January 13, 2019 Santa Fe

HELLOOOOO!!!!

what a week!!!

so my cute comp is sick so we didnt get out much this week and had to get pretty creative with our time hahahah soo i taught her the ukulele and we've been figuring out the chords to like all the primary songs and have been translating them all to illongo and have had lots of fun times even if we are trapped in the house!!! 

but we did discover that you can literally order pizza in this country. who knew!! it was a dangerous discovery cause this might be a regular occurrence now but wow it was a happy night. definitely not american pizza but it was a close second!!

i love being a missionary!! we got to watch a philippines wide broadcast from Elder Holland yesterday and it was so so so awesome. You could just feel his love for all the people and he just cried while testifying to us it was so so awesome. and its fun to think hes here in the same country as us across the ocean!!!

life is so good and I realize more and more every day how much I love these cute filipino people and we already all cry together about having to leave them even though i still have like 10 months hahah. i love it here!! 

i know that God has a plan for each of us and sometimes it is hard to see, but we just gotta trust Him and whatever He throws at us. Love you all!!!

Sister Johnson

so elder holland is in the philippines right now!! and yesterday there was a philippines wide broadcast for church where elder holland just talked to everyone and basically lets just say the second coming is happening any day now

he was in manilla which is the main island. so we just watched the live broadcast in the stake center. it was so sos os sosososososo awesome. like so awesome

i wrote down my favorite quotes that he said

"how can we lighten the load of the bishop? we're killing them off!! they last about 5 years then we send them to their funerals!!"

"i served in the wrong mission! I should have served in the philippines!"

"the philippines is one of the greatest stories in church history. we will write the books of the restoration and the philippines will be some of the most miraculous stories. your chapter in church history is incredible and its not over yet!!"

then basically talked baout preparing for the second coming adn he said by 

1. obedience

2. remembering our covenants

3. sharing the gospel 

that the second coming would be here a loooot sooner than we know. and basically jsut said over and over again how close it is and how if everyone could do those 3 tings right now then it could hpapen by the time the meeting finished. so like hm

yeah it was awesome. and we're finding lots fo families lately!! we're teaching like four families. and they all seem like they're gonna progress which im way excited for. im thinking i have another transfer here in santa fe. cause i doubt he'd make sis hopkins lead the area when we dot really get out much. id be worried for hte people if i left. but tis fun if i stay another one cause then i really would get to see like the full conversion process for all these people. casue these are all the peopel that ive found and all the people that i will get to see baptized so ive been with them the whole time!! so im kinda hoping its like that. we'll see what happens

also elder holland talked about having individual milleniums. we can decide for ourselves to not give into the tempations of satan and he can in a way be bound in our own lives or in our homes. so he said make your home its own millenium and have individual milleniums. thought it was cool. so when i get homei expect to come hometo a millenium!!

i like it. i think you are all doing great but couldnt hurt to think about it. i like it. we had a house council of how to bound satan in our house. although i dont htink he could be any more bound. i gotta go but i love you all and miss you!!!!!

From Sister H's Mom

Hi! I'm Sister Hopkins' mom. I was just rereading her journal entries she sent last week (she sends pictures of her journals so she doesn't have to write so much on P-Days) and I was overcome with emotion for your daughter. I wanted to reach out to you and let you know what a blessing your daughter is to Mallory. Mallory gushes in her journals (and emails) about how great Sister Johnson takes care of her and comforts her. That makes my heart so happy and at ease because it is so hard to be away from her while she's going through these medical challenges. She also talks about how great she thinks Sister Johnson is and how she plans to be lifelong good friends.

I also wanted to check in on Sister Johnson. It is probably so difficult to feel like you're babysitting someone for part of your mission and feeling like you're "wasting time." I completely understand and my heart goes out to her. I feel so guilty when I think about it and hope she isn't resenting this transfer. She is definitely an answer to prayers though! As we try to move forward and try to have patience to get us to the blessings she has been given that she will be healed, I want to kind of know the state of Sister Johnson because how a companion is feeling should go into her/our decision on whether or not to keep pushing through the illness and hope for a miracle or send her home to get things resolved.

Anyway, thank you so much for your daughter's service...for the Filipino people as well as to my daughter. These missionaries go out as amazing girls and get even more refined in ways we never would have imagined. I will never forget the love I feel for Sister Johnson. It means the world to me and I wanted you to know how she has affected Mallory's as well as my whole family's life.

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