Hanover 10/24/16

Dear family and friends,

We had an amazing mission wide conference two weeks ago and Elder
Stevenson and Elder Uceda came. It was so cool to meet them! Elder
Stevenson talked about the story of Peter and Cornelius and how we
need to think of how to find "our Cornelius" (aka the person God has
prepared).

Tuesday morning, Sister Shepherd and I decided to study the story in
Acts 10. We discussed how we could be better at acting on spiritual
promptings, even if they seem counter-intuitive. The morning's
activities didn't take as long as we planned, so we had about 20
minutes before our next appointment. The thought came to me to stop by
a former investigator. We drove there and she wasn't home, so we got
back in the car and headed off. As I was driving, I recognized a young
man outside his house--we had taught him an unsuccessful lesson 2
months ago and had never gotten a return appointment. I stopped the
car and we ran to knock on his door. He looked shocked when he saw us,
hastily asked us to sit down, and told us he's had the worst 24 hours
in his life and had been praying desperately for help and direction.
He said, "I blew y'all off last time. But it's amazing that you all
showed up here today. I'm taking this as my sign." He wants to be
baptized!  God knows where the Cornelius' live and He's willing to
guide us to them--we just have to include God in His work.

The rest of this week's highlights include frolicking through the
state park on P day (Sister Shepherd skipping down the path and Sister
Johns veering off the path to climb things), and helping a part member
family haul branches down into their forest kind of like lumberjacks.

Have a great week!
Sister Johns


Sent from my iPad

Hanover 10/17/16

Dearest people,

Can I just say how much I love being missionary? I think I'm just going to do this for the rest of my life, sooo.:)

Being in Hanover for the past 4 1/2 months has been really challenging for me. It was a dead area when we got here, plus being trained by a new missionary (haha). The first two months were spent basically scouring every inch of Hanover, looking for new neighborhoods, uncharted streets. Any place that could possibly have human life, preferably human life that didn't "already have a church." 

In Shepherdsville, I remember a few distinct times when I felt like we were at a low point and all things were failing. Every single time, Heavenly Father made something happen--something mind blowingly and blatantly miraculous. That didn't happened here. We hit low point after low point. I learned a bit of Bednar's insight that sometimes we need faith NOT to be healed.

Our mission has made a massive push to baptize monthly. Heavenly Father needed us not to have faith that we'll baptize every month, but faith in Jesus Christ and His ability to change us into the missionaries who can effectively find, teach, and baptize every month. So we've been working hard, trying to change and become better, setting higher goals, praying earnestly, and expecting miracles. More fully experiencing the Atonement of Christ. And miracles have come. It's taken weeks and weeks of labor and struggle and prayer--Christ patiently and painstakingly showing me...that it's me that needs to change. I'm the one who needs my heart to be broken and changed and prepared. As soon as we allow the Savior's quickening, healing, expanding, strengthening, chastening power in our hearts...miracles do happen.

I love you all,

Sister Johns

District pic! Plus zone leaders on the right. They called Saturday and
told us the "transfer news" that Hanover was closing and our new areas
and companions. Gave us a heart attack! We need to get them back...😏

Temple

Hanover 10/12/16

Hey lovely people!
It's been SUCH a good week! It's been kind of a drop week... We were
dropped by and dropped seven people. Here's an excerpt from my
journal:
I had an epiphany tonight as I was praying. God is absolutely
miraculous. He directed us so exactly today--we were right where we
needed to be and the people God prepared were there too. He is
perfectly capable of carrying out His plans. He just needs His two
imperfect stewards to listen and obey Him. We need to be where He
wants us to be when He needs us and saying what He wants us to say. We
are representing Christ, who ALWAYS does His Father's will. Baptism or
no baptism, when I leave this area, I want to be able to say I
finished the work God sent me here to do.

Random Inserts:
-Sister Shepherd taught one of our investigator's four year old
daughters to pray and it was the sweetest thing ever.
-We drove all the way to Evansville yesterday with the Assistants for
the new missionary training. It was SO much fun! Missionaries have
nothing to do so we end up having he weirdest sense of humor haha. We
laughed the whole time, it was great.
-We were walking down a road in Madison minding our own business when
we heard this angelic music blasting the whole street. We thought we
were being translated or something until we realized...the Elders were
driving down the road with music on and windows open. Haha.
-Got asked out by a guy with a daughter this week. Once he found out
that wasn't allowed he told us he'd wait for ten months until I'm off
my mission. Awesome sauce.

Have a wonderful week!
Sister Johns

Zone family meeting

Sister's Conference

Eating lunch in Madison

Random country road!

Hanover 10/3/16

Dearest people,

What a week! We had a Sister's Conference in Louisville on my birthday
so that was fabulous! I got sang to multiple times, got to see the
lovely Sister Vaughn, and got to eat Cafe Rio for the first time this
year! Thank you for all your birthday wishes!

General Conference was excellent. We watched Saturday's sessions with
this awesome family in the ward. They have an elaborate point system
akin to march madness and complete with a trophy for the winner. It
was intense!

In Mormon's well-read discourse on love, he exhorts us to "have
charity." I've always read that as we need to be loving towards each
other and God. Elder Holland expounds, “The greater definition of ‘the
pure love of Christ,’ however, is not what we as Christians try but
largely fail to demonstrate toward others but rather what Christ
totally succeeded in demonstrating toward us. True charity has been
known only once. It is shown perfectly and purely in Christ’s
unfailing, ultimate, and atoning love for us...It is that charity--his
pure love for us--without which we would be nothing, hopeless, of all
men and women most miserable. Truly, those found possessed of the
blessings of his love at the last day--the Atonement, the
Resurrection, eternal life, eternal promise--surely it shall be well
with them." So how do we "have charity?" Becoming saturated with the
infinite love of Christ's Atonement.

After reading how ESSENTIAL charity is, the question is usually, "How
do we GET that?" Mormon explains that too, "wherefore...pray unto the
Father will all the energy of heart that ye may be filled with this
love..." I've always read that, "pray really hard for charity and God
will give it to you." This week I read it differently. Although it's
important to pray FOR charity, it's potentially even more important to
PRAY. Pray to our literal Father with our hearts. Talk to Him, listen
to Him, counsel with Him. As we do that, we will more fully understand
who He is, and who we are, and who those around us are. As we
comprehend the love our Father has for us, we will be filled with that
love and become like Him.

Love,
Sister Johns