Sister Sarah Johnson - 1/30 - You know what I can't believe?...

That January is over. And that in officially one year, my mission will be over. What?

It doesn't help that this week felt like 2 days long. So much happened! 

First off, we had the Missionary Broadcast on Wednesday, followed immediately after by 6 hours of Zone Conference with President Dymock. It was a looooong day of incredible training. But the missionary broadcast changed everything! They changed the missionary schedule, so now instead of doing an hour of personal and then companion study, we do just an hour of personal, and then a half hour of companion study anytime during the day. And daily planning is in the morning now instead of at the end of the night (thank heavens because feeling spiritual at 9 was really hard sometimes). And on Pdays, we only study 30 minutes, plan, and then go. Which gives us an extra 2 hours to clean and play and shop, and I am incredibly pumped about that. And then at training we talked so much about Repentance and how to make it a joyful experience. Lots of people associate repentance with like, punishment. Which isn't accurate! In Hebrew, the word "Shube" is what they used for the idea of repentance, and it means to turn, or return. And in Greek the word was Metaneoeo, which means a change in the air, or thought. It was the Latin word Peon, that meant punishment, and gave repentance a bad connotation. But as I've studied repentance, I've come to love it more and more. It's amazing how the Atonement really does give us that chance to turn back to God, and change our thoughts so that we don't even desire to sin anymore. 

Also... I gave a training with the STL from Lewiston and we did alright! It was scary to teach in front of President, but I survived and now we're good! :)

Oh! And Jake is no longer getting baptized on the 4th, and that is totally ok! He wants to build a testimony, and not just get baptized for the sake of being baptized, and that is super mature! We are going to help him to really believe the truth. He has that desire to believe, like in Alma 32. He just has to give it time and energy, and that little seed of faith will grow :) I just know it! 

We got to go to church in the Potlatch branch yesterday! That was way cute! Like 20 members are active, and they are so excited to have sister missionaries, and we are so excited that they love us so much. And! We met a girl who lives near Potlatch, Mallory, who totally wants us to come back and talk to her, and we already love her so much. She is the coolest! And she has purple hair. #goals

Life is so good! I'm so excited to be a missionary. Heavenly Father is really taking me by the hand and teaching me so much about myself, and life, and the Gospel, and the plan that he has for each and every one of us, and it's changing everything I ever knew. And I'm learning to love the Book of Mormon so much! I'm reading it again before Easter, and I have built such a testimony from it. Heavenly Father totally has a plan for me specifically, and it's nothing like I thought it would be, and that is ok! Because it's turning out better than I'd hoped. The future is so bright, you guys. You just gotta keep walking in the right direction :). 

Anyways, I love you all and hope that you are all healthy and well.... and probably warmer than I am. 

Here are a few pics! This one car had a Wall Drug bumper sticker. I've been there! (Excuse me not being able to keep my eyes open in the sun that finally decided to show itself)

And also, Elder Collins asked us what Sisters do in their spare time.... so we made him a comprehensive list of things. Enjoy. 

Adios!

Sister Johnson

Elder Matthew LeBaron - 1/30 - New Comp, new Rules, new me

Hello friends and family! I am glad to say that the rain has finally stopped here in southern California, and things are as usual, sunny... well at least for now. There are quite a lot of people that say that there will be more storms to come. El Nino turned into El Hombre this year.  I have re-read some of my emails this week, and something that I realized is how many mistakes I make. Holy cow. I would like to apologize to all of my readers of the LeBaron weekly. I do have to say, I try and fly through this email every week like a banshee on my mini sized keyboard and for the the most part, it seems to work out pretty well.  As most of you know, there have been some changes to missionary work all across the world. I'm sure that all of the changes have flooded the internet, and you are all very aware of the new schedule, and key indicator changes... well if I wasn't on a mission I probably would have no idea what was happening, so kudos for you that are aware. As a missionary for the last 8 months I have made my life revolve around 9 simple things known as key indicators, and mostly my whole essence as a missionary has revolved around teaching lessons, and getting members to come to those lessons, and not to forget new investigators or baptizing people. In the California Arcadia mission our president has been very number oriented and so it was surprising on Wednesday when Elder oaks announced that there would now only be 4 indicators, which include: investigators baptized and confirmed, baptismal dates, sacrament attendance, and new investigators. For the last 8 months my very breath was lessons taught a week, and members presents, because baptisms only come every once and awhile, even when you are working your butt off. To my shock lessons were completely taken away. After the conference I sat there eating lunch, and I wasn't exactly sure how to be a missionary anymore, even lessons taught to recent converts and less active members was taken away. It truly is a testament to me that the lord is hastening the work even more, and its very liberating to not have numbers rule your life, the first 6 months of my mission, I learned for myself the importance of just putting everything you have in the field, and to not worry about the numbers, yes, help them push you, but never let them discourage you, let them enable you, not disable you. Not to mention they changed our daily schedule. The biggest and most exciting change is that we have 2 extra hours on preparation day, it now starts on Mondays. Also we will be daily planning in the morning, which means that when we get home at 9 or 9:30 we have until 10:30 to do whatever we want... haha well not what ever but you get the point.  This is something that I have been thinking about since I first started, there is nothing more stressful than trying to plan for 30 minutes when you get home (most of the time it turns into 45 minutes to an hour) and then rushing into bed not feeling like you got to do anything to relax. Its definitely a blessing from heaven. One of the negative things is now we only have 30 minutes for lunch, which will quite honestly be hard for me to make food for myself every day, not to mention that means no more naps..... or no more eating food? Honestly I choose not to eat food, naps are a major key alert to success as a missionary. We got to go to the temple on Saturday with Juliet, and went to the temple visitors center to get her excited for her baptism on Sunday. It was pretty weird because we crammed our trio in the back of a little car, we got a sister in the ward to take us to the temple with Juliet (its awesome to be in a trio, because you always have a third male with you, so you can literally get in any house, and get rides with the sister missionaries, or have sisters in the ward drive you on the spot) after my legs cramped for an hour and a half we arrived at the temple, and the temple sister missionaries took over, it was super weird to see other missionaries teach our investigator. In the middle of the tour Juliet had a crises of faith, and she told everyone that she didn't want to be baptized anymore. She explained that her family was not even close to being as perfect as what she thought most families in the church are like. After an hour, of reassurance from both us and the sister missionaries she was back on track again, but man that was a heart attack. After the tour we walked the grounds and explained different features of the temple to her with our member, the spirit was so strong, and we knew that Juliet was feeling it too. After that we went to the west L.A mall, which is the absolutely massive, and got some dinner. Crises luckily averted, Juliet was baptized yesterday, and she is doing awesome! This area is pretty awesome, I have already baptized twice, and its only been a transfer and a half.  We have been in a trio for a week now, and let me tell you, its been awful, not that I don't like being with both of my comps, because they are really cool, but the pad we live in is packed to the max. The pad we live in is a good size for two people, but for the past week, we have had 5 people... 5 people for one bathroom, ugh, its been awful, mornings are something else. not to mention there just isn't any place to put anything, and we stumble over each others stuff day and night, because there simply isn't any room anywhere. One of the missionaries has an extra broken bike that literally does nothing but take up space, and so we have a total of 6 bikes that take up our whole living room, just horrible.  Thank you everyone for all the love and support, if you are even slightly tempted to send me things or letters, please feel free to embrace that temptation.

614 West Foothill Boulevard, Arcadia, California 91006

Elder LeBaron

SISTER SARAH JOHNSON - 1/23 - Hello again, everyone!

THIS WEEK HAS BEEN AWESOME FOR TWO REASONS!

The first is that Sister Mitchell is a power house, and we are going to rock at taking over both Quail Run ward, and the Potlatch Branch. She and I spend most of the time laughing, and we get along super easily, which is awesome! I feel like I've known her for 10 years, and it's been barely a week. Missions are weird like that. 

The second reason, is THAT JAKE WANTS TO GET BAPTIZED ON FEBRUARY 4TH!! We had the coolest lesson with him, and he brought up that we'd invited him to be baptized on that date before, and he'd reconsidered and wants to be baptized! We are out of our minds excited for him!! AH! The Lord is so good at his work and I'm so honored I get to be a missionary, and I get to watch people learn how to work with the Spirit. Man, life is so good!

Also we had a lot of fun trying to figure out the Potlatch branch. If we wanted to go to the furthest north part of our area, it would take us about an hour. Everybody out there is super nice, though! There are lots of tiny towns we get to try to see people in. Not a lot of work is out there right now, but we're really excited to build it up, and the members are really excited to have sisters in their area now. It's like a mini road trip to the boonies every other day to get out there. We pack snacks and extra blankets like we're going to be stranded for 5 days, but you never know, right?

Well.... not a lot happened other than that. Mostly we've been organizing and meeting members and trying our hardest to get our feet back on the ground. But here are some pictures too! 

The little group shot is of Sis Atwan and me, and Elders Nelson and Weech just before Sis Atwan and Eld Weech were sent away to faraway lands. 

Also Sister Mitchell!! And a very, very icy sidewalk we had to brave this week.

And a picture of Sis Mitchell's nephew that I think is absolutely hysterical. She let me cut him out and keep it and put it on my wall by my study desk. And I crack up literally every time I look at it. Enjoy. 

Love you all!! :) Look up the scripture 2 Nephi 5:27

 when you have time, it's my new life motto. 

 

Sister Johnson

ELDER MATTHEW LEBARON - 1/23 - Rain, Rain, Rain and transfers

Hello from Cali,

As you can tell by my subject, it rained so much this week, holy cow. Everyone here in California have been freaking out. They say this is the most it has rained in over 5 years, which makes sense, considering the drought has been about 5 years. Every single day it has rained, and on Sunday it literally rained all day, and not just a light little pitter patter, no it rained hard. The streets flooded, and a lot of the drains got clogged, so we had rivers, which was pretty terrifying seeing some of the cars fly by, knowing that any moment, some merciless anti mormon could soak us to the bone, not that we weren't

Already pretty soaked, but man I wanted to keep what little left I had dry, dry. 

The rain makes things really really inconvenient, biking is so dangerous because your breaks don't catch as well after you ride for awhile, so we always have biked and bussed, but after a couple weeks of doing this, me and Elder Crane got sick of it. We decided that we were going to take our bikes for one of our appointments so that we could at least beat the horrible bus system and make it on time for once, and for the first time that week, it stopped raining, and so we were in the clear, or so that we thought. We made it through the appointment, got outside, and still nothing, but while we were on our 30 minute bike ride back, it started to pour. I can't remember the last time that I got that wet in the rain, but man... if you have ever wondered if you will get more running in the rain than walking, you will definitely get more soaked running, at least thats the conclusion I came up with while trying to peddle faster to get home. 

Transfers were today, we are in a trio, also, the Elder that was going to come to our area got ETed, (emergency transferred) and so there was a quick Shuffle around the mission, but other than that, me and Crane are still together, Until he dies, and then it will just be me and Elder Mitchell, I'm pretty happy with the companionship thus far. Actually I have been sleeping so well in this area, I think that its because I have been experiencing a lot less stress, I'm grateful for Elder crane, he is awesome!

Juliet is ready for Baptism, she is super solid, even though she has been going through some pretty serious challenges getting ready for her Baptism, she's ready. Unfortunately we had to drop the date we had for James, one thing that I am so grateful for is the word of wisdom, I never truly had a concept of what addiction can do to you before I came on the mission. I know without a doubt that the prophets truly are inspired by God, and that they are lead by Jesus Christ himself today. Also, I have been so grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve a mission, especially lately. If there is anyone that is reading that that has every considered going on a mission, and is still able to, do it. Going on a mission has completely changed the perceptive I have on life, It has challenged me, shaped me, and polished me, even in the short amount of time that I have been out.  I could not imagine trying to raise a family in the future without this new perspective that I have attained on a mission. There is no sacrifice when it comes to God, I know that to be true. If you give him a little, he will bless you beyond measure. I love this Church, and I love God, and I love all of you. Thank you so much for all the support and love that I have received thus far on my mission, I couldn't have made it this far without it, today my heart is full of gratitude. I hope that everyone has a great week, you deserve it!

Elder LeBaron

(These pictures were taken at an older members house while we waited for dinner)