September 15, 2019 Kabankalan second

woo tapos na ang first week sang transfer!!

the most exciting news- I GOT MY NEW COMPANION! Her name is Sister Velasco from Cebu! She is SO cute and we're already pals over here. we went to go pick her up on thursday from bacolod! its been so fun to be a part of her first few days in the mission field! the 6 hours we spent on a bus that day was worth it hahah. made me realize how long ive been on the mission though cause all of her media references and movies shes mentioned ive never even heard of hahah. 

the other highlights- went to an FHE wednesday night with sister bise and sister amataga before sister velasco got here! And it was SO funny. so in the philippines if you are playing a game and you lose, they always have a punishment where they rub something on your face. like lipstick, mud, or anything else they can find hahah. so at the fhe we were playing games afterwards and they decided to use charcoal from the bottom of pots and pans. so everytime we would mess up in the game,they would rub charcoal on our face. oh it was SO funny. see pics below. we clearly were not too good at the games.  

but its been a crazy week hahah. we whitewashed this area, which means we both got here at the same time and don't know the places or the people they are teaching or anything. all we have is a hand drawn map that sister fererria gave me before she went home hahaha. so its been a ride. but we're slowly figuring it out!! i hope that by the end of this next week we'll be all situated. after not being able to find this one person for 3 hours that we were supposed to be teaching, sister velasco was like "is missionary work always like this?" hahah poor sister velasco. but we're gonna get it going! We already had the cutest woman show up to church yesterday with her niece. so we got high hopes for kabankalan 2nd ward. wooo!!! 

ive totally seen God helping us out so much over here though. just little tender mercies. one day this week we were walking around and just couldn't find the house we were looking for, and the appointments we were supposed to have all fell through. and i just said a quick prayer and asked Heavenly Father just to lead us to someone to teach cause we were so tired and lost and didnt know where to go. and as soon as i said amen, i looked up at the next house and there was a pass along card from our church hanging on the door! so we stopped and started talking to the woman inside! and turns out she had met some elders on a bus once who gave her a pass along card and she really liked the picture of Christ, so she put it on her door! and we asked if we could share our message and she let us right in and said she would love it. and afterwards she thanked us so much over and over again. and i totally know that was such a little tender mercy from Heavenly Father and totally not a coincidence that we met this woman. and i know that He's gonna keep helping up!!

another blessing- we were teaching about the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ to this man whos wife just barely retured to the church! And i was teaching about the prophet Joseph Smith and the experience he had, and as soon as I finished, he just said "sister i have goosebumps all over and a crazy burning feeling in my heart. i already know this is true." and now they are talking about the rest of their family getting baptized! I am so excited for them yayayy!  

life is good over here. this is gonna be a good week too. im excited to go and work hard and see some miracles in this area. 

love you all!

sister johnson