Hi Mommy!!!
Thanks for the email! I love hearing
about everything going on at home!
Yeah it was awesome to see the
Ballard's!! I actually saw them walk outside probably like 20 minutes before
they came in, but I wasn't sure if it was them or not. I thought, "that
looked like Brother and Sister Ballard...it probably wasn't them though!"
Hehe so it was awesome! That's so funny! We were just standing at the front
desk/greeting people that came in. Thanks for sending the pictures! It was so
good to see faces from home! They are so awesome! :)
The length of your emails are
totally good! I enjoy reading about everything going on down there! It seems
like everyone is having such a great time without me! Wahh. Jk. But never
hesitate on writing lengthy emails because I love reading them! And actually we
don't have a time-limit for emailing on P-Day's which is awesome!! Haha, it's
because we email in the Family History Center which is downstairs from the
Visitor's Center and there is no one here so they let us email as long as we
want. :)
To answer your questions:
Yes, Sister Kim drives.
The streets aren't too confusing, I
just haven't learned them all yet. But I've learned some.
Yes it is hilly! It's really cool
too. The institute building, which is where we go to church for the YSA ward in
Berkeley is on a hill. The other day Sister Kim and I went for a run up and
down the hill for our morning exercise. It was tough!
Sister Kim has been in Berkeley for
6 months now so she knows where everything is and doesn't need me to navigate
usually, but we use a GPS for places/houses we've never been. So I just sit back
and relax haha. It's nice being driven everywhere!
So, here's some of the things going
on over here:
This past week has been full of
blessings and has been overall a great week!!! We have an investigator who
accepted baptism for April 13!! He is originally from Nigeria but grew up in
the states. He is very nice and sweet and awesome - very serious and doesn't
smile a lot, but we have noticed him smiling and opening up more to people
which is awesome! The other sisters who serve with us in our ward were teaching
him, but one of the sisters had surgery and has been full-time in the VC for
the past 3 weeks and so her companion got put in a trio with another set of
sisters in our district, so they gave one of the their investigators to us (his
name is ***) Anywho, so we are super excited about that because they've been
teaching him for a while and have asked him about baptism quite a few times,
and he finally accepted when we talked to him about baptism!!!! Yay!!
Another blessing is that we got a
new investigator named ***** - HE'S AWESOME AND SO READY FOR THE GOSPEL!!!! And
it was a miracle, we found him contacting on the street the second or third
week I was here. He is such a nice, kind, genuine mature guy!!!! He just has
such a great spirit and when we met him he asked the PERFECT golden questions
like, "Yeah I've actually always wondered what our purpose for life is,
and where we were before this life and where we're going after..." And he
told us he has a lot of Christian friends who are great people!! So on Thursday
of last week we met him and a had a lesson with him and taught him the first
half of the Plan of Salvation and it was awesome!!!! We had two members of our
ward with us, *****and ***** (gonna get married) who are great and helped out
so much!!! He was so impressed by everything we said and that everything we
were saying was so empowering and the spirit was so strong!!! He is so ready
and interested and it's a miracle! He goes to Berkeley and used to run track.
Ahhh I'm just so excited for him! During the lesson I was so just so excited
and had to contain myself! Hehe. Anywho, that's a blessing we got this week!
Another blessing that happened was
on Friday (I think) we were at the institute after contacting helping some
women carry stuff for an event and two girls walked in and one of them told us
her friend is interested in talking to us!! So we were like,
"Sure!!!!!" The one who talked to us first got baptized recently and
told her friend about it and everything and now her friend is interested in
learning more!!! So we're going to meet with her this week!! Such a miracle
right?? Any investigator literally walked into our missionary lives!! So
awesome! They are both super sweet too!
Another blessing is that we have a
potential investigator named **** who is Korean but grew up in Japan as a child
and moved to the states when she was about 11. She is in her 60s now and works
in Berkeley as some sort of psychologist for women or something. She is so
awesome and sweet and amazing!!! We talked to her on the phone and she said she
went to an LDS sacrament meeting a couple weeks ago, but didn't have the
greatest experience because the ward she went to is just kind of chaotic and
there were a lot of loud children and she didn't have the greatest time, but
we're going to take her to our ward where she will hopefully like it much better!
She obviously isn't in the singles ward age but she will be able to attend the
meetings and such. What sparked her interest in the church is that she's going
to be moving to Salt Lake in a few months I believe and says since half the
population is Mormon, she was really curious about Mormonism. She is a referral
from the Visitor's Center because she went and visited it one time and filled
out a referral card. Anyways, she's great and I'm really hoping she enjoys
meeting with us! We met her on Saturday - there was a huge event at the ISC
right next to the Temple, it was Cambodian New Year and we invited her to it!
It was awesome! Our Cambodian branch hosted it and there were hundreds of
people! It was super loud though so we went outside and ate dinner (which was
also really good), and *** came too and a recent convert named **** (who
is awesome and super funny) was also there! So it was a great time!
So anyways, that's some of the stuff
that happened this week...I'm sure there's a lot more but that's the main
stuff! Heavenly Father is really blessing us. The people in Berkeley are so
interesting! Our ward is pretty liberal hahaha, but everyone is super nice and
SUPER smart...oh my goodness. But it's a great ward. Everyone is so different
and unique.
Well I guess I will wrap up this
email!! Thanks for everything and love you all!!!!!!!!! Have fun!
Love,
Sister Johnson
