about when we had to say goodbye to the Vallingas' and how that almost killed us in the airport. I´m really excited to get to know the Francos, more people to love! Remember when I said something about the leather covers that they have here for scriptures? The Heymans gave us leather protectors for our planers!! To every 230 somethin de nosotros!! I´m so glad that I´m going to have it in the mission for so little time so it can stay in good condition. I´ll send pictures soon. Sorry I´m not sending some this week, there wasn't much time today. 

We had the craziest experience this week! We found a little old couple who are actually married. The cute little grandpa had to have his legs amputated about 4 years ago due to his smoking habits, he hasn't touched it in years but his wife still has the habit and you can tell she wants to stop cause she knows the consequences. I asked Thomas (the grandpa) if he could still feel his legs sometimes. He said that he still feels like his leg itches every once in a while, and that it´s really weird. I asked him if he knew that his spirit still had his legs. Simple question, but it made them think. His wife began to silently cry and he had the deepest expression on his face. We testified that through the resurrección de Cristo he will be able to have his legs again. We testified of the message we have to share and tried to set up another time to see them, but they´re hard to catch. We´ll see what happens. The Spirit was SO THICK! and we still felt it tan fuerte after we left. We knew there was a reason why we were there. 

Hey, I´m out of time, I´m glad you all had a great week! Thank you for the pictures! Tell Jackson hi for me,  and you can show him the glasses I used. 

I love you all, thank you for the stories. Please stay safe and keep the Spirit  with you. CONGRATS JUSTIN!! You can email me too, ya know :)

Hermama A. Johansen


Monday, June 16, 2014

Father´s day, mundial, Chili-dogs and Philly Cheese Stakes

There was a little girl watching Disney´s Robin Hood in the other room during one of our lessons and it almost killed me. :)

This week was kinda fun! We got to fix 2 bikes! We were looking for service opportunities this week and there were two girls two different times completely different places and their bike chains were giving them a hard time. So we went up to them and we fixed them for them. . . . Well I fixed them :) My comp just laughed and gave me suggestions as I fixed them. I loved it. I miss fixing things and getting my hands dirty like that. I wish we could say that we got a meeting with them later and they accepted to be baptized, but they didn't want to listen much after their bikes were fixed, they had other places to be. 

There was a baptism this weekend from the Elder´s area. Our investigator Marcos went. He came with a member who is amazing! (Hna Sallago, she´s adorable and takes good care of us.) It really was a little milagro that he could come. At first it looked like he couldn't make it and that there were too many complications, BUT he made it anyway :) Hopefully he keeps progressing and that we get a good foot in with his family, that part´s key. We meet with him at the Sallago´s and we haven´t been able to meet his family yet. We´ll get there. 

Just a thought in the moment . . . I can´t wait to work on my computer with my own music and can email or do what ever without having to listen to stupid video games and ridiculous music. Just saying, Cibers are great, but they have their downfalls. 

My comp is amazing and is so incredibly humble and full of faith. It´s so easy to work with her, or at least it has been. She gets so excited when she feels like something will help us in the work and it only helps me out a lot and allows us to work harder. I didn't spell Chili-dogs wrong  it says exactly what I mean. We were talking about what we wanted to eat for lunch today and she asked me if I wanted to try a Hot dog Chili style (una Chilena Poncha) I agreed and found out later that all it was, was a PHILLI CHEESE STAKE! I was so very happy. We made tacos last week and i made pancakes i think yesterday . . . yeah. Mom! When I read that you were all eating PB&Js an Smores I almost cried, told my comp and she almost killed me cause it sounded too good. :) Love pb&js. And by the way, I feel like I´m in Utah sometimes in certain parts of Reconquista, it looks like Provo and Moroni put together. There are a lot more trees here and I´m loving it. It´s loads different than Formosa. I didn't know Santa Fe wasn't in Mike´s mission. 

I´m glad you all had a good week! HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD! It was father´s day here too, AND Argentina played! AND Won! We didn't even have to talk to anyone, you could hear it in the streets. They made us go in early so it´s all good. Thanks for the support Steve! I hope they don´t loose . . . We want the work to go good. They are super passionate about football. and HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!

Hope you all have a fantastic week again, make some more stories to tell me. Tell everyone hi and give them a hug for me. LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Hermana A Johansen

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Reconquista, Santa Fe.....


WOOOOHOOOOO!!!!  I sure hope the date´s not until September! I want to be there so bad! Nice work Dave! Mikyla you´re a lucky girl :) He´s a good one. 

As for this last week there is quite a bit that´s happened. I have officially worked in every province in the mission! and everyone thinks I´m gonna die (end my mission) in Santa Fe. I have a cute companion from Chile, Hermana Ruth Riquelme. She´s a sweetheart and loves everyone. The first day that I got here was Hermana Allred´s last day! She got to spend her last day with me and I got to help kill (send her home) her off :) It was a lot of fun, I spazzed out when I saw her from the window on the bus, Huge surprise for me! and Hermana Lund is my HLC, I feel like when your parents get old and their kids take care of them, ya know? We have really great Zone leaders, I was so excited to know that I would be working with them this transfer.

We have a cute little branch full of mostly women and an elder is the branch pres. Poor kid had 8 months in the mission, and had a really bad cold this week. You really can´t afford to be a missionary, Branch President and be sick.

Little milagro of this week: We´re working a lot with the recent converts and went to go start the lessons with one of the boys and his mom. When we got there the Augostin´s friend Marcos was there and he sat in on the lesson. We focused a lot on him too. We taught them the Restoration and Follow the Prophet, and in the end invited Marcos to be baptized. HE ACCEPTED! and was excited about it!! Later when we came back to pick up Augostin´s mom to go with us to a lesson they told us all about how they were talking about what the Book of Mormon was and how things were at church. Really cool experience and high light of the week. 

WE HAVE A WASHING MACHINE!!! so much easier to do laundry and we don´t have to ask anyone else to do it for us!! So happy! :D OH and we have hot water! It lasts through four girls taking 10 minute showers (even though a girl taking a ten minute shower seems impossible I managed to do it in 8 minutes once :)

Well, I´m glad you all had a great week! and that you´re all safe and happy :) Have another good one so you can have stories to tell me next week.

Love you all!

Hermana A. Johansen

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Transfers tomorrow! and . . . I think I´m gonna be staying here

We had a decent week, WE HAD SOMEONE AT CHURCH!! Finally!  he´s 24 years old, and asked his pastor if he could come to church with us. As you may already know, yesterday was
Fast and Testimony meeting. He didn't take the sacrament, but the got up to share his testimony. It was alright up until he said that he could receive revelation for other people. We just taught him once and I wan´t even there thanks to exchanges. We have a meeting with him on Wednesday so if we´re both still here that should be fun.

Yeah transfers are this week, and I think I´m going to be here in Formosa for a while. Hermana Bedoya thinks I´m gonna die as an HLC, and I personally think I´m about done. I love it, I just think my time´s up . . . Which wouldn't be the case if I stayed, cause the area is the
HLC area. Oh well.

This week . . . what else happened this week? . . . OH! I finally made those brownies that you sent me for my birthday! We had an amazing Zone Conference. The Heyman´s LAST! It´s the craziest thing! AND it´s Hermana Allred´s LAST pday, and I bet her and Hermana Lund are spazzing out right now, I can just see it.

We found a cute girl named Florencia this week. She wasn't able to come to church this week, but we´ll get her. She´s super cute, I think she´s 16 and really relates to Joseph Smith´s story. She has a special little spirit and we love her. We also met a lady who´s been listening
to missionaries for about 9 or so years! She knows it´s true, and just has these silly obstetrical. We´re gonna see if we can help her out with that. As for the Portaño family, they couldn't make it to church either, but it´s kinda tough when the only days we get to see them is on Sunday. They were thinking about us all week and actually drove by the church. So that shows something. Sadly they didn't read the pamphlet, but they will :) We hope so.

We had a good week anyway.

LEXI! Hunny, I´m so proud of you! You´re so pretty in the picture mom sent me! Thank you for smiling for me :) Mike, that´s one cool story! Crazy what the Lord can do, and pays such good attention to the little details.

Hey kids! (Steven, Sabrina, and Kevin) I know it´s vacation time, but don´t slack :) Keep yourselves busy, well Steve you have work so have fun with that. Make some mischief for me would ya? Have a fun summer with out me, cause I´ll be there for the next one, muahahaha.

Love you all, please stay safe at work, Dad. Thanks for the fotos mom!
I need to charge my camera before I can send more pictures.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!
Hermana A Johansen

Sunday, June 1, 2014

IT´S BEEN SOOOO COOOLLLDDD!!!!!!

It has suddenly decided to freeze over down here in Formosa. It really
does get cold down here, and it´s a different kinda cold. It´s the
kind that likes to sneak up on you, get you wet and seep into your
bones. One day we were dying of heat and now for the past three days
we've been shivering in our rain boots. I've been sleeping in at least
five long sleeve shirts, a sweater, two pairs of pants, the thin thing
I call a blanket, and my coat. We've been looking for good prices for
a blanket, we found a sweater and some gloves so we´re good there, and
we´re working on getting a heater. (I also ran out of lotion and the
weather change is making my exima act up . . .on my face . . .so I
bought some stuff for that) Luckily our stove works. Just our shower
busted again and we don´t have hot water so we´re pros at taking
bucket baths.

We had better luck finding people this week, but sadly none of them
came to church, and due to the weather hardly even any of the members
came. We went from about 150 people in the ward to most of us being
missionaries. We got a new  ward Mission leader, he´s the ex stake
president and we still go without a bishop.

We have Conferencia Multi Zona tomorrow so that should be fun. I love
being able to see pres so often.

As for the experiment that I had of trying to help people feel the
spitit when we meet them I hope it´s going well, I´m going to keep
working on it. I think the harder thing is to help make sure that your
comp is having spiritual experiences and can always feel the spirit. I
think that might be the key.

We met a family yesterday, they seem pretty great, the only thing is
that they like coffee and tea, and they´re not married . . . but they
want to try to go to church! That´s something!

You´ll never guess who I did divisions with this week!! HERMANA BATEMAN!
it was so cool and so much fun to be able to work with my first
comp ever. She´s great and it was crazy to be there working and
thinking of how we had no idea we would be doing what we are or if
we´d ever be able to. She goes home before I do so that´s weird but oh
well.

Sounds like you've all had a fun week! Thanks for telling me all about
it! We have a lot of travelers in our family, and that´s so cute about
Mia! I was thinking about them the other day and wondering if they
even remembered me, cute! Kevin! You are freak'n awesome! So much
better than I am, no lie. Allred's going to love you! When I get back
I really got to get my game on so you don´t keep being better than me ;)

Sully´s going to France! Congrats to him. 

Tell everyone hi, Family and friends.

As far as I know this is all I've got for ya this week, I hope you
enjoy. I am actually working on another t-shirt for our ´Sistrito´
I´ll do what I can to show you how it ends up, picture or showing you
at home, either way you´ll see them.

Love you all! Stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy, and may the Spirit
be with you!

Hermana A Johansen