Winchester 12/19/16

Exchanges!

 Greetings! 

Last week, Sister Israelsen asked me a question, "What's Lord of the Rings about?" My answer has turned into a week long story telling session. We've made it to the Return of the King, and still going strong. Now Sister Iz calls everything her precious, speaks in third person, and adds ssss on the end of words. I cannot undo what I have done. Haha.

This week, we helped out a lot at an elementary school library. The adorable librarian was putting on a Polar Express activity for the kiddies, including reading the book, serving hot chocolate, and giving everyone a bell. The kids absolutely loved it. They gave us hugs and stuff and it was so cute!

We exchanged the Lex North Sisters this week. I got to be with Sister Kerr, who has only been out for a few weeks! It felt kind of like white wash training again, leading out in Winchester and such. 

We were driving past this neighborhood and Sister Iz saw this cute family outside so we pulled over and jumped out. An idea popped in my head to show them the Light the World video. Next thing we knew, we had six little kids gathered around us, eagerly watching the video. It struck me as I was watching the kids watch Christ how I need to emulate Christ's example and be truly kind to others and see them as my brothers and sisters. 

We read the story about the woman who had the issue of blood in Relief Society yesterday. It struck me this time...when she touched him and a "virtue" left him, which means "strength" in Greek. So SHE was healed instantly, but at the cost of strength from Christ. I've always kind of assumed Christ had innate powers to heal people when he was on the earth, and powers to heal us now. But that power doesn't work like a magic trick. You can't get something from nothing. The source of Christ's power is the agony and pain of the Atonement. So every time you and I are healed, whether it's physically, mentally, emotionally...it comes at a heavy price. A price paid in Gethsemane and Calvary. I am so grateful for that.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!

Love, 

Sister J

Being a true Kentuckian with our recent convert

 This video describes us daily.  If you keep watching you can see me throwing an exercise ball at her haha!

Winchester 12/12/16

We did sidewalk chalk with a member who does photography. It was so fun!

Hey hey!

This week consisted of 12 hours of meetings. Whew! We had MLC on Tuesday which was AMAZING. I was expecting it to be a big training by President and the Assistants, but it was very much a council. Sister Iz and I were saying a council is the best teaching/learning environment because you get to participate instead of just being talked at. 

Had my first exchange on Thursday! I went to Lexington with Sister Lee. It was so much fun and I learned a lot. 

An Elder at MLC is in the same ward as Elder Bednar's son, and Elder Bednar himself came for Thanksgiving. He met with the missionaries and one of them asked him how to have motivation with missionary work. Elder Bednar told him that motivation is selfish, worldly, and short-lived. DESIRE is what we should be seeking. He then advised to study the BOM and look for agency. So this week I've been studying agency and it's fascinating. Our goal is to become like God, who is in complete control of himself and everything around Him. So we need to strive to be a creator of circumstances instead of a creature of circumstances. And remember, agency wouldn't be possible without the atonement.

So for a long time I've been trying to figure out how to become a master teacher. And I realized this week that in order to become a good teacher, I need to help others become agents instead of objects. Instead of trying to force people into my own mind process that I feel they need to know, I need to create an environment where I can tap into everyone's mind processes. So they can come to their OWN conclusion, and not just be told something is important. It's much much more powerful that way. 

A sister in our zone shared an experience she had pondering about worship in the temple. She always thought of worship as prayer and was confused since prayer seems to be a fairly small part of what happens in the temple. Moses 1:39 popped into her mind, "This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Then she received this revelation: "The highest form of WORSHIP is EMULATION." So when we go to the temple or to church or when someone tells us to worship God....we aren't simply praying to God or praising Him. We're becoming like Him. And we do that through ordinances. 

Haha sorry it's a bit preachy this week! I tell more about adventures next week.

Love ya!

Sister Johns

Sent from my iPad

Watching the light the world video at a recent converts house in 3D!!

Exchanges! Sister Lee is the closest to the camera.

Winchester 12/5/16

Greetings!

This week was fantastic! I absolutely love Winchester already. I've missed Kentucky accents and horse farms. Plus everyone here has an obsession with Ale-8 a type of soda that originated here. The ward is pretty big, and extremely helpful! The town is probably one of the bigger places in the mission other than Lexington and Louisville.

Sister Israelsen is fabulous. She does amazing Miranda impersonations, owns a pair of Olaf footie pajamas, and makes me laugh a lot! She's on her last two transfers so we'll almost definitely be together for the next three months. I'm so excited!

In Hanover, one of the sisters organized the area into a really cool number system and it made life so much easier! So I've been working on making a number system here. We've also been working with members a ton and doing a lot of service this week for the Light the World initiative. We don't really have any investigators right now ha, but that's going to change!

This next week we're having a meeting with all the leadership in the mission called MLC. We're driving to Louisville tonight because Sister Brough needs the STLs help decorating the mission home. Then we'll stay the night there! There is SO much to do all the time, so I'm happy staying super busy:).

I really liked the Christmas devotional last night, especially the talk about the accepting God's gift of the Holy Ghost. I've been studying the BOM and looking for when it talk about covenants. Basically, Christ has this promise of eternal life that He is willing and able to give us. It's just a question of whether we're willing to give up ourselves and let Him change us.

Have a great week!

Sister Johns

Made some stir fry!

My beautiful map

Christmas parade