St. Andrews, Scotland

15th August 2016‏

Good day everyone!

I hope everyone has been doing well. Right now I'm in Edinburgh Mission Home, with a bunch of missionaries. Sister Stein will be flying back to the Netherlands tomorrow morning and I'll just been chilling out till my new companion Sister Dahl, comes from Ireland on Wednesday. I'm be follow up training her, so for those who don't know how training works for Missionaries. We get trained in the MTC, but then get field training for the first 2 transfers or approximately the first 12 weeks of our mission. With that training we have in the companionship a trainer and a junior companion. Since I've done 2 transfers so far I'm done with my training and Sister Dahl has finished her 1st transfer. I'm going to be her trainer for her 2nd last bit of her training. A little bit scared and excited at the same time to be leading the area of Perth. No more Sister Stein... I'm going to miss her. Sister Dahl doesn't know what she is getting her self into. 

Sister Stein and I last week was interesting, I'm not sure what to think of it, we had our ups and downs. Alot of the time we visited members and I don't really rember... Time just really goes by way to quickly. P-day on Monday was pretty cool, after I emailed in the morning we went to Cluny Gardens, without really meaning to we just followed the road signs to the Highland Chocolatier but didn't eat any of the Chocolate... So sad... and then saw a sign to Cluny gardens. Curious we just drove to it and it's pretty fasinating. We spoke to the owner of the garden and said that it was all planted in 1950s by his step-dad the House was there since then as well and his step dad used it as his veternarian practice. In the garden there is all sorts of weird tropical plants from all over. 
On Wednesday I think we went to Brother and Sister Watford's house, they live pretty far away from Perth, but it's beautiful out here. Surrounding there house is forest and little fields and rolling hills (they call mountains) and in the Photo you can see a massive loch that is right infront of their home. They've lived there for 27 years I think and as they lived there they've turned this little cottage on a slope into a home. removed tons of dirt to make leveled ground, and Sister Watford keeps a beautiful veggie and fruit garden.

Billy is doing so well spiritually and continues to study the atonement, he unfortunately isn't doing good health wise since Friday and couldn't make it to Church this sunday. Right now in Perth we just really need to find people to baptise and teach so bad, my new companion and I are going to do so much finding this week and try and find one more new person between Thursday and Sunday! Pray for us to succeed!

I've been thinking about Family History so much on my mission and continue to feel the pressure from my anstors to do the work for them in the temple. First thing though I need to find the names, and build my family tree on familysearch. I have to wait to do that when I get home, right now I'm doing the work for the living.

Ahhh! just so much stuff is going through my mind right now I can't write a proper email this week. 😛 It wasn't a bad week, I love Perth it's just RESPONSIBILITY, I want to do really well this transfer and get some one closer to christ!​

August 8th, 2016

Hello,

This week has been pretty rough in the beginning we haven't been able to meet with our previous investigators so officially we dropped them. It's frustrating when people you want to help and serve, just don't contact you back and/or cancel of you when you get to their home. I'm going to continue to be hopeful, obedient and diligent in doing the work, because even though I don't know the lord's purpose for me being here I know that he does have one. One awesome thing or two awesome things happened, Our Investigator/maybe member/maybe excommunicated friend came to Church for the first time in 20 years or something. He came all dressed up in a suit and stayed for just sacrament meeting because he had to go see his daughter. It was awesome to see how far he's come in the few weeks that we've known him. We aren't too sure where he is on the was he/is he/ or was he never a member... The Stake President is looking for his records and nothing has come up for over a week now, we'll know for sure on Tuesday what is what. If they can't find anything on him at all then Sister Stein and l will just get him baptised on Friday as a convert, and if he's excommunicated of dis-fellow-shipped, it really depends... But it would be awesome if we just baptise him on Friday it'll be a great new start for him. Also another great thing, he's been trying for years to stop smoking and when he was previously going to church he still smoked even then, but after 3 weeks of getting the lessons from us he hasn't smoked, so for about 3 weeks he hasn't smoked!! The Church is totally true, the gospel can help people change no matter what, as long as they have the desire to do so. We go over to his house as well with a member and yesterday we went and the smell of smoke isn't nearly as strong. I hope that he'll really help strengthen the ward and continue to progress in the Gospel.

Another great miracle that happened yesterday is that we went to Creiff to an appointment we made with this guy Daniel who was interested in learning about the church, we found him by chapping on his mum's door. We came to the house at the time planned and his brother James opened the door. Apparently Daniel wasn't home and didn't answer the phone so we spoke to James about what we do as missionaries and asked if he had a moment to talk to us. He said sure, so we just walked in with the member we were going to bring to Daniel's lesson. We spoke to Daniel a little bit and he told us about how he recently wanted to make a change in his life, he was sick of the crime life and wanted to make a new start. He's mum is catholic and he used to go to church when he was younger so he believes in God and Jesus Christ but want to become closer to them and feel God's spirit in his life to stop him from doing the wrong thing. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the 5 points of the Gospel (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End) and also about how it's all possible because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ (suffering for our sins, dying on the cross and rising again 3 days later) I invited him to be baptised and he said that he definitely wants that! He also recognised the Holy Ghost with us as we talked to him and accepted a baptismal date and the beginning of next month. We ended the lesson with him saying the prayer. It was a Miracle Sister Stein and I have been praying for, some one who was willing and ready to commit! 

I loved that this week has ended on such a fantastic tone, I pray that we'll be able to see him on Tuesday.

Russel another guy I may have spoken about last week, he just got out of prison too and wanted to make a fresh new start, but WAY too many things has happened recently in his life that he spoke to us and told us that he feels like it would be too much for him to start going to church and praying. Sister Stein believes that one day he will be ready to come to church and be taught by missionaries, just not right now. I understand that he maybe feeling too overwhelmed right now because of all the terrible things that has happened, I just hope he'll have enough strength to pull through all of this and come out a better person.

So many men! Seriously! We were suppose to see Beth but she kept cancelling on us and I decided that it isn't worth wasting my time. And Isabella avoided a member that was trying to be friends with her, so it's pretty awkward, no idea why...

It's funny how for hours and  hours during the week you can be depressed and sad, with people cancelling, knocking on doors getting ignored and then trying to speak to people on the street and they ignore you too. It all gets erased by a few awesomely spiritual lessons.

Sister Stein's LAST MONDAY is today, my trainer/companion is going back to the Netherlands next week and leaving Perth Monday morning, It's going to be pretty sad to see her go she's been an awesome companion and is an inspiring missionary. She's so much more people friendly and nicer than I am so I hope my next companion will be the same so it can even me out. I'm kinda cold to people some times and I don't like being fake/polite.  It's a work in progress and I hope that I can over come it soon. On Sunday I'm going to find out for sure that I'll be staying here and whether I'll train, or not, or be a senior or junior companion. I'm predicting that I'm staying here and I'll have and new senior companion. crossing my fingers for yes, less change and responsibility is my style right now PLEASE!

Hope you all are doing well and have a great week,

Sincerely,

Sister Johnson

On Splits in Edinburg 

Day Proselyting in Edinburgh

Hellooooo

So as always in mission life it feels like an emotional roller coaster. We've been so busy these past few days, teaching, visiting and finding. On Tuesday we got to visit the STL (sister training leaders) in Edinburgh and do splits with them. I got the awesome German Sister Muller, it was a really good day of talking to random people in the streets and I've realized even more how awesome it would be to have an area in the city because there are such a wider variety of people that would actually stop and listen to you. We even had a first lesson with this young woman who we just barely met. Time just flew by so quickly that day, we ended the day reading the Book of Mormon with a recent convert and even went finding with him. I loved Edinburgh, it's such a cool city and I'd feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to serve there eventually. But we'll see. Sorry that I didn't take any pictures of the city, we were just far too busy that day. 

Wednesday we were walking briskly back to our car because our parking ticket was about to expire when Sister Stein stopped this rough looking guy walking out of a shop. We told him briefly about what we do and asked if he had time for us to talk to him more about what we believed. He said he did so we went to Starbucks to talk to him about the Gospel and the Holy Ghost. He seems to be interested so we got another appointment with him on Thursday. We decided it would be good to teach him at the chapel and on the way the man ran into a recent convert David and David walked him the rest of the way to the chapel. We showed the man around the building with Brother Johnstone and we really felt the spirit as the members basically taught the man about the church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Even though this man has gone through so many hard things in this life I have faith that God sent him to us and we feel really hopeful about this coming week with him. 

Another good story is about this ex-commmunicated guy Billy, the missionaries have been seeing forever. Sister Stein and I decided to go through all of the first lessons you teach someone before baptism. In that time since we've first meet him to now he's progressed so far. When he was first baptised he didn't quit smoking and drinking but now he's gone two weeks without smoking!! You can see a light growing in his eyes and the power of the atonement working within him. I have such a strong testimony now in the power of change that the gospel has on people. He called us randomly on Thursday telling us he's ready to go back to Church!! (such a big step he's had some hard feelings preventing him) Saturday morning was we were preparing for the day I got a strong impression that Billy was ready to be re-baptised soon, Sister Stein felt the same way and he brought it up in the lesson that day!! We spoke to the branch president and he needs to make some calls to check things, but both him and us don't think it's going to be that serious, fingers crossed!!

Even though he isn't technically an investigator it's still awesome to be in the role where we are bring people closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior. I feel so honored to be in the role and I can feel such a great responsibility being here.

Perthshire is such a beautiful place, on our way back from knocking on a former investigator's door we had to pull over and check out an amazing lake. There were swans in it and the sun was kinda setting. I love the scenery all over here.

Have a great week!! 

Sister Johnson,

Aussie American BBQ at a ward function

Hey Guys!

So first of all I'm going to apologise if this email sounds depressing, every missionary I feel like has one of these weeks in the mission.

So a whole bunch of people that we've been teaching about 80% of them has dropped us this week, just stopped answering the phone or the door. The girl Isabella that was suppose to be baptised just disappeared off the map. It's kinda frustrating that people don't understand that we are only here for them, not for us. So we continue to have hope and feel concern for people when they don't answer the phone. I think it's just they might be too scared to tell us upfront that they are not interested anymore.

What my companion and I are doing right now if to doing right now is finding new people to teach, It's really difficult but we will succeed. You haven't failed until you've given up. Those are words I'm living by right now.

One positive thing that has strengthened me and given me smiles is the Members, they are so great in inviting us over for dinner and inviting us to a BBQ they has this Saturday. I helped with the BBQ in the beginning because no one knew what they were doing. HAHA!! fortunately a Polish man came later and did a much better job than what I was doing. A member took photos, I'll try and get them. It's fun getting to know the members and I hope I'll be able to help them get closer to one another. I never realised till this week that for some people having friendships in the ward is so important for them to remain active in the church. It's kinda sad to me when people don't get fellow-shipped or someone offends them and they just stop going. I didn't think some people's salvation would be so lenient of those they attend church with. Don't get me wrong though, it's really fantastic when a group of people join together and strengthen one another in the sharing of testimonies, friendships and the strength of the Spirit it combined. I hope that this Branch will be able to come closer to one another and enjoy lasting friendships, and not have barriers between themselves. The biggest barrier I think for us missionaries in this area is for people to feel comfortable and have friendships so once they are baptised they stay active. Let me know if any of you have tips or ideas for things that I as a missionary can help.

Last P-day we went to a trail and saw this awesome waterfall/river thing. The drive out there was amazing, so many trees and greenery I loved it!

We also did some adventuring to, we decided to drive out of a random village near Newburgh but on the way we came upon a CASTLE, well it might not have been a castle but an entrance of a wall. It still looked super cool. So sneakly we climbed over a gate and ran across a field. It was very lumpy with some mud and tall scratchy plants; picture us doing this in our skirts wearing tights and flats, Running as fast as we can aswell. When we got to the "Castle" it was pretty epic looking, with a river going underneath it and plants growing all around it. We took pictures next to it and then ran across the field again. Jumped over the gate and drove off as fast as we could. When we got to the Village it took us 5 seconds to drive through it... So we just drove back to Newburgh to continue finding. Some times you just need something to lift you up after a depressing day.

The weather here is so weird, some days we had it's been hot and sunny but other's it rains on and off. Lately it's been crazy every day, I feel so fortunate to have a car. Also I haven't seen the sun in a month so enjoy it if you have it. It doesn't feel like summer at all here.

Hope you all are enjoying the sunshine!

Love, Sister Johnson