Elder Revelli

Wades great friend, Bryce, is headed to Thailand for 2 years. Sunday was his farewell. We have enjoyed so much attending all of Wade's friends farewells. These boys are AWESOME and ready and so willing to serve. Bryce and Wade were in theatre together and since receiving their temple endowments and mission calls have met almost weekly to attend the temple together with friends. What a wonderful memory that will be for each of them. Bryce's testimony was wonderful and the spirit was strong. Serve with all your heart Elder! We will keep you in our prayers.

TRAVIS IS HEADED TO THE MENDOZA, ARGENTINA MISSION!!

My siblings Ashna, Kami, Patrice, Donny, TRAVIS, and Tamra (Say and I were missing)
Travis and his nieces and Nephews
Donny and Travis pointing to their missions...AMAZING they served so close together!

Find...MENDOZA
THE CALL

My brother Travis received his mission call on March 16th and waited until March 19th to open it when all the family could be around. We joined the excitement on Skype. We really wished we could have been there. It was a very spiritual and emotional day. We are BEYOND excited for him and the lucky people of Argentina who will get our sweet Chub.

ALOHA! Hike to a waterfall...

Wade sent me a letter in the mail this past week and it had a dried up flower in it (which looked like something else), and he explained that he had went on a hike to a waterfall and picked it for me. I was very touched because he knows I LOVE to hike and I always pick flowers on my hikes to press. Even bought a book about local flowers here in Utah. He said he forgot his camera, but wanted me to have the flower. Yep, I cried a little. He is SO SWEET! I remember when he was little and he would be playing outside and would run in with a handful of weed flowers he had picked and give me a great big hug and then run back out to play. I'll never forget those moments. This was just another reminder that he will always be my little boy. I also received a email from him yesterday and his spirits are up and he seems like he is really working hard. The picture I posted with this is from Maui, but I wanted to remember his waterfall story so I attached it. :)

He's O.K. Thank heaven.

Today my son emailed me from his mission. I miss him SO much. Been a rough week and I was starting to get emotional about it all. I love hearing from him each Monday. Today he didn't email until very late in the day so I was really starting to worry. Especially since I hadn't heard from him since before the Tsunami. He is well, but had an equally hard week. He said all appointments he made cancelled on him, companion slept everyday until noon, car battery died, two tires went flat and then the Tsunami scare. WOW. And through it all he is still playing the Ukulele and trying to serve with all his might each day. I am so proud of him. Must be so hard. OH and he hasn't been getting mail so he sounded a little sad about that. PLEASE email him if any of you have a chance. Only takes a minute and he will very much enjoy it. wade.johnson@myldsmail.net.

Thanks!

Elder Chandler Kendall's Farewell

Today we had a wonderful day. We got to attend one of Wade's best friends mission farewell. Chandler did a great job speaking and the choir sung "Oh That I Were An Angel". I love that song. Anyway, then we headed to his home for a wonderful meal and final goodbyes. He is headed to Johannesburg South Africa on Tuesday for a TWO DAY flight to the MTC there. His name tags came in the mail about a week ago with his flight tickets. We are so excited for him. It's a wonderful thing to attend all of these farewells. Wade's friends are awesome and they have each become our friends too. Best of luck Elder Kendall!

Japan TSUNAMI - 2011

To say the least yesterday was a day of prayer and constant attention to the TV news reports that continued to come in about the devastation in Japan from a earthquake... 8.9 magnitude. From this earthquake a Tsunami occurred and affected those all the way to the California coastline! This included Hawaii. YES my son is on the island of Oahu. ALL DAY I pretty much stayed worried and scared of the effect it would have on my son. I felt he was safe, but you just never know. I think having a child on a mission is a true test of faith and test of your belief in the Gospel. I don't think I could have sent him without knowing the Church is true!!! I KNOW IT IS!! My mom has always said sending your kid on a mission is like throwing them in the Lion's Den. That you never know what will happen but you have to trust in the Lord. She was RIGHT! I felt that yesterday. I DO believe the church is true and I DO believe that Wade is protected during his mission, but it is still hard during a time like this. People say it gets easier but I don't think I will ever get used to it. He is my sweet boy and I love and miss him like crazy. This is truly a great sacrifice for me. I've thought a lot about the great sacrifice my Heavenly Father made by sending his only begotten Son to the wicked world and that gave me comfort. I can trust in Him. I want Wade to serve Him and have always wanted that, but missing him is hard. Especially with a storm like this. I'm sure he was making people laugh and keeping their spirits up like he did with us through many a hurricane! That made me happy thinking of that. When I heard all missionaries were accounted for in Japan I wept for joy. I know there are hundreds of parents with sons on missions there who have been much like myself waiting for news all day. If all the missionaries there are accounted for then I know Wade is fine. I will be so relieved to hear from him on Monday though. I hope he can get to a computer and send me an email! Anyway, today I am grateful. Today I am full of joy and relief. I am thankful for those friends and family who called, cried with me, kept me company most of the day (DARCI!!!), and said many a prayer for my boy. I felt that love and appreciate it so very much.

1st Companion! Elder Delai and Elder Johnson

WOW. All I can say is WOW. Every time I look at this picture I thank Heavenly Father he gave my son a personal bodyguard for a while as he serves in the ghetto of Hawaii. Look at the size of that boys hand! Almost as big as my sons head! WOW. Wade is really loving Hawaii and is already having wonderful experiences and continues to see the Lord's hand in all things.

ERIN JOHNSON CALLED TO SERVE!!

My niece, Erin, received her mission call (March 3rd) to serve for a period of 18 months in the Las Vegas, Nevada, SPANISH SPEAKING mission!!!! We had a wonderful night as we Johnson's all gathered over SKYPE with her sister Brooke, who is at BYU, to hear the call to serve. SKYPE IS AWESOME!! We are so proud of Erin and her desire to serve the Lord. She enters the MTC June 15! YAY ERIN!

MINI MISSIONS 2011

As I already posted, we had mini missions in our ward. Rob and I were called as Mission Presidents. We had a wonderful time. The picture of Leanna is of her group in another home (mission Ecuador). The rest are things I created for the ease of teaching and the cute topper I gave the girls staying at my home with a bag filled with fun things to remember about this mission. I didn't take a picture of that but wanted to show you the topper anyway. Krista went to the Guadalahara Mexico mission. I am hoping to get more pictures soon. The recipe card is the addition to the FLAN one I made for our mission. This is Bobby Flay's puerto rican version of Chicken and Rice. It was SO yummy. Rob said it really tasted authentic. Basically the youth taught families in our ward how to set up an LDS account on either youth.lds.org or mormon.org for adults, and showed them how to share the gospel ON LINE!!! There are 10 missionaries that do this everyday exclusively for the church. They are REFERRAL CENTER MISSIONARIES! They had over 208 baptisms in 2010 with 95% retention! That is amazing. They are chatting on Chat, Skype, Email, Text and answer questions all day every day for about 10 hours. These missionaries are not able to serve in a regular basis due to medical reasons or injury's they had to come home for during their missions. They are located in the Provo, MTC. This was a pilot program for a while and now that they are having such great success it is now a full time mission! It's amazing to me that we are spreading the gospel by internet now. I set up my "I am a Mormon" account on www.mormon.org. It was very fun to watch the videos from around the globe of other mormons and what they do. Now I have one too! I encourage all to create an account and stand up and be proud of who you are and what we believe. *Notice my "I AM A MORMON" button right here on my blog??? Cute!

VERY nice surprise!

Yesterday I got this sweet note and photo in the mail box! Doesn't my boy look handsome!!! I just wish we were with him. It's hard not hearing from him every day, but I have this picture now to remind me he is in great hands.

MINI MISSIONS - Puerto Rico style!

Rob and I were called to be mission presidents in our WARD for the youth mini missions. Of course we chose Puerto Rico since Rob served there. He has been cooking traditional Puerto Rican food ALL WEEK to prepare. I decided to make a traditional dessert...COCONUT FLAN!!! It turned out SO fabulous that I had to make a cute card up to share. Trust me...this is so yummy. Better than plain vanilla flan. Your next FIESTA make it...worth every bite of calories. :)

Waipahu, Hawaii

Today Wade has been officially gone for a MONTH! Yes, it seems to be going quicker than I thought it would. We received a email from him this past Monday (his official pday) and he told us he was serving in Waipahu, near Pearl Harbor on Oahu. His new companion is a 6'5" giant from Fiji! He is really doing well and seems to be enjoying himself immensely. We still miss him greatly and can't wait to receive pictures soon of where he is serving. I just hope he comes home 23 months from now after living in paradise! haha Leanna took the photo above. The first red pin is in on our Hawaii map!

OSCAR PARTY!!!

Ok. So last year my sister in law, Darci, had a "oscar party". We had another one at her house this year too! It was just us Johnson's though because we had a few who were a little under the weather. BUT It was SO fun. We came up with fun names for all our food based off of the 10 Best Movie Nominees. We all marked our ballots and STUFFED our faces as we watched the "stars"! I didn't take a lot of pictures, but had Leanna take one of this yummy dessert. My good friend Rebecca calls this, Louisiana YUM YUM. I call it Chocolate Dream...that got me to thinking about the movie INCEPTION. So we called it (for this night only) 3 Layer Dream Bars. Seriously, I've been eating this stuff for days now. I LOVE this. I'm posting the recipe card Rebecca made with a warning: DO NOT CONSUME ALONE!!! GUILT WILL FILL YOUR SOUL! Just share a little of this heaven each day and don't jump on the scale until a good Fast Sunday passes! HAHA Truly this was a super fun party idea and we look forward to next years. Hopefully next year each family can take a movie and bring something they think represents that so Darci and I won't have to cook and clean so much ;) (I actually know we both don't mind doing that, but it would be fun to have more people help us EAT all the food we made!)

Anyway, just for your info here are some of the other treats we aptly named for the OSCARS:

The Kings Speech:
Chicken "Tongues" (Chicken fingers marinated and grilled on skewers), Micro Scones (Homemade Blueberry/Lemon Glazed Scones) - to die for as well. Post recipe soon. :)

The Social Network: Apple-Tini's, and Instant Billionare Bars (super easy caramel candy recipe I'll post as well)

True Grit: Grilled Steak, and Baked beans

Toy Story 3: Homemade 3 cheese Mac and Cheese (Also yummy!)

127 Hours: Water Bottles (haha)

Black Swan: Black and White Cupcakes and Black and White Cheesecakes with oreo crust.

The Kids Are Alright: Salad and Apples with dip

Winters Bone: Potato skins

Inception: My dreamy dessert referenced above :)

The Fighter: Eye Poppin Poppers! (BBQ'd jalapeno poppers that are delish! Post this later too don't worry!)