Blog: Time Flying By

Dear friends and family, it has been a crazy and awesome week! Time
just flies, it just flies on by. I can't believe I have been in
Taniyama for almost 8 months. IT IS THE BEST!!!! I love it here! The
members are so great and we always have such a fun time!
But yes, anyway moving onto this week. It was a pretty normal week I
think. We did start to initialize this thing called 5 minute totsuzen
lessons. So we start off with briefly explaining our message and then
asking them if they have 5 minutes to hear more. And a lot of people
say no, but a lot of people say YES as well!! So we usually just start
off with a prayer, teach them a brief principle and usually ask them
to end us with a prayer. They have all prayed thus far. It is so crazy
how awesome people are sometimes. I was also thinking one day before I
went to bed what the pre-mortal life was like. Who I knew. And maybe
what favors they asked me for. It was just a really profound night of
thinking and I felt the spirit so strong. I probably knew a lot of
these people if not all before I came to Earth, some maybe pleading
with me to find them and help them come back to their Father in
Heaven, I can imagine probably all of them did do that. So sometimes
it is hard when people reject such a great message that can make them
so happy. But that is just a time when I can appreciate better that I
am a Mormon. And love being one.
And with time flying by so fast when I think of the time when I will
have to take off my name tag for good just fear comes into my heart.
But luckily I have still got quite a bit of time! Don't count me out
yet, it just makes me want to try even harder!
We also have been trying to get some activities going this summer to
help strengthen the branch, the new branch president is awesome and I
can really tell he loves the branch members.
This last Sunday we also saw a great miracle! One of our investigators
has a blind daughter who doesn't live with her but has breaks on
Wednesday and Sunday so she can't come to church. But she came all of
a sudden yesterday saying that her daughter moved the time back! It
was awesome! She came just in time for sacrament! And then after that
she talked with some of the members about how excited she was to get
baptized. We had to push her date back a little but she is an awesome
lady! Very funny!
We have also been able to recently meet with a family. The Mom is
sometimes hard to flag down, but we talk with the 80 year old grandma
and 5 year old daughter who are just awesome! The grandma really wants
to come to church so we are going to try and help her find a way, and
hopefully get the Mom more involved as well. Overall this week was
just awesome. I love, love the mission field and can just tell that
this is the Lords work and that sharing His gospel is just so
important. I don't always realize what He has done for me, but each
day I feel that I at least become a tiny bit more aware and that just
brings me closer to Him. A grateful heart will never fail that's for
sure. It's not Thanksgiving or anything, but I hope you all take some
time to be grateful for all that you have. Especially this gospel, I
never realized how happy it has made me, but as my testimony grows and
I search the scriptures and really pray for guidance I feel my Saviors
love and the love He has for all His children. The church is true!!
Don't forget to love being a Mormon!!!

Love,
Sister Johnson

First is our weird faces, this is our normal picture of the dinner appointment we went to with the kaneko family (Mom has seven children and they are all grown up, it's a big family to say the least :) The girl with the while hair clip and I were in the MTC at the same time, crazy, right?!

Left up to down (Yui, saori, shunichirou, hiroki daigo, manami, mari, sayuri's daughter, me, Sayuri, Sayuri's daughter, tappi, aishi, nana, kaneko okaa-san, Sayuri's sons, kempchourou, kozakishimai, akira-chan, ratzlaffchourou)

2. Our investigator Hamada-san who after the lesson said that it would be a lot less hot if we had our hair up, so then she did it up all fancy. I felt very fancy that day.

3. Kodomo eikaiwa!! (English Class)(oota-shimai, natsu-san, me, kozaki-shimai, kemp-chourou, ratzlaff-chourou, kajiya-kyoudai, masao-san, mitsuki-chan, kenta and kouta-kun, yuito and ibuki-kun)

4. a picture of a picture of our temple trip. Look how awesome we all look! It was the best!!

5. Some pucho we got from an Eikaiwa student. It is from kansai. (This had a picture of the big buddha and deer from Nara shout to my mama!) It s pudding flavored, like a pudding flavored haichew. It was weird, but oddly delicious :)