Tracking Northern Dublin

My American Companion for the Day

Tracking in Northern Dublin

Hello Everyone!

So this P-day they stole it! Some leaders I don't know who, decided that having a Blitz (don't know exactly what that its) would be awesome to do it on the one day of the week that we have time to go shopping, cleaning, resting and doing what we need to do to have energy and things we need for the rest of the week. It made our day so stressful and we couldn't get everything we needed in the little time they gave us. We are Blitzing from 12-9pm. Sorry I just had to do a little bit of complaining at the beginning.

This week was slightly better than last week in terms of missionary work. We have two new investigators now!! One is Aqeel from Iraq and Owen from Malawi. I don't like how most of the people we talk to and make appointments with are men, it makes this really complicated because we need to have another women who is a member to teach with us if we meet in the chapel to teach. I think we get a lot of men because Sister Stein is really pretty and they want to talk to a pretty girl. The Elders seem to have a good mix of men and women though, so maybe men are just more friendlier in general and women need the incentive of an attractive man to stop and talk. 

Aqeel is pretty awesome he isn't a practicing Muslim, but his parents are both Muslim, and his mum used to be a Christian. Since he's been to Ireland he feels distant from God so he was interested in learning more about Christianity. He knows some weird things about Christianity which isn't in our Church such as nuns, praying to strange prophets and Mary, and other things, that the LDS Church doesn't do. He's really into meeting with us and wants to know more. Aqeel even went to Sacrament Meeting this Sunday! We just need to get him an Arabic Book of Mormon and I think he'll just get really into reading it. Rebecca you need to teach me some words in Arabic!

Owen is Christian already and just wants to hear more about Jesus Christ which is awesome. It's just been hard to schedule time to meet with him.

Hopefully Adam (an investigator before I came here) will be able to be baptized in the next week or two. He's Polish and has come so far from where he was before. I can really tell that he has a powerful testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We had 9 Baptisms this week in the whole missions! Our goal this month is to have 40 Baptisms total.

I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and only had 5 minutes to give it, so I didn't really talk about myself, (sorry mum) Because I felt a little scared, and I really thought that I wasn't more important than the message I wanted to share. When I've been talking to Christians on the street or when people are like, you are just another Christian church I wanted to really think about and be able to strongly identify what makes our Church different from any other churches on the earth. What answer came to my mind first was the Book of Mormon of course and then the Priesthood. The Power and Authority of God. We are the only church on earth that has the Priesthood keys given  to us from God to Christ, Christ to the apostles, Apostles to Joseph Smith and then to every worthy male in the Church. Our Prophet is the only one on earth that holds all the priesthood keys. The Priesthood is the authority to make ordinances with God, and the ability to give blessings. The Priesthood isn't about only men being able to hold it, it's not a right but a privilege. A priesthood holder uses the priesthood to help others, such as healing, comfort, allowing others to make covenants and aiding in the setting apart of members to accomplish callings. The priesthood has blessed my life in so many ways, even now the power of the priesthood is helping me serve a mission. Since being a missionary I feel like my capabilities to focus, find comfort, study, and also to love others has grown enormously, and that's all given to me because of the power of the Priesthood. No other church on earth has this power, we must use the Priesthood whenever possible and help others know the blessings having the priesthood in their lives can bring. I also have a testimony in Home Teachers, if it wasn't for Home Teachers my family wouldn't have as easy access to the priesthood. When I moved out for a few months I really noticed the difference not having Home Teachers around made me feel. The singles ward and every ward must express how important and essential having home teachers visit families and homes that don't have a Melchizedek Priesthood holder. 

We had Exchanges with the STLS (sister training leaders) I went to the North side of Dublin with Sister Peterson and it's so different! Sister Peterson is from Seattle USA, so we had an American sister day out. She's so funny and cute! We spent a whole day together trying to do finding but in the area the STLs live most people drive and it's not so much a city but like a suburb. The homes around the flat are huge! And really pretty. It was interesting when you try to stop a lot of people and talk about religion they bring up evolution, which I never got on the South Side of Dublin. It makes me frustrated when people say they believe in Evolution when I think I know more about evolution than they do and I also 'believe' in it. Science and Religion are two different things it's like comparing a Dessert Food to a Meal Food. They are separate and work together. The people think they are so smart when they talk about evolution, but in my head I'm just thinking. How can you be so ignorant. Sorry I'm mean... Don't get me wrong I'm starting to love people no matter what, and I love how talkative Irish people are. It makes it easier to listen and understand people when they are speaking. I love the South side of Dublin because of all the different cultures and how everyone is from different places all around the world. North side, is really pretty though. I'm excited to see what the rest of the mission is like. Sis Peterson and I, were bad and ate sandwiches for lunch and had dessert for dinner. So having a Tart really topped off my day. Sister Peterson though accidentally locked us out, it was hilarious because right before she did it she was telling me that she's really forgetful and then right after she left the keys in the flat! HAHAHA we waited FOREVER for the landlord to get someone to get the flat open. The STLs had a baptism on Saturday so congrats to them, Sister Stein had a small role to play in finding that investigator too. They did a baptism in the river, but apparently it was raining and they had to dunk him under a few times to get full immersion, but that's how the guy wanted it done. I'm excited to have my own investigator in the water!

Anyway I better go! I hope everyone had a fantastic week.

Love you,

Sister Johnson.