Sun 7/25/10 Miles‏

Hooray Shelly and Benjamin and Miles! I am so excited to have a new nephew. What is his middle name? I hope it's not pizza pocket or something. Shelly was mentioning Benjamin wanted to name him something Italian.

Training is going awesome, mostly because I have the most awesome trainee! I so adore Sister Cooper. She is going to rock this mission. I have had the most fun in the last week than I have in maybe the rest of my mission - and this is during the time that is probably the hardest part of her mission! She keeps me laughing and working hard and fixed to our purpose and getting lots of peikes. We had an amazing 17 peikes this week because Sister Cooper asks me everytime we have a lesson set up if we have a peike yet. And then we will call them until we find one. Having peike's has been good too since a lot of the time Sister Cooper isn't totatally able to understand what is going on in lessons and I need someone to help me teach. Her Chinese will be fine, it just needs patience and persistence.

The work here is blooming again. We have SO much potential - I know we are going to baptise a lot this transfer, we just have to keep listening to the spirit and putting our heart, might, mind and strength into it. I am putting all I have into the work. I'm exhausted today, even after my nap. I rely alot on that scripture in Isaiah - those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength and rise on the wings of eagles.

Sister Cooper and I are having a great time. One of my favorite stories of the week!
In our training meeting, Elder Christensen my district leader was telling us how "No matter the situation, you should just testify! Even if you see someone...fall off a roof! just start testifying." We all laughed at his ridiculous example.

Then yesterday we stopped and talked to some lady who was cleaning squid outside her house (yeah, it was gross.) Sister Cooper didn't really understand what I was talking about and so started just looking around and saw a man on a neighboring roof. He was picking fruit and spying on us (neighbors are WAY into each others business here) and when she looked at him, he got suprised and fell off the roof! So she interrupted me and just started testifying. I gave her a kind of bewildered look at said, "Sister Johnson, I just saw a man fall off a roof and Elder Christensen told us even if we saw someone fall off a roof, we were supposed to testify." I just started laughing. Everytime we think about this story we about die laughing.

Sister Cooper and I are having a blast. I have never laughed so much on my mission. It's like having a comedian narrarate my life constantly. I laughed so hard I cried for the first time on my mission last week. Then I did it twice more. I can't help it, she is just so funny in her personality and so new to Taiwan that everything is amazing or funny to her.

This week Sister Cooper was experimenting with the water cooler, which has three temperatures of water - cold, warm and hot. She was in the middle of asking me what the red handle did when she started shrieking because she burned her hand in the extremely hot water that came out as she tested it. Maybe I'm a bit insensitive to the fact she had just burned her hand and I was on the ground laughing but it was really funny. I've never been around someone that broadcasts their every thought and feeling quite as easily before.

We have a baptism scheduled for the next two weeks that are pretty certain and hopefully we will drop more people into both of them. We had an amazing 17 peikes this week because everytime we have a lesson Sister Cooper reminds me to call a member. Anyway, training is going awesome.

I hope you know I work hard, pray hard, and love you all.

FML
Sister Johnson


Cami's response to my email regarding her return in November:




Umm...I don't know. The whole thought of going home seems very strange and far away. I will still be a set apart missionary until I am released by the Stake President in Elko... This means I will still wake up at 6:30, have a companion, wear a nametag, not listen to music, be extra, extra awkward, etc. until I am released. So, if you want to be in Salt Lake I'd rather it be not a long visit because I will probably be a bit of a hard transition.
Having said that, of course I'd love to see Shelly and Benj and the baby.

What do you think? They couldn't let us see both options could they?
Also, have Daddy email Sister Greene so that she can have his email address. Sister Greene said that her email came back that was sent to his mac-sog address. Also let her know if the stake president or ward bishop has changed

Love you!
FML
Sister Johnson