This week we had zone conference. I got there and Sister Bakker said,
" are you excited for your musical number?!"... And I said "what
musical number?". So we winged it together. Luckily, Elder Clawson is
a mad pianist and Sister Bakker a crazy good singer.

Some highlights from the week:

We met Roberto's wife! The only way I can describe them is "Latin
Lovers". They're in the middle of getting a divorce, and I'm pretty
sure we walked in on a more intense conversation. We had brought an
adorable member with us, Marie:). She's visiting her Sister from Utah,
and she is the best. Any way, she was expecting to teach the word of
wisdom with us, but instead she played with the two children as we
tried to teach charity to Roberto and comfort his wife. BUT, now his
wife loves us and said she's going to invite us over for Cuban food:).

In other news, WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE WITH PIERRE! It was just the
funniest and coolest experience. Once upon a time, there was an old
man in a muggy apartment complex in the streets of Mülheim.
*bzzzzzzzz. The Sisters are here. Rapidly he dresses, or so rapidly he
thought. (10 minutes later--kind of like spongebob, and we're still
waiting outside his door) *bzzzzzzz. Shoes on to protect his feet from
the molded carpet, Pierre is ready to answer the door. Smiling,
greeting, laughing. Lights turn on "Und Es gab licht! (And there was
light)", Sister Johnson muses. Readily reaching, Pierre with the Book
of Mormon in hand retorts, "nein, hier ist licht!(no, here is
light!)", caressing it all the while. And then we knew, and invited
him to be baptized, and he said yes:). Now he and Roberto are getting
baptized on the fourth of November! Just before the end of the
transfer!

We met an adorable Persian family:). I met the mother with her little
son just chilling on an escalator and then we ended up talking and
walking together for 5 minutes. We had just received Persian book of
Mormons, so I offered to bring her one. I just can't describe how much
I love her. We went and dropped the book off yesterday and invited her
to a Persian party on Thursday (teaching with the Della corte's and
two other Persian families and Schwester sahebi). I'm really excited
to be teaching an entire family:).

We went to an Affen park today (monkeys). We all smell super bad.
Shout out to Schwester Nowak. She is our mother away from home:).

I ate food at IKEA. Who knew they had food?! It's the Costco of
Europe, just not as good and way too confusing. It took us ten minutes
to find our way out, haha:).

We had three people ride with us to church yesterday. We were all
tired, so when our stop came, we all slowly moved to the doors, but
then the bahn halted forward. Pierre fell backwards onto me and then
we had to take a reverse bahn to get back to the church. And then we had
three others there as well. It was a hectic Sunday, but I really think
it was an answer to a lot of the members prayers. They've been doing a
month long fast for us missionaries and the work here in Köln, and
it's really starting to go crazy. There is so much power and strength
that comes from fasting. The scriptures promise us the power of God as
we fast, study, and pray. And for me, this week as I fasted, this
power came in the form of the ability to be happy, even when I didn't
want to be. I know God loves each one of us, and I know he has
wondrous plans for us all. I love you!

Sister Johnson

This week was really busy. Tuesdays are always uneventful. I don't
know why. I can never remember them. But, Wednesday, we had a split
with the other sisters here in Leverkusen because we had two
appointments. I went with sister Catherall. She's only been out one
more transfer than me. We went to an inactive members house to teach
the new convert lessons to their duster who just got baptized in the
Philippines. It was weird not having sister Riser there because
neither of us knew German all too well. I kept asking her for words
and she wouldn't know so we'd have to improvise and I'm pretty sure we
said "gott liebt dich" a million times. It was funny. We ate chocolate
on the way home to console ourselves:P.

I ran into ten Spanish speakers. Sister Riser and I have decided that
God is yelling at me to learn Spanish because she has never run into
so many Spanish speakers in her entire mission. Also, the amount of
hot chocolate I will have to drink this winter to have lessons in
cafes will keep the hot chocolate business alive. Gallons upon liters.

Our sink decided to threw up all of our neighbors drainage as well. We
came home one night, and I ran into the kitchen to get Oreo milka
chocolate (you don't even know how good) when I ran into a giant
puddle of water. The next day, it did it again, only we had definitely
never eaten what came out of the drain. Needless to say, our super
nice apartment smells super bad.

Ok, now I remember Tuesday. We had a lesson with Roberto at a members
house. They are from Columbia. Sister Riser was totally out of the
loop because they all spoke Spanish together. We were trying to teach
the restoration, and had brother Castillo just give a short
explanation of God's plan for us. Within 20 seconds he had jumped to
describing the kingdoms of glory. He also told Roberto that in order
to be in the highest kingdom we have to be married here on earth. I
was really grateful for the gift of tongues and that I understood
enough Spanish so that we didn't have any huge misunderstandings.
Whew! We also met with Roberto on Saturday with our ward mission
leader Casey. He's from America and served in Mexico and lives here
playing in some symphony now, so he's basically superman. He got
Roberto to really open up about his life at home which was good.
Roberto then bore testimony to us of this gospel. After four weeks he
says he can already see the difference in himself. He knows he's
becoming better. He knows it's true. I'm amazed because we haven't
done much for him. We've just given him the Book of Mormon and the
gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to follow Christ and God did
the rest. We're so excited for his baptism. It's going to be the best
day of my life. Roberto is like a 49 year old son (at least that's how
it feels when I set him up on "play dates" with Spanish speaking
members in the ward).

Craziest miracle on Monday. We had forty minutes so we went dooring.
We accidentally doored into the family of Micheova. We found out why
she hadn't answered us (she was in the hospital) and then the whole
family wanted to hear our message. So, we skyped in some Bulgarian
elders to teach them. It was kind of crazy. We just sat there for two
hours without understanding a single word. This family is so
charitable. They continuously throw food at us if we ever don't have
any food in front of us even though they are poor. It's interesting
how quick and easily some cultures accept Jesus Christ. She invited us
in because we had a book that said "another testament of Jesus Christ"
and then treats us super well because we wear his name. It led me to
think about how Christ felt when he was on the earth. What it was like
for him to receive so much love and charity from people who have
nothing. I always want to cry, but that's not socially acceptable and
they don't understand German so I couldn't explain why I'm crying if I
wanted to, haha:).

I've been thinking a lot about potential this week. I was trying to
understand why it is that God asked me to serve a mission. Why he's
asking me to be better than I have been when I was already good. Then
I stumbled on this quote from the Apostle, elder Uchtdorf:

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, “God sent you here to prepare for a
future greater than anything you can imagine.” That future, a day at a
time, comes alive when you do more than just exist; it comes alive
when you live your life to fill the measure of your creation. This
invites the Lord into your life, and you begin to let His will become
yours."(Discovering the Divinity Within)

He's preparing me, just like he's preparing all of you, to truly
become like him. In 3 Nephi 27:27 Christ is speaking to the Nephites
after he established his church in the Americas and says, "Therefore,
what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I
am". I am nowhere close to being like Christ, but I get closer
everyday, and that's all that matters. "Wherefore, ye must press
forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of
hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press
forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end,
behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."(2 Nephi
31:20).

I will never be able to let the people I meet here go. They don't even
know how wonderful they are. Which leads me to the topic of all of
you:).You have no idea how amazing you are and how much I love you.
You really don't know how much you do, for me and for everyone else
you come in contact with.

Bis nächste Woche,
Sister Johnson

Crazy week.

Only downside of Köln is traveling. Everything is an hour away, if not
more. Buses will make you sick, and you have to take them a lot. More
than half of our proselytize time is on an u bahn or a bus haha:).

Roberto is getting baptized on October 22nd!! We met with him and he
said he knew the Book of Mormon was true and that he wanted to be
baptized! Our translator was sick so I ended up translating from
Spanish to English when he spoke and German to Spanish when sister
riser spoke. It was a lovely time, haha:). Arrepentimiento is the
hardest word to say in Spanish. I doubt that's even spelled right, but
we talked about repentance so I had to say it a ton:P. He came to
conference... And he brought his daughter! She's three and adorably
insane. We have a "geheimnis" (mystery) behind the curtains in the
cultural hall, and she would just keep asking to go see it. Kids are
really imaginative because there was literally a basketball back
there, that's it. Pierre came to conference as well. We taught him on
Thursday with schwester fondja. He fell asleep during the lesson (he's
got some sicknesses) so we ended the lesson early, and we thought we
really hadn't made a difference, that he wouldn't be any closer to
receiving an answer about the Book of Mormon, but at the end he
stopped us and told us that we had truly helped him and that he was
sorry he was so tired. It was really sweet and eye opening. He and
Roberto loved conference. They talked about how much power the men had
when the spoke, that they could feel it in their hearts. When I told
them they could watch all 5 sessions online their eyes literally
became hungry and they both pulled out pen and paper so I could write
the web address down for them (lds.org). It was such a testimony
builder to me of the blessing it is to be able to hear from men called
of God to lead his church, to know that that is happening twice a
year. If you didn't watch all of conference, don't worry. I didn't
either. That's why the Internet exsists. Go watch it now:).

More Spanish people are appearing. I used Spanish four times this
week, but it's so bad. Most of the time the people just get annoyed
that I can't speak it quickly with them and they leave:/. It will come
with time and effort.

Another crazy story. We went to actually teach Herr Schiefbahn. When
we walked in the door he brought us upstairs into another apartment
where another man was waiting at the dining room table with coffee for
each of us. We sat down. This man had done research on non church
sponsored sites and was ready to bash our church to the ground. But,
what he didn't understand, was that truth is truth and no one can
confuse it. Schwester Nowak was rapid fire back, and 5 minutes after
we got there we calmed him down and taught the first lesson, the story
of the restoration of the gospel. We killed it. We left them with a
Book of Mormon and a link to meet the Mormons in German and said "call
us when you know it's true".  When we walked out, s. Nowak turned to
me and said "your German! You found every word you needed. It was
amazing. That was really the power of God speaking through you".
Needless to say, I almost cried. We've been speaking German whenever
we're not in the apartment and it's hard. I don't feel like myself in
German, in fact I really don't feel like myself on a mission, but in a
good way. The more I speak it, the better I get, and it was really
nice to have a native German tell me that they could see the
difference. I am way too blessed. I really don't know what I did to
deserve anything I have.

Probably one of the funnier stories of the week (I know that's not a
word) was on Tuesday. We're trying to get in contact with Elisabeth.
She picks up the phone and speaks in French now, which I definitely
can't understand, haha:). So, we went to her neighborhood but she
wasn't there. We ran into a lady looking for a lost cat. So, we
prayed. We heard the cat. So I went wandering through the bushes to
find it. No, I didn't find the cat, but I did step in freshly laid dog
poop from the lady's dog who was looking for the cat. I was in cloth
shoes. Needless to say, I threw those away....

Crazy story. We met a man named Mohammad Ali a few weeks ago with a
woman named Sylvia. We never got in contact with her, and we won't
because she passed away two weeks ago. Mohammad Ali called us this
week interrogating us to know if we had contact with her. It's a
really crazy sad story, but we met with him to sort it all through. He
has a hard life. I mean hard. I remember sitting on the steps by the
Köln dome in agony because I really didn't know how I could help him.
I didn't want to shove religion down his throat  even though I
knew it would help him, but I also couldn't stay there on the steps
while he drank all night. So we went home, really confused. He called
us yesterday, mid conference, so we went to meet him. We brought an
English Book of Mormon (his native language is benjabi... Überraschung
we don't have that haha:)). When he read the intro everything became
still, in a really tangible way. He said he would read the rest and
try to understand. I know that that was the only way we could really
help him. We can't make trials go away, but we can help him to find
eternal joy, a joy that won't change based on our situation.

Coolest member family ever: the Della Corte's. She served in Ukraine
and is from Utah and he served in the Alpine mission and went to
school in Utah, so we spoke English:). They have two kids and live in
a literal fortress in the middle of a neighborhood with a moat.
They're both under thirty and they are still the most involved
missionaries I have ever seen, and their lives are incredibly blessed
for it. We all committed to taking Moroni's challenge in 10:3-5 again
to read the Book of Mormon before sister riser goes home on December
15th and to pray to know if it's true. Sister DC's sister is staying
until December 15th as well, and she said she had never really taken
that challenge and read the whole book and prayed. If you haven't ever
taken the challenge, I challenge you now to do so, and if you have, I
challenge you to do it again. If you just read two chapters a day, you
will be done by the end of the year, and then you can get on your
knees and pray, asking god if the book is true, and I know he will
tell you it is. If it wasn't I wouldn't be on a mission. And because
it is, I have eternal joy in my life, and answers to my questions. I
love the Book of Mormon so much and the power it has to change lives,
including my own. I honestly could not be doing any of this without my
testimony and reliance on the Book of Mormon.

I love you. I pray for you all the time:).

Sister Johnson