Sister Johnson's First Dinner Appointment and First Prank

The Sister missionaries are now eating dinner at the Dublin Ward bishop's home. His wife posted these photos of the girls on Facebook for me. 💙. They look exhausted. They had to take public transport and a boat from Edinburg, Scotland to Dublin, Ireland.  She was also pranked upon.. looking forward to her email hearing about it.  I forgot to warn her about the "Greenies" pranks

Sister Johnson, resting at the Bishop's home. 

Miranda's First Transfer; Dublin, Ireland

Sister Miranda Johnson Arrival

Dear David & Natalie Johnson,

On 1 June 2016 we welcomed Sister Miranda Johnson to the Scotland/Ireland Mission.  She arrived safely from the Missionary Training Centre and we are excited to have her in our mission.  I interviewed her and felt her spirit and desire to serve our Heavenly Father. One of our very best missionaries, Sister Leonie Stein, has been assigned to be her trainer.  They are assigned to the Dublin Zone in the Republic of Ireland.  Letters can be sent to her directly or by e-mail.  Her (P)reparation Day is on Monday. Be sure to read the mail guidelines attached!  

Sister Donaldson and I will have the opportunity to meet with your daughter for a personal interview every two to three months. In addition, she will be seen regularly at Zone Conferences and other training meetings and communicate with me regularly in weekly e-mails. She will also meet regularly with her district and zone leaders where she will be trained with other missionaries.  Therefore, with interviews, zone conferences and our weekly letters I should be able to help her meet any challenges she may have, and answer any questions you may have.

We are grateful for the part you have played in preparing her to serve in this important work. We would encourage you to write her weekly letters of encouragement. Letters from home provide a powerful sustaining effect on the confidence and morale of our missionaries.

If you at any time have a concern about your missionary, please feel free to contact us here at the Mission Home in Edinburgh.  We testify of the truthfulness of this work and are grateful to be a part of it.

Sincerely,

George R Donaldson

George R Donaldson, President
Scotland/Ireland Mission
51 Spylaw Road
Edinburgh Scotland
EH10 5BP

Email to Mission office: 2018500@ldschurch.org 
Phone:  +44 131 337 1283

                                                                 

What ‘eer thou art, act well thy part

D&C 123:17

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

 

MTC Laundry Day

Sister Sly and Me doing laundry

Elders in my District going to Jamaica

G'day everyone!! (hahaha things get weird at the MTC)

I'm so excited! I leave the MTC at 6:20am on Tuesday. I'm shaking so badly because I'm so excited and scared to finally leave. I've been kinda stressed out with thinking if I'm ready or not to go out in the field but hearing from my fellow sisters and teachers I feel reassured that I got this. We had our in field orientation yesterday and it was so much fun! We talked about how you need to believe that you can baptize to baptize. I know that I need to have confidence in myself and mostly in Heavenly Father that he knows his children and that the fields are white and ready to harvest. There ARE people out there in my mission that are ready to hear the message of the restored gospel, the spirit has been preparing them for me to teach them of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I keep telling my fellow Sisters in my district that we're going to make it a goal to make a new ward in Scotland/Ireland. Just need 2 people right? 

I feel so bad for the 2 sisters and 4 elders in my district that got called to Jamaica, one of the Elders had to go home because there was a signature missing from his release papers with the Army, and so he's currently A-wall (something like that right?) I hope that he can get everything sorted out quickly and get back out here. Everyone in my district has been praying for him and I think I'm going to fast for him on Sunday, he was such a great missionary and he has so much potential, he was so excited to serve a mission...The other Elders found out yesterday that they are all visa waiting in Denver Colorado, It was so out of the blue because they all have there travel instructions last week given to them and now they have to wait for who knows how long? Sister Afamata also got visa waited in Ogden Utah! and Sister Swindle in New York New York north mission too. I really really hope that they'll all go out to Jamaica soon  All of the Sisters going to Scot/Ire mission are fine and we're leaving in the morning on Tuesday. Thinking about it stresses me out... I get such bad motion sickness and I plan on not sleeping or eating at all on Tuesday. 


I decided that my 2 favourite Chapters in the Book of Mormon is 2 Nephi 2 and 9, I love teaching about the atonement, Yeah I'm embracing my nerdy religion side now. 


So funny story. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU GO TO THE MTC! My zone last week got pretty close we all eat together in every meal so I don't remember what day this was but we decided to hold Ice cream Sandwich competition, Some unnamed members of my district would eat an ice cream sandwich as fast as the could and another missionary would time the seconds. The fastest was a tie between this huge new elder and this sister who is so lady-like you would be shocked that she did this. Guess how fast it was, 24 seconds!! It began like this, we gathered around together and watched these two missionaries unwrap their ice cream sandwiches. They stared at their sandwich, mouths wide open ready to take the biggest bite. An elder with the watch yells GO! and the big elder opened his enormous mouth and took a bit of HALF THE SANDWICH! We couldn't hold back the cheers, we all were shocked and/or impressed as these two missionaries consumed the sandwiches with ease, the elder took bites out of the sandwich without chewing and then started to chew when he had most of the sandwich in his mouth. The sister nibbled at the sandwich, chewing it quickly and effectively with her hand covering her mouth. Some of the cooks and workers went over and asked us to quite down as the Missionaries speedily finished off the sandwiches in 24 seconds. Next to our table was the Japanese speaking missionaries and they just stared at us as we laughed and cheered... It's awkward but funny.

Yeah I love my district, I feel kinda bad that we disrupted the eating hall and weren't being very respectful. But I thought this was the only bad thing my district ever did, we're usually very respectful and make good use of our personal study time. I think my zone has the best Missionaries in the MTC, not joking. 


It's so weird that after 3 weeks of being here my district is the oldest one in the zone, I feel so much more mature and prepared than the new missionaries. Well maybe not more mature, I just know what I'm doing... 

This Tuesday was a MTC Broadcast and we had one of the 12 Apostles come to the MTC!! It was Elder Reniund (new one) he and his wife talked to us. Also not to brag but I was in the program too... In the choir... BUT I WAS ON CAMERA, so every one in all the MTC's around the world can see this really pale sister with dark brown hair and bangs/fringe. Kinda embarrassing... He talked to us about how be should teach, what we should teach and what we need to tell our investigators to do to build faith in Jesus Christ. Main points I got from this is though, The power of the atonement is why we repent and why we change, Quote from Elder Packer (the apostle one)  
"the Atonement leaves no tracks, no traces. What it fixes is fixed. … The Atonement leaves no traces, no tracks. It just heals, and what it heals stays healed", Faith must be centeredon Jesus Christ to receive salvation, Faith is initiated by hearing the testimonies of other's who has faith but it only develops when we act in faith such as obedience to his commandments, reading the scriptures, praying, attending church...etc. I want to invite you all the read Elder's Packer's last talk he gave, on the atonement.
I love and miss you all so much and I love readying the emails you send me! Keep bring them in I may not get much time to respond but I just want you all to know that I love hearing about home and funny things or if you just want some one to talk to.

This is Mom writing:
I had such a pleasant surprise phone call from Sister Swindle's mother, Rebecca. Sister Swindle is Sister Johnson's companion in the MTC. She is going to Jamaica on her mission.  They live in American Fork.

These are the Sister Missionaries in her District.

To Everyone!

So I've lived through a week and a half of my mission! I've learnt and hopefully progressed so much since I got here, with learning to give lessons and getting used to life at the MTC. Every minute of my day is planned already, and after dinner you would think that my day is over. NOPE I have class from 6:25pm to 9:30pm the teacher we have for that class is Brother Danner, I've been kinda mean to him in a kinda mean to him... in a joking way. We have a different teacher during the afternoon, but most of the time it's personal study, preparing to give a lesson and giving lessons. Everyone in my district are getting pretty close, and we have dumb stories and jokes that we tell one another. A kinda funny story that happened last week was that all of us sisters were sitting together at lunch and talking, I was saying how I also never really babysit, that when I'm talking to a kid it's like, "What sup?" and when I said that a senior couple was walking past and thought I was talking to them and the old lady quietly said, "good...". There's also a Sister in our District who is from Compton and there is a eternal joke saying, "It's because she's from Compton" or when we have a bottom bunk, "It's like Compton down here." Yeah... the joke isn't getting old it's always funny. Sister Afemata is her name, she's super awesome, She's going to Jamaica with Sister Swindle. 

For anyone who's going to the MTC, be careful of eating! It's like an all you can eat buffet here every meal. I always get way too much food on my tray and waste a lot of food because I don't really like the food here. All I want is oatmeal and a banana, I tried all the food here but it's kinda weird and I end up putting hot sauce on all the savory food to make it taste better. Everyone one else in my district likes the food so maybe I'm just weird. Another thing is the 'residence' me and my district sisters never make our beds and clean up because there is ZERO time to do it. So when we went back one night we had room checks and we got some adequate and alot of needs work. HAHAHA! and in the comments someone wrote, Groovy. my bed was adequate. The Elders got a perfect score because Elder Wallace is a Sergeant in the Army, so he likes everything tidy.

These are the Elders in her District.  

The Elders in my district are so nice, they're also kinda awkward but it's okay. I got a blessing from one of them the other day, and it was his first time! They're all 19 or older so no 18 year olds in the MTC yet! Elder Packer is the funniest guy in the district. We had a good laugh the other day when he was complaining about the lady that was taking his blood, he was saying that he wanted to tell her,  "It's a needle not a stick shift!" he also talks in his sleep so we hear from the Elders the crazy things he yells about in the middle of the night. Elder Suwyn is the one that wears Star Wars ties every day.

We had an awesome Devotional on Tuesday by one of the Seventy, and he served in Germany, had one baptism in his companionship on his mission. I learned from the Devotional that being a missionary requires Perseverance and Boldness. And your success as a missionary is determined by following the Spirit and exact obedience. Also working till you drop and then keep going. We also got to see the Character of Christ talk, and it was amazing! Think my personal goal as a missionary is to have Charity or Christ-like love for everyone, especially for the people that I'll be teaching in Scotland/Ireland. The main idea of the character of christ is non-selfishness that in a situation when others would turn inwards and think of themselves, Christ would turn outwards and think of others. During my mission I hope to think less about myself, but about others. It's going to be tough but I hope that I can become more selfless as I serve my mission.

Also me and my companion barely went to the outside world!! Not really we went to Wellsfargo, but it was super weird wearing the name tag and no one else is.

You guys can also send me Dear Elders which would make it easier to read all the letters not on the computer.

I can't really think of anything else to write to everyone is in general right now

Love you all!

This is her classroom that the District spends their day learning about the Gospel and how to teach the discussions to investigators.

Sister Johnson