SISTER JOHNSON'S JUNE 23, 2014 E-MAIL

BASKING IN THE BEAUTY OF MORAGA!

 Kinda blurry, but Sister Henderson and I treated ourselves to some delicious Thai food.
(yellow curry....yuuummm)

 I look like a weirdy, but aren't these the prettiest flowers ever??

We got ice-cream for a district activity today and picked flavors for each other. One of the elders picked bubble gum for me, the flavor I secretly didn't want. Hahah.

Hello!

Yeah the weather is pretty much perfection here. :) Moraga is a little warmer than Oakland though. Last week we actually had some pretty hot days (I think one day it was like 102) but it has gone down since then. :)

This past week went super fast for us too! It's already week 6 which is the last week of this transfer! We get transfer calls this Saturday night. :) We could be staying or going, but you just never know...Sister Henderson and I reallllyy want to stay together in Moraga though. Next transfer is her last transfer too, so there's really no reason for her to leave. But, it's whatever Heavenly Father wants!

Thank you for those tid-bits of family history! That is so funny that all Gpa Miller wore to school was overalls! Hahaha :) And I do remember now that Gpa Jack was baptized in the ocean! I'm excited to learn more because I am horrible and don't know enough about our family history!

And of course I have a journal!!!! I don't write in it every night (tisk tisk) but I write in it pretty regularly. It's pretty sloppy though because I always have to write so fast :p

As for your questions - the weather here just feels cool and breezy and perfect most days. As for what it looks like, look at my pics from last week from when we went hiking and that's what we see on our drive to the temple (we hiked around the road that we take to get to the temple). :)

As for things happening here, we have a baptism for Brother M***** coming up this Saturday! We have been visiting with him and his family a lot recently to teach him everything. It's so funny though, we basically don't even have to try when we teach him because he already knows a lot and doesn't have any problems with anything. He's so great! And his family is adorable. :) We have been struggling to find more people to teach, but we are doing our best to work closely with the members. I just know there are hidden gems in Moraga and we have to find them!

So everything is going great here. I really really really hope Sister Henderson and I stay together another transfer! We laugh about everything and have so much fun together and Sister Henderson is literally a genius so I always get to learn the coolest things from her. :) 

Love you all & have a super cool great awesome fun cool week! 

Love,

Sister Johnson 

LAUREN'S JUNE 16, 2014 E-MAIL

 DISTRICT FUN!

 Pics below (from Zone Conference):

My district with chocolate mustaches (I didn't have mine so I wasn't in it), me with some of the other amazing VC sisters, and President and Sister Meredith :-)

Greetings!

Happy Father's Day Dad!!!! Sorry it's late! It sounds like you had an awesome day though! (and awesome presents!) :)

I can't believe this transfer is almost over! This is week 5 so we have one more week after this! What the! Sister Henderson and I are doing wonderful and Moraga is just magical. :) We aren't teaching as many lessons as we would like and what not, but the family we are teaching is doing so great!! (the M***** family - the dad, Brother M****** is getting baptized June 28th, the mom is already a member) :) We are blown away by him! He is such a great guy! And we are going to talk about his daughter getting baptized soon after him as well :) The families in our ward  are AMAZING fellow-shippers! ) I just love our members!! And we are so excited for this family and we already love them!

So mom for your questions, we have been eating at members' homes almost every night the past couple weeks :) And they feed us goooood food :-) We had salmon the other nights, steak another night... we are spoiled out here. Our investigators right now are Brother M***** and his daughter, L***, and Brother R***. So we only have 3 right now. But we have some potentials that we are hoping will become investigators soon :)

As for visiting part-members, we have visited a lot, but haven't had much success yet as far as helping the non-members in the families. We have been visiting a lot of less-actives too but not much success with them either. We can tell they have been bugged by missionaries so many times, but luckily they are really nice to us.

Oh yeah, we had Zone Conference last week! It was a really good one. :) It was a lot about faith and about our individual gifts and potential. Our mission President, President Meredith, is simply amazing. He is so full of faith and humility. He's just like everyone's dad but also feels like a general authority at the same time.

Last week, we visited a member in our ward who is 106 years old!!!! Unfortunately she had a nasty fall a few weeks ago so she hasn't been doing as well lately (but for 106 she is doing awesome! She is able to walk and talk and eat and everything!) It was so neat. Her son-in-law takes care of her. Visiting her was just very special. It made me reflect on my life and who I am and who I want to be. We read some of D&C 76 with them (which happened to be her son-in-laws favorite chapter; he cried when we read it to him). We read verses 5-10:  

5 For thus saith the Lord - I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end.

6 Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory.

7 And to them will I reveal all mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom from days of old, and for ages to come, will I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom.

 8 Yea, even the wonders of eternity shall they know, and things to come will I show them, even the things of many generations.

 9 And their wisdom shall be great, and their understanding reach to heaven; and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish,and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught.

 10 For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will—yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.

I just love these verses. One of my favorite verses from the scriptures while I've been out here is 1 Corinthians 2:9, which is almost the same as verse 10:

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

So far while I've been out here on a mission, my testimony and knowledge of life after this one has grown a lot. I just know without a doubt that there is so much more than what we can see right now. Sister Henderson and I have a really cheesy and cliche saying that we say to everyone: The Gospel makes dreams come true. The Gospel is so simple and beautiful, and living it, teaching it to others and learning more about it is like taking a blindfold off and helps me to see what true happiness is and what is to come. I wouldn't trade that knowledge for anything. :)

Love you all! Have a great week and do good stuff!!!!

Sister Johnson 

Lauren's June 9, 2014 E-Mail!

Moraga, California

Sister Henderson, Me, Sister Orantes and Sister Kim after exchanges

And a pic of our apartment that took us forever to clean because it was naaasty!

 Hello!

Well I definitely don't miss the heat there! Actually, it's been hot here too. It was 102 yesterday! Haha, but it's cooler today. Yes, I do know about the Ship Brooklyn! But actually not much haha, in fact most of what you told me is all new to me. I definitely need to learn more about it though! We used to have a display outside next to the Visitor's Center but it got taken out because it got vandalized. It will get put back though soon. :)

That's awesome about Brad! I'm excited to hear about his adventures in New York!! Tell him not to die of sleep deprivation though please!

Here are some highlights of last week:

We had a miracle last week! We finally met with a part-member family who we've been trying to meet with since the beginning of this transfer. The wife has been a member her whole life but fell away and recently came back to the church, and her husband of her 2nd marriage has been interested in learning more about the church. We met her and her 3 really sweet daughters on Friday, and came back the next day to visit again to meet her husband. When we walked in, we sat down, and he told us right away, "Well, just so you know, I really want to get baptized." We were like, "Say whaaa?!?" Haha we were shocked! We set a baptismal date with him for June 28th. He told us he's done a lot of studying of many different religions and he even read the Book of Mormon in high school. He said what really prompted him to want to get baptized was a ward event they went to a few weeks back (a chili cook-off). He said he really loved the sense of community and family there. He also expressed to us how he wants to become a better person and enjoys serving others. It is truly a miracle!! And, their oldest daughter who is 12, also wants to get baptized. So we are going to set a date with her this week. :) We are just so excited for this family!!! :)
Also, another awesome thing that happened this past week was the support that our investigator *** has received from members of the ward after he found out his baptism for June 14th has to be postponed. He was pretty crushed about the news at first, but he's been doing better the last few days. Our ward missionaries (who are fantastic) went over to visit him and brought balloons and cake and did their best to comfort him. So we are really happy about that. We are just going to do our best to help him continue to have faith and know that he will be baptized soon. :)

We have just been continuing meeting members of the ward and trying to find more people to teach. Our ward is awesome though - so many awesome families with awesome kids!! Seriously, last Sunday for testimony meeting, most of the people who bore their testimonies were youth. It was so great. It inspires me to be the best parent I possibly can and raise my children to grow up strong in the Gospel. :) 

Oh another wonderful thing that happened - yesterday a kid from the Berkeley YSA ward got baptized that Sister Henderson and I taught! He's had a lot of missionaries teach him actually. He's so funny. On Saturday he came to the VC for his baptismal interview and he was making me die of laughter. I've never seen him so happy before. The Gospel truly changes lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As for the drive from Moraga to the temple, it is basically the coolest, prettiest most magical drive in the world. Haha. Really though, it's super awesome. It's basically like driving through a mountain forest canyon thing and it's gorgeous. That's the best way I can explain it haha. And we've been listening to Oh Brother Where Art Thou all week! We love it! It is so fitting with the drive too; I feel like I'm in Alabama sometimes. :)

Well I love you all! I am constantly learning how Heavenly Father is a miracle worker. I am also learning that as cheesy as it sounds, happily ever after does exist, fairy tales are real and all our dreams will come true some day. All that Disney stuff, it's all true. :) And it's all possible because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. :) 

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Johnson 

Pictures:  :)