August 31, 2020

hello hello! it has been a really good week and things have really been picking up here. and side note- i am SO grateful to serve so close to our mission leaders, president and sister heap. i cannot rave about them enough.

• we got to pick up sister van quill from the airport on monday and have her stay with us for the night! she is SO cute and is reassigned from costa rica. so fun to visit with the heaps and get to know her before she headed up north.

when we dropped off sister van quill with her new companion!

and bonus selfie with the heaps!

• we had an exchange with the sisters in jonesville again! sister bowden got a new companion who was also reassigned and her name is sister paulsen. she is SO cute and we are so glad to have her. i love them both! 

exchanges with jonesville!!!

• ok miracle time!!! while we were in jonesville, we were out filming a video to post on facebook. sister bowden suggested we walk to a park near their apartment to film our last shot. while we were walking around, i saw becky! she is someone who came to the free friday lunch that we did service at each week when i was serving in sturgis! like WHAT ARE THE ODDS?? the last i had seen her, we had given her a book of mormon and she was so touched because she had been really struggling. i know the Lord put us there at that park to see her again. God is too good sometimes.

• miracle #2!!! so we were planning for our friends what we are teaching and decided we should give kevin one last call before we dropped him (since it had been 5 weeks since we had heard from him.) we prayed before we called that we would be able to connect with him and he would have a softened heart. and guess what?? he picked up and we talked to him for a half hour! it was such a blessing and we are hopefully going to teach him this week. i missed that guy!

• miracle #3!!! we posted up our questions of the soul signs all around our area and it was so fun to see all the towns we cover. but the real miracle is that i got to pet a dog for the first time SINCE MARCH. the dog's name was emma and i knew God put her in my path to bring me that joy. i sure do miss seeing people’s dogs (and the people too haha.) if you feel so inclined, send me a picture of your dog this week:))) 

• we also got to visit with the heaps today for president heap’s birthday! we took some treats to their new home and got to spend some time visiting and talking. i loved his thought about, "are we learning what God needs us to learn from what is going on?" and that is such a big thing! we can just trudge through this time or we can seek to learn and become more of who God has prepared for us.

• we had the most inspired plans for our lesson with a member, sister hinerman. we both felt like we should talk to her about the temple and preparing to go, only to find out she had a date planned to go right before covid. we were able to talk about how it is open again and that is an option for her. SO sweet. 

• we also taught ozibo this week!! we taught him once when i was in lansing and sister olson was the missionary that found him originally, back in december. he really had a change of heart and is willing to meet and study. i am really excited for him!

• we also had the COOLEST mission fireside with cinco paul, a famous screenwriter who wrote the “despicable me” movies and others. he is so cool. he talked about how he joined the church and how the gospel has been a part of everything he does. he said that everything comes back to love- loving the people around you, loving God, and really seeking to see others through God's eyes. he talked about how the gospel of jesus christ- is the theme of so many movies. that it is leaving behind the bad and becoming a better person. he also had the funniest and coolest song he wrote about the book of mormon. go google it!! it was so fun to sing it with him over zoom. it is called, "every night and morning, read the book of mormon"

this cute lansing sign we found at the airport

one of our question of the soul signs

i love you all,
sister johnson

riana.johnson@missionary.org

Sister Riana Johnson
5240 Madison Ave Apt A11
Okemos, MI 48864-5115

murmur not

August 24, 2020

 

hey friends and fam! it felt like a long week, but it was filled with lots of great and fun times:)) 

• last p-day we got together with our district which was SO fun. they are all goofs and i was dead laughing the entire time. pics included of course.

lots of district pics

• we made cookies for some of the part member families in the ward to hopefully brighten their day and one brother shared that it was exactly what he needed. i love that the Lord is able to work through us to touch others

• we also made fun posters with questions of the soul with our phone number to put up around town! we are excited to hopefully talk to some cool people

• we had a fun spontaneous music video yesterday! an elder from our zone asked if sister olson could play the piano for a song he wanted to sing. we can’t be alone with elders in the church so we invited another companionship of elders and they took over and filmed multiple shots and made it way more professional than we could've done on our own. so much fun!

the elders we did the music video with called us the "sing song groupies"

• sister olson and i have been going HAM working out every day. we have been exercising in the morning and at night and it has been so good. we gonna be SWOL lol.

• we have been able to meet with erin a little more consistently which is great! she has been so busy and overwhelmed with work since her baptism so it was good to be able to really study with her. i love her!

• sister olson and i went live on facebook! i have never done that before but it was really fun. come watch and read with us on friday at 8pm (est)

 

                                         sister olson + purple flowers

I listened to a talk this morning all about murmuring. I think we are all pretty good at murmuring when things are difficult and God expects more out of us than we think we can give. He said "Murmuring can also be noisy enough that it drowns out the various spiritual signals to us, signals which tell us in some cases to quit soaking ourselves indulgently in the hot tubs of self-pity! Murmuring over the weight of our crosses not only takes energy otherwise needed to carry them but might cause another to put down his cross altogether. Besides, brothers and sisters, if we were not carrying so much else, our crosses would be much lighter." With Covid, we are all murmuring for how we want things to be and how things were better before. We need to focus on what the Lord would have us learn and that Christ already carried that burden for us.

love yas!!!!
sister johnson

 

riana.johnson@missionary.org

Sister Riana Johnson
5240 Madison Ave Apt A11
Okemos, MI 48864-5115 

such a good week

 

August 17, 2020

hello hello! this week was kind of crazy this week with zone conferences and exchanges but it was SO SO good!! here are the highlights:))

• we had two in-person zone conferences this week! the first was on tuesday with the lansing and owosso districts (owosso is our district). we were the only sisters there haha! it was lots of fun and we have the funniest district. then our second zone conference was with the charlotte and jackson districts, which have all the sisters in the zone so that was also a ton of fun. there were so many good trainings and things that spoke personally to me. i am so grateful that we got to be with each other in person and the spirit that came.

zone conference!! we only took pics at the second one :'(

• also if you have 4 minutes, watch our district's video on forgiveness!! the elders are honestly so funny and it was too good. https://www.facebook.com/103290398027204/posts/164363905253186/ 

• we had sister henneberry stay with us for a day while she waited for her new reassigned missionary! she is so cute and we all got dinner with president and sister heap. SO FUN. i absolutely love the heaps.

sister henneberry!!!

• we had exchanges on thursday and friday with the sisters in holt and the sisters in meridian! i was able to be with sister sunkees and she is the stinkin’ cutest. she was trained in midland and her last companion was sister nuttall so we bonded lots! i also got to be with sister stahle, a sister who i came out with and she is from mesa! it was SO fun to talk about how much we have both grown since we got here. love them both so much!

sister sunkees ♡♡♡

sister stahle

• as a part of our zone goal, we have been doing what we call "district finding!" since we are finding online, we have a set apart hour to find at the same time as our district. we will video call and pray together and call at the end to finish with a prayer. the Lord has seriously blessed us as we have been finding together. i am so grateful for the faith and motivation to move the work forward and the great people we have been able to talk with.

joshua 14:12 "now therefore give me this mountain, if so be the Lord will be with me."

also i got to say goodbye to sister nuttall at the hotel before she left :')

also love sister tate

have the BEST week of your lives
-sister johnson

 

riana.johnson@missionary.org

Sister Riana Johnson
5240 Madison Ave Apt A11
Okemos, MI 48864-5115

NEPHI MISSION

August 10, 2020

 

hello hello!! it has been a wild day but SO SO fun!!! i got to see some dear friends this week and it has been so good!

• we had in-person exchanges!!! it was SO stinkin' fun to be with the sisters in person. i got to be with sister tate, a sister who was my sister training leader for 4 transfers when i was in sturgis! she goes home tomorrow and it was so sweet to be able to talk about how much we both have grown. i love her!! i also had an exchange with sister daniels, a new missionary! she is the stinkin’ cutest and it was so much fun. she taught me so much and we partied!!

my first exchange with sister tate back in october

exchange with sister tate this past week♡♡

exchanges

• we met with christina again! she is SO cute and i love her. she has been talking about how she wants to really come closer to God so she committed herself to studying the scriptures every day!! we had a pass off lesson with the missionaries in holt and i know they are really going to help her! 

• i got to see sister nuttall and sister jacobs!!!! sister nuttall goes home tomorrow and so does sister jacob’s companion so they were both in lansing today!! we of course got cfa.

sister nuttall video called which was so fun!

and the first day i met sister nuttall♡♡♡

• it was sister olson’s birthday this week! we celebrated with walnut and date brownies (they are so good i promise haha). we also got panda and just had a dang good day.

• hannah pimentel got married on friday and i got permission to call!! i love that woman and it was so sweet to see her.

calling my favorite people- hannah and emily♡♡

• we also have been asked to make a video as a district about a gospel topic and ours is HILARIOUS. i will have to include it in a link next week- stay tuned.

ABOUT THE SUBJECT- we had a zone meeting and an elder talked about how we need to be "nephi missionaries." and having just had an exchange with sister tate, i realized i dont have a ton of time left! i want to dedicate EVERY second of my time to the Lord and serve like nephi! i have been studying the attributes of nephi and how i can apply those to my work and hopefully in turn, become more like the Savior, because nephi was very Christ-like. gotta make the sacrifices worth what i may be missing elsewhere.  

LOVE YOU ALL
sister johnson

riana.johnson@missionary.org

Sister Riana Johnson
5240 Madison Ave Apt A11
Okemos, MI 48864-5115

has the day of miracles ceased?

 

August 3, 2020

 

hey hey!! this was transfer week and i have LOVED being with sister olson! she is the stinkin’ cutest and we are having lots of fun. i have really felt an added measure of the spirit the past week and i am so grateful for it. here are some highlights:)

transfer pics!

 

we got to see sister cook and sister harris in battle creek!!

• we had sister ison stay with us for a night! she is the SWEETEST. she is getting reassigned so we said goodbye to her and i am so grateful that i could spend that short time with her

also sister ison♡♡♡

• we had a second bible study with our friend christina! she is the cutest. she was never raised to be religious so she is really building a relationship with God for the first time ever. she said in the past week, she had recognized herself being simply happier. and she shares with her family all of what we studied in our lesson. i love her!

 

• we fasted on friday to have the Lord's help in reaching our stake's baptismal goal and we had so many great connections with people the next day. i love how the Lord is so willing to bless us when we make small sacrifices in our lives for him

 

• we had district council in person this week! it was such a spiritually edifying experience and was a great reminder to me of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. there is nothing more important than that.

 

okay so some really cool things i have been learning about! we had a really cool training from president gentile (member of the mission presidency) and he talked all about how chaismas is all throughout the book of mormon specifically in alma. it was so powerful because he was referencing chapters i was currently reading! it made me want to really stop and think more deeply about what i am studying. one scripture that i have loved is alma 36:24 "from that time even until now, i have labored without ceasing, that i might bring souls unto repentance; that i might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which i did taste". there is no other reason for me or any other missionary to do what we are doing except to bring help others to taste of the exceeding joy that comes through the atonement of Jesus Christ. i know there is nothing more important than this work! 

 

talk to y’all later!!

sister johnson

sister klusman and i made a little love like christ thing hahaha it was fun

 

riana.johnson@missionary.org

Sister Riana Johnson
5240 Madison Ave Apt A11
Okemos, MI 48864-5115