Alicia! 12-31-12 Smyrna, TN

PS~~ I wanted to send you this portion of President McKee's email! It is really amazing :)

"Elders and Sisters,

We are all experiencing a miracle with Sister McKee as you heard over the phone. Only five weeks ago doctors were telling me that she would not make it and that she may be in a coma for the rest of her life even if she did live. I invited all of you to pray for her on Thanksgiving Day because I needed your faith and prayers and have invited you and others from that day. The Lord is answering our prayers and producing a miracle. This week she walked down the hallway with a walker aided by people on both sides. Her counsel to you by phone sounded as if she was speaking from the pulpit and not through a trach with a passy muir valve in a hospital bed. The Lord loves each of you and is performing a miracle before our very eyes. May we all be worthy to receive that blessing. Elder Nelson has kept in touch with me  since his visit. I received an email from him just yesterday and instead of quoting from the scriptures or PMG today I will quote to you what a living Apostle said to you and about you personally. Part of his letter was to each of you. He said:

“Your missionary opportunities in the hospital have reached a clientele that you would not have predicted.  Those dear nurses and others will never be the same because of President and Sister McKee.  And the minister in Dickson and many others, not as yet identified, will be blessed because of you and your marvelous missionaries.  Please tell them how grateful I am for their commitment to be obedient, productive, and so sharply focused on their work.  This period of time is a turning point in their lives.  They are true disciples of the Lord.  We love them and pray for each of them daily!

Thank you for your great faith and devotion.”

A prophet of God has said that this mission will be a turning point in our lives. He also acknowledged that this time should be spent being obedient, productive and sharply focused. This is the time to keep focused on being quality teachers and bold testifiers . The spirit will enter the room when we testify boldly but not overbearing.

We had a tech person come into our room today at the hospital and say, “I can feel a spirit about this room all the way down the hall. What is it you have in here? What is so special? I explained a bit about the Book of Mormon. Testified of it’s witness of Jesus Christ and committed her to meet with our missionaries. She willingly accepted. She explained to me that she thought her heart would burst open while visiting with me. She said that she had worked at this hospital for 12 years and had never had this experience."

I love you!!! 

Love, Sister Johnson

  HULLOOOOO FAMILEEE!

Hahahaha! Man alive, I love you buckets and heaps! Dad that was the most enjoyable email :) I was laughing through much of it :) And Mom I LOVE the pictures! Christmas looks like it was absolutely wonderful! I just can't get the image of Churro and Athena (with her new sweater on) attacking an elk on our street. Beautiful imagery! Plus now I am really tempted to look up pictures of the handsome rebel in Les Mis ;) maybe he will wait for me... :) 

I am so happy that everyone is doing well! It was so wonderful to see you all a week ago. You have no idea! Hahahaha :) I was so happy when I was talking to you and then as soon as I turned it off I started to cry. There is just nothing in this world like family. And MY family more importantly. That realization has come to me several times this week. The closer I come to Christ and learn about His gospel, the more important you become to me. As hard as many of those past years were, I would not trade them for the world. They taught me about Jesus Christ. They taught me about the Atonement. They taught me to love. And it strengthened our relationship as a family. It is beautiful how when everyone is focused on Jesus Christ, we all pull closer together. It is even more beautiful that I get to proclaim that doctrine to the world and tell them that my family is an example of the miracles and blessings of Jesus Christ's atonement. I love you all. More than you know. 

And JARON!!!!! HAPPY ENGAGEMENT!!!! I am so so so so so so so HAPPY that Taryn is going to be my sister-in-law! Cute that you proposed with a Barbie ;) do you remember when Mel and I would play with Barbies and we would play with that GI guy that Zach had? Good times :) Oh! And noodle wars! I propose that as we all start getting married and having children that we bring noodle wars back! All in favor? AYE!

That brings to my attention the New Years Resolutions we set for last year. We didn't do too good.... I propose that we all refocus and resolve to have more children! Jaron, I am leaving it up to you to make up the difference where mission rules don't really allow me to even date. Mel, you too, kid. Babies everywhere. That's the goal ;)

Ok, so since I am a missionary, I should probably not be saying things like that. For the mass production of this email, you might need to censor the last statement. Thanks :) <<<from Renee: Nah! I'm leaving this in:)!]

Dad and Mom, I hope you are feeling better soon. I will pray for you! <<<from Renee: We're fine now:)

I will tell you about my week now I guess :) Christmas was really great. Everyone stuffed us full of food. We traveled all over the place sharing our message. And we happened upon many nonmembers during our member visits so we placed many Book of Mormons. We taught 40 lessons this week!! (That's a ton, in case you were wondering). A lot of those lessons came from the blessing and curse of tracting.... We knocked a TON of doors this week. We couldn't get appointments set due to the Holidays and everyone kept bailing out on us! So, the Lord tested our faith. Let me tell ya- it was rough. But we saw SO many miracles from it. Just remembering that this is the Lord's work and we are the Lord's servants. I really don't feel like I did anything this week- it was just the Lord working through me. But I had to make the choice everyday to keep trying. I had to make the choice to have a positive attitude. I had to make the choice to actually stay when I was exhausted. One of my favorite lessons this week was L and M (NEW INVESTIGATORS!!!) We visited the J family to make sure they were doing well in preparing for baptism. They are amazing. JJ had a budget pulled up for the new year with tithing and fast offerings at the top. Gosh! I love them :) So we finished up but since it is the end of the month, we are pretty much out of miles on our car. That means even more door knocking. So we went outside in a snow flurry and started pounding the pavement. We knocked about 7 doors with NO success. Then we saw two people outside in the snow building a fire by burning garbage. We took courage and faith and proceeded to walk towards them. They didn't run away! In fact, we had a beautiful first lesson with them right there that was completely spirit-led. We were standing in the cold, but we didn't notice a thing. They INVITED us back and promised to start reading the Book of Mormon. We started back towards the car- and that's when I realized I couldn't feel my feet. Hahaha! Oh the joy of it all! They are awesome though :) Oh! We had another miracle lesson that was very similar to that with KM this week as well. Same situation- no miles, no appointments. We walked down our street to a house we have knocked twice before- and MIRACLE! Not only did he let us in, we taught the Plan of Salvation, he asked wonderful questions and he also invited us back to answer more questions. He is hilarious too :) Man! I love fun investigators :)

Yesterday at church I got to be one of the speakers in sacrament meeting. The talk was on the choices that brought me to a mission and the priorities we set in enduring to the end. So, basically my talk was on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and our personal agency. The greatest example to me of this enduring faith is Nephi. He. Is. The. Man! I LOVE Nephi! I shared the story in 1 Nephi 18. Laman and Lemuel bind Nephi and for FOUR days they are tossed on the sea. It takes them FOUR days to decide to change and repent. They loose Nephi and what does he do? He praises God ALL THE DAY LONG. His courage, his faith and his choice to be cheerful despite circumstances is incredible. Nephi is someone who truly understands the power of God and Jesus Christ's atonement. And he also understands that we are "agents unto ourselves" (D&C 58:26-28). We have the power within us to choose how we will face the challenges that life has to throw at us. We have the power within us to choose to humble ourselves before our Lord and our Maker. Dear family (and all who read this email), in this the new year of 2013, will you resolve to come closer to Christ? Will you choose to be happy and turn to the Lord with cheerful hearts when the challenges of life threaten to swallow you up? I promise you that as you do, you will feel the joy and the peace that only the Savior can bring. Like the people of Alma that are persecuted and turn to the Lord in their righteousness for relief: "I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your backs, even while you are in bondage... yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord" (Mosiah 24). We can submit cheerfully and with patience for the Lord will ease our burdens. 

This is the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that I am a part of this great work. I love you all. I pray for you, my wonderful family. Keep looking for the angels. I promise they are there. Have a wonderful week and enjoy New Years festivities! Oh! That reminds me- Dad you asked what we do on New Years. We have an all day p-day! So two p-days in a row! Plus we get to watch Megamind!!! Happy New Year y'all!!!

I love you! God loves you too :)

Love, your Tennessee missionary,

Sister Alicia Johnson

Alicia! 12-24-12 Smyrna, TN

Hello my amazing family!

I really love you all! Just thought you ought to know that ;) Before I forget, my teachers from the MTC wanted to receive the forwarded emails from you so if you could add them to the list that would be wonderful! Please, please, please make sure that you send it to Sister Latu! She has done so much to help me out here. Everyday something from the MTC influences what I do, what I say and builds my courage. So she needs to know I sure love her and I appreciate her so much. 

Thanks for depositing that money. I will definitely be needing to use it for some warmer clothing pretty quick here. Also with the numbers of missionaries we are getting in the mission (around 100 sisters) in the next few months, they are going to be switching us to either full-time bike missionaries or part-time car missionaries. I will have the car at least until the next transfer. I am not 100% sure how purchasing a bike is going to go so I will let you know as I find out. 

I did get your package :) I haven't opened it yet- I'll be doing that tomorrow. And I am glad you got my package! It was last minute and really was my companion's idea. I don't know much about the area yet so I wouldn't have had any idea what to send that is special. What I sent you though is a Nashville specialty. Apparently you can't buy them anywhere but Tennessee. 

Christmas is tomorrow!!! I am really looking forward to seeing all of your lovely faces tomorrow. We have to Skype or call from a member's home so we will be going to Sister Thatcher's aunt and uncle's home. I don't know if I already told you, but we are serving in the area where her less-active family lives and we have special permission to visit them. They recently moved here even- so it shows that the Lord has a hand in her placement in this area. What is more, we are actually seeing progress with them! Pretty neat :) Anyways, she is going to take the first go with her family so I will be calling/Skyping at about 12:30pm Tennessee time. 11:30am your time? I am excited!

I am happy the family is all together! That is so great :) And you have snow! This Christmas is going to be very, very different for me. First off, no snow. And we are really going to be all over the place. We are supposed to spend some time having Christmas dinner and lunch, but the rest of the day we are supposed to share a Christmas message with as many members and investigators that we can. It should be really neat. We have chosen to share the message of "Coming Unto Christ". We are going to read portions of Luke 2 where the shepherds hear about the Savior then make haste to go to Him. Then we are going to read 3 Nephi 9:14-22 when Christ is inviting everyone to come to Him and how they can. It's awesome! You should all look at it.  

This week was really different for us. We had a district meeting and a zone conference that took up most of two of our days. We went to a baptism on Saturday for the Smyrna elders. That was awesome! Where else but Nashville area do you get interlude music of guitar-country-style hymns? It was beautiful. This area is seeing a LOT of success! AND..... drum roll please.................................... WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE!!!! With the J family of 5!!!! Four of the five are over 8 years old so on January 1st, to bring in the New Year, we are going to be celebrating with four baptisms!!! Then, in one year from then, we are going to be celebrating by going to the temple for a sealing!!! They have been so prepared- and we are SO excited! I didn't have as much part in the process, but I get to be here for the last few lessons and the baptism. What's even better is the support we are seeing from the ward. They are just taking them all in under their wing. This is a family that is going to make it. It is such a blessing to see. 

We spent a lot of time this week really building the trust of ward members. With this baptism, I know we are going to be seeing a lot more member involvement and a lot more referrals. We are looking for more families to work with and we found potentially about 4 more in the last week. Plus we are making strides with working with less-actives and part-member families. We want to get as many families to the temple as we can. Oh! And we have a mother, C, of a member, the S family, who we are going to be setting a baptismal date with this week :) So we will have 5 baptisms in the next couple of weeks!

It is amazing how the Lord blesses our efforts. I don't know if I will ever truly feel confident in my abilities- especially when it comes to talking to everyone and knocking on doors. It makes me so nervous and sick sometimes, but every time we make the effort (despite our fear), we find success in the words we speak and sometimes in finding new investigators. The reward comes after the trial of our faith. Missionary work is crazy. I know that I couldn't do this on my own. I am grateful to have such strong support from a loving family and the strength of the Lord in my calling. It's really crazy hard... and yet there are so many missionaries! It just shows how much it is worth it. Besides, when did the Lord ever do anything that was easy? "I will go and do as the Lord commands for I know that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men save he shall prepare a way for them to accomplish the thing which the Lord hath commanded." What a beautiful promise. I know that the Lord does support us. He loves us. He is standing with you all, my amazing family. I love you very much. I pray for you. I wish you the happiest of Christmases!

Love, 

Sister Alicia Johnson

PS~ Please tell all of the grandparents thanks for their wonderful Christmas gifts and love!

PPS~ Tell Grandma Janet I love her dearly and am so grateful for her Christmas message. I love you!

PPPS~ Thanks for always writing me Dad. I love you!

PPPPS~ I can't wait to talk to you all tomorrow!

Alicia in TN! 12-17-12 Smyrna, TN

                                                           
Hi Mom, Dad and family :)

I hope that I can cover everything and really fill you in on what has been going on here. I am serving in the Rock Springs Area in Smyrna Tennessee. It is an amazing area full of very prepared people. Before I tell you about this week there is something I want to share. It is called "A Vision of the South"

"Make no small plans: They have no magic to stir men's Souls." This is the vision I have for the South. I believe that one day the South will baptize more people into the church than all other English-speaking missions in the world together. There are great hosts of marvelous Baptists, members of the Church of Christ, Methodists, and Catholics who are honorable people, and have faith in the Lord Jesus Christs and love him. As they see their church veering off to the right or to the left of those basic teachings, they will begin to search for truth; and as pivotal teachers come into the church and have influence, we will see the time when we will baptize hundreds and thousands, tens of thousands, in your day we will see a million members of the church in the South. There will be temples plural in the South States. What a great call you have to serve with these marvelous people. The missionaries love the South. We are making great strides and expect to continue." -Spencer W. Kimball and Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone

My companion, Sister Thatcher, and I recite this vision every morning. I believe it to be true. Nowhere on earth are people more ready and willing to talk about Jesus Christ and stand and pray with you on the street. We taught 32 lessons this week. A lesson consists of teaching some principle or doctrine of the gospel and usually ends with a prayer. Everyday, I get on my knees. Everyday, I realize more and more that this is not my work. This is the work of the Lord. It is the most difficult and gratifying work. My faith has grown immensely. And we have seen many miracles. 

The first couple of days I was here were spent near our wonderful mission president, President McKee. Sister McKee has been in the hospital for about a month now. She had a stroke and has died about three times. They were able to revive her each time. She was in a coma for a couple of weeks. The day I got my companion (Wednesday), she was pulled off the respirator. She is on it half the time now. President McKee is the strongest, happiest, most humble person I have ever met. When we got to the airport on Monday, our bags didn't come for until an hour and a half after. We spent that time contacting in the airport. We handed out all of our pass-along cards and Book of Mormons. I was able to teach a lady right there in the airport (even if I didn't realize it was a lesson at the time). Because of Sister McKee being in the ICU, we stayed at a members house that night. We had the transfer meeting the next day and I was assigned to be with Sister Thatcher. 

Sister Thatcher has been in the mission field for 12 weeks. "Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies." She is the perfect trainer for me. We have done nothing but work, work, work. She is so humble, especially as we are both so brand new. We are on our knees offering prayers all of the time. It takes great faith to talk to everyone we meet. But we have had the blessing of finding several families right on the street we live on and the Spirit has guided our footsteps to former investigators who are ready now to receive our message. We are constantly teaching, constantly finding. Sister Thatcher is from Homedale Idaho. She says all of the time that the she is so grateful that I came pretrained.... I don't know how much of that is true, but I am grateful for the experiences before my mission that really helped me learn to listen to the Spirit. Because of the large number of missionaries that we are getting (we are getting 10 more sisters next transfer and will have 100 by July) I know that I will be training in either 6 weeks or 12 weeks. So we are preparing already for that. 

There have been many experiences this week.. I don't even know where to begin. One was very specific for me. We have a book that has former investigators in it. I was looking through it to find potential investigators. The second page in, I started reading their names and information and the Spirit hit me like a wall. I marked them and kept looking. I kept going back to that page and every time the Spirit buzzed through me. We went to go find the family. We started talking with RR. We talked about her experience with missionaries before. I told her that we had been very specifically prompted to come to her. She started to get teary-eyed and explained that they were not well-off financially. We set up a return appointment and we talked to the ward about helping them out with Christmas. I have a very strong feeling that this family is golden. They are ready to hear the gospel. 

We taught another lady, CH, last night. I was able to extend the commitment to be baptized. She will be ready in a few weeks. We had a baptism set for Friday for a 10-year old girl, CC. Her mother is Catholic and divorced. Her father is a less-active member. The sisters have been teaching them for a while and CC was ready for baptism. 24 hours before, however, the mother withdrew her permission. This has turned out to be a great blessing as the Spirit witnessed to us that the reason was so that Brother C would have the opportunity to baptize C himself. 

These are just a couple of things that have been going on. The work is rolling forth and it is incredible. I am really grateful for your emails and your support. Yes, my p-day is on Monday :) and I don't really have a time limit on how long I can write. It sounds as if there is a lot going on at home. I love hearing from you. I really miss my family a lot. I love you all so much. The weather is definitely different here than at home. We probably won't see snow. It does get cold, but it has only been really cold a couple of nights. It doesn't really feel too different other than it feels like there should be snow since it is Christmas time. We are in an amazing ward. They really have the spirit of missionary work. As far as mail goes, just send it to the mission office address that you already have. They have told us that that really is the best way to do it and it will only delay letters for a day. They are especially good about making sure that packages get to us. A camera card would be great to have! Or a flash drive. Then I can just send you all of my pictures once my camera is full. I am really excited to hear that the Hobbit was good :) I look forward to seeing it in 17 months :)  It's exciting to hear about your mission experiences around Christmas time. It sounds like it should be really good here too. In fact, we more than get to call, we get to SKYPE!!! For a whole hour I think :) I will let you know more as it gets closer. My companion looks like she is wrapping up. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers and love. I am so grateful for my relationship with my Savior in knowing that not only does he never leave me alone, but he is always with you. Please pray for Sister McKee. I love the McKee's and we want them in our mission. I hope I covered everything. Just know that I appreciate so much the time you spend in writing to me. I love you so much. I pray for y'all :)

Love always,
Sister Alicia Johnson

Alicia 12-5 MTC

Hey Mom and Family!

Thanks for the updates about everything! I am glad you survived going back to Durham ;) They are pretty great there. That is funny about Bryce :) Thanks for your dearelder letters and for all the other letters and emails. I am excited that you'll get to go see Michael. It's nuts to me that he is home tomorrow! Feels like yesterday- and also a lifetime ago. Things change so much so quickly!

Ok- so this week has been very different. Because it was extended they haven't had as much for us to do. So there has been some room to breath ;) As far as flights go- I totes forgot my iternary!! Guh! But I think I am flying out of Salt Lake at 8:30 in the morning. We have a little bit of a layover in Atlanta Georgia so I would either be able to call you then or in the morning. I am not sure at the moment.... I will be sure to write you a letter to let you know. It's crazy though! It went so fast! I love the MTC. I really want to work here after my mission... I dunno how that would work with me being at Utah State so we'll see if it ever really happens.

Other things that happened this week: Gosh! It went so fast! It feels like I emailed you yesterday! We did get a bunch of new elders last Wednesday in our Zone. That was exciting :) They have added a bit of variety to the bunch since they are going to either Boston or the Ogden Utah missions. Which means they aren't all from Utah or Idaho ;) In fact, we have some celebrities in our group! (Melanie you will love this) There is one Elder who was an Abercromie and Fitch model ;) ;) I'll hook you up, Mel ;) There is another Elder who played on a national basketball team (I think) or it was just a college team. North Carolina. His name is Elder White. We have another Elder who is from Mississippi Jackson which is where half of my district is going. And (my favorite) there is an elder who isn't in our zone whom we have nicknamed Elder-Singing-Asian-Kid. He is ALWAYS grinning from ear to ear. He is ALWAYS holding the door open. And often times when we walk through he starts singing :) Nephi's courage- Lalalalalalalala! Oh man he is GREAT!

What else is exciting... It has just been so relaxed. We don't have teaching as much- just our teachers roleplaying as progressive investigators from their own missions. That has been good. Sister Latu (my favorite teacher of all time) has been Linda. Linda is an elderly lady that is so logical about everything. We spent the first few lessons just trying to get her to feel. After many attempts, we went in there just to listen and follow the Spirit. We had an amazing experience where the Spirit touched her and she felt God's love. Ever since then we've been taking baby-steps to get her closer to baptism and recognizing the Spirit. The coolest part to me is that she is a Special Education teacher. She was an art major then felt prompted to change her major. Sounded very familiar to me :) It was crazy awesome when we made that connection. I am pretty much positive that I will meet someone like her out in the field.

Lawanna. We met with her for the last time on Thursday last week. She broke character at the end and kind of chewed ME out- not really sure why still. Amazingly the Spirit stayed with me as a calm protection. Her words kind of bounced off of me as the Lord told me that I had done nothing wrong. I was doing His work and if she didn't understand that it wasn't my fault. I have been learning to recognize the spirit more in my life. Turns out as long as you are living correctly, everything seems to come from the Spirit. Hm.... I think I like that :)

Ok so I am out of time again. Next week's email is gonna be way better :) I'll be in Tennessee!!!!! Man alive I am so excited! And super super scared! It is a lot easier to roleplay and thinking about approaching real people seems a touch terrifying. Thankfully the Lord is on my side. What a glorious work! Thanks again for all of your emails, letters and support. I love you all so much- Mom, Dad, Melanie, Jaron and Zach. I pray for you. Melanie, I got your letter. I am writing you back today. I am praying for you sweetheart. Everything will work out. Just remember you are in the Lord's hands. And your name has been in the temple for two weeks. I love you little sister. Whatever happens, I will always love you and know that you will serve the Lord regardless. I am praying for all of you. Prayer is amazing. Never take it for granted. And I promise you that angels are with you.

I will talk to you Monday!!! I love you so so so much!

Love for always,

Sister Alicia Johnson