It took the world shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic for Sister Monica Johnson to seriously consider joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That’s how the young woman from Texas described her journey towards baptism and serving a mission.

It was October 2020 and she was stuck in her college dorm room. Classes were online only, campus jobs weren’t hiring and businesses were shut down. With nowhere to go and nothing to do — and despite previously deciding she wasn’t interested in the Church —Sister Johnson decided she might as well accept a Latter-day Saint friend’s invitation to watch general conference.

She wasn’t impressed at first. “I was like, ‘This is really weird. It’s a bunch of old guys.’ And I didn’t understand anything at all.”

But she kept watching, if only because she had nothing else to do. And then President Russell M. Nelson stood during the Sunday morning session and delivered his talk, “Let God Prevail.”

“You could tell that he was a man of God. His blue eyes were just so pure,” Sister Johnson said. “They were the kindest eyes I’d ever seen, and I just remember crying.”

Sister Johnson, who is now serving in the Alabama Birmingham Mission, recently shared her conversion story with Church News.

While her life hasn’t always been easy, she’s grateful to be where she is now. “In my patriarchal blessing, it says God has labored me in His hands until it was time for me to meet the Church. ... God was preparing me for this moment.”

The path to baptism

Sister Monica Johnson, left, and then-Sister Chloe Spencer cut shopping bags to be woven into sleeping mats for the homeless. They were serving at the Eastern Hills Baptist Homeless Sleeping Mat Ministry at Dalraida Global Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

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Sister Johnson was born in Texas and spent her early years in foster care. In 2008, at age 7, she and two of her sisters were adopted by a Christian family with children excited about having more siblings.

As she grew up, Sister Johnson loved attending church, even becoming the most religious person in her family.

But that changed during a summer in high school, when her mother took away all of her books after an argument. For an entire summer, Sister Johnson had nothing to read but the Bible — and the more she read, the more she felt the church she had been attending deviated from the Bible’s teachings.

“So at 16, I told my parents that I no longer wanted to go to church with them,” she said. “... I think I honestly broke my mom’s heart.”

A year later, Sister Johnson’s family moved from Lubbock to San Antonio, Texas. Her mother told Sister Johnson she could finish high school in Lubbock or join the family in San Antonio, but if she made the move, she had to attend church.

Sister Johnson moved with her family and began attending church again. She also started working at a local restaurant — where several of her coworkers were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sister Johnson began asking her new friends questions about the Church. One coworker gave her a Book of Mormon, and though Sister Johnson read some of it, “I grew up believing that there’s only one word of God [and that] there [are] no prophets. ... I was like, ‘There’s just no way [this book is true].’” She passed the Book of Mormon on to a friend — who was later baptized — and told her coworker that she wasn’t interested in learning any more.

Sister Johnson graduated high school and started college in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That October, the coworker who had given her a Book of Mormon followed up with Sister Johnson and invited her to watch general conference.

After her experience hearing President Nelson speak, Sister Johnson texted her old coworker and asked how she could learn more. “I could imagine [my former coworker] just screaming, ‘Yes!’”

By her third lesson with the missionaries, Sister Johnson knew she wanted to be baptized. On the day of her baptism, she knew she’d serve a mission. And in January 2022, she began filling out her missionary application paperwork.

While Sister Johnson enjoyed learning from missionaries during her conversion process, she credits President Nelson with cementing her testimony. “I felt so confident [in] what I’d felt at that moment when I was listening to him speak.”

Sharing ‘something good’

Sister Monica Johnson smiles and gives two thumbs-up for a photo. Sister Johnson is currently serving in the Alabama Birmingham Mission.

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While Sister Johnson was excited about her new faith, her family didn’t necessarily share her enthusiasm. Her father, in particular, had concerns about the Church’s history with race. For the first five months of her mission, her family didn’t call or respond to texts.

But Sister Johnson didn’t let that deter her. Every Sunday, she tagged her family members in posts on a Facebook page she helps run called Followers of Christ, which shares content focused on the Savior.

Then Sister Johnson’s sister began calling her for help with college applications. One day, while on the phone with her sister, Sister Johnson heard her father ask for the phone.

“He said, ‘Monica — wait, Sister Johnson. I’m so proud of the work you’re doing,” Sister Johnson recounted. “He said, ‘Every time you tag me in those pages, I listen to it. I always look forward to Sunday, because I know I’m going to hear something good.’”

When Sister Johnson looks back on her experiences, she sees Heavenly Father’s hand guiding her towards the gospel. For instance, her mother taking her books away for a summer led her to studying the Bible more closely and desiring greater truth.

She also urged Church members to listen when the Spirit prompts them to share the gospel. Instead of inviting her to watch general conference, her former coworker could have reasoned that Sister Johnson already said she wasn’t interested in the Church.

“That’s a choice that people have to make, if they’re going to listen to their friends or [if] they’re going to listen to the Holy Ghost,” she said. “... I have a huge testimony of member work.”

An all-in missionary

Sister Johnson has now been serving in Alabama for six months. Her companion, Sister Kyler Dent, from Queen Creek, Arizona, said Sister Johnson inspires her “in so many ways,” from overcoming her difficult background to being the only member in her family.

“She has such a strong desire to share the gospel with other people,” Sister Dent said. “She really wants everybody to... find the joy in the gospel that she’s been able to find.”

Sister Johnson has big goals for after her mission. She’d like to finish her degree at Brigham Young University, or perhaps pursue graduate studies there. She wants to become a neuropsychologist. And she hopes to find her eternal companion along the way, too.

But for now, she’s all in as a missionary.

“I absolutely love it here,” she said. “... There [are] the struggles of missionary work, but there’s also the joy of doing it.”