March 21st - March 27th

This has been a crazy week!

We celebrated Hermana Keanini's birthday! There was a baptism! And I've been sick and waking up during the night with a burning sore throat.  It has been a busy week but one full of memories. Today we are going to the city! The Rockefellar Center to see some ice skating. Our Relief Society President's daughter is in it. We don't know that much about it except that we are excited to go!

NEWS: It has been announced that we are now allowed to email anyone outside of our mission boundaries. This is something the brethren of the church have announced. This means friends, family, extended family, neighbors, whoever, can now email me. So if there is anyone that you know that is dying to email me, their prayers have been answered lol.

Here are the HIGHLIGHTS:

Thursday March 21st:

Our investigator cleared her baptismal interview! We got the offical thumbs up/clear/green light. Whatever you would call it, we got it =)

Friday March 22nd:

Happy Birthday Annie!  Hermana Keanini, from Hawaii, lives in our apartment and it was her birthday as well. We surprised her! We celebrated Hermana Keanini's birthday that morning with a hideous homemade Mexican pinata! We bought it from a Mexi mart. It was totally authentic =) That thing was a solid rock! We didn't really have many options for where to tie it so we tied it next to the wall where there was a loop. It was funny because she would hit it one swing and the wall the next. What ended up happening was Sister Awerkamp and I each held one end while Nini beat it's back. We were all laughing pretty hard.

Also that night we had an appointment with one of our investigators who's the neighbor of our member (Johnson family). We hadn't been able to see him in a few weeks so it was nice to follow up with him on the commitments we extended. We changed his baptismal date to May 4th but he is still working towards it =)

Saturday March 23rd:

Happy Birthday Seth. My present to you is Mary getting baptized! haha ok maybe not. But at least I was fully engaged in missionary work when I couldn't be with you to celebrate. 

It was a hectic day! We had a lot to do, but when it was all said and done the baptism went great! Mary loved it  =) She had to go under three times! Her dad was the one baptizing her. After the second time she said, "Don't bring me back up until everything is under!" haha.  Saturday is when I first started getting sick.

Sunday March 24th:

Mary was confirmed a member of the church and received the gift of the Holy Ghost!

Later we had an appointment with Sandra Hurley. She is a member we are helping prepare to go to the temple! She's working towards April 20th for the day she goes through the temple =)

Then I rested for part of the day to fight off getting sick. The Denison's who I served with in Kingsbridge live in our building and they are so sweet! They came by to see if everything was ok (they knew I was sick) and they let us have some left overs. They had just fed the missionaries from Kingsbridge. It was Hawaiian haystacks! (one of my favorites!)

Monday March 25th:

We got Mary's baptism record submitted to the mission office. I ended up sleeping part of the afternoon, which unfortunately made it really hard for me to sleep that night. After District Meeting (which Sister Awerkamp did a great job on the training) I got a priesthood blessing from Elder Ordaz.

Tuesday March 26th:

ZONE CONFERENCE! It was awesome seeing some of the other missionaries that I love =)

I love getting together with other missionaries and the mission president. I always learn so much!

The things I took away from it include: using the teaching pamphlets in following up as well to rekindle the feelings and thoughts they had from the previous lesson (when we discussed the pictures the first time). Also, using the follow up as an opportunity to assess or discern their concerns. 

We had dinner at the Hippen home! They are the greatest! We have them every Tuesday night and I always love starting off P-day when we leave there. This time she made a truffle cake for dessert and it was simply divine!

Today Wednesday March 27th:

I slept through the night last night! It was so nice!

Well I've got to attach some pictures and head out, but I hope you know how much I love you.

My testimony of Christ is burning stronger each day. It's been kind of hard being sick because I haven't studied as much as I would have liked to or needed to. But I know the Lord is mindful of me and my situation. I am excited to dive in and study about his final week that represents so much this Easter season.

Love,

Sister Emily Johnson

Upcoming:

This Thursday and Friday Sister Awerkamp and I get to be office sisters! We're excited =) Mostly it's because the office couples will be at different zone conferences.

Sunday is EASTER! What a special time to be teaching about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

The April 6th and 7th is General Conference! This will be my third and last general conference on the mission.  It's surreal. I'm excited to hear them report on all that has happened since President Monson made the announcement of the age change this past October!