July 2016

I only have a few minutes to email because we awent down to Howth, Ireland this P-day so sorry if this email isn't as detailed as it can be.

Also HEY EVERYONE!

So yes I'm in DUBLIN IRELAND! I'm so pumped that my first area is in Ireland. I went through 3 countries in 1 day to get here, Scotland, Northern Ireland and now Ireland. We took at bus at 10:30am to the ferry and it was like a 3.5 hour drive and I thought I was going to puke. In the seat behind us were these REALLY Irish men and we some how struck up a conversation that we brought teaching the gospel into it. I was thinking wow I wonder if teaching the gospel to strangers will be that easy. NOPE. Anyway I'll get to that later... I finally arrived in the flat at like 9:15pm, we were late :( 

72 Tolka vale, 

Finglas road, 

Dublin 11 Ireland

You can send letters to this address if you want to

It's the yellowish apartment building behind me in the picture I'll send

So my companion is the lovely Sister Stein, she's from the Netherlands. The missionaries I meet people are from America, Australia, England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, New Zealand and I'm sorry but I forgot the rest. When we arrived in Edinburgh Scotland I was exhausted, the mission home is amazing though. It's seems like a 100 years old or something like that. The ceilings, furniture, style is beautiful, and I really felt like I was in Europe, I should've taken photos for you but I'll do it when I come back in 17 months.  We tried to climb Pratt's hill but they said a serious 'incident' happened so we went some where else near by, Edinbrugh is so pretty! Scotland from what I've seen is gorgeous. I hope I can serve there sometime.

Anyway when they announced that my companion was Sister Stein it felts so right, it does feel a bit awkward still spending 24/7 with a Sister I don't know at all really and it's just us two a lot of the time.  

How's mission life? Not too bad actually, amazingly my first companion wants to run with me so we spend the first 30 mins in the morning running together. So nice to run outside...

It's kinda stressful trying to find new investigators because we only have one right now and we don't have any referrals. I really want to work on trying to get the members more involved with missionary work because trying to find people on the street willing to talk to us is hard. A lot of people make the excuse I'm busy, I've never been rejected so many times in a day in my life. I think I'm taking it well... Dad and Mum I know how you feel, kinda. Trying to find people to teach as really made me impressed with Converts to the church, they are definitely the elect of God's people. We taught this very un-active lady the other day, and I'm saying taught very loosely. And she straight up told us that she didn't want to change, she doesn't believe that she sins, she just makes choices, and all she wants is to hear about God and feel his love. It made me realize how different our church is, we require action in the church. You can't be forgiven of your sins and utilize the atonement unless you do some thing about it. Look up the Bible dictionary definition of repentance if you have time. Basically Repentance is a change of heart you much turn away from the sin and have no desire to do it. Repentance with the covenant of baptism and the partaking of the sacrament allows us to change into a better person. 

The mission life is kinda stressful, because of the numbers and such. But we do Baptize in the Scotland/Ireland, last month they had 40 baptisms and this year 167 total so far, the goal this year is to get 360 baptisms!

I'm excited to get some people to the font! The area of Dublin we're in is really poor, I think most of Ireland have really bad economy and everyone is struggling finding work. The members in the ward have such a personality it's fantastic! We had testimony meeting this Sunday and it was interesting the mix of people. I couldn't bare my testimony so they asked me to give a talk next Sunday. exciting... We have 4 Elders in my area and they are funny. We went down to Howth together and walked down a trail to a little pebble beach and we were like every where. It felt so nice to wear normal clothes and not have to try to talk to everyone we passed. It started to rain for the first time since I've been here, but it went away after 2 hours and the rest of the day was so HOT. One of the Elders said that he felt like he was walking in hell. 

That's all I can think about saying right now, it's been an overwhelming crazy week but I still LOVE being a missionary. I like trying to talk to people, walking around all day, praying all the time and talking about the Gospel 24/7. Ireland is super humid, and not very green where I am because it's very much a city, the buildings are all really old and low. There is a very mixed culture, I've spoken to more Brazilians than Irish in the streets and some people from all over Africa. So many people can't speak English well, I wish I knew Portuguese or French or basically any other language as well. 

LOVE YOU ALL

Sister Johnson

Enjoy the photo's I took this week, the mountains across from the ocean is on the Isle of Aayran 

and the Sister Sharky makes a giant Yorkshire Pudding with some meat she cooked in the slow cooker during stake Conference. Basically the food they make for the missionaries is Potatos, Carrots, other veg and some kind of meat, like Sunday roast everyday.  

February 13, 2017

I just past my 9 month mark on Saturday! Whoop Whoop! Now I have barely less than 9 months left of my mission. It feels super exhausting to get this far and I hope that the next bit would be easier. I hope that I can accomplish a lot more in these next 9 months than what I've done so far. This last week was really difficult. We did over 30 hours of finding in the streets and knocking on doors. And didn't have much success in lessons, we taught another old man named Patrick. He was really strange and still wants us to meet up with him again, we'll see how it goes. Graham has taken another step back because he hasn't been honest to us about how he feels about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, he tells us that he was only telling us that he believes those things to keep the peace????? Why would he want to join a church so badly if he doesn't think that it's true? I have no idea... We really tried to tell him repeatedly since the very first time we met him that be believe that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God and the Book of Mormon is the word of God and he's said nothing about it. Sister Lawson and I also tells him to pray about these things and to read the Book of Mormon. Graham even tells us that he's read the Book of Mormon when he can't even tell me that it's about. He forgets things so easily and we remind him constantly but he isn't progressing of making any effort to do anything on his own. He might be a waste of time, Sister Lawson and I are considering just seeing him every month now. 

Sorry for the brief email this week, it's just been a really cold long week. Enjoy the photo's I took this week, the mountains across from the ocean is on the Isl of Aayran and the Sister Sharky makes a giant Yorkshire Pudding with some meat she cooked in the slow cooker during stake Conference. Basically the food they make for the missionaries is Potatos, Carrots, other veg and some kind of meat, like Sunday roast everyday.