Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Seek God's guidance, read His words.

Hello people of all kindreds, nations, and tongues! This is me! And the last of me as Sister Johanson. Man oh man! I think one of my favorite people to be has been to be Sister Johanson. 

(if you are reading this, you probably impacted me in my mission in some way shape or form)

Do I report on what happened to me this last week? I don't even know, I've never been in this position before. Well, this last week was great! We had so many miracles happen and so many awesome people we found! We went and delivered a bible to a lady who lives out in Pineville (about 40 minutes away from where we live) and we taught her about the restoration and the book of mormon and invited her and her daughter to come to church. And they did! That was such a blessing. The ward pounced on them, but it's ok because they took it well:)
 We also saw many miracles with the people that we have been teaching, and it's been way cool. 

Yesterday I was asked to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting and so leading up to that and during the sacrament all the emotions just started flooding in. I kept wondering "What the heck am I supposed to say? This is my last formal testimony on my mission. It's got to encompass everything I've ever experienced, said, done, grown from, learned about!" And it was! But only because as I sat and partook of the sacrament I just felt like I knew what Joseph Smith meant when he said that the atonement of Jesus Christ is at the center of everything that we believe and teach within the church, and that everything else is just appendages to it. And I just fully believe that. I have SO many things that I have learned and become while on my mission. So many wonderful people that I have met, so many different miracles that I have been able to experience. It's just been so good! Being a missionary is just the best!! But all that it really comes down to is how much I really learned about my Savior Jesus Christ. That is who I have represented these last 18 months and that's who I hope to become as I continue my life as His disciple. 
I believe all that I have learned and experienced while on my mission can just be summed up in my testimony that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and that He has paid the ultimate sacrifice for us to return to live with our Father in Heaven. I know it's because of Him that we can live joyfully in every moment that we experience in this life. 

It's been such a blessing to have served around every single one of you individuals. I truly believe that you have touched my life in a way that nobody else could have. So thanks again for all of your loving service to me and to everyone else that's been around you. You guys are great people! I love you all!! :D

The church is true and the gospel has been restored. I know this work is the most important work we have been commanded to do. I love it so much! 
I hope you all have a great week! I'll see some of you soon :) 

Sister Johanson 

(I would include a picture...but I have none. Sorry mom)



Monday, December 26, 2016

Come inside and receive your free gift...Jesus.

Oh won't you all miss all the good southern Church marquees? They are the funniest! 

Oh goodness, I hope you all had such a good Christmas! I just love mission Christmas's. They are the funnest ever! Friday we went to downtown Charleston and went caroling with our zone. It was the funnest thing ever. We split up into smaller groups and we just roamed the streets and would stop at different places and sing Christmas songs. Oh everybody would just love Charleston. You all need to go there. I'll go with you! But we had lots of random people just stop and take pictures of us or video record us. We prolly got put on a lot of My stories on snapchat :D haha

Yesterday was great, we had lots of different meal appointments since members can feed us on Christmas and everybody just wanted us to stay forever. I love this ward, they probably have some of the best people I've ever served around! They are awesome. We have been fully stocked up with treats and goodies until next Christmas rolls around. Last night we went to a members house named the Poston's and they are so fun. They fed us some good ole southern food. You know I can't remember the name of what we had, but they just have a giant pot filled with corn on the cob, shrimp, sausage and potatoes. And they just throw seasoning in there and mix it all together, throw it on the fire and then throw it on your plate and into your tummy. It was yummy. Brother Poston made sure to steam half a bushel of oysters for us and showed us how to thoroughly shuck and eat the oyster. Just bite and swallow. Although Sister Goettsche just kept chewing which is probably why she didn't like the taste as much. 

I think my favorite part of Christmas though was getting to go to church Christmas morning. It was so cool just being gathered together with all of the different members or nonmembers there. Being there and knowing that whatever everyones conversion or testimony or understanding of the gospel was; we all knew Jesus Christ enough to choose to celebrate the day of His birth worshiping Him and partaking of His gift of the atonement. I'm grateful to be surrounded by so many disciples of Jesus Christ who are all trying to follow Christ to the best of their ability. And that's all that we can do. Isn't is so amazing that all across the globe you could've seen the exact same thing? I'm so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I love Him and am glad we can continue to celebrate His birth through the way we live our lives. I love you guys and hope you have a great week!


Sister Johanson 



Tuesday, December 20, 2016

God sent Him, Mary wrapped Him, will you let Him in?

Merry Christmas everybody!!! 
Hello! I hope you are all very ready for Christmas. The saddest part about Christmas being so close is that it is going to be over very soon :'( so sad. 

This last week was so fun; we had Christmas zone conference. We learned all about how to be healthy and not get sick from the mission doctor and then we learned about how to hit the standards of excellence by our AP's. Man oh man, life is so fun isn't it? You just will never stop learning and having ways to improve. I feel like I should have things down by now and just know everything! But alas I do not. Sorry to all of those that that probably comes as a shock to you :) But I'm grateful for opportunities to improve otherwise I would just be stuck! Haha we also watched a hallmark Christmas movie called Christmas in Conway. It takes place in south Carolina! So fun :) it was very good and cheesy just like Hallmark videos are. But there were a few parts where the married couple kisses and all us awkward missionaries are just cringing and squirming in our seats. But besides that it was good :) 

Let's see...what else happened this week. We had some ward activities, we had a relief society activity and we made those cute snowmans at the bottom of the page, and our ward Christmas party was last night. We are all stocked up on sweets and food for the rest of my existence. So blessing or a burden..I'm not quite sure. 

I was reading in the Book of Mormon this morning in 3 Nephi, right before the signs of Christ's death. And it talked about the different groups that the Nephites split themselves off into and how they weren't united with each other but were "at peace" in the sense that they decided to mind their own business and not go to war against each other. And it made me think of this goal that everybody is trying to come to of world peace and how the world just goes about it in that way. They feel like if they can quit all the wars and just separate from each other and promise not to fight against them, someday we will have peace. But recognizing the difference in what we learn later in the book of mormon after Christ comes when for a few hundred years the people lived in complete peace imparting of all their substance one to another. That this Christmas season reflecting on who Christ is, that He really is the Prince of Peace. That is what He came to bring. So there is nothing in this world that will bring ultimate and lasting peace without the use of Christ Himself. Like one of the latter day prophets have said, the only thing that will save the world from it's calamity and self destruction is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's what we are doing! We are saving the world. One person at a time. I'm grateful for this Christmas season and what I get to be doing during this time of year. I love you all and hope you have a great week full of love and service and Christ filled activities. 
Merry Christmas!!!!


Sister Johanson







Monday, December 12, 2016

Hallelujah!

Hello there everybody! Greetings again from the south. 

Holy cow, can you even believe that Christmas is just right around the corner? It's just sneakin up on us isn't it? I LOVE being a missionary around Christmas time. It isn't always how you picture it tho. They tell us all the time that people are much more receptive because it's Christmastime but it seems that lots of people want us to wait till all the holidays are over to come over to their house. But despite the challenges of the season there are definitely so many miracles. There was a quote that I read this week that said that miracles are the natural result of the Messiah's presence. No wonder there are so many miracles around this time of year because presence of Christ if filling the earth. And I love being able to feel like I am on the Lord's errand helping to bring those miracles to pass by testifying of the Savior. 

We had a really good week. We had ZTM on Friday on which I got to give a talk on overcoming trials of faith. Gee wiz Heavenly Father sure likes to give us topics that we need to learn more about. It's been so good learning about faith while on my mission. It is an ongoing battle to understand fully how to use my faith to cause miracles to happen and how to trust God in no matter what circumstances I am in and to have full faith in His plan for me and for His children. But I have definitely learned that our faith, to have a full impact in our life. cannot be centered on any goals or people or situations. But that it is centered in our Savior Jesus Christ, who is perfect and who we can always turn to for more and more and we will never hunger or thirst but receive freely. 

I am grateful for this gospel and for this upcoming week. It should be really good! Yay Christmas and yay the gospel! Hope you all have a good week!!

Sister Johanson

look pictures! 
I found some gnomes..which I love :) 
also some gator places
and Charleston!

and us at the parade last week..yeah they made me wear little dingle hoppers on my head






Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Christ died for you, what have you done for Him?

Hello everybody! Happy December!!! Yay december!!!! 

We've kicked the month off right. Yesterday we were in our city's Christmas parade!! It was so fun! It was us and our elders and the WML and ward missionaries. Ah it was so fun. It was pretty cold and wet but luckily it stopped raining before the parade started. We stapled 4500 pass along cards to candy canes this last Wednesday and then handed them out during the parade. Only had one lady try to reject the card but then found out it had candy attached so she let us give it to her. A lot of people would get a card with the temple on it and go, "Woah! That is a really  nice church!" hopefully they don't go looking for that one around here because then they will never find us. We then went to our stake Christmas Carols and Cookies. It was so fun! They had each ward in the stake perform a series of musical numbers and then everybody brought cookies! So good. 

It's been cool this last week how much the Lord has blessed us. I've tried getting back into my greenie attitude I had at the beginning of my mission of when all of our plans would cancel and I would get so excited and go,"Sweet! That means we are supposed to be somewhere else today". So I tried that this Saturday and it worked! We had an awesome day, and if our plans had went through there are some really prepared people we would have never met. Obviously there are a lot of things that just happen because of peoples agency. But Heavenly Father knew before hand that it would happen so He prepared something else for us to do. 

Man, it's been a pretty eventful and stressful last 6 weeks, but it's been so cool to be able to draw closer to my Savior. I've always wondered what it felt like to feel His grace supporting me. I knew He could enable me and help me through my challenges, but I never felt like I knew how to unlock the power of grace to help me. Not saying I have all the answers now and like I've never felt the Savior helping me before, but it's just been cool these past few weeks. I have felt very lonely sometimes, or like I didn't know what to do or lacked the motivation to continue and so I would just kneel and pray very sincerely for Heavenly Father to just help me to do what He needed me to do. And there has been a tangible source of strength that has been given to me each time I have done that. And it's just filled me with light and the spirit, and I know that it's what's helped me to keep going. And it get's me excited to be a missionary and to serve and to be alive and to be here! I'm so grateful for Heavenly Fathers constant care for me and for the Savior and the Holy Ghost. Definitely grateful to be here and to help people to gain access to the atonement, the enabling and redeeming power of it, in their lives through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love you all! I hope you can feel God's love for you too. 
Have a great week!


Sister Johanson


Monday, November 28, 2016

The way to God is a broken heart.

Hello hello everyone! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving week! Ours was pretty swell. We ate 3 days worth of food so we're all stocked up for winter. Just getting some insulation you know. 

But it was really good, and we were able to still go out and teach people in spite of the holiday. It was pretty cool we have this one investigator named Marty who we have been teaching for a while. She didn't set an appt for this last week because her work schedule was so busy, but each week we pray about people we feel we need to go visit. On our list was a name that lived at a members house; we knew he didn't live there anymore but we felt we should go stop by. So we did, and guess who was there! Marty! So we were still able to have a lesson with her and a member could be there with us. So cool. Heavenly Father knows :)

As for Thanksgiving it was so good. We ended up not having a pie appt which turned out to be really good because I think I would've gone into a coma if I had inhaled any more food. Needless to say the next day I felt like I had Thanksgiving hangover. But yet missionary work goes on. 

I'm not sure much else happened this week. My scars are healing. Both emotional and physical ;) so the atonement must be real. 
But I love you all! I hope you are all getting into the Christmas spirit. Yay Christmas! 
I love you guys! Have a great week


Sister Johanson


Monday, November 21, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey  yall! What a weird week it has been. Lot's of strange things. But it's been a good week too! Lot's of success! We finally got our less active friend to church this week and the entire ward rejoiced. Seriously, he was trying to stay inconspicuous which is hard to do in the Moncks Corner ward. So he got hugs from everyone. He hasn't been in over 30 years! Cool stuff :)  

We had a biking incident this week..it's not even been too long. It was dumb decisions on my part and the car. I was trying to not hit a trash can and then realized a car was coming. He almost hit me so I swerved to go back on the sidewalk but hit the curb and then splat when Sister Johanson. Well it was less of a splat and more of a skid. I will show fun pictures of my battle wounds. It's been pretty painful all week. I wish I would've taken a picture the night of because it looked so awful then. But the pictures I have will suffice. 
Poor Sister Goettsche is sick and so she curses me even more when we have to go bike. But alas we must do it, because we have no miles. (don't worry, we are still smart and I am not killing her) 

Our ward made sure to get us fed this Thanksgiving as they can feed us without less actives or investigators present on Thanksgiving and Christmas. So they took it upon them to fill our entire day up with food appts. Happy Thanksgiving. 

We also had interviews with president this week. That man is my favorite. When he came out after interviewing the person previous to me, he looked at me then he kind of staggered back against the door and yelled, "I've been waiting for this all day!" Haha, it was a good interview. 
Sad news of the day, an apostle is coming to our mission! Elder Stevenson, 2 days after I come home. And then they are having another mission tour the end of January. I told President I was just going to stick around for a little while and he said ok. 

But I'm just so grateful for so many things! I love Thanksgiving! Someone gave a talk yesterday and mentioned how we as humans have a tendency to take things for granted. I'm pretty sure Pres. Uchtdorf said that this last general conference too. The more often we have something in our life, the more casual we become towards it. I don't want to stop seeing the the magnificence of this gospel and the restoration. Think of the small things we take for granted! We taught gospel principles yesterday about temples and family history work. Just the fact that we are alive, we take for granted! We can participate in saving ordinances. Those beyond the veil have to wait for others to do them for them. I love thanksgiving, and I love all of you too. Thanks for emailing me and supporting me and praying for me. It makes such a big difference. Wouldn't be the missionary I am right now without each of you. Love you guys! Have a great week!


Sister Johanson

finally the head spin! This is Allen.
My battle wounds
Sisters at Mepkin abbey!