Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Demonstrating More Love Towards Others



Familia!

Hey!  How is life?  I liked the pictures.  Mom, you look pretty in the picture from Nola.

This was a crazy week!

First, I am staying in Hiram!  Sister Spong is leaving, but she is excited to leave to a new area because she has never been anywhere else.

My brain is fried... I am not sure what happened this week.... I wasn't very good at keeping notes :)   Lisa and Jim are good... Michael is good.  We have appointments with all of them today.  We are doing Word of Wisdom with Lisa and Jim.  Jim says he has drank coffee four days in a row without any food at all and so we will see how he handles this :)  He llloooovveeess his coffee.  Michael is an author and he said that he feels like he can't finish his book he is writing (which is kind of about him) until he finds out more about our religion.

We did go to a training meeting with all the mission office and mission president and his wife.  That was really good... we got to learn how to be good trainers, AKA "Mom's".  Everyone keeps saying, "Sister Johnson your baby is almost due" haha missionaries have weird lingo.

I came up with a couple things that I really wanted to work on in the meeting and thought I'd share some of my thoughts...

1. How to cope with adversity and stressful situations better

and

2. Demonstrating more love towards others

For the first one, I was reading one of the books by Elder Ballard.  He talked about how he was a mission president and when he got home from his mission, one of his awesome missionaries was also home and
stopped by his house.  He said, "remember how you said when we get engaged, you want to meet the person we get engaged to?" and Elder Ballard was like, yesss.... and the missionary said, "Well, meet my
new fiance!"  They talked for a little while and he said you could tell they were just the sweetest, most beautiful couple.  He said that he was asked to speak at their reception.  Then the next day Elder
Ballard got a phone call and that wonderful missionary had been killed in a car crash.  He said that instead of speaking at his reception, he was asked to speak at the funeral.  He said that his heart really hurt...

It is easy to feel pain and stress during really hard times and we will feel that, but when we think about the eternal perspective, it is nothing but a very small moment.  It gives us a sense of peace, comfort and reassurance.  Bad things happen and sometimes bad things happen to even good people.   This last week, I did not handle a situation as well as I should have :)  We had a training meeting in Kirtland for site sisters with the mission president and our sites director.  I was talking to president and he said that if I could guess where my new companion is from, he will give me two free tickets to stake conference haha.  Anyways, he said he would see us in just a bit at our training meeting in Cleveland.  We put in the address to the mission office and went on our way!  Well, when we got there, we realized that we were in the wrong place as we were in  downtown Cleveland by the stadium and tall buildings.  We called the mission home and they had no idea where we were... at this moment, it was exactly the time that we were supposed to be at the meeting (and we
were using over 100 miles on our car in 1 day).  Me and Sister Nance were stressing out.  Sister Rigby was asking us what our favorite scriptures were and favorite moments in Kirtland to get our minds off the fact that we were going to be so late to a leadership meeting.  Well, we were over an hour late.  I was still close to tears and maybe a little more.. :)  From that experience, we all learned that we need to not be stressed in situations that we can't control.  That is when the spirit leaves us and don't think as clearly.  It was only but a
small moment in time...

Then when it comes to demonstrating love.  In Kirtland, we play the words of our Savior before we start every tour.  He says, "...another commandment I give unto thee, love one another as I have loved you."  I thought hard about that this week.  I thought about how much I love my family and my earthly parents and how much they probably love me.  ;)  Then I thought how Christ loves us even more. How am I supposed to love everyone as much as He loves us?  That is so much!   I think it is good to never ask, how do you love me?  But ask, how do I demonstrate love unto thee?

It's easy to think people don't show enough kindness or love for us at times., but what do you do to show your love for them?  No one is perfect and I know the more we turn outward rather than inward, it will make life easier and happier.  The more we show our love for them, the more we will love them and they will feel that and be able to demonstrate that back to you.  I want to take these two things, handling stressful situations better and demonstrate more love towards others.  I want to love everyone around me, just as Christ loves.  I know that if we follow Christ's example, we can become happier, stronger and blessings will flow in more as we humble ourselves to constantly become better.  I am grateful for the Atonement and that we are able to use it to change, to become better and become more as our Savior.

Love you! Have a wonderful week :)


Sister Johnson


I found a great quote by Elder Marvin J. Ashton...

Charity is, perhaps, in many ways a misunderstood word. We often equate charity with visiting the sick, taking in casseroles to those in need, or sharing our excess with those who are less fortunate.  But really, true charity is much, much more.

Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself.  And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again.  It makes the thought of being a basher repulsive.

Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet.  Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might
have hoped.  Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.

Historic Visitor Center Sisters - August Transfer Meeting

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