Hello Loved Ones! Week one as a missionary complete!

Dearest Family and friends,

This is your favorite missionary, Sister Johnson :)

For those of you who are wondering my Preperation Day (P-day) is on Wednesday.  Sorry it has taken you so long to hear from me.  I've made it through my first week.  My oh my have I grown already! This time last week I was being dropped off at the MTC by Tristan, Janice, Jill, Lexi (Tristan's cousin who is going on a mission to London in April).

I don't have a lot of time to email and all my days blend together so chances are I wont be able to break it down by day.  As a result I am going to tell you about the main things that come to my mind.  For starters I am loving it!  The first day or two was weird because I was stressed out by the demanding schedule and it was really hard not having instant communication.  Although, after getting through the first fews days I'm really finding my element. 

My companion's name is Sister Broderick.  She is amazing! She's from Bountiful Utah and just as crazy fun as I am =)  We are so silly, but we also know when to decern when to be spiritual.  Heavenly Father totally put us together for a reason.  It's so nice to be making progress and seeing our growth and how well we get a long while other companionships are struggling.  Also, we always think about how grateful we are to be going English speaking! All the elders and sisters learning English got thrown right into classes where they are speaking the other language on the first and second day, and require you to teach a lesson in that language on your third day.  We've been teaching lessons, but it's fabulous to be able to speak from our heart.  And to think I used to want to go to Sweden! HAh Swedish would kill me.

I also adore the others in my district!  Apart from my companion and I the others are going to the D.C. south mission.  There is Elder Powell and Elder Anderson, Sister Crocket and Sister Hansen, and the last companionship in our district is Elder Braithewaite and Elder Williams.  Elder Williams is our district leader.  Our zone leaders are Elder Summers from Alaska and Elder Hall from England! Elder Hall is awesome! And his district likes to give him a hard time because he looks a lot like Joseph Smith and in their classroom there is a picture of Joseph Smith right above the seat he sits in.

I appreciate all of you who have been writing me on dear elder! Your thoughts make my day. A special shout out to Cj, mom, Tristan, and Lauren (who sent me a post card).  I only have 13 more minutes until I have to log off my email.  We have 30 minutes total to use to write our family.

There are so many hilarious moments I've had with my district.  They are definitely my family here at the MTC.  We spend all day together in classes and we eat meals together.  We are so lucky to have a fabulous district.  Elder Powell is from Cali and has 35 ties with him! He is so sarcastic and funny.  Sis. Broderick and I make requests for what color tie he'll wear the following day.  Elder Anderson, his companion is shyer and enjoys choir, but now that he's getting more comfortable he's opening up more. And you can pretty much count on him to listen to your stories even when the others stop listening. lol. Elder Braithewaite is hilarious! He's so genuine and funny. 

Our class teachers are Brother Page and Sister Lamplugh (pronouced Lamp-Lou). 

We've been learning so much about how to be an effective missionary! It's such a blessing to be here and break the gospel down to the fundamentels.  We are currently teaching four investigators.  Two of them are our class teachers in role plays where we go visit them (Merrit and Karen). As well as Barbara who is from New Jersey and Marlou.  This last week when we taught Marlou the spirit was so strong as we testified of what a blessing the gospel and the atonement brings into our lives and shared personal stories.  Afterward that appointment Sis. Broderick and I were so excited! We felt sooooo good! We gave each other a great big hug and I said, "This is why I came on a mission...I want to feel like this all the time."

I've got less the five minutes left, so I'm going to wrap it up by telling you we've been playing speed basketball with the elders in our district during gym time! We play speed (also called lightening, knock out, elimination, tornado, etc.) It's where you have a line shooting from one spot with two balls and you try to get the person in front of you out by making a basket before them.  I've made quite a few 3 pointers! I'm definitely going to pick up basketball again when I get home.

I'll close by telling you our purpose as missionaries,

"To invite others to come to Christ, by helping them receive the restored Gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."

I am so grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ and for the way he is waiting to bless our lives and comfort our sorrows as we turn to him with open arms. 

I love all of you and hope life is treating you well.

Love,

Sister Emily A. Johnson