IM STAYING IN KÖLN FOR THE NEXT TRANSFER! And I am so happy. The work
is finally booming! Is that the word? haha:) we had an incredible
week. Some highlights:

Funny story: I was on a bahn, and the thing is every time they start
going, there's a giant force against you that pushes you to fall over.
I was excited about something, so I forgot to prepare myself so before
I knew it I was falling, so I took a step.... onto a bicycle, and then
just kept trying to keep my balance. I ended up climbing on this man's
bike and then knocking both it and myself over onto the floor.
Needless to say I was embarrassed.

We met with Roberto! He has already read through the first two books
in el Libro de mormón and he accepts it as the word of God. We taught
him on Saturday with Nadine who is this amazing member. She's about
23, and she speaks fluent Spanish because her husband is from
Columbia. It's a super painfully romantic story because he is in
Columbia right now while she's here, and he's working on getting
citizenship. The cutest thing is that she gets up every night at 3 am
to teach him German so he can pass the language test. That's true
love. Roberto is the coolest man ever. He came to church and we hooked
him up with all of the people who served missions Spanish speaking and
we also have a member from Columbia:) I tried to speak Spanish with
him. It was really funny. But when I rehearsed the first vision in
Spanish he was all surprised, haha. It was really cool:). He loved
church and he's thinking through being baptized. He wants to know
enough first, which we understand.

Next, we had a Brief Aktion on Tuesday. Basically, we put letters in
all the mailboxes on a street that we prayed about than said a day and
time we'd come back. It was amazing how effective it was. People were
ready and waiting to tell us no or to invite us in and talk with them.
Turns out it was a street with three pastors😂. Two miracles happened.
We met an old couple from Chile. They were all ready for us to come
in. They had such amazing testimonies of God and the bible. At one
point, when I apologized for my German accent(which doesn't exist) he
bore testimony to me of the work I was doing and that I never have to
say sorry because I was doing the Lord's work. We were plowing through
the first lesson, and then we got to the Book of Mormon. The spirit
left the room. The man began to shove it away and said he would not
read it. I had the craziest prompting to bare testimony that his son
(passed away 20 years ago) had already accepted this gospel and that
he wanted his parents too as well. The man got flustered and then
stood up for us to leave. I was prompted to say a prayer, so I asked
if we could at least close with a prayer. He looked taken aback, and
said of course. We left on a good note, but I am still insanely
confused by what happened. We were both sitting there thinking about
how they would make such amazing members of the quorum of the twelve
apostles because he kept talking about how perfect his wife was and
what a blessing she was, ugh. I'm still confused haha. I walked out
and started crying. Kind of embarrassing because of all the people
right outside, but I felt like I finally understood what Nephi meant
when he said "3 But I, Nephi, have written what I have written, and I
esteem it as of great worth, and especially unto my people. For I pray
continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night,
because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that he
will hear my cry". (2 Nephi 33)

The second miracle is a man named Herr Schiefbahn. He was waiting for
us to tell us that he is a challenge and that we could take him on if
we wanted. We said of course. Later that week, we met with him with
Schwester Nowak (she did our whole apartment and is incredible.). He
is what you would imagine a bitter old German man would be like. We
started to pray and he left the room until we were finished. He and s.
Nowak kind of started what sounded like fighting in German, and it was
fast and I couldn't understand, but I was sure they were fighting.
They weren't, I guess that's just how Germans are. I would just jump
in and bear testimony of simple things, and it was really cool to see
how that shut him up for a second, and then he'd have to take some
time to come up with a rebuddle. At the end, we sorted everything out,
and we're all coming back on Friday to actually teach haha:). At the
end, he asked if we would like some chocolate, but I thought he just
asked if I like chocolate, so I said "immer". He then went and brought
me a chocolate bar. I love him. He's like a grumpy old grandpa:). S.
Nowak is having us over for lunch before so we can "game plan".

Now Pierre. We met with him with Schwester Sahebi. Craziest miracle.
We needed a member for the lesson and it was the morning of and we had
none. We looked at the member list and saw her name, thinking she was
some one else. She said she would teach with us. That day we find out
she's a less active with a lot of health problems, so we were scared.
But she came and was an amazing teacher. She brought Pierre a flower.
It was so cute. We just stressed to him how important it was that he
pray about his answer and doesn't just ponder it. At the end we
brought up the 22nd of October for baptism and he said "well, my
birthday is on the 18th. Can I get baptized then?" YES YOU CAN! It was
really cute. K the miracle with Sahebi is that we have a family from
Syria who only speaks Persian and we had this crazy long chain of
translation in the lessons from German to Russian to Persian. It was
ridiculous. BUT sister Sahebi speaks fluent Persian! She said she
would love to translate for us. They're the sweetest family. They have
a baby boy and they love the gospel. We also met a random man who
served Persian speaking in the Toronto Canada mission who is going to
get us the full Persian Book of Mormon ( it's new! The family only had
the book with portions translated).

Church was ridiculous. Gospel doctorine was given in Persian, German,
English, and Spanish. And there were a lot of American visitors and
two of the elders old investigators randomly showed up. Crazy.

Our schedule this week is insanely busy. We're wondering how we're
going to get our four study hours in each day😝.

Also, we met a man sitting in a carriage listening to old music on an
old radio who told me that everyone is black inside and that
everything stems from black heritage. We're just all lost. It was
really funny. And maybe I really do have an Afro on the inside
(dreams.).

It's amazing to see how lost in the work I have become. I love
everyday here. I really don't remember who I was before my mission,
and I've only been out for three months haha:) I know I am exactly
where God wants me to be helping him do his work. There is so much joy
to be found in this work. In Alma 29:9 it says " I know that which the
Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself,
but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is
my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to
bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." I have a huge
testimony of the joy this work will bring. If you aren't already, get
involved! You will become so much happier, I promise. It's really
simple work too. Talk to your friends, ask the missionaries what you
can do. Missionaries appreciate every small effort. This is not just
missionary's work. This is all of our work because we are blessed
enough to know we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and wants us to
live with him again.

I love you all! You are all wonderful:)!

Sister Johnson

I really don't know what to write in this weekly email because I
really don't remember all that happened this week and I'm also in the
middle of what I know is a huge change in basically my entire life and
I feel like I really don't have the right perspective yet. Like I'm in
the middle of a giant 180 haha:). I honestly just had a really solid
week. God blessed sister Riser and I with about a million miracles.

Every appointment fell through this week except two (and a half). The
first was with Bernadette. We met her in a park with her three kids.
We needed French translation, so the lesson went a little slow, but
every time she heard truth, she would just shake her head up and down.
We have a standing weekly appointment with her now, and I'm really
excited to see how she progresses. The next was Elizabeth:). We tried
to meet with her twice, but she was feeling really sick. The third
time we went by, she let us in and we taught her about the Book of
Mormon. She immediately knew it was from God. When we taught her about
the first vision, she really wanted to understand. So, she would read
it in French and then explain it to her daughter (who happened to show
up for the end... Miracle) and have her daughter explain it to us in
German. Her grandson was there too (2 years old), so while we were
showing her the first vision, I was trying to entertain him.

 We're really excited for Elizabeth, but with all her
health problems we don't know if she can come to church or if she'll
be ready in October, but we're hoping and praying! Lastly was Roberto.
Roberto is a wonderful amazing man. We met him on a Gleis reading a
Spanish bible. We brought him a Book of Mormon and left him with our
testimonies. We then saw him the next day, not even twenty four hours
later, and he was 20 chapters in, just reading it standing on the
Gleis. He doesn't speak much German either, so I've been memorizing
the first lesson in Spanish, which is challenging, but humbling. Just
trying to fulfill that promise that every man will hear the gospel in
his own tongue, ya know?

A really huge miracle, amongst all of the others, was on Friday. I was
really sick and I just couldn't concentrate, and so my German was
really not good. SisterR iser kills it with German, so I had just kind
of been leaving the more intense contacting to her. I realized what I
had been doing and was really mad at myself because I was stopping
myself from learning and not doing the Lord’s work. So, I decided I was
just gonna run with it, awful grammar, pronunciation and all. We had a
goal to find 4 potentials, and all of our appointments had fallen
through. We just started contacting on this one street, and we ended
up getting 5 potentials in 45 min. It was incredible. 3 of them were
families:). One of the families is from Romania. We're teaching her
German. She has four children and they are adorable.

God also blessed us with this crazy miracle on Sunday. We met two Orem
business men. They just had this crazy strong spirit and really
uplifted us and helped us to see the power of what we were doing.
Also, one of them, after I expressed interest in learning Arabic, gave
me his card and told me to call him ( he was born in Saudi Arabia and
minored in Arabic) and that he'd make sure I got into the program
at BYU and knew all of the professors and such. It was just funny. I
guess I'm majoring in Arabic now:P.

We're moving onto our last week of the transfer. Köln is wonderful,
but I really feel like there is just so much left to be done. All I
can do is trust in the Lord and his guiding hand to take me to the
work I need to do.

I love you all so much. (General conference is in two weeks and ich
bin sehr begeistert dafür!)

Liebe,
Sister Johnson

Sent from my iPad

I am doing really great.

Thing #1: I BOUGHT A GUITAR. Life is good.

It was another incredible miracle filled week. I

never wanted to sound like a basic sister missionary, but here I am. I

actually asked a teenager how they would say basic in German, if they

had slang for it too, but he was kind of your druggy rebel kid so he

just stared at me, silently. It was great. So I just kind of walked

away. Yeah.

Biggest news this week is that we set a baptismal date with Elizabeth.

She is so funny. She has a bedazzled tooth, she "puts her hair on"

when she goes out, the walls in her wohnung are all red and then she

has what would seem like ironic, but are not, self portraits of

herself on the walls. It's lovely. She has been baptized twice before,

but as we were talking about baptism, she quickly said that she knew

both of them weren't done correctly. She could tell right after the

baptism. We explained why this time would be different. She is eager

to be baptized because she has 7 different types of cancer. She has

the cutest relationship with God. We set the date for October 22nd so

we could be sure she understands everything. The problem is her illness

makes her sleep in, so we don't know how we will get her to church by

9:30.... But everything is possible through God, yeah?

We visited two member families this week so now we finally know some

members! Yesterday was our second Sunday in the ward haha:). Schwester

Shumacher made us legit German food. It was so good. She is literally

the cutest old lady ever. She is like grandma Farner but German. Her

husband passed away last year and her daughter is inactive, but she

has a testimony strong enough to literally move mountains. We taught

Pierre a lesson with her, and she testified to baptism, relief

society, the life after this, including a very powerful and spiritual

story of when she had a vision of her husband after he had passed. She

got up on Sunday and bore her testimony about missionary work and us

as missionaries. Seriously the cutest lady in the whole world. I love

her. She has strengthened my testimony of hope. Hope is all she has,

but she thrives off of the promises that God has given her, and it has

transformed her into an amazing person who is continuously giving when

she doesn't have much herself.

Funny story of the week: I was standing on the Gleis when two 24 year

olds walk up to me.they had already passed and had walked back. One of

them says something to me in German, and I just look at sister Riser,

who's smiling, because I had never heard those words in German before.

I thought she would translate, but she just said to him "she's new to

Germany, she can't understand". So, he breaks out his English and

says, "I think you're cuss word sexy". I kind of died inside. I didn't

know what to do. I just said "als missionarinen wir haben kein Mann

für 18 Monaten". He then went on a spiel about how Jesus was going to

smite him because he hit on me. It was really funny, but awkward, and

uncomfortable. Side note: there is no word for awkward in German.

Traurig.

Teaching Pierre was really fun this week. We picked him up at his

house and took him to the church (40 minutes away). By the time we got

there he was exhausted (he has 5 different types of cancer), so when

we asked him to say the opening prayer..... he fell asleep. At first

it was really spiritual because he had been taking pauses and praying

for really cool things, but then a minute and half went by with

nothing. It's okay though, we woke him up and continued teaching him.

It did take him 4 times to understand that we were inviting him to be

baptized. Oh Pierre.

On our way home, sister Riser and I walked across the Rhine because it

was our dinner hour. We were taking pictures when Mike walks by. Mike

is from Ghana. He literally talked the whole walk over the bridge, but

we convinced him to give us his number and to meet with us.

Wunders.

Last cool story. We were walking home from a dinner appointment

through the park by our wohnung. We saw a man playing basketball.

Sister Riser dared me to go ask if I could try one. So I did. And lo

and behold I made the shot. (Basketball in the MTC wasn't for

nothing.) so, he threw it back to me... And I made it again! Which

made him think I was cool (granted) so we ended up sitting down and

talking about what I'm doing in Germany. The crazy thing was that I

had just been thinking about how cool it would be to recite the first

vision in a finding experience. I had run through it in German in my

head, and realized I had forgotten a part, so I figured it all out and

rememorized it. When I was talking with him (his names Roman, he's

thirty works in finance and is from southern Germany) I was prompted

to recite the first vision. It was so cool! He is atheist, but for

some reason, even after saying it would be hard to convince him to

meet with us, he gave me his number and said we could call him

tonight! The spirit is strong. God works miracles by small things,

like giving me a companion in the MTC who made me play basketball with

her despite my protests.

Lastly, there is Honore. He is from the Ivory Coast. We met him

sitting by the Rhein at sunset just drinking a beer, doing his thing.

We ended up teaching him that night, and then coming back a few nights

later to do it again. He knows what's good and what's bad, but he says

he lacks the desire to do good. He is a huge party-er and it has

destroyed his marriage and his relationship with his daughter. He said

he would take our help. I really hope and pray that he keeps his

commitments so we won't have to drop him. He is good, he's just

constantly drunk so he can never think quite straight. I love him.

This week has been hectic but amazing. I was continuously brought back

to this scripture in Mormon 9:31 "Condemn me not because of mine

imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither

them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that

he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to

be more wise than we have been." I made about a million mistakes this

week, but I witnessed God strengthening me in my weakness to help his

children draw nearer unto him. I'm grateful to God for showing me

where I am weak so that I can be made strong. My challenge for you

this week is to take this scripture and to apply it to your scripture

study and your life. Trust in God.

I love you all! (Also Christmas in Germany is another week closer!!)

Sister Johnson

Ugh ok so another crazy week! Haha:) I just have to begin by saying

that my life long dream has been fulfilled: I heard Elder Uchtdorf and

Bednar speak in German. It. Was. Really. Cool. The Freiberg Temple was

dedicated yesterday, so we got to watch that instead of going to

church. I saw Elder Sabin!... On the screen in the session I went to -

he didn't give a talk though:(.

Ok so God is definitely working miracles in Köln, and the coolest part

is that he is letting us see a little bit of the marvelous work that

he is doing! It all starts on Wednesday. Sister Riser decided it would

be a good idea to entrust me with figuring out Deutsche Bahn and how

we would get to our two appointments that night. I thought I had done

it right, but I completely messed up both. It's kind of the theme of

me and the Bahn haha:). BUT, after we had horribly missed and

rescheduled both appointments, we ran into Elizabeth. She is an old

lady with severe health problems from Africa... I think. She told us

we could come over the next day. So, the next day, Sister Riser gets

this prompting that we should go to see Elizabeth at 2 instead of 4

like we had told her. So we get up from our sprach study (I really

haven't studied German in a sprach studium setting since I got here,

because sister riser is fluent) and went to find the Bahn. We walk out

to Wienerplatz to get some wifi, and who do we see?!? Luciòn! (He was

the contact sister riser had the Sunday before where she ran away from

me.) he had skipped out on his appointment with us this week, and he

wasn't answering his phone. So, we went up to say hello, and he said,

"I was just thinking about you! I went to the church last night, but

you weren't there".  We told him we'd be there that night and that if

he came we could teach him more about the Book of Mormon. He said

okay. We went to visit Elizabeth and she wasn't there, so we just

headed over to the church for German class. Sacku, a refugee, came

with us to that. We can't teach him, but he can read whatever he wants

to, as long as it is safe for him. He had so many questions about

faith, because he has never learned anything about Jesus Christ

before. So, sister Riser and I split up and taught two separate

lessons (except mine was not teaching, merely directing him to read

the lessons in Preach My Gospel and then having him ask me any

questions he had. Loop hole.) the coolest part was that I got to teach

him how to pray, and then said his first prayer with him. I felt the

spirit so strongly, and I asked him how he felt after, and he was like

"I just feel so bubbly in my heart". It was really cute. Also, a huge

plus was that we were teaching both of them in the entrance to the

church, and there was a member counsel that night. So, all of the

members saw us just killing it doing the Lord’s work. I definitely

think that helped us earn their trust and respect. Hopefully now when

we ask them for help, they will all say yes!

We walked away from that absolutely elated. We had 4 appointments for

the next day. The work was finally beginning after a few weeks of

finding finding finding. I went on a split with the STL in Duisburg

the next day, but from what I've heard, several miracles happened on

Friday as well. I guess the member we got to translate French for

Pierre was one of his long lost friends? Also, some young man from

Nigeria just ran up to them at Köln HBf and said "I need a church!"

I'm really grateful to the Lord for showing us a little bit of the

grand work he has planned for this area. It has definitely motivated

us to do and be better. I love him so much for that blessing.

Also, really funny story. Probably not actually haha. We were running

across the Rhine this morning, and I hit a bump in the asphalt.

Literally the only bump in the asphalt for the entire bridge that was

literally the width of my foot. I fell, right next to all of the cars.

I was just thinking about how nerdy my exercise clothes looked and how

embarrassing that was and then I fell, and it just got a lot more

embarrassing.

I'm really sad because Greta didn't respond to my text and then I

called a few days later and she hung up on me. I like thought we were

friends:'(.

So sister Riser and I started this new thing where we end every night

by answering three questions. 1. What were you grateful for today? 2.

What was one miracle you saw today? And 3. What Christlike attribute

did you see in your companion? This simple thing has really bonded us

as companions and friends, and I've learned a huge life lesson from

it. My challenge to you this week is to end every day with an

expression of love. This works for everyone, not just married people

or people on a mission. I have a huge testimony that simple

expressions of love can calm your own heart, set your mind in a better

perspective, and really help to strengthen friendships (as well as

relationships haha:)). If you need any inspiration, watch the

“Expressions of Love” Mormon message. It's cute.

I love you all, and I love hearing about all of your lives! I hope you

are enjoying every day as the gift from God that it is:).

Liebe,

Sister Johnson