September 9, 2013
Dear Friends and Family,
I got transferred to the Bartlett area which is a new
area that we are opening. One thing I have learned this week is that
things are what you make of it. In that first picture when you look at
it you can just see lines but if you look at it with a different
perspective you can see the word Jesus in it.
This week has been
challenging opening a new area and having a ridiculously hard co-trainer
and being changed to full spanish but I learned that things are what
you make of them. It could have been so easy to give up when we were
biking in 110 degree weather for miles. As we kept pushing on we were
able to find investigators to teach. My spanish went from atrocious to
actually somewhat understandable. I had to teach the relief society
lesson in spanish.... and found out 10 minutes before. At first I didn't
know how I would be able to communicate with the people here but I
have been thrown out into the deep end and my spanish is improving. For
the first time since I have been here I can actually partially
understand what everyone is saying.
We had a ton of bike problems this
week and my nuevo companera (new companion) Hermana Warner was left
without a pedal and we had an accident and we were just so lucky not to
have ended up in the hospital. We ran out of water and it just so
happened a member stopped by and invited us into their home for a cool
drink. This week has been pretty crazy and it has been extremely
challenging but I am learning a lot. There are some amazing people here.
We talked to some of our investigators yesterday and they said they
were taught by the missionaries every week and they loved going to
church but the missionaries just stopped coming by. It broke my heart to
hear that. This young man is so close to baptism and the missionaries
had given up on him and his sister. There are so many people here that
want to hear the gospel but have no way to hear it.
There is so much
going on I don't have a whole lot of time to write but I know that life
is what we make it. We can blame things on other people and our
circumstances but it still isn't going to change anything. Your life is
what you make of it.
~Hermana Larissa Johnson