Use the following address after July 1, 2013
Elder Paul Johnson 1889 W. Queen Creek #1104
Chandler, Arizona 85225
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
24 June 2013
Dear Family and Friends,
This week was awesome. The best week since February. Why?
This week was awesome. The best week since February. Why?
We taught her for the first time on Monday and she was on date for July 6th. On Thursday we invited her to move it to June 29th. She said no since they would be out of town and suggested....that Saturday!
So in two days we organized the entire baptism and invited everyone.
She had been to church before for quite some time. It was a great
turnout and the first in the ward for 10 months. The work is picking up
with the Hermanas having one next week (who lives in our area...), and
us in two weeks again with someone else.
So that was definitely the highlite. But there were other things that made the week great as well!
A
dog bit me this week. We were walking over to someone and this dog got
loose and ran straight at me. It was a 1 year old chihuahua that
couldn't get its mouth around my shoelace if it had wanted to so no
damage was done. Regardless it made talking to the person a little
difficult since I was busy kicking it off me with my foot... In that
same conversation her 13 year old daughter came out and said, "I LOVE
your eyes Elder....Johnson!" It was a really weird OYM.
We moved this week. The night before transfers at 10pm
they called us and said, "Pack your bags, you're moving down near Queen
Creek!" I sat there for a second in silence thinking to the Queen Creek
zone and Gilbert mission but he clarified and said Queen Creek Road. So
we stayed up till 12am packing our bags and moved everything that next morning. They said we'd stay in the Chandler zone.
But that didn't happen either. At transfers they
split all the zones and opened 4 or 5 new zones as well as made all the
new zones for the Gilbert mission. We are now in the "Gilbert West" zone
despite the fact that we live in a different part of Chandler still.
They're going to rename the zone on July 1st
when the mission split takes affect to either the Gilbert zone or the
Ray Zone. I'm hoping for the latter. We still cover the same ward and
same area (thank goodness) so we cover two zones now.
Transfers was CRAAAAZZZYYYYYY. 240 missionaries in
that room all singing Called to Serve was pretty sweet. It was the last
chance I had to see some of the great people I've met as the Tempe
mission gets split into the Scottsdale, Gilbert, and Mesa missions.
Bittersweet. Luckily my whole MTC district is staying together in the
Tempe Mission. We thought we'd take a picture to commemorate.
Happy as always.
The mission actually got Jeep Compasses, not Grand Cherokees, for the missionaries in the mountains. They're pretty cool.
Speaking of cool, I got to see some of the old
members from Yuma at transfers! It was awesome! Brother Borgerson and
Brother Allen were both there giving rides and it was great to see and
talk to them again. I told them I'd be back there next February.
Apparently the work has slowed quite a bit down there.
Does anyone in the DC South mission know Elder Payne? He's best friends with Elder Janis, our roommate.
I
ripped my first shirt this week. We walked up some steps to visit
someone and my shirt caught on the window. It ripped about a 7" hole
along the left sleeve. I was pretty bummed at first then I went back to
look at the corner and realized that if my arm had been 1/2" closer it
would have cut my arm open pretty deep. That window was super sharp.
Blessings in disguise...
The apartment we live in right now has one room.
There are four of us there. There was some miss communication somewhere
and now we're sleeping on the worst beds in the world. We're moving next
week on July 1st... So, after June 26th you can send letters to this address:1889 W Queen Creek Rd #1115, Chandler AZ 85248. We have a private lake we can't use.
Anyway, because our apartment is so small (we have
two chairs) we put our desks outside on the patio and study there. It's
miserable since it's so hot. I'm not unpacking. We've moved 3 times now
since May and once more next week. 4 times in 7 weeks... Ridiculous. We
joke about how they just move us to clean up the apartments.
We got some time to spend with the missionaries in
the Mesa zone at transfers to talk about iPads and iPhones in missionary
work. As we saw in that stellar broadcast last night they're upping the
amount of technology in missionary work. In Mesa zone, every missionary
has a personal iPad Mini and each companionship has an iPhone 5. It's
super sleek. They're also given permission on Faceboook to "proselyte on
Facebook." They are even allowed to be friends with family.
This week someone asked us what we were doing there. I felt the situation was right so I quoted Paul
(more or less) and said, "we're here to help you repent and be
baptized!" I was a little nervous about what they would say but they
just said, "hm, ok" and walked away.
I was reflecting on the last year I've had here with
President Howes. I was also thinking about my first interview with him
that I wrote about in my first few weeks. I remember not liking what he
told me. But I realized that that first interview changed my entire
mission for the better. Looking back on it that was the single
most trans formative event in my entire mission and all I had to do to
realize it was humble myself. I'm so grateful for the time I've had to
learn from President and Sister Howes and will miss them both dearly.
They have less than a week left.
I found an Ensign from the June 1976 issue and read
an awesome section in the "I Have a Question" section about rebellions.
Informative.
I'm approaching 3rd Nephi in the
Book of Mormon. We have a week left to finish it. From the last 300 or
so pages what has struck out to me is the major difference between the
Lamanites and the Nephites. I think it's obviously connected to their
faith in God but it's a bit deeper than that answer. I've come to see
that the principle difference between the two is the capacity to
forgive. The lamanites hold grudges for centuries and it consumes them
whereas, for the most part, the Nephites learn to forgive and forget and
as a result they're, for the most part, blessed. Good life lesson
there.
I've filled my first journal!
And now for the elephant in the room...the broadcast last night! I hope everyone watched it. And for those who didn't, go to lds.org
right now and watch it. I was hoping for some huge announcement which
never came but nonetheless it was awesome! They re-stated what has
always been said but also showed how to do it. I think my favorite part
was Elder Anderson's. Unfortunately not many in the spanish ward went
and we're pretty sad about that but we'll take what we learned and teach
the members. If any ward can implement it, the Ray 5th ward can!
We love that ward. Last night we had dinner with the
Bishop and his family. Ahhhh, they're the best. They made a chocolate
cake for me and a Key Lime pie for Elder Diaz. They have such great love
for the gospel and last night it felt like we were home again. Such a
great family and such great leadership for the ward. We're so blessed to
serve with them.
Last night someone threatened to call the cops on
me. Some people just ignore us when we speak to them and pretend we're
not there. I don't like that so I usually stand there in silence with
them waiting for them to tell me something. This person said nothing and
then when I stood there in silence for a bit she said, "I'm going to
call the cops on you if you don't leave!"
We also talked with someone last night who told us
right away that she wasn't interested. I said, "do you know what we
share with people?" She said no and I asked her, "How can you not be
interested if we don't know what we do?" She laughed and we invited her
to visit mormon.org then headed off when she said she had to go.
We set our baptismal goal for 3 in the month of July. Bring it on.
Thanks Susie, Tanan, Eric, Will, Mom, and Sister Hines for the great letters!
Thank you all so much for being so supportive!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Johnson
Labels:
apartment,
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Book of Mormon insight,
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dog,
President Howes,
ripped shirt,
transfers
Sunday, June 23, 2013
17 June 2013
Dear Family and Friends,
We're both staying in Chandler and together! Wooooo! The phone calls didn't come until this morning. More on that later.
We're both staying in Chandler and together! Wooooo! The phone calls didn't come until this morning. More on that later.
This
was a tough week. Elder Diaz got pretty sick so we stayed inside for
two days and we didn't teach many lessons. Fortunately he's feeling
better now, a CT scan, ultrasound, and several blood tests later. They
were pretty worried about his liver but fortunately he's good to go.
Somehow the relief society found out and we got some concerned phone
calls asking if we needed anything. It was cool to be on the other side
of the phone and feel the love of the ward.
We didn't have a baptism this week...He cancelled
the morning of. Three times now I've had a baptism cancel within 24
hours of the baptism. Here's the full story:
We have taught him every day for three weeks and his
entire life has changed for the better. From his personal life to his
apartment which has been cleaned up and refurnished, his life has done a
complete 180. The gospel has saved his life in more than one way. He
loved church. He loved the members. On Friday we went to the temple with
him and he loved it. LOVED it. "I'm bringing my kids here in a year!"
Friday night he was all good to go for the Saturday morning baptism. He
asked me to baptize him and Elder Diaz to confirm him. The ward was
getting pumped.
And then at 9am
we got the dreaded text. :( The first thing we did was drop to our
knees and say a prayer then we called him, no answer. We went to his
house, no answer. His roommate wouldn't call him for us and so we waited
for 1.5 hours for him to get home from work. He never got home. We
called him probably 10 times that day and no answer. I was starting to
get worried.
And then yesterday we finally found him at home
before church. Long story short we got him to say a kneeling prayer and
then afterwards we waited for 2-3 minutes in silence, us praying
intensely mentally for him and him sitting with his eyes closed and
'listening.' After a time he looked up to us and said, "It's true. The
Book of Mormon is true and God has restored his church to the Earth!" I
was beaming, reveling in the miraculous change of heart we had just
seen.
And then he said, "but my path is elsewhere."
Devastation. We sat in silence for 5 minutes waiting for him to clarify.
He sat his job is to help his old church.
Sigh.
So we invited him to the mission president's devotional that night - President Howes' last one. We showed up at 6pm,
the allotted time, and he wasn't there. Agh! We can't go without
investigators. We ran around the area visiting some of our other
investigators there and desperately trying to invite them to come with
us. They were all busy. On a whim we stopped by our investigators house
once more to see if he was home. Nope. But his roommate was walking to
the door with groceries in hand. We ran over to him and helped him carry
them inside and said, "hey, come to a devotional with us!" He said,
".....ok!" Whew! Miraculous! We went with him and it was an incredible
devotional. Two people who were baptized the day before spoke and shared
their testimonies and then President and Sister Howes spoke. Elder
Heathcote (served with me in Yuma for my first six weeks) came back to
visit and it was fun to see him there.
Anyway, we were pretty sad about that baptism
falling through. At church the Bishop came up to us and told us that
someone in the ward who isn't a member whose family is all active
decided that she wanted to get baptized in two weeks. So now we have
someone who is on date for July 6 out of nowhere! He mentioned she may prefer Sister missionaries. Nope. That's not happening.
Elder Diaz's birthday is this week, his first in the field. His is June 24th.
Last night we had dinner with the relief society president and in a
moment where he was in the restroom I mentioned to her that his birthday
was next week and asked her if there was anything we could do. She
promised a cake on Sunday
night. I told her not to tell him - I want to surprise him. There's not
much we can do for him but I'm trying to think of something to make it
better than it's bound to be haha. I did not tell her mine was just four
days after.
We had a pretty unique experience this week. We
found a Navajo Book of Mormon in our car trunk 6 weeks ago and just left
it there to admire it on occasion. Well, this past week we found two
Navajo women and spoke to them for a bit and then ran to the car to get
the Navajo Book of Mormon. What are the chances! After much prodding we
convinced them to say a prayer in Navajo - It was AWESOME.
Our senior couple in the zone, Elder and Sister
Lambert, got anti'd this week by someone in the grocery line at Costco.
Apparently it was so bad that even the other people in the line told the
guy to get lost. Sad, the Lamberts are an inspiring and very very
humble. I also whispered to them that Elder Diaz's birthday is next Monday so maybe we'll get two cakes?! Haha
I'm pretty sure Arizona has damaged my eyes. I can barely walk outside without sunglasses on since it's so bright.
I
almost died at a dinner this week. No, not because of the food. We ate
with someone who was studying for his citizenship test and we asked some
questions. Elder Diaz asked, "who's Benjamin Franklin?" Two people who
will remain unidentified said, "oh, he invented electricity!"
Almost.
We had just finished talking about how most American's can't pass the citizenship test haha. Classic.
We also had the most intensely meat packed meal this week of my life.
Elder Diaz has told me for weeks about Argentine Asados and this week an
Argentine member made us a five course meal. Of meat. Started with some
type of port, then steak, then pork, then chicken, then something else
that I'm still unsure of what it was. We ate this salad of beats, raw
eggs, and ham and it was actually really good haha. I couldn't eat two
of those three ingredients 12 months ago.
This week I realized I've been out for almost 12 months and I was dumbfounded for a bit. Where does the time go?!
Though
these past six weeks haven't yielded any baptisms, we have had success
in other ways, the most profound of which was being able to help someone
return to activity in the church. We got a referral from a member for a
less active to visit and after the first visit she said, "Ok! I'm
coming back! And I'm bringing my whole family with me!" Yesterday the
youngest daughter sang with the youth in the fathers day program and I
just sat there smiling and thinking about how all this family needed was
the invitation and they're back and they're happy.
We were visiting someone this week and I took a drink out of my camelbak. The person looked at me and said, "are you smoking?!"
We
took our car to the dealership this week to get that mirror that broke
itself replaced. While waiting a salesman came up to me and I asked him
some questions about the Scion FRS, their sports car. That car is pretty
sleek! The guy just about sold me on it and as I was reaching into my
pocket I remembered I only have $20 dollars left for the month, a little
less than the $25 thousand that I would have needed. He wasn't willing
to trade for our 2010 Corolla either. I could only imagine what
President Howes would say if I showed up to transfers in a red race car
revving the engine at 8,000rpm instead of our silver corolla.
Laura Johnson, if you read this, I met Elder Benson. Small world!
I
talked with Elder Boyd last night to verify that we'll be able to wear
polyester ties with the new mission president. He said President Howes
is making policy adjustments next week including something with ties.
Woooo!
Every single missionary is invited to transfers
tomorrow. It's going to be 4 hours long including a social afterwards.
This will be the last chance I have to see missionaries I've met that
will be in the Gilbert mission. Last night I got it confirmed that there
will be four Spanish missionaries in the entire mission and they'll
have one companion for basically their entire mission. Those four Spanish missionaries are based out of Queen Creek. Whew, that was a
close call!
So we cover all our daily planners with pictures to
make them less boring. I've always spent way too much time looking for
really unique pictures that no one else has to make my planners
different. Well this week I looked through the 20+ watchtowers I've
collected and found two sweet pictures of Daniel in the Lion's Den and a
picture of Lot running from flaming meteors. Elder Diaz doesn't approve
hahaha. I'll send a picture of it next week.
Speaking of pictures, here are some I took this week.
Dang, that one came out really well... It took a couple tries to frame it just right.
During the hour and a half we waited for our
investigator to come home from work (the one who was supposed to get
baptized.) We felt like cops - we were just missing some newspapers with eye-holes cut out.
Thanks Natalia, Annie, Mom, and Will for the letters this week! It was great to hear from all of you!
Love you all so much! Happy fathers day!
Elder Johnson
Labels:
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Tuesday, June 11, 2013
10 June 2013
I
got in a car crash this morning. Well, it wasn't really a car crash but
this metal pole jumped out of NOWHERE and broke our right side rear
view mirror. Ahhhh, my driving record isn't perfect anymoreeeeeeeeeeeee.
We've already called it in and will be dropping it off later today to
get fixed and whatnot. The ONE time I park next to the pole...the ONE
TIME! I hit it backing up at 2mph, if that.
Gah.
Before I forget, THIS WEEK
IS THE LAST WEEK OF THE TRANSFER. I don't know where time has gone! So,
if you're not planning on sending a letter by Wednesday to me, you should probably send it to the mission home (see side bar on blog for address). I'm
98% sure we'll both stay in Chandler but you never know. Since we're
both new here, since I'm training, and since we have so much work it's
almost guaranteed we'll stay. I hope.
This was an awesome week. We didn't find as many as
we did last week but now we have 4 people with a baptismal date in June
and they're all progressing. We're pretty excited.
Speaking of baptismal dates, you'll never believe what happened. The person that was supposed to get baptized June 15th got anti'd....
....
But it didn't go bad! Our investigator actually anti'd the guy back!
It was actually his old pastor from his old church and our investigator
went off on him! The investigator was at church
yesterday and we had him meet with our Bishop for a bit. 75 minutes
later they came out of the room - both happy. This baptism will be the
first baptism this ward has had for almost 10 months now and we will
have found and baptized him in 3 weeks! He is crazy prepared and there
have been some unbelievable miracles in his conversion story that I
can't write here. Unbelievable. Almost. He also did the commitment from
the sunday school lesson from last week to compile his four generation family history chart haha.
We had a pretty cool experience with him this week.
We planned to go over the 10 commandments with him but the spirit
prompted us otherwise and we talked about the Book of Mormon for the
whole time. He has struggled reading it since he has such a strong
testimony of the Bible. The lesson changed things and he's doing really
well now. At the end of the lesson he spent 15 minutes thanking us for
being so supportive and loving and how he feels something different from
us etc. It was pretty humbling to hear him testify about the role that
we have been able to play in his recent life.
The Mesa Mission President told some stories
recently about how their missionaries were stalked. But by who? But
members of the Cornerstone church. They have anti Mormon classes in
their church, offered during services on Sundays, and they send people
to follow LDS missionaries around and knock on the doors that the
missionaries visit. We had the same guys in Queen Creek and looks like
they're hitting the Phoenix area hard. They anti all the investigators
they can find. Usually I wouldn't put the church name in the email but
these guys take it too far.
The temple this week was awesome. I learned Elder Myler got red lighted from Tiwi (in-car GPS) hahahahaha
We met someone who had a "Chweenie dog" this week. What a terrible creation.
This last week we were visiting with some
investigators from Dominican Republic, and Chile. They all said where
they were from, Elder Diaz said Argentina, our member said Chile, and
then it was my turn. Naturally I said Brazil but for some reason they
didn't believe me.
I walked up stairs this last week for the first time
in months! We never go up stairs because there's nothing upstairs of
any building that we ever need...
So it's officially hot. 113-115 was the high this week and we were out
on bikes. I think the most depressing thing is when we're biking home at
8:55pm and see one of the giant screens with the temperature and it says 107' F. Kills me.
I thought Arabs might have been onto something for the heat. Nope. Still hot.
Speaking of bikes and car crashed, I almost got hit
again this week. We were biking up north to visit someone and this car
was pulling out of a parking lot to turn onto the road. This person
decided that she didn't need to stop for the stop sign and plowed
through. I swerved out of the way and my pedal just about his the front
of the car.
On Sunday
yesterday I was getting ready to sit down when I was approached by one
of the members. He asked me, "will you translate?" There are some English families that were present and the normal translator wasn't
there. I said yes and got ready and was pretty nervous. Everything went
perfect until the youth speakers got up. They spoke so fast and mumbled
into the microphone. I looked at the Bishop on the stand and he looked
at me and laughed. I just whispered, "sorry!" into the microphone and
the people with the translators on just laughed. It was a pretty fun
experience and I was a lot more attentive than usual. There were some
awesome talks. My favorite was on an experience from girls camp where
they blindfolded some of them and had them walk an obstacle course
holding onto an "iron rod." There were people without blindfolds walking
around trying to lead the people with blindfolds astray. One of the
leaders (blindfolded) told of one girl who tried to "tempt" her by
saying, "Help, I'm lost!" The leader then responded, "Come and walk with
me, we will go together!" The youth 'tempter' then said, "aren't you a
leader?? Help me, I need your help!" The leader told us that she
couldn't tell if the girl actually needed help or not and was trying
hard to decide whether or not to check (which would have disqualified
her. She likened it to people who may have wandered who need help but
aren't willing to come where the good is and she said we can't leave the
path to help them but we can invite them and encourage them to come
walk with us. It was a pretty touching story and excellently delivered.
Our investigators loved it.
We are teaching a woman who is from
(I'm going to butcher the spelling) Guahaka, Mexico. She speaks a very
interesting dialect that has some similarities to spanish and sounds
awesome. She also speaks some spanish.
We are taking a recent convert out with us to visit
some people. He has been looking for a new house to move in with his
young child and pregnant wife. We took him to visit the above-mentioned
investigator who had just that day put her house up for rent and is the
perfect price and location for our member. The blessings of missionary
work!
I think I love spanish wards so much because the
overwhelming majority are converts. It makes taking people out with us
more personal for a lot of our investigators.
Right now we're teaching a young husband and wife who are expecting
their first child. The father is drinking a lot and the wife broke down
in tears telling us how she worried for him as a result. We had a
member with us who was a convert and had been through the exact same thing and he bore super bold testimony to the husband about how he needed to change now.
It was pretty cool to see how bold we can be with the spirit and if
it's loving. They didn't make it to church since someone stole the
husband's identity in Mexico and was doing some money scam. The family
is going through a lot and there's a lot of stress in their relationship
but they both said yesterday that they think this can save their
relationship and their family. It's awesome to see people change, I'd
say that's my favorite part.
We ran into an unbelievably drunk man yesterday. He
was too drunk to even shake my hand and we told him that was the last
drink he should ever have again in his life. I thought he was going to
punch me, he looked so mad haha.
Remember the Jehovah's Witness I wrote about last
week? Well we ran into her again. By ran into her I mean we knocked her
trailer door. She answered and was surprised to see us. She had told me
to research some anti thing she told us last week which I learned about
(thanks Sister Hines!) and told her the real story. She told me she had
more for me and would give it over next time we saw. Anyway, that wasn't
the point of stopping by. I told her I had read her magazine and found
it interesting and offered to give her one of ours again. She declined
and said, "Jehovah already has spoken to me, I won't read it." I left it
on her doorstep by her door with our phone number on the back. She gave
me four more magazines and a book. She couldn't comprehend that I
was genuinely interested in what she believed and that I like to
understand the people I teach. Her question was, "if you believe you
already have the truth, why are you reading this?" I told her that if we
aren't willing to put our testimonies to the test then we don't trust
God. Anyway, those little magazines did the same as the one last week
did - just strengthened my testimony of the restored gospel. It still
blows my mind that they never talk about the role that God plays in
their church today. Never. Not once. I think she thinks she's going to
convert me. I have a lot of respect for their beliefs but not the way
they go about sharing them. I think the religious zeal goes a bit too
far. We talked to someone this week who said that some Jehovah's
Witnesses that stopped by three years ago talked so strongly to her
about how she's going to hell that she tried to kill herself. Too far.
It has been a good week and next weeks letter will have a baptismal picture attached!
Thanks Katie, Jamie, Sister Hines, and Eric for the letters this week!
Hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Johnson
Labels:
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3 June 2013
The big news of the week is...
It's hot!
Ok, the real big news is that we have someone on date for June 15th!
He came to church for the first time yesterday and really really loved
it. Sometimes it seems like the hardest part is getting them to church.
We've been working to talk about church with them from Monday to
Saturday so they know we expect it all week and not just tell them on Saturday night. I'm pretty confident he will get baptized but we will
have to talk on the word of wisdom since last night he told us about his
past with other substances. Probably won't go into detail here on that
but he gave us a little of his life history - it could be a movie.
But to rewind to earlier in the week... On
Monday I realized that my the fabric that covers my belt loops is
wearing off and is white. So in a stroke of inspired GENIUS I colored
over the white part with a sharpie. Ta-da! Good as new.
We went to Carls Jr this past week and I ate a
hamburger (only the third time on my mission) and root beer for the
first time. It was weird haha. That's not a big part of Mexican's diets.
President Howes changed the district meeting
calendar. For the next 5 weeks, instead of training, as a mission (but
individually) we will be reading the Book of Mormon focusing on the
Doctrine of Christ. It has been awesome to reread it focusing on one
topic. I've learned a lot. We read from 9-11:30 and from 11:30
to 12 we share thoughts on what we read. Everyone else commented on the
overall theme being "faith" but I found tons more instances of
"enduring to the end." I guess that's something I need to work on.
My favorite spanish phrase is, "no manches." Literally translated it means, "no stain," but in mexican slang it means "no way!"
We
had interviews with President Howes this past week. These were his last
interviews before he goes home. I was prepared to ask him some intense
questions but instead, for my last 15 minutes with President Howes, we
just talked about ties haha. It was a fun conversation and culminated
with him trading me a tie and me giving him the one around my neck. He
doesn't trade ties very often and I made sure he wrote on the one he
gave me. He told me that if I ever saw him wearing the tie I gave him in
a meeting I can't say, "hey, that's my tie!" Guess that means it passed
the test.
This
past week we were biking around talking with people and this guy on a
bike biked past us. We followed him and tried to talk to him. He said,
"NO BRO, I'M RUNNING, I GOTTA GO!!" and biked really quickly ahead.
Unfortunately for him we were biking the same way. After about 15
seconds of bike sprinting (word?) he slowed down again, looked behind
him, saw us again, and started pedaling as quick as he could again haha.
This happened about 3 times. 11 months ago I might have thought it was
uncomfortable but I live for those moments now.
We talked with someone this week who lives in
Maricopa, where Elder Myler is serving. I got to call him to pass it off
to him and it was fun to talk to him. Love that guy. Near the end of
the call he said, "oh, I have a referral for you!" Sweet, I thought! He
gave me a name then the address. The address was, "866 u-s-m-e-l-l." He
pronounced it oosmuhl. I read it out loud to him and said, "that's a
street!?" Then I realized that it spelled out "you smell." Ah, gets me
every time!
We get to go to the temple on Wednesday for the 7:30am session.
We
were hoping for a new car this past Wednesday. On Friday night the APs
texted us and said, "will you be at home at 9? Stay focused!" I was so
sure we would be getting a new car! Turns out it was some sick joke
haha.
We stole a dog this week.
Maybe stole is
the wrong word. We were walking around a trailer park and there is
always this little pug that never moves so I approached it to see if it
was alive. It got up and ran at me. Thinking my life was in jeopardy I
got ready for the worst. 60 minutes later it was still following us
around. Eventually it ditched us to chase a cat but we're hoping it
found its way home. The trailer park isn't that big.
In that same trailer park we ran into someone we had
seen before. She told us about how she wanted to change and would have
to quit smoking after her surgery. I told her that if she wanted to
change she would have to start now. After some pushing and prodding I
convinced her to give me her lighter and in return I gave her a picture
of Christ. Victory! The lighter is now a trophy on my desk. That's the
second lighter I've taken.
I have reached a milestone. I've gone four weeks now
without getting an "aggressive driving" or speeding violation. I've
been a little more careful since I'm yellowlighted and if I get more
violations I'll get red lighted and not be able to drive haha. It's
probably Yuma's fault. I got four aggressive drivings in one day
once...and I didn't even drive crazy!
We OYM'd a woman this week who was very quick to
tell us that at death the family is dissolved. She told us all of this
in front of her kids. We don't get that point of view very often but
I've heard it all. Thanks Queen Creek!
I talked to the first white Jehovah's Witness this
past week that I've found in Chandler. She was very quick to attack
Joseph Smith. I don't think I've ever met one who went at him so quick.
We managed to keep it a cordial conversation and she went on about some
court cases about plagiarism and the Book of Mormon. I found it ironic
that that was her argument since they believe all government is corrupt.
Keep in mind this entire interaction was less than two minutes. She
brought up the God's name thing and I asked her just a question, no
more. My question was, 'if we're supposed to pray to God by calling him
Jehovah, then why didn't Christ do that in any of his prayers.' She
couldn't answer the question but that was fine since I wasn't trying to
attack her. I offered her a pamphlet which she declined then asked for
some of their literature to study. I like to understand the people I
teach. She returned a few seconds later with a copy of a magazine with
their basic beliefs.By the end of the conversation we both respected
each others beliefs and she had a better opinion of LDS missionaries. It
was a nice exchange. I read it that night and used their given
scripture resources to see how they support what they believe. But after
I had studied their basic beliefs I left knowing one thing: the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the fullness. The member that
was with us for that OYM wasn't happy that I took their literature but I
see no problem.
It's really hard to teach a lesson with cockroaches
crawling all over the place. We have a lot of investigators in this one
area and there are 50x as many cockroaches as people. Ahhhhh.
For some reason there is a store in Chandler that sells Hot Tubs. I can't imagine why. There is always a "SALE" sign outside.
It
has been really interesting to serve in different wards and see how the
members react to new investigators at church. From what I've seen, the Spanish wards are far better. The great great members introduce
themselves to the investigators, sit with them, and socialize with them.
They walk them around and explain little things to them. I love the Spanish wards but I wish I knew how to play piano haha.
[From mom: interesting to see that last comment.]
Thanks Eric, Annie, Sister Hines, Natalia, and Mom for the letters this week!
I
got locked out of my account again for refreshing too many times. Lost
the story about eating fish and getting sick (fish ew). and some other
comments.
Thanks so much for all your support!
Con amor,
EJ
Labels:
address joke,
belt loops,
Book of Mormon,
Carls Jr.,
cockroaches,
dog,
driving,
hot tubs,
Jehovah's Witnesses,
playing piano,
ties
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