He is Risen

Alooooha!

Jk I'm not Hawaiian, and neither is my comp. Fooled ya all. Actually a sister that we're staying with is tho. So not too much foolin.

How was y'alls easter? Did you eat plenty of treats? Find all the eggs? (prolly not) Find the ones from last year? Think about Jesus Christ?

So I'm here in Spartanburg, which is right around the corner from Greenville. Just the neighboring zone over. They really like me up here in the upstate. Which I'm cool with. It's pretty. I'm with Sister Bird! She's from Oregon and she has been out for 15 months. What? Just 3 left. Also! She loves running and gnomes! What the what? Went and ran 5 miles this morning, it was so great! Haven't been able to do that in 9 months. Ah miracles.

Other miracles of the week, I've been telling Heavenly Father I really need new clothes but..no monies. And then I come here where the 2 previous missionaries had died (sorry missionary term. They are alive in their home towns, just not in SC) and left all their clothes! Yay clothes! And we went out to eat the other day and I had no money but we had no food and we go in and this member is there and says, "Hey! I'm gonna pay for your dinner!" Ah, Heavenly Father takes care of His missionaries. So blessed ;)

But I love Spartanburg, we are working with a  lot of people right now which is awesome. It's like a culmination of all my past areas combined. Except there are a lot of Mong people too.

Favorite line of the week: (guy talking about his girlfriend) "I think someone got her pregnant while I was in jail. But I'm ok with that, because I love kids."

Alright world...can we calm things down a bit? Sorry this is a crazy email. It's been a crazy week! We'll have some more spiritual thoughts next week. Stay tuned. Ah! Especially because it's general conference! So stoked!! Woot woot!

Sister Johanson (the one and only)

New Journeys, New Beginnings, Same God

Greetings from the South, beautiful humans of mine!

Wow, what a week--I'm not even sure what happened, but it's already over!  Man, time flies when you're having a good time. 

We took this giant leap of faith that Heavenly Father is going to help us with our miles (which are quickly diminishing in number), and went to the farthest reaches of our area. Only members live there, there are no potentials, so I'm not even sure if missionaries have ever been down there to no man's land or not. But we did it! We have officially gone everywhere in our area--how exciting is that?!

It's not overly exciting as far as the future of Sister Johanson strolling the streets of this area--seeing how she isn't going to be doing it much this week. Transfer doctrine is in! She's getting transferred, moving on to bigger and better things, accepting a call to be a Sister Training Leader and such. She says she's not sure how she's going to do, but I know she's going to be absolutely fantastic. The people in her next area are so blessed already, and they don't even know what's about to hit them.

(This is Sister Smith, by the way.  I've hijacked the weekly email to do what I will with it--oh the power I wield . .)

Something I've definitely learned this week is the power of the Spirit. We've had a couple amazing lessons where as soon as I felt something needed to be said, Sister Johanson would start saying it!  That's happened many many many times before, but it's always new and wonderful every time.  It's amazing how present the Spirit is in our lives, and how much we can learn from him if we would just get over ourselves and listen.  Someone once taught that the Spirit is always speaking to us, but we determine whether or not we are in a position to listen, hear, and act on the guidance and direction he gives us.  Seeking to hear the voice of the Spirit is so crucial in this life--and he communicates to each of us differently, because we all learn differently and we're all different people.  Your challenge for this week is to find out how the Spirit speaks to you.  I know that as you listen closely and seek to identify the voice of the Lord in your life, through the Spirit, you will be able to become more in-tune with the will of God for you, personally, and see amazing miracles as you choose to act.

Christ is our friend, hope is always an option, molasses on biscuits is a good thing, faith can make anything happen, banana bread is a healing gift, and the gospel is true.

Love you all!

Sister Smith

These are our pals the millers. They are members but we are teaching

them the discussions and made the missionary tags. They are so cute.

Exercise Daily: run from Satan, walk with Jesus

Sorry everybody I don' have time to write a group email this week!but I love you all and the work is still moving forward. Plus we're going to be having lots of miracles this week so you don't want to hear about this last week. To make you happy I'm sending a picture of Chris with a clown. Everybody likes clowns right?. :P

A Good Pill to Swallow is Your Pride

Ah hello outside world! Let me tell you what's going on in the inside world. Absolutely nothing! From a mortal perspective. Ah it must be so fun to be God because He's looking down on us and seeing everything that is working it's way into play and how everything is gonna turn out. And luckily, we do know that it's all going to turn out great! We just have to remember that part. Cuz sometimes...we don't. And then life is lummy. But it doesn't have to be lummy, it can be yummy! Just like the dericious cookies we made this week :) Ah those were so good :) It's very hard to cook in the south because humidity and altitude mess everything up! But I'm finally figuring things out.

Ok! Really cool experience! So we're planning on Wednesday night and I get an impression that at 7:00 on Thursday we should go see this sister in our ward. But hey guess what? She is out of town until April. But I say hey, we need to go there! So we stick it in our schedule. And then next night at 7:00 we go to her house and feel like we need to go knock on her door. Even though we know for a fact that she is not home! So we do it anyway, and her daughter answers! And her daughter doesn't live in our ward but was there dog sitting her cousins dog. So she invited us in and we start talking and she starts telling us about how she just got a raise at work and got a bonus and it was a complete answer to prayers! And so we shared a scripture with her and then she said, "Yeah, well I am not the most active person, but as soon as I got that money I had a voice in the back of my head tell me 'ok now go pay your tithing' and you guys showing up here tonight confirmed that to me"! And then she went on to say (like I said before she's not actually in our ward) that the other wards sisters had texted her and asked if they could come visit her that night but she said no because she wasn't going to be home. And then we showed up!! So we committed her to pay her tithing and other miracles happened. So, listen to the spirit!

Holy cow, this week has been spiritually exhausting. I've learned and been taught so much by God and it just keeps going. It's crazy because we've learned all about hope this week, and it seems like everyone else has been learning about it too. I wish I could share all my thoughts and insights about it but I'll have to some other time. But I do know that there is always hope because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Isn't it amazing to think that Jesus Christ suffered for ALL of OUR sins and pains and afflictions, knowing that only a tiny fragment of humanity would actually use His atonement? And that's because of hope, and charity and love. So the greatest gift we can give Him is to use His atonement. All the time. Never hesitate. Never try to do it all on your own. Because your Savior went through it all so you would not have to. It is truly His greatest gift and so let's choose to use it. I love my Savior so much. And I love all of you so much! I hope you all have a great week. And I know you can.

All the hope over here in the South!

Sister Johanson JR.

Our pal Mami gave us some necklaces to wear to church hahahaa