Katie's Mission - Carrollwood - Transfer 11
Carrollwood - Week 64 - October 5, 2020
SELFIE WITH THE PROPHET
Companion: Sister Anderson
HAPPY OCTOBER🧡🖤 We went to a cute farmers market by our house for fresh fruit and pumpkins and we got our pumpkin bath & body work hand sanitizer so we are ready.
Here are our top 3 miracles from this week!
•we went to teach our cute friends Audra and Will and their mom Lindsey out on their driveway. Their dad is not a member and has never been there before but THIS TIME HE WAS. We taught the Restoration with cups, classic, and we can see their family being blessed as they take steps to follow Christ! This week they challenged themselves to read the Book of Mormon together and Will challenged us to pray every single day.. we won't let you down Will
•we have been stopping by a lot more members and formers to try to find people. We stopped by a part member family we had never heard of. The wife who is not a member answered and was super excited to meet us and she set a time for us to come back for dinner (on the back porch of course). She's the sweetest!
•Y'all WE FOUND SOMEONE ON FACEBOOK! We take turns with the zone leaders and district leaders being in charge of messaging on the FB page. We recently got ads too! So on our day, a guy named Kenneth messaged and started explaining the questions he had! We told him a little bit about the church and that missionaries could talk more with him! So he gave us his number and then we set up a lesson for the next day! We were sooo excited because we haven't been able to teach the Restoration in forever and you guys Kenneth is amazing!! He has had a cool experience that made him turn to God and now he is so eager to learn from us. We dropped off his Book of Mormon yesterday and he has already found some gems(: we are going to pass him off to the New Tampa sisters this week since he lives right outside of our area(:
Can we talk about conference?! It was so good!!! I even got a selfie with President Nelson! I loved all of his talks I love hearing the Lords servants testify of Christ and His Atonement. He is real and God is so aware of each one of us!We watched with the Hermanas and of course had a crepe party:) also for the womens session we got permission to go to the Patels house with all the young women!! The first time being in a member home in over 6 months and it was THE BEST. :,)
Hope everyone has a great week !!Let me know if there is anything I can do for you!
Sister Johnson
Carrollwood - Week 65 - October 12, 2020
LET’S GET THIS BREAD
Companion: Sister Anderson
Hellooo everyone! It's been a great week here in Tampa. We love our lives!!
We got to go on exchange with the New Tampa sisters this week! It is Sister Merrill's last transfer & she always says "let's grind it out, let's get this bread" so it's kind of our transfer theme now. Sister Merrill came to cwood with me for the day and let me tell you it was full of tender mercies. She served in Ukraine originally but was serving in Moldova when COVID hit and so she had to come here but man are we lucky to have her! She showed me how to write my name in Russian(:
• we were stopping by a former, it was the wrong house and we asked if there was anyone who needed a message of hope.. they jokingly pointed to their neighbor so we were like okay! We knocked on the neighbors door and she had a thick accent. So we find out she is from Armenia and speaks Russian so she got to talk with Sistra Merrill!! So cool.
•We delivered cookies to so many friends and we were able to get in contact with our friends CARMEN & VANESSA and find her right address. It was our first time seeing them in person. They loved the cookies and talked about how much they loved conference and want to do another lesson!!
•by finding Carmen's address, we were able to find the address of a media referral we have been trying to get ahold of and we met her in person as well later in the week
•Sister Merrill is the funniest and kindest person ever and it was a 24/7 PArTy!
We also had MLC this week, so fun to see all my homies. We learned a ton and they whipped out some numbers about FACEBOOK and how we can find the elect through our Facebook pages and ads. It is going to be so awesome. We have been grinding but it has been so hard to find people! The Spanish Facebook pages already have ads which has been so successful! People are messaging throughout the night so they wake up with lessons already scheduled whatt So that's the goal! More ads just went up for us so we were messaging frantically yesterday and this lady set up a lesson with the zone leaders and SHE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED along with her 3 KIDDOS! It was a super cool miracle, we are excited to move forward!
We also had a training about FAITH and DILIGENCE and how they work together to create miracles. We were encouraged to study those topics and create new definitions so we can think of them in a new way which was super cool. I know the Lord loves effort and He will bless us as we strive to do all we can to keep His commandments.
Love you all! We are doing great out here & we're excited for the adventures coming this week(: Go get that bread!
Sister Johnson
Carrollwood - Week 66 - October 19, 2020
Another day, another dollar
Companion: Sister Anderson
Hey y'all! Hope it's been a great week for you. Another week grinding it out in CWOOD for us.🥳
We had ZONE CONFERENCE this week. One of the best ever! We learned lots about how we can turn a dollar into a helping a child of God make covenants with God (FB ads!) and how we can find those who will let God prevail through Facebook and other ways. We have already seen so many miracles with Facebook and are trying to be creative in the ways we meet people! President is obsessed with chalking (leaving chalk messages on people's driveways or at parks) and we are excited to try it haha! We also got flu shots
The best training was about CONVERSION. We want to come home converted and different than before. We talked about 4 pillars of conversion:
1. focusing on our PURPOSE
2. OBEDIENCE out of love for God
3. TURNING OUTWARD not inward
4. Replacing OUR WILL with God's
I looove these and they have definitely been themes throughout my mission and things I have learned from leaders & companions. It has been cool to reflect on what I need to work on right now and how they all link together (:
We had exchanges with the hermanas! Hermana Pearson came to Carrollwood with me & I love her! We had so much fun and I learn so much from her work ethic and Christlike example. She's a legend for sure.
We had more mini exchanges with the office sisters and social media. Literally love them so much. They are working harrrrd to help the mission. It was fun to do a million stop-bys with them
We found someone though the Facebook page! His name is Carlos. He speaks pretty good English but he wanted to learn how to pray in English. So we had a super spiritual lesson teaching him about prayer. He prayed at the end and poured out his heart to God. He is so humble. I'm so grateful God lets me be His instrument to teach and help others
One thing I have been thinking a lot about is developing Christlike attributes and trying to become more like Him. That is the purpose of this life and I know God will help us have experiences to develop attributes that will help us serve others! Gotta run but love you all!
Sister Johnson
Carrollwood - Week 67 - October 26, 2020
GETCHA HEAD IN THE GAME
Companion: Sister Anderson
HAPPY HALLOWEEN everybody! What are you going to be for Halloween? Feel free to send pics hehe!
Big milagros this week! A woman named Holley self referred herself! She is so awesome and wants to learn about the church and wants her kids to as well. We had an awesome call with her and Karina joined and shared her experience(:
Our friend CARLOS is doing so well! We had a church tour with him yesterday with 2 members, it was sooo fun! The Terry's shared the experience of their baptism and Carlos listened so intently and felt the spirit so.strong. He is so humble and kind and reminds us a lot of Heynar, so we need to get those two together!!
This week we went to super nice parks in Carrollwood for our comp study and chalked while we were there. It is so fun and the weather has been perfect. The first day I prayed to have more interactions with more people and almost everyone there waved to us or said "hi girls!" Lots of people saw our chalk or tooks pictures of it. We left our number and a couple people texted us from it and we shared scriptures with them! It is like literal street contacting but they come to us! ..or should I say chalktacting
EXCHANGESSSSS
On Wednesday I went back to YSA with Sister Jackson (sister T, I miss it!!!) It was so much fun. Especially since we can go back on campus now at least to study or do chalk haha. Sister Jackson is in her first transfer and is a legend!! She is killing it in YSA and is also learning Spanish since she was originally called to Mexico. She has such an excitement for the work and we came up with a ton of creative ideas to find more people for YSA!
Saturday I went to the office with SWATERS! Love that girl. In the office, they do their studies at night and go into the office all morning/afternoon. It was a party calling all the companionships in the mission asking for how many mattresses are in their apartment We also visited a bunch of members in Wesley Chapel since they partially cover that ward! We filmed one of the families for one of our FB posts.
Today we have a district activity w/ pickleball and pizza so that will be a party! Best district ever.
One of the things we talked about in our comp study was the eternal perspective. #deepthoughtswithsisteranderson We have been preparing for soo long to come to Earth and live our life. We have been developing our talents so we can use them now! That was like our practice and now we are IN THE GAME.
My new favorite quote from Elder Holland:
“We are witnessing an ever greater movement toward polarity. The middle-ground options will be removed from us as Latter-day Saints. The middle of the road will be withdrawn.
“Choices have to be made. Not making a choice is a choice. Learn to choose now.”
It's more than just not doing bad things, what are we doing that is good or that is making a difference? Don't just sit on the bench, getcha head in the game haha One thing I am working on is using my talents and gifts in my missionary work to DO GOOD. I love being a missionary!
I love you all and hope you have the best week!
Sister Johnson
Carrollwood - Week 68 - November 2, 2020
Make it pink! Make it blue!
Companion: Sister Anderson
HELLLLOOO FRIENDS! Some drama in the mission this week.. a group of missionaries went through the temple this week for the first time! And one of the missionaries had bed bugs so looottts of people in the zone are in quarantine for a few days!
This week was GREAT:))) We are working with some incredible people, they are my favorite! God is so amazing.
YAIRA! we were able to teach her the Restoration this week outside on her porch which she loved:) Yaira has 7 kids and we were able to meet a couple of them when we handed out candy on Halloween. They are the cutest, hopefully we can get them all to chuch soon.
AUDRA & WILL! Tuesdays are the best day of the week becaue we get to teach these cute kiddos. Our gospel of Jesus Christ hopscotch was definitely a winner this week. Their mom Lindsey is an artist and the kids are following in her footsteps and love showing us their art & drawing chalk with us. It has been so fun to see how far they've come in just a number of weeks.
MARTA & FAM! Marta self referred herself and has 3 kids- Kayla, Osmani, and Angel. Have I mentioned I love teaching kids? I LOVE THEM. They didn't make it to church this week but we stopped by to meet them and deliver a Book of Mormon. We read a scripture about Jesus Christ and they said they would read it together every day!! We asked when they can meet at the church and the youngest said "we can come tomorrow after school!" ..his mom said she works tomorrow and he said "okay can we go today?" SO SWEET.
CARLOOOOS! (Found from Facebook!) Carlos loves the Book of Mormon and the gospel! We taught him about baptism and he said "I know I need to be baptized.. what do I need to do?" So we set a date with him for the end of November. He is excited to be clean and said "you guys must be way cleaner than me" haha
We also had IN PERSON INTERVIEWS with President Hollingsworth! He called us the morning of and said "helllooo how would you like to do your interview in person?" It is so much better in person and he has the best advice:)
I got to go on an exchange with HERMANA CARLSON- she has been here a week and is killing it!! We had comp study and chalked at the park #classic we said to text "BLUE" for a message of peace and "PINK" for a message of hope and we got 8 MESSAGES it was awesome. We also tried the best burger place, Burger Monger 10/10 would reccomend.
Bishop Patel knows transfers are coming up so he made me bear my testimony in church just in case;) I love Carrollwood. We also went to the Patels for dinner, favorite family EVER.
Hope everyone enjoyed Halloween. We handed out candy to a bunch of primary kids in the ward and dressed up as a pumpkin and a cheetah;) our trunk or treat was cancelled but we celebrated by contacting in our trunk one day.. also the elders made a Halloween video for our Facebook page of people getting scared and one of them is when they scared me in the parking lot haha🤦♀️
Cannot believe it is already November. TIME FLIES!! Me and Sister Anderson are living the good life and gonna finish off the transfer strong. HAVE THE BEST WEEK!
Love Sister Johnson
Carrollwood - Week 69 - November 9, 2020
THE BEST WEEK EVER
Companion: Sister Anderson
HEY FAM! Oh my goodness its transfers tomorrow and your girl is leaving Carrollwood!! I'm going to Bradenton in the Satasota zone to be an STL with Hermana Frei!! We were in the same ward at BYU and I love this girl so I'm SO hyped.
BUT of course terribly sad to be leaving Carrollwood I have learned TONS from being here in Carrollwood and all the members and people we have taught. You are not going to believe the MILAGROS we saw this week so let's get to it...
•Carlos read his Book of Mormon and attended church on Sunday (it was a miracle his boss who is so busy didn't have any work for him that day), he can't wait to be baptized this month
•we found 10 new people this week which is LITERALLY INSANE. We have never found that many people here and they are all amazing and progressing! Wow!
•we got a member referral for her friend of another faith who wanted a blessing because of some serious health challenges she is facing. She came to the church and it was so special to see her faith to recieve a blessing from Brother Sutton
•We taught Audra and Will about the commandments this week and they read their Book of Mormon too which happened to be about the commandments! No coincidences.
•the COWAN fam who has been taught forever is back. They weren't baptized because Jennifer wasn't married but in our lesson she told us she is getting married in 2 weeks and asked what she needs to do to be baptized. Milagros!
•a random number called us needing financial help.. we told her we teach people and pray with them and she said she would take that too! She was referred to us by another former I have worked with a lot! Wow.
•update from the chalk last week.. now 15 people have texted us from it!
•Marta and her kiddos video called us and they text us all the time. The cuuutesst! Please pray for them!
•Sister Anderson was the literal best comp and we had the best 2 transfers EVER. I LOVE HER SHE IS AMAZING.
•and many more:)
We have worked so hard for the past 2 transfers but it has been hard consistently not meeting our goals we are working for so it was a sweet tender mercy from God to see so many miracles come from this last week together (:
I know that God is in control, his hand is in each of our lives and when we trust Him and do His will, He can make us into the person we need to become. I Iove Tampa, shoutout to my girls here. I love my mission and I'm excited for one more adventure!!
Alma 26:37 Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.
Love you all!
Sister Johnson
