Ring In the New Year

Welcome to your last week of 2015!

Where are you right now? Are you where you thought you would be a year ago?

I guess I am. I am still in the Neverlands, just chillin and preachin the gospel.

So Christmas was super weird. I never want to Skype again. I am just ready to hug the cookies out of you all, so let's just do that next time. 

But Christmas was actually quite lovely this year. We were booked with appointments! On Christmas Eve, we got to have a fun little Christmas Eve program with a family of kids (sound familiar?) On first Christmas, we had a lesson with our investigator Moen and watched "Joy to the World." She loves Jesus movies. :) So do we. Then we got to eat dinner and Skype and see some cool Catholic church nativities with our branch president's little family. On 2nd Christmas (because that is a thing in the Netherlands), we had lunch with some members, went to our ward mission leader's home for gourmet ("t" is pronounced here, it's their version of indoor bbq; awesome times), and then got to visit an American member who has recently started coming back to church. Also, it was fantastic weather! Wow, thank you Heavenly Father, you must have known that Dressa was over here trying to be a missionary this year.

We feel like miracles are beginning and we are going to see a lot this transfer. I was promised that one other time on my mission, and it was one of my most miraculous transfers, so I am believing in wonderful things for this transfer. We have people to teach and have begun working with a lot of less-actives, which has always been a softie spot for me. All in all, Tilburg is the best and probably one of the promised lands.

Thank you all for your prayers and love. You make my mission a gajillion times better and I'm grateful for ya. I hope the new year brings you many blessings and happy things and not too many delicious treats so you can make your weight goals! Love to you from Nederland!

Sista Jo

Harry, our fellow missionary, and our investigator Kenneth

Aida gave us little trees :)

Christmas morning!

Our investigator Moen

Cool churches

Belgium/Netherlands border

Gourmet! Delicious

Windmill with a star- how Dutch Christmas :)

Merry Christmas :)

Hello Friends

Transfers came and went. It is such a blast to be back with Sister Manning. She is a gem of a missionary and we have high hopes for the oncoming transfer. Tilburg is set up for miracles.

 We have already seen miracles with finding new potentials and teaching lessons. We had two incredible lessons this week. One was with a new investigator who is having a hard time, but we taught her the plan of salvation, and we saw her entire countenance change. She said she felt peace and uplifted afterwards, and she could tell that the church is a good place to be. 

The other was a first lesson taught with the Restoration pamphlet. It's a new method in our mission, and it's quite effective. We taught our lesson in a train station to a man we had met on the street last week, and although everything around us was busy, we all felt calm and could feel the Spirit and the investigator was incredibly grateful afterwards. We felt like instruments in the Lord's hands this week as we were able to see the difference that the gospel can make in someone's life in just a few short moments.

Christmas is this week and I can't even believe it. I hope you all have sparkly Christmas trees and shiny exciting presents, but most of all, I hope you have the spirit of Christ in your home and are able to feel His love. He lives, and He loves us, and through Him, we are made whole. I'm so grateful to be able to represent and testify of Him daily. 

Much love to you all!

Sister Johanson the 1st

Tilburg sites

These are on doors when they don't want "religion convincers" We see them a lot.

Holland bench outside our apartment in the morning.

Friends on transfer day

Mom: My planner for this transfer

Sister Manning while door knocking..

Our apartment and Christmas :)

Too Cool for Tilburg

Howdy Folks!

Guess what. Next week is Christmas! Every 25 of the month since July, I have sang a Christmas song to celebrate the anniversary of the upcoming holidays. Yay!

Transfers happen again. Sister Cowles is going to Dordrecht with my good ol greenie, and I am getting my MTC comp, Sister Manning. Weird times. I have actually worked with her a lot this last transfer because she was the sister training leader's comp. Funny. But, luckily, I love her and know her so we can have a happy Christmas party.

This week we had zone conference in Antwerpen and we talked about the new Christmas campaign. I love that new video. I hope you all get the chance to share that with someone. It's easy breezy and makes everyone feel happy.

Freaky moment of the week: We lost our phone in President's car..awkward. It is scary to live in a world without a phone for the day! Ah funny times. No worries, it all worked out.

We had some awesome appointments with some great people this week, and we have some new investigating friends on the way. We did get stood up for church, and another person returned a BOM, so it's not all fun and games, but the other people are doing pretty well, so it all comes good. We don't quite have anyone progressing quickly towards baptism right now, but miracles are always on the way, so we are on the lookout for those.

Have a happy week! Drink lots of hot choclit. I will drink some warm herbal tea, cuz that's what Dutch people do.

Love from the Neverlands,

Sister Jo

Tilburgy things

darling helmets! isn't mine cute?

And mom, you wanted pictures of my world, this is my world: windmills and muslims. everywhere

Bosche bollen, super yummy

Normal bike paths

So, uh, I cut her hair....desperate missionaries :) But my lifelong dream is at last fulfilled!

Sister Fredrickson is leaving :( Love that girl

Game Plan: Love

Heya Pals,

It's going, here in Tilburg, Nederland. Sister Cowles and I have been enjoying life, biking with helmets, talking to people on the street, knocking doors, teaching lessons, feeling our bodies settle into winter and old age. Gah. Biking is not what it used to be..

This last week was Sinterklaas, and we celebrated that with ourselves by enjoying a nice dinner that we made and putting out our shoes so Sinterklaas could fill them. Fun holiday.

This African woman contacted us because she wanted to do missionary work with us and tell people about the second coming. Her comment, "I saw "latter-day saints" and I thought, these people know what they are talking about." Haha it's true! But we had to explain to her that we don't just talk about Jesus, we also talk about modern day prophets and another book of scripture that testifies of Christ. It seems that she missed that part, because she was just bummed that she couldn't go knock on people's doors with us. What a great soul. She'll figure it out someday. Honestly, the knocking on doors is not my favorite part of the restored gospel..

I got made fun of for my helmet for the first time this week. And it was three times in one day. You know who they all were? Boys. Little, teenage, and adult annoying boys. I thought we looked like babes in our helmets and nun skirts...whatever.

I learned something important this week: It's all about love. I don't know about you guys, but I get kind of tired worrying about what other people think and what they're doing and all the expectations I think I need to live up to and still always feeling second rate. That gets so old. I was pondering and discussing that this week, and I realized how destructive perfectionism is. I am So prone to perfectionism. But actually, when I try to pretend like I'm perfect and can do everything and don't need anyone, my emotions override my physical systems and my body literally cannot handle it. This used to be so frustrating for me, because how is it that so many other people get away with looking perfect? 

But this week, I had the thought that God is trying to save me from perfectionism. Perfectionism ruins our relationships and destroys our self esteem and it robs us of happiness and prevents us from loving ourself and others. And the fact is, we don't need to be better at anything before we can be happy (President Uchtorf says something similar). If I think that I need to be perfect for people to like me and for me to like myself, then I am going to be waiting for a long time and I will continually be robbing myself of happiness. Think of the people that you love and admire the very most. When you leave their presence, you want to be better. Not because they make you feel like you need to be prettier or skinnier or cooler or have nicer things or do everything in your whole entire like they do. You want to radiate love and happiness like they do. You want to have a beautiful, sparkly life filled with love and joy, and people who want to be around you because of how they feel when they're with you. 

That's why we love the Savior. Because He loves us. Because He accepts us for who we are while still helping us to improve.

I can love myself, my life, and my mission, as imperfect as all of those things are. Nobody wants to hang around someone who is fake. We love each other because we are real, and we all need each other because none of us are perfect. It's a perfect plan that God has created :) And it's all about love.

I love you all a lot, really and truly. You make my life beautiful.

Much love from Nederland,

Sister Jo the 1st

And this is olliebollen, which they only have this time of year. Dericious!

Cute Christmas shop

An old lady let us in to see her Christmas village!

Our ward mission leader's little boys, Nathan and Thomas. Ali, you would love these kids! Ah that happy baby is my best pal. he always wants me to hold him, but I cannot :(

Nimrod street! Hahaha this reminded me of Dad. Not cuz he's a nimrod, cuz he calls other people (like Bambi) one

You Do Good

Dearest Friends,

Happy Sinterklaas week! December 5 is Sinterklaas, where all the Dutch children get presents in their shoes from Sinterklaas. It is a bigger deal than Christmas here, and it's a cute holiday, although strangely comparable to our Christmas in America..

Thanksgiving was fun last week. We had dinner at our branch president's house, and his wife is American, so they knew what they were doing. It was very sweet of them to let us come over and celebrate thankfulness with them and their darling children.

Another one of my favorite moments this week was seeing a recent Chinese convert, Aimee, get her temple recommend. She was so excited and proudly showed us her little card. She will go with her husband for the first time this week. Those moments are what make missionary work, and just living the gospel, worth it. How blessed we are.

We have been trying to find some new people to teach, and people in Tilburg are actually pretty nice, but they have a hard time recognizing what it is we are offering them. I'm so grateful for all of your prayers in the behalf of the missionaries. We sure appreciate the support we get from faithful members and beloved family. I sure love you guys and am grateful for you.

"You never know how much good you do."

(this is a great Mormon Message ^)

Much love,

Old Sister Jo

Helmets! Such cuties. I was on exchanges with Sister Manning, my MTC comp.

And we made chocolate pies for Thanksgiving! Yummy