Sister Riana Johnson: Life as a Michiganary: falling in love with Jesus

October 21, 2019

hey everyone!

as always, we have been having a party down here in sturgis! so many awesome things this week and next! let me give y'all the rundown

we hit our 5 month and celebrated with brownies :)

• we had the amazing opportunity to hear from President Ballard, Elder Christofferson, and Elder Bennet this weekend for a North America North East mission broadcast! it was so powerful to hear two apostles of the Lord speak and council us on why we share the gospel.

• we also had some miracles the other night. our plans for the evening fell through and we weren't sure how we could best use our time. we decided to go out and bike, talking to the people that were put in our path. we met 5 awesome people all with a sincere desire to learn! God really does answer prayers when we commit to act.

• we bought some rakes and went around biking (with our rakes) and asked people if we could rake their yard. it was so awesome and we met some amazing people.

rakes!

• we had interviews this week which is awesome. I seriously love my President and the council he gives. bonus we got to go to target and qdoba while we were in battle creek. blessings on blessings.

qdoba with my favorite people

• training is still a blast. sister nelson came pretrained, I swear. I love being in a trio with sister nelson and sister jacobs. it is definitely not easy but has really allowed me to grow and deepen my love for my companions.

we all accidentally wore stripes so we took a pic and then changed lol

• we also had stake conference and were able to hear from two area seventies and they counseled us in recognizing the spirit more abundantly in our lives.

Something powerful that President Ballard shared in the meeting was that we need to "fall in love with Jesus." When we come to deeply understand the Atonement, or Christ's suffering which was so individual to us, we fall in love with him. We feel a desire to use the Atonement in our lives DAILY and seek the comfort he is so willing to give. My absolute favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon is Alma 7:11-12. Christ felt EVERY pain, EVERY affliction, EVERY temptation, and EVERY sorrow we will endure in this life. He did this so that he could succor us—to care for us, lift us, and carry us through our burdens. As we come to learn that, we have a greater love for all that Christ did for us INDIVIDUALLY. We know that we are never alone in our struggles and trials. We seek to become more like Him and follow Him. I LOVE my Savior and His very personal Atonement and for the strength I receive from Him. I invite you all to learn of Him, use His Atonement, and fall in love with Him. Sorry, I don't think I could ever stop talking about Jesus Christ, but I would love to share what I studied this week. My FAVORITE parable is found in Luke 15:3-7. It is the parable of the lost sheep. The Shepherd left behind his flock of 99 to find the one. Many of us feel lost in a lot of different ways. Christ is ALWAYS seeking us out to bring us home and when he does, He lays us across His shoulders rejoicing to have us back.

I love the work that I get to do each day, helping people grow closer to Jesus Christ.