Evansville 4/24/17

Dear people,

It's been such a blessed week. I feel like I should share bits of a talk that Sandy recently gave in her first sacrament meeting as a member. With her permission of course. 

"I was praying for direction and a little inspiration and I waited for that still small voice. What I heard was, "you are an onion." A what? 

I've though about onions a lot this week. When the missionaries first met me they probably thought I was a lot like this onion--flaky on the outside and tough underneath. I did show a tough side to the world. I was bruised and dented..angry and disillusioned with life. I hid inside that tough layer--it was my comfort zone. 

I didn't make it easy for the missionaries (I call them the mercenaries). They just kept coming back. They shared the Plan of Salvation and encouraged me to read the Book of Mormon.

Little by little cracks were appearing in the onion. 

I realized I thought of Jesus as a historical figure. I believed He had done the things I'd read and heard about but that was a long time ago and not relevant to my life. Now, you can hear 1,000 times that Christ died for you but until you open up and allow yourself to internalize it...you hold on to the layers that separate you for Jesus. 

In Matthew 26:39 Christ asks God if there is any way to change what was about to happen."O my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me..." Now right there is a colon which indicates a pause. I hear God say to Jesus, "My Son, I wish it could be different, but it can't. You see, in about 2,000 years there will be an onion in my garden. I love her and I want her to be with me again. But the only was is for you to do this for her."

Jesus did this for me not knowing if I would reach out if I would  make the choice to come to him. 

He did this for all of us.

If you don't know Jesus or if you do but there are layers between you...ask if you are an onion too." 

I was so grateful to read this. Sometimes it's hard serving in the bible belt because so many people are convinced that they know their Savior already. It was a good reminder to me that ultimately we come to know Christ through His restored gospel, and it's a constant effort. We're all onions!

Love you!

Sister Kristen Johns 

Evansville 4/17/17

Dear friends,

Tristate Adventures

-Heather and her entire family came to church on Sunday! So you might say things are getting pretty serious...;)

-Taught impromtu Gospel Principles class and YW class Sunday

-Felt inspired to stay in town Monday night instead of driving down to Louisville for MLC Tuesday morning. We were in a neighborhood and decided to knock on a door. A family let us in and they are super interested and came to the ward activity Saturday!

-Drove allllll the way to Lousiville Tuesday for a bombin' MLC! All my old companions are STLs so it's a nice little reunion.

-Gave a training in ZM on visions, goals, and plans. I really really like our zone!

-Gave a member's dog a bath

-Got antied by this guy we tried. He told us he was concerned about us because we belong to a cult and we know better than that. We were like "BYE!" 

-Drove allllll the way to Olney (pronounced all knee) Illinios for an exchange! So now I can say I've technically lived in all the I states haha just kidding. Olney is tiny and famous for white squirrels. Look it up, I'm not kidding. I saw one as we rode bikes!

-Had a wonderful Easter. I've been studying the life of Jesus Christ the past few weeks and it's been really amazing to start understanding more of who Christ is. 

Hope you have a great week!

Sister Kristen Johns

My comps!

The ZLs wanted to match!

Awk MLC pics

Evansville 4/10/17

Hola!

Crazy sauce week, lemme tell ya! 

For Pday, Sista Endemann and I played a rousing tournament of ping pong. Best thing ever! 

Tuesday, we loaded up and drove allllllll the way across the mission to Evansville Indiana! Sister Fehrenbacker and I are so pumped to be companions. She and I have been buds since we were in our first district together, over a year ago. This area is big and populated. I've never been in a city before, so it's an adjustment for sure! There is a college in our area and we're going to start working with the YSA more. If anyone has tips, please let me know! Haha.

Sis F hasn't driven here before, so in the last few days we've gotten lost approximately 17 times (despite my GPS) and locked the key fob in our 2017 Chevy Malibu. If you're wondering, even the locksmith can't fix that one because it's so high tech. *four hours later* hahaha oh man.

I feel like this is the area I'm going to take everything I've learned my entire mission and apply it. I'm super excited! We have six sets of sisters to exchange with this transfer. There are two other sets of mercenaries in the ward so that's pretty fun! 

Lots of miracles this week--contacted this super prepared person on the street, then this cute young couple from the ward pulled over by us and told us to hop in the car and they bought us pizza. 

District pictures. If you're wondering, we were trying to remake a photo from Sis F's Dad's mission. 

Love y'all!

Sister Kristen Johns 

Winchester 4/3/17

Hey!

This week was bombin!

We hiked Lockegee rock on Monday with some of the sisters. It was rainy and absolutely glorious.

We had a crazy storm as we came in the other night, so of course we went and danced in it.

Did some hardcore finding this week. Which leads me to a funny story. We walked down the road and saw this 12 year old girl walking her little dog. She was looking at something in the sidewalk and we approached her and asked what it was. As we talked, garter snakes came slightering out from the sidewalk! This little girl screams "GET IT, PENNY!!" And the dog pounced on the snake, killing it. Sister E and I were dying. Haha.

Conference was wonderful, I'm excited to study it!

So transfer calls happened. President called AGAIN! (Man, why does he always call?!) I am going to Evansville, Indiana with Sister Fehrenbacker! She came out a little after me and we were in the same district. We've always wanted to be comps, so here we go! We will be the STLs there. Going to miss Sister M&M like craaaazy. I think we were just having too much fun together ha.;) We took lots of pictures with different wonderful families here, but this was one of my faves.

Love y'all!
Sister Kristen Johns

Sent from my iPad