University of St. Andrews Oct 10, 2016

First of all every need to wish my mum a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! She's an amazing person and deserves the best birthday ever!

This week as gone by way to quickly. White washing has been very difficult experience especially when you're a trainee, I don't know what's productive and who is who or what's the best time to call people and I keep forgetting to call and remind people about appointments and the Bus schedule is some times really hard to understand especially when it's in 24 hour time. I would come back to the flat every single night exhausted and it's difficult to be obedient when you feel sick and it's a trainee and they don't really understand what is right and what's wrong. Last Monday we went to St Andrews, ate some famous ice-cream, walked on the beach, and ate at Nandos. Apparently St Andrews is a famous place but I knew nothing about it before my mission... Now I know a lot. St Andrews now has their own missionaries, because the Mission President want to try out some areas around the mission, I wonder how receptive the University of St. Andrews students are to the Gospel... It'll be interesting to see what happens. 

On Thursday we had exchanges with the STL's (Sister Training Leaders) in Edinburgh, Sister Sams is a brand new STL and Sister Muller is a friend of mine and is going home at the end of this transfer, back to Germany. I got to be with her for the whole day and it was too much fun. Sister Muller and I was wearing matching Bratwurst Coats. I felt like a sausage, the night before Sister Truman and I did a really hard work-out and all of my limbs ached and felt like jelly. It's was also funny because all of the Scottish people were wearing T-Shirts and/or Shorts and we were in these huge coat freezing! It was a pretty sunny day but the temperature was low and it was kinda windy.

Then on Friday we went back to Dundee and felt utterly exhausted... That evening the Gilmores ordered us pizza and we had a pizza party in our bedroom and watch a movie about the Book of Mormon. I'm turning into such a boring person now, that anything I can watch is super entertaining now. I'm getting really excited for Christmas because we get to have a G or PG, movie marathon to celebrate Christmas. WHOOOHOOO!! 

Sister Truman (from St. George, Utah) and Sister Johnson

On Saturday we went to the Pancake house with our investigator Michael, and Sister Turman and I shared a plate, and let me just say, the pancakes were super disappointing. The Pancake House doesn't deserve it's name Pancake house, it's more like house of disappointment. 

Sunday was an alright day we went to Church and met some of the members. I forgot what normal Utah Church was like and didn't feel weird about it, until Sister Truman whispered to me Church in Scotland is very different than home, as we sat in 

Sister Muller from Germany and Sister Johnson

Relief Society meeting listening to the Sister's sing in their Scottish accents. Yes, Yes it is. But I've gotten so used to it. Poor Sister Truman has to get used to so many different things here in the Mission. I pray for her every night. That night we ran around in the dark, because it was super cold and the buses don't work very well on Sunday, they come like once and hour or not at all at some times of the day. It's starting to get pitch black at 7 o'clock now. I'm not looking forward for it to get dark at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 

Miss you all!

Sister Johnson,

October 3rd, 2016

Greeting Everyone!

So I have a brand new companion Sister Truman she's from St George Utah and is the cutest lit' Trainee ever! I'm so excited to be training her in Dundee. White Washing for the second time is exhausting I don't know who I should talk to, where I should go and what I'm suppose to be doing. I think this mission White Washes more than other missions but I don't really know. For those who don't know what White Washing is, it's when both Missionaries in a companionship weren't in the area before the transfer and don't know anything about the area. I guess this isn't entirely white washing since I did GQ and teach here a few times before, but Sister Six organised everything and I wasn't in this area that much.

We ended up moving flats as well. So we spent the first day in this area moving to a different flat that the Elders were in originally. It's a REALLY nice flat, We had quite large rooms with high ceilings and big windows. Big Queen Size Beds, clean and the kitchen is fine enough. It's address is Flat 5 12 Dock Street. I don't know the Zip code so don't mail letters to this address yet. The flat is right in City Centre and would have an excellent view of Tay Bridge if not for the giant construction sight. One minus is that the window are old and doesn't keep out the air of outside and the sound, but we managed to work out how to turn on the heating so it's really warm in the bedroom.

Sister Truman is cold all of the time, I feel bad for her she don't know cold yet. The weather in Dundee has been really nice lately and mild. Hasn't rained at all while we are out and it's just a bit windy. She's having a hard time adjusting to missionary life and felt like these last few days have sucked. For me this week as been pretty alright, we got to meet some people and didn't get lost. Also had some dinner appointments. I hope that she'll get used to things quickly, any tips on what I can do to make things easier for her???? Being a trainer is tough. I feel a lot of stress and pressure. I was used to having a companion to help me with things working together with them, but it's not like that with Sister Truman. I have to step up and do a lot of things on my own. It's especially hard with White washing because I don't know what is happening here too. Ahhh!! I'm not very good at being productive, remembering everything and stepping up. But I'm glad I get this opportunity to grow and have a new experience this transfer to learn. If I can get through this and work hard I know I'm going to become a better Missionary and help with Life skills.

I'm SO excited to be in Dundee this is where things are happening, it's definitely a GQing area so I'm going to have to improve on my GQing skills... 😧

I love the Recent Converts here and there is a lot of investigators that have been investigating for awhile that seems like they are friends with all of the missionaries which is strange... 

Michael is a new investigators we started teaching 2 weeks ago and we've been seeing him way too much that it's over whelming him so we are giving him a break and seeing him on Thursday Morning for Pancakes. Hopefully it'll help him feel less pressure and relax him. He's so funny though, I need to right now some quotes from him...

MangSing, or Meng is a recent convert that got baptised like 4 weeks ago, went to the Temple is Preston this week end!! He had such a good time, he went with the YSA of Dundee 2nd Ward (Liff Ward). Apparently he ran around the area around the temple with Mark (Another Chinese RC) and other new people trying to find food for lunch and was really hungry all day. 

General Conference was this week end and I LOVED IT SO MUCH! Thomas S. Monson and Deter F. Uchtdorf  taught about the Plan of Salvation and I loved the emphasises that we HAVE THE TRUTH, we know where we came from why we are here and where we are going. It's amazing that we've been placed to have this and Uchtdorf talked about how as we become more familiar with some thing no matter how marvellous it is, it becomes common place and seems to loose it's value. Reflect on the significance of the simple doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, one such simple but amazing truth we had is the fact that we are a Child of God, ponder, study and reflect on the great Plan of Happiness and feel the Holy Ghost confirm the truth, and testify of it's significance.  

Love this quote.

Dundee, Scotland Missionaries

3rd October 2016

Greeting Everyone!

So I have a brand new companion Sister Truman she's from St George Utah and is the cutest lit' Trainee ever! I'm so excited to be training her in Dundee. White Washing for the second time is exhausting I don't know who I should talk to, where I should go and what I'm suppose to be doing. I think this mission White Washes more than other missions but I don't really know. For those who don't know what White Washing is, it's when both Missionaries in a companionship weren't in the area before the transfer and don't know anything about the area. I guess this isn't entirely white washing since I did GQ and teach here a few times before, but Sister Six organised everything and I wasn't in this area that much.

We ended up moving flats as well. So we spent the first day in this area moving to a different flat that the Elders were in originally. It's a REALLY nice flat, We had quite large rooms with high ceilings and big windows. Big Queen Size Beds, clean and the kitchen is fine enough. It's address is Flat 5 12 Dock Street. I don't know the Zip code so don't mail letters to this address yet. The flat is right in City Centre and would have an excellent view of Tay Bridge if not for the giant construction sight. One minus is that the window are old and doesn't keep out the air of outside and the sound, but we managed to work out how to turn on the heating so it's really warm in the bedroom.

Sister Truman is cold all of the time, I feel bad for her she don't know cold yet. The weather in Dundee has been really nice lately and mild. Hasn't rained at all while we are out and it's just a bit windy. She's having a hard time adjusting to missionary life and felt like these last few days have sucked. For me this week as been pretty alright, we got to meet some people and didn't get lost. Also had some dinner appointments. I hope that she'll get used to things quickly, any tips on what I can do to make things easier for her???? Being a trainer is tough. I feel a lot of stress and pressure. I was used to having a companion to help me with things working together with them, but it's not like that with Sister Truman. I have to step up and do a lot of things on my own. It's especially hard with White washing because I don't know what is happening here too. Ahhh!! I'm not very good at being productive, remembering everything and stepping up. But I'm glad I get this opportunity to grow and have a new experience this transfer to learn. If I can get through this and work hard I know I'm going to become a better Missionary and help with Life skills.

I'm SO excited to be in Dundee this is where things are happening, it's definitely a GQing area so I'm going to have to improve on my GQing skills... 😧

I love the Recent Converts here and there is a lot of investigators that have been investigating for awhile that seems like they are friends with all of the missionaries which is strange... 

Michael is a new investigators we started teaching 2 weeks ago and we've been seeing him way too much that it's over whelming him so we are giving him a break and seeing him on Thursday Morning for Pancakes. Hopefully it'll help him feel less pressure and relax him. He's so funny though, I need to right now some quotes from him...

MangSing, or Meng is a recent convert that got baptised like 4 weeks ago, went to the Temple is Preston this week end!! He had such a good time, he went with the YSA of Dundee 2nd Ward (Liff Ward). Apparently he ran around the area around the temple with Mark (Another Chinese RC) and other new people trying to find food for lunch and was really hungry all day. 

General Conference was this week end and I LOVED IT SO MUCH! Thomas S. Monson and Deter F. Uchtdorf  taught about the Plan of Salvation and I loved the emphasises that we HAVE THE TRUTH, we know where we came from why we are here and where we are going. It's amazing that we've been placed to have this and Uchtdorf talked about how as we become more familiar with some thing no matter how marvellous it is, it becomes common place and seems to loose it's value. Reflect on the significance of the simple doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, one such simple but amazing truth we had is the fact that we are a Child of God, ponder, study and reflect on the great Plan of Happiness and feel the Holy Ghost confirm the truth, and testify of it's significance.  

Love this quote

September 19th, 2016

Hello everyone!

So no adventure last P-day we just had to get too much stuff, and this P-day we really need to clean the car. I've been having a stressful week because of working in two areas and having two companions. So just going to apologies up front if the email is kinda lame. With so much to do and so little time this week has gone by like a blur, if my whole mission was like this week at 18 months it would've felt like 4 months.

Tuesday we stayed in Dundee doing stuff, Wednesday went to Edinburgh to do exchanges with the STL's since last time I was with Sister Muller, I was with Sister Paxman, and Sister Six, Dahl and Muller were together. Sister Paxman has been having a tough week, on Monday morning she woke up unable to move her neck so they rusted to the ER, because her whole spine was in-pain. Fortunately Sister Muller is a Massage Therapist and treated the situation calmly. Once at the Hospital the doctors couldn't figure out what was causing Sister Paxman's Spine to be acting that way and as a bonus she has a high fever. She was in the Hospital till 4pm that night. In the end they still don't know why, but suggested that she sees a massage therapist, but her companion is one, so it was very fortunate. By Wednesday her spin is still twisted up, but she has a little bit more movement with some pain. It was a strange day for me, I was in the flat most of the time and found stuff to keep me busy. I feel so bad for Sister Muller and Sister Paxman being stuck in this situation till Sister Paxman feels better. We went out finding together for about 2 hours that day and got two appointments with people out of it. So not bad. And we went to a dinner appointment with a new family that just moved into the ward, who a Americans. It's really strange listening to American accents now because it's different than the American missionary accents. And the dinner was nice and small.

Besides from that day, nothing much more to write about.

Love you all, 

Sister Johnson

Book that I recommend every missionary to read.

I found this book in the Missionary Flat in Perth and it's called The Power of Everyday Missionaries, the what and how of sharing the Gospel, by Clayton M. Christensen. finished reading it in less than two weeks and it's awesome. I LOVE IT. It makes me so excited to live outside of Utah, being a normal person and sharing the Gospel with others it's definitely a must read. It's even helped me in being a full time missionary, to help others in doing their member missionary work. There is a bunch of really cool stories of the writer helping his friends and people he runs into find the Gospel. 

September 12, 2016 temporary transfer to Dundee

Hello everyone!

Hope everyone is having a great week. Sorry I didn't send a weekly email last week, it was kind of a lame week because I might've had low-Iron, but since I started taking them in the middle of last last week things a feeling better.

I'm just going to begin on the insane situation I'm in at the moment, On Monday we were having are usual P-day and I just had the BEST HOT CHOCOLATE IN THE WORLD. not joking it was literally hot CHOCOLATE, just pure dark chocolate in a cup melted it felt like. So thick I had to 'drink' it with a spoon. I enjoyed myself. Sister Dahl had a white chocolate hot chocolate... I was at the Highland Chocolatier, and they are famous for their dark chocolate truffles, judged to be the best in the world, I tried one and I must say it is the best. Sorry for that tangent I just really love chocolate.

After we did that, in the evening we got a call that we needed to drive Sister Six to Edinburgh because her temporary companion is going back to Aberdeen, but then 20 mins later they told us that we need to move to Dundee tomorrow. WHAT THE?!?!?! So we had a family home evening that night with a less-active part member family, afterwards we got a call from President with more information about that is happening. We are currently now still 'serving in Perth' but we live with Sister Six in Dundee and only able to go to Perth to teach and find occasionally for the rest of the transfer. This week we've been helping Sister Six teach her recent converts, less-actives and investigators. Oh man though, weekly planning yesterday was so a real strain for us. I want to do the work I've been called to do in Perth, but we just need to find so badly, then Sister Six has a lot of people to teach and since Dundee is such a big city it's more productive to do finding here the member in Perth a really disappointed about the situation especially since there is already 6 Missionaries here not including us and Sister Six. 

Basically that's what's up... Don't know if it make sense at all....

In Dundee there is a couple that's been investigating the church for over a year, and one of them Patrick is from Sydney It's pretty cool to see another Australian, he's the second one I've meet in Scotland so far, that isn't a missionary. Mang-zing, (not sure if that's even close to how you spell that name) is a young Chinese man that was investigating the church for 6 months and got baptised last last Sunday, he's so funny and doesn't speak English that well but okay enough to speak and understand a lot more than you think. His story is epic, when Sister King first found and taught him with Sister Hasting (sister Six's trainer) Mang, didn't even believe in God, but now he loves God and Jesus Christ, recognising when the Spirit is speaking to him. It's so funny that he told us the other day that he thought people that donated to charity was stupid, and he would never do it. Now he donates to Charity often, and want's to help people and share the Gospel to his family and friends. He's going back to China in October, There is apparently a pretty big ward in Shanghai China, so it's good that Mang is going to be looked after there. It's just so awesome that where missionaries aren't allowed to go, when people leave these countries and hear the gospel, they bring it back with them into their country. God always finds a way. 

Sister Six's new companion that never made it to the mission field was suppose to be the first Chinese Speaking Sister Missionary in the Scotland/Ireland mission, I can see why we need one. There is so many Asians in Dundee, and if they can't get the Gospel in their own country they need to hear it when they are here. I wish I could learn Chinese when I'm out here but it's such a difficult language to learn on your own because of the different tones. It's ashame, I wonder what's going to happen next transfers since there is now and uneven number of Sister Missionaries in the field.

There is a lot of Uni students in Dundee right now, since the semester has started. I feel super awkward being around people my age living normal lives... We ate a NANDOS this week and it was filled with young adults. I love nandos, we have nandos in Australia and it's like a Portuguese South African restaurant. Basically known for their chicken with the peri peri sauce. I got the classic Chicken and chips thing. Love it. I'm definitely going to buy some of the sauce to take home with me at the end of my mission. We need to have Nandos in the US.

Really scattered email today, but I hope it give you all an idea of what's been happening this week.

Miss you all,

Sister Johnson