January 16th 2017

This week has been quite busy, and now that it's P-day I'm probably going to spend most of my time sleeping because I'm just soooo tired.

Tuesday

My First District Meeting in Ayr, I enjoyed finally meeting my district and I'm excited to work and learn from everyone. I gave my first devotional in District Meeting and I was very nervous, I did it on Sacrifice. I talked about how man has always been asked to sacrifice.
Adam was told by an angel, "This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begottenof the Father, which is full of grace and truth." (Moses 5:5-7) In the next scripture we are told why in ancient times they were asked to follow the Law of Moses in the sacrificing of animals. 16 Now they did not suppose that salvation came by the law of Moses; but the law of Moses did serve to strengthen their faith in Christ; and thus they did retain a hopethrough faith, unto eternal salvation, relying upon the spirit of prophecy, which spake of those things to come. It was in symbolism of Christ sacrifice, but not only that but to help strengthen their faith. Even though the law of Moses has been fullfilled we are still asked to sacrifice, 2 Nephi 9:19-20 we are asked to offer up a broken heart and contrite spirit. We follow a higher law instead of putting an animal on the alter we place the animal inside of us upon the alter and allow it to be consumed. The difinition of the word sacrifice means literally to make sacred or to render sacred. As we place the sacrifice of the animal inside of us we make ourselves sacred, be become godly. The amount of ourselves that is ungodly is told to us in Matthew 22:3, "Love the lord thy God with all they heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind." The more we sacrifice the more we love him and our testimonies are strengthened. We become more pure more holy and eventually we can become like God himself.

Afterwards we had lunch and then taught Jason, he really wants to be baptised but it's going to be tough because he's Autistic and doesn't really have much motivation to leave his flat some days. He's a really nice guy but struggles with alot of things. We had the Dickson's for dinner and afterwards Sister Sharky picked us up and we taught Aairon (10 year old boy). Sister Sharky is a primary teacher and basically taught the whole lesson. It was on the Word of Wisdom, she brought her 4 year old grandson who was very helpful and Aairon enjoyed playing with him. The rest of the night we went GQing. Sister Lawson and I talked to a guy who said he died last week... okay...

Wednesday

It was a very very very long day. A few lessons fell through and we ended up GQing in the hail and wind.

Thursday

Woke upand my eyes were hurting. We traveled to Kilmarnock to pass Steven over to the Elders. It was really snowing in Kilmarnock, not as thick as Utah but it was sticking around abit and there was about 5cm of snow on the ground. I'm not sure how successful the lesson was with passing Steven over to the Elders, but Elder Wall and Elder Augestine are really nice guys. Steven seemed to be more open about himself in this lesson than he was in the past. When we got back to Ayr some Sister Missionaries were leaving their doctor's appointment and we were able to sit and have lunch with them. Afterwards I decided that I should see if the Pharmacy had anything for my eye because it was still bothering me. They suggested to go to the Optomitrist, I ask how much it was and they said it was free. Apparently they didn't realize that I wasn't from here... It's was all good though because when the Optomitrist looked at it she said I have an alcer in my eye and need to get antibiotic drops and synthetic tear gel thing. I spent the rest of the day putting the gel in my eye every hour and the antibiotic drops every 2 hours... 😥 Why is there always some thing wrong with me!!!!

We followed up on a refferal from Elder Augestine because he has relatives in our area. It was very awkward...

Friday

Taught Graham with a member. And it was okay, we talked about the Commandments and the Sabbeth day. Then the Optrician looked at my eye again and said it's healing. YAY!! Still have to put drops in my eye and wear glasses. Then as we were hunting down Darryn the ex-convict we ran into a guy that might've been trying to do a drug deal with him. His name is Paul, Paul is an addict of many things. He wants to know God and quit his many addictions.
We also saw him on Saturday too at a Christian Cafe that was playing Piano Guys in the background. Also on Saturday we meet with the Kerr's a wonderful less active family, we gave them some talks to read and it was very spiritual. Sister Lawson and I felt like an answer to many prayers in that meeting.

Sunday just Graham went to Church. 😖 It's okay though. Sister Lawson doesn't want me to say this but hopefully crossing my fingers we'll be having his baptism this week end. Please pray for him. 

It's been a long week but I feel pretty satisfied with how hard I worked which is a good feeling.

Have an awesome week. Bye!!!

Sister Johnson

3rd January 2017

Happy new year everyone!! 

Some people have asked me what my new year goals are this year. Well except for the last month of this year I'll still be on a mission. My goals are the mission goals really, and being an awesome missionary. We accomplished our goal of over 360 baptisms this year and now 2017 goal is 470 Baptisms I believe. It's a huge number compared to the 150 or so of 2015, I'm really excited to participate. Reflecting on 2016 a lot has happened all in one year, next year hopefully will be just as productive. Now I'm just going to go back and look at this previous week. The Christmas celebrations apparently doesn't stop after Christmas. We had a great day on Monday at the Stake Presidents home watching Disney movies, playing games and chatting. On Tuesday the Stake put together an activity for all of the missionaries in the stake, we traveled to Kilmarnock and met up with all of the missionaries at the bus station. One of the companionships was late because an Elder got on the train without his wallet and had to travel back to his flat again to get it. HAHAHA! 

Eventually we all safely made it to the chapel, we had a mini devotional meeting afterwards the fun began. We had lunch, played silly games and then had to leave. Once we got back Sister Lawson and I attempted to do missionary work, but we ended up very soon had to travel to Glasgow that night for exchanges with the STLs. Glasgow is huge! it's like the New York City of Scotland. Wednesday I got to teach one first lesson with a man in Starbucks, then the rest of the day full of GQing on Byees Street, We didn't find much success  because the holiday season seems to be having a strange affect on people. That night we traveled back to Ayr, very tired... Thursday, Friday and Saturday were the hardest, walking around in the rain and wind trying to stop people. New Years is called Mahogany and it's a huge celebration in Glasgow that just spreads out from there, so many people were at Morrison's on Friday and Saturday. They also had Boxing day the day after Christmas and there was so many sales on.  We attempted to call less actives but everyone was busy. New Years Eve we spent watching movies, Sunday we only had church for an hour, amazingly there was a man called Steven who came on his own and we taught him a lesson after Church and this morning. The rest of the day we spent at the Donaldson's they're such a nice family and we got to watch some new movies as well. They have this half staffy called Princess that reminded me of Oscar and I was petting her a ton. Monday we got off all day as well but ended up deep cleaning the flat, and that night visited the Kerr's a wonderful family who's mum is less active. I'm so excited for the coming week we have a lot of appointments set up and the holidays are OVER! never thought I would be happy that the holidays were over. 

Hope you had a great holiday,

Sister Johnson

New Years!!!

Sister Johnson and Sister Weichers on New Years Eve.  

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!!
​

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