Sister Johnson at a zone conference Christmas party in Scotland. Obviously chocolate is involved. She said she moved up from Cadbury to nicer chocolate but it gives her a stomach ache due to her lactose intolerance.

Merry Christmas!!

So such GOOD NEWS!! FRANK GOT BAPTIZED YESTURDAY!  I'm so happy for him. He had to quit smoking for a week before he could be baptized so on the 10th we started him on 15 Steps which is a Scotland/Ireland quitting smoking program. It's such a miracle that he hasn't smoked since that day, he's been smoking his entire life and he's 50 something years old now. I'm just a bit sad as well because I couldn't be at his Baptism, I have to try and get photo's from Sister Truman...

Besides from that I'm doing well, I'm in Ayr Ward right now and it's such a beautiful place. The area I cover is huge, we take trains to go to the different towns and it's all along the seashore. It covers from Alloway to Troon, look it up on Google maps it's huge! There is about 60 members that attend this ward, so it's not very big and about 300 in-active/less-active members. Compared to the other Wards/branch I've been in the welcoming in this wards wasn't very open and friendly. Especially during Christmas time I don't feel very comfortable, hopefully over time I'll feel differently. Ary is a pretty decent sized city and has alot of people to talk to that are walking around in the streets. I got to meet a few of the investigators Sister Lawson and Sister Kim were working with and they seems so friendly and nice! But since it's the holidays we won't get to see some of them again until the new year. In the street we ran into a lady names Susan who can't meet with us until later, She had a massive dog!! Seriously it was huge, I'll send a photo of him for you to see but it doesn't do the dog justice. Apparently they only need to feed him a pound of meat a day, because they're only are suppose to walk a mile a day. I think he's called a Mastif. 

There is so much to Write about this area but we don't get long to email since Christmas is next week... our goal for this mission is 360 baptisms, last year the mission got 150ish but now to reach our goal after Frank's Baptism be got 4 left to reach 360!!
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Hope everyone is going to have a Merry Christmas!! and Happy New Year

26th November 2016

How everyone had a Merry Christmas! 

This week has been kind of a waste. Everyone is Ayr was so busy and distracted by Christmas that no one had a moment to talk to us, we also had a hurricane they called it Storm Barbara. It wasn't even that bad here, the winds were suppose to be 90 mph on Friday. I think that because they called it a hurricane a lot of people used it as an excuse to stay inside. I think it must've hit harder some where else in Scotland, don't get me wrong this week it's been really really windy, but isn't much rain and not that cold. Even though everyone was busy we still have to try and keep ourselves busy as missionaries so we walked ALOT, going by less/in-active members and trying to GQ on the streets. It's been getting dark really early at 3 o'clock it's almost pitch black.

We had a lot of Christmas Festivities this week! On Tuesday we had All-Scotland and we celebrate Christmas together by watching Brave, the Scottish themed Disney Princess Movie. Had a "Snow Ball" fight, Sung Christmas Carols and a Christmas devotional. It was so much fun!! 

On the 24th Saturday, Sister Lawson had a South African Family that lives in Motherwell now take us out to Lunch. We went to Mr. Brasie which is a Buffet with lots of different kinds of food. They had a really good selection of Indian Curry which I call me Christmas Eve Feast. For the rest of the day we tried to make ourselves productive by GQing till 5pm because we had to but literally everyone was too busy to talk to us and the weather was terrible. Then... YIPPY!! we got to go back to the flat, pack up a bunch of DVDs we burrowed from members and make a movie theatre in the Church for the night and eat chocolate. 😸

Sunday morning Sister Lawson got me out of bed exactly at 6:29am so we could open our Presents together. We already had some of the member's gifts given to us earlier that week, once we got to church we were given each a huge heavy bag of presents and cards from Members. So much presents, I was spoiled, a lot of chocolate and spa stuff. Graham an investigator of ours even came to church (though I wasn't particularly happy to see him because the last time we taught him be was being flirtatious with me, touched my face, attempted to hug me multiple times, and asked if I cared for him 😨) I want to drop him immediately but Sister Lawson is hesitant. He was upset at us at church for being cold to him, but we both were like it's Christmas Day and we have a lot on our minds...

After Church the Langs took us to their wonderful home and we spent the rest of the day with them!! They're the best it felt kinda like I was at home home, we watched some more movies and got to Skype our families for a few minutes. I didn't cry very much while I was skyping them but after we left the Langs that evening I cried... I MISS YOU GUYS 😘

We also got the classic Christmas Dinner too with Turkey, veggies, gravy, cranberry sauce and then a trifle for desert.  It was the best day I've ever had on my mission!! Last night I may have done a little marathon of a tv series... but turned it off earlier that I expected I would but couldn't sleep anyway because it was really windy and loud outside. Today I also get off too and we are going to the Stake President's home. 😁

Hope to hear for all of you some time!!

Love,

Sister Johnson

Train station in Glasgow, Scotland andEmpty Streets of Ayr the week before Christmas