Shepherdsville 5/30/16

Greetings from KY!

This week lasted about a month. We dropped our Cruze off at the body

shop on Tuesday for its two week long repair, and began our journey on

bikes. Wednesday it rained all day. We rode a treacherous stretch to

Brother Aubrey's for a lesson in a downpour. Then we rode back to the

library. When we pulled up I realized I was COVERED in mud. Be

dignified, they said. Ride bikes, they said. In a skirt, THEY SAID.

Haha, it was awesome.

Sister Jarman--I mean Phoebe--came down for Jordan's baptism! It was

so wonderful to see her again. Brother Aubrey did so well baptizing

her! Afterwards he said, "I've reached a new level of awesome sauce.

Have some fries with THAT!" They are both so happy.

Tuesday we were walking back to get our bikes we had stashed at

Brother Aubrey's earlier in the day, when we ran into Jordan and a

creepy looking man. She brightly introduced us to him and told us he

was helping her look for some kittens. We started walking back towards

the house and she followed us. Once we got to the house, the man said

bye and walked away. At the time, we didn't question it because we

assumed she knew him. It turns out, he was a total stranger, in his

30s, and a pedophile. If we hadn't been there at the exact time we

were, who knows what would've happened to her. It was a testimony to

me that Heavenly Father takes care of his children.

I hope everyone has a fabulous week!

Love,

Sister Johns

Shepherdsville 5/16/16

Hey all,

This week we had a blitz exchange and a multi zone conference in
Indiana, so we both ended up staying two nights with our Sister
Training Leader in Louisville. Sister Bogardus and I were driving up
Tuesday night and I was reading a talk out loud when a random image of
a car accident flashed in my mind. I stopped and said, "I feel like
we're going to have an accident, I'm just going to say a prayer that
we'll be safe." Ten minutes later, we were stopped in a turning lane
and a car flipped around the corner too fast, hit the curb and side
swiped us. Thankfully no one was hurt! Sister B was pretty shaken up
as it was her very first accident (I was perfectly calm, I mean it's
only like my fifth accident plus I knew it was going to happen soooo).

A little miracle story: We have a goal to contact 140 people a week,
and Thursday our goal was 25 people. It ended up being a day with a
lot of appointments and at 8:30 we realized we hadn't contacted a
soul. We have to start planning at 9:00 so Sister Bogardus and I
prayed for the Lord's help and started talking. 25 minutes later, we
had talked with 25 people. God provides a way when we have faith!
Faith is a principle of action and power. When we show God we're
willing to put in the "action," He shows us His power.

This week, I've been thinking a lot about agency. It has to be the
most painful experience God ever goes through--to watch his children
not only choose wrongly, but make the choice that limits their ability
to choose. The more we choose Satan the more he has control over us.
I've seen that a lot this week, when the people we're working with
decide not to choose God. My tendency is to FORCE them because I KNOW
it will make them happy gosh dang it! But I can't. That's not God's
plan. It actually resembles Lucifer's plan. What we can do--whether
it's with investigators or with friends or with children--is 1) Make
it clear that the person has agency, it is their choice and they must
own that choice. They have been given the ability to act. 2) Make it
clear ultimately what those choices are, and there are only two: God
or Satan. 3) Explain the consequences for those choices. Lehi explains
it well, "And they are free to choose eternal life...or to choose
captivity and death" (2 Nephi 2:27).

As they say here in Kentucky, hope your week is finer than a frog hair
split four ways!

Love,
Sister Johns

This is a monumental moment. I'm eating the one subway sandwich I've ever been truly satisfied with;)

Sisters Johns and Bogardus

Shepherdsville 5/9/16

It's another beautiful day in the town of Shepherdsville in the Great
Kentucky Louisville Mission in the United States of America, God bless
it! (As President Brough would say).

Welp, turns out I'm not training! My new missionary apparently made a
last-minute decision to go home after the MTC. So yeah. My new
companion is Sister Bogardus. She's been out for one transfer longer
than I have. I'm going to miss Sister Jarman a ton, but I'm excited to
see what this new transfer will bring!

I've been thinking a lot about mothers this past week, and what an
enormous task it is. Elder Holland spoke of motherhood as a type of
Christ, "It is not only that they bear us, but they continue bearing
with us. It is not only the prenatal carrying but the lifelong
carrying that makes mothering such a staggering feat." That's exactly
what Christ does for us. He bore our sins once, and continues bearing
with us throughout our lives. I have felt Christ's awesome power this
week as He has carried me and enabled me to do what I know was beyond
my power to do.

Love you all!
Sister Johns

Shepherdsville 5/2/16

Hello all--
Transfer calls have come. *drumroll please*
I'm training! Ahh! I'm so excited/terrified. Please keep me in your
prayers, I'm going to need it!

This week has been incredible. I didn't expect a mission to be so
brutally taxing, but I also didn't expect it to be so blatantly
miraculous.

Brother Elliott's foster mother, brother, and sister all have
committed to a baptismal date! Who would have thought his mom--who is
a chaplain and who was very against Brother Elliott meeting with
Mormons just months ago--is now wanting to join the Church. Brother
Elliott is shock'n'awed as they say it here.

Brother Aubrey was baptized! It was the best baptism so far. I never
would have thought that the skeptical, snarky man we met in a parking
lot would have changed so much and become one of my favorite people in
Kentucky. We're now teaching his nine year old daughter who wants to
be baptized by her daddy.

When we make covenants with God, we become His children. I know that
Heavenly Father takes care of His children. The Lord promises, "Even
the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the
terrible shall be delivered; for the Mighty God shall deliver his
covenant people...(2 Nephi 6:17)." Here have been so many times when
we've left the apartment not knowing how we were going to achieve our
goals, or how we were going to find time to eat. The Lord has ALWAYS
provided ways and means.

Funny story: We had a dinner appointment with one of our favorite less
actives. She gave us a ton of amazing food and we ate all of it. We
had an appointment with Brother Aubrey's niece in his home right
after. As he welcomed us in it slowly dawned on me that he had bought
dinner--four 10 wing boxes of Buffalo Wild Wings hottest. He laid them
in front of us in order of spiciness and commanded us to eat. We were
not only being force fed a second dinner, but an extremely spicy
second dinner, and under intense scrutiny. By the end my tongue was
numb and my lips were on fire and I was SO. FULL.

So there you go. Happy Monday!
Love,
Sister Johns

At the Baptism

Fishing with the Branch Mission Leader's grandson