Dear Family and Friends,
We went to downtown Little Rock last week and went to the old state house and we taught some guys sitting on the sidewalk a lesson... Who says you can't teach while you are on break. We taught Daisy and she passed her baptismal interview... She was supposed to be baptized on Sunday but her dad has started to harden his heart and doesn't want to be baptized until December and this is the third time he has reset his date. Hopefully the Lord will hear our prayers and he will set a solid date and not deny his daughter those blessings that come from baptism.
We had the most amazing lesson with Aracleis kids Abigail and David… we watched the Restoration movie with them and you could tell they didn't really understand then when we went back they said they watched it a few more times once with their mom and another time with their dad and they understand it now... they both have that testimony that Joseph Smith restored Christ's true church once again on the earth. We taught them the plan of salvation and they just loved it!!!!!!!!!!! I have never seen people so eager to learn more and I haven't really met people so ready to receive this gospel. They asked so many wonderful questions about what if their family is in the Terrestrial kingdom and they are in the Celestial... could they go visit their family? We invited them to come to church and their mom wouldn't let them....parents can be so frustrating when they are the ones denying their children the greatest blessings that their family could receive.
We went out to teach with our mission president's wife and bless her heart she didn't realize we were Spanish... all of our appointments fell through and we had nothing to do and no one to see for 2 hours with her... we prayed that we would be led to the people that needed us..... with nothing to do we went to go meet with Sister Wakolo and prayed that we would be led where to go and who to see. Everything that could go wrong did but as we put our faith in the Lord everything worked out perfectly. We went to an apartment complex and the gate closed after we got in and the code we gave Sister Wakolo wasn't working… we're like oh shoot lets go help her out... as we were walking to the gate we see this lady who was able to help us and we ended up teaching her. Turns out every single person we found or ran into were all English…
We met this guy that was going off for 10 minutes about how Joseph Smith is a false prophet and all this other crap and I remembered what was said in conference about how the persecution about Joseph Smith is going to get worse before the Second Coming and I just testified of how I came to know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God and he was shocked...completely silent.... I testified and we gave him a pass along card and walked away… you knew he wasn't going to accept it but that testimony is forever going to be stained on the walls and windows of his home. It truly was an amazing day. I realized that it isn't just fun and games being a mission presidents wife and I realized how hard it truly is for their family to leave Fiji, come to a whole other continent, speak a different language and go to school where the education is completely different from what you have been raised with your entire life… I gained so much more respect for them and how they put all their worries and fears aside and trusted in the lord that he would take care of everything.
We got to see Meet the Mormons on Thursday.... such an incredible movie, it seriously answers a lot of questions people have about Mormons.... people assume we are polygamists, can't dance, we don't have black people in our church, we don't celebrate holidays, we don't believe in the same Christ that is in the bible, and other stuff, we have our bible, etc... I've heard these concerns thousands and thousands of times but the movie answers it by helping people realize that Mormons are normal people. We have pasts... we aren't perfect… we have goals, hopes and dreams and most importantly the gospel blesses our lives. I loved how it ended with the woman who was sending off her son on a mission. She was a convert and guess what she met the missionaries in ARKANSAS.... she completely changed her life around and now she is sending her son on a mission. The part where they were saying goodbye made all the missionaries in our zone cry... we all miss our families so much. It is amazing to see how much of a difference one person makes... if that one missionary talks to someone it affects their life forever. I love that movie and encourage everyone to watch it. That is about it for this week.
Love,
Hermana Larissa Johnson