Saturday, December 13, 2014

LAUREN'S THANKSGIVING POST - DECEMBER 1ST


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!
Lauren understands this...

YEAH CHANDLER HIGH!!!!!





Hello!! Happy Dec. 1st!

Wowzers it sounds like y'all had a fun week!! That's amazing that Chandler won!!! Wooo!! Finally!! :)

This past week was pretty crazy! We had three exchanges, two of them were back to back. But they were all super fun like always! We also started the Christmas schedule this week! We had it Saturday and Sunday, and then it starts again this Friday through the rest of December. Christmas schedule means we're basically in the Visitor's Center all day with no time in our area haha. So we either work from 9 to 1 and come back at 4:30, or start at 1 and then stay for the rest of the night. It is super fun because from 4:30 on all the sisters are together in the VC. We are stationed at certain spots and switch stations every hour. We are never with our own companions either. We have a new comp every hour and are paired with someone who speaks a different language (that doesn't really matter for me though haha, I'm pretty useless when it comes to different languages :-p) So, the first two days went well! On Saturday we celebrated the Christmas lights and there was a performance in the auditorium in the Inter-Stake Center and we also had a performance in the Visitor's Center. So Saturday was realllllly busy! It was exciting though! We've also been showing everyone the short "He is the Gift" video. If you haven't seen it, go to christmas.mormon.org and watch it right now!

Last week we also had Brother Lusvardi, the director of all Visitor's Centers and church historic sites, come and train us! He was awesome!! He really helped us to get pumped for Christmas and really what we want to achieve with the "He is the Gift" initiative. Basically it all comes down to helping everyone that comes to the Visitor's Center feel the love of the Savior and be inspired to discover, embrace and share his love. That is our main goal for this Christmas!

Also! Sister Orantes and I had a super sweet experience yesterday in the VC. It was a slow Sunday afternoon, so we were just quietly sitting and studying. We went up to the front and an older guy with his member friend were at the front, ready for someone to take them around. He was pretty bold and insisted that we show him around and show him what's so great and different about our church. So we showed him the Savior of the World room first and told him everything we believe is centered on Jesus Christ and patterning our lives after him. He asked questions and we took him to the back and showed him the Special Witnesses room, which is all about the prophet and apostles. He then had all these questions about the Book of Mormon, and other stuff. Basically, his heart was pretty hard in the beginning. But Sister Orantes is a spiritual beast and was totally inspired the whole time and threw all of these inspired questions at him. He really opened up to us and his heart softened so much. It was so neat to see!! By the end, he said he was really surprised and wasn't expecting the visit he had. Also, by the end he was really eager to get a Book of Mormon and said he was going to start reading it that night. Point of the story - it takes courage and faith to ask people inspired questions to help them open up and soften their hearts. But once we do, miracles happen!!

Oh yes - Thanksgiving was delicious!!! We went to the home of one of G*****'s parents house, who live in Moraga and are in the Moraga ward, the last ward I served in! :) (G**** is the member in our ward who is dating our investigator T****, who is getting baptized in January!!! She's the cutest and sweetest and most amazing investigator on the planet probably!!!) So we had it there with their family and it was very nice!! They have an amazing family! I only had two plates of food but I was about to die after I was so full haha. So I was well-taken care of for Thanksgiving!

Well that's it for this past week! Love you all!!!

Love, Sister Johnson 

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