30 December 2013

Well, Christmas has come and gone and with it it has brought many miracles! 

It was nice to be able to Skype home. I'm still waiting for you to put the pictures on Facebook! It was a fun conversation! Thanks family, you're the best!!

Speaking of family, I was able to do something unique this past week: Skype Mom and Mark into two separate lessons that I had! We were teaching two separate lessons at the church building that night and had wifi and thought, 'hey, Mom speaks spanish...lets get her into this lesson!" and then, "Hey, Mark barely speaks English, lets get him into this lesson so he can learn a little more english!" They both went great.

And they were both baptized two days ago :)

We've recently decided that we aren't going to visit people anymore. This last week was our first time doing that for an entire week.

To clarify: our investigators come to us. We have their fellowships pick them up and take them to the church where we meet and talk. For new investigators, it is a great opportunity to give a tour of the chapel. For current investigators, it is a great opportunity to get away from the many distractions we so often run into: TV, music, cars, angry family members, birds, chihuahuas, and drugs. It works.

Mom, remember the awesome woman that you met over Skype? She and her entire family went to her son's baptism and to church the next day. They loved it. More on that later.

Christmas week is always a hard week to find people to teach. On Christmas Eve we worked until 1:00pm and then had P-Day until 6. At 6, we went caroling as a district. Those are always great memories. We got in our "drug rugs", santa hats, and went and visited some great people. We never said we were great singers but it was an awesome experience.

After the caroling, we met together as a zone and had a testimony meeting. It was a highlight of the week.

Christmas day was fun. We got up and did our morning studies and then the rest of the day was a P-day. That's when I skype'd home, had a nice lunch at a member's home, and then got together as a zone to play floor hockey. Fun times.

Like I said, we had two baptisms this last weekend. They're both amazing people who have developed strong testimonies. One was found, taught, and baptized in a grand total of 18 days. The other has been about three months. One of them was baptized amidst intense family opposition. Preachers got involved, anti literature was shared, and negative things were said. Regardless, this person stayed strong to the testimony she had received and was baptized. She said, "God has told me this is for me. I must do it." She's an awesome example for us all. 

It always makes me sigh when family members say, "HEY, BEFORE YOU GET BAPTIZED COME LEARN ABOUT MORMONS FROM MY PREACHER!" What? How is that even logical? I would never go to a Buddhist to learn about Catholicism. I would never go to a Mormon to learn about Wickens. To. The. Source.

We have changed how we do baptismal services. Historically they go, 

1. Opening hymn

2. Opening prayer

3. Talk on baptism

4. Ordinance of baptism

5. Talk on holy ghost

6. Welcome to ward

7. Closing hymn

8. Closing prayer

I've never liked that. When I was with Elder Harder we threw away the welcome to the ward's because they drag on and chase the awesome spirit that follows a baptismal ordinance away. But we tried something new this past weekend and it was AMAZING. The new baptismal program went like this:

1. Opening hymn

2. Opening prayer

3. Talk on whatever

4. Talk on whatever (don't need two)

~~hymn~~

5. Ordinance of baptism

6. Recent convert shares testimony

7. Closing hymn

8. Closing prayer

BAM! No refreshments. End on super high note, leave. The service only takes about 30 minutes then and it is so much more powerful.

I have another exciting announcement! Elder Holland is coming to our mission in a little under two weeks! And President Toone asked if Elder Myler and I would be involved in a violin/vocal/cello/piano musical number for him and two mission's worth of missionaries! We'll be performing, "Because He Lives," and it's super hard. I spent three hours getting five measures down...and I'm still not confident about it. It'll come together though, it always does somehow. It is so much fun to practice together. Mom said on the Skype call, "You're playing more violin on your mission than you did in your last year home!" 

That's sadly true....At least more in Mesa than I did back home.

Mesa Zone ended the month with nine baptisms. Seven of the nine came from member referrals and the other two came from mormon.org self referrals. Interesting how that works. Elder Diaz and I sat down yesterday and prayerfully put some new ideas together for the month of January; things we can and need to improve on to do better. We know we can! All those nine people have such strong testimonies and are so grateful. They have the desire to share the gospel too because they've seen and felt the change that it has made in their lives.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Thanks family for the letters!

Con amor!

Elder Johnson

31 December 2012

A missionary Christmas

Transfers calls are next Sunday, taking affect on the 8th.

On Christmas Eve went caroling to our recent converts and investigators. They all loved it. We packed the Elders into our Corola and drove around for about two hours visiting people. Tiwi (the GPS in the car that yells at you if you turn too hard, go too fast, etc) gave me four aggressive drivings in one night...hopefully that doesn't take my Tiwi license away. It went hypersensitive that night then died for three days. Called it in and they said they'll write the violations off and that they would fix Tiwi. Tiwi is terrible.

That baptism I wrote about last week fell through. The husband said no. We're hoping for sometime this month though. Hopefully I'm still here.

We did have a White Christmas in Yuma though! The other family who was supposed to get baptized, the one that the husband was going to baptize, got baptized! (Did that make any sense?) We all went in white ties since it was on Christmas day and it was a great time. That was one of the happier moments of my mission to see our recent convert baptize his family and then be able to stand in as they received the gift of the holy ghost.

We were called to go way out of town this week to give a blessing. The drive out took us past the crop duster airport which was pretty cool. When we got to the house and gave the blessing, we talked for a few minutes afterwards about Christmas and whatnot. The father then got up and grabbed a pretty big remote controlled helicopter and gave it to me and said I should take it since he doesn't have time. Sweet! It's probably 2.5 feet long and is pretty intense. I'm going to try to find a charger for it today since that was all he was missing. I'll attach a bad picture of it. Someone told me there's a Fast Eddy's near Walmart. I have no idea what that store is but hopefully they have what I'm looking for.

We had dinner with a family this week who had family from Gilbert visiting. When I said I was from Arlington she said she was there three years ago visiting the Arlington 2nd ward. There's a pretty good chance we were in the same room in a state thousands of miles away.

We received a referral for someone who recently moved into our area this week. We stopped by his house and met him and his wife and his kids. He was someone who had fallen away from the Church yet served a mission and married in the temple in "another life." His life went south quickly and he distanced himself from, well, everything. It was the first time I've tried to teach someone who has done everything as he should have until a certain point. We quickly realized he did not want to go back to church. We asked him why he went on a mission to which he responded, "social pressures." We asked him if he ever felt the spirit on his mission and he said, "no." He has spent the last 10 years of his life 
surrounding himself with anti literature and we spent a while trying to address his concerns until we just gave up on it because he wasn't going anywhere. We testified about the Book of Mormon and challenged him to read it. When I said I was going to leave a copy of the Book of Mormon for him, he said no. We ended with a prayer and I left the copy on the couch without telling him. Maybe something will come from it someday.

This week had more door slams, obscenities, yellers, and rejections than any other week I've had. It was a little disheartening but it was ok because yesterday we found someone who accepted a baptismal date for early January. We're pushing for four baptisms this month and it's looking like we  do it.

I heard about the tree of life rock or something this week. What is it? Is it legit?

This week we brought some investigators to a baptism for the winter visitor (snowbird) congregation. The room was packed of older people and then the family we brought with everyone in their 30s. They felt way out of place. When it was time for the baptism to happen and they started walking towards the water, everyone started yelling, "does he have hearing aids!?" for a good 10 seconds. He didn't but he probably needed them haha. I was dying in my seat because only at a winter visitor branch would you hear that be the major concern. Good times. Anyway, the family enjoyed the baptism and we are going to put her on date for the 5th when we meet with them this Tuesday. A quick one but she's ready!

Not a ton else happened this week since we had 1.5 days "off" due to Christmas. This next week should be a good one! If you're planning on writing to me at my apartment write before Wednesday to make sure it gets to me. If not, write to the mission home: 1871 E Del Rio Dr, Tempe AZ 85282

Thanks Mom, Eric, Will, Ian, Brother Parker, Natalia, and Sister Hines for the letters this week. Was great to hear from you all!

24 December 2012

It doesn't really feel like Christmas Eve haha. Mission Christmas' are different. All the congregations/wards that we cover had their Christmas programs yesterday. In the Rio Colorado branch we had little talks given and lots of singing. We were only at the Yuma Valley ward for a few minutes so didn't see anything. The Cibola ward had lots of choir numbers and instrumentals. We got there late but saw the harps and violins. It was nice.

We had a Christmas miracle yesterday. Back in October I wrote about a family that was just starting to come back to church with three daughters who were never baptized. The family is increadibly busy and we have not been able to have a lesson with them since October. Every week it gets cancelled. Well we finally had one set up for Sunday (yesterady) and our mission president told me to get the Bishop involved since it's a unique situation. We did. The day before on Saturday night I was doing some stuff in our apartment and out of nowhere felt a very strong impression to give the three daughters a baptismal date. For next week. I sat there kind of dumbfounded thinking to myself that we have only taught them three times in three months and how there was no way etc etc etc. But the impression stayed with me so I planned on extending that date during the lesson the next day. We met with them after Church and she told us she was very rushed and only had a few minutes to be with us so we started the lesson and taught around the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of holy ghost, enduring to the end). At the end that prompting came back and I extended the invitation to be baptized the following week. The three girls, very excitedly, said yes. The mother looked at them and said that she was ok with it and would check with her husband, who doesn't love the church. I promised her that if she went to him and bore solemn testimony that he would say yes. We are supposed to call her this afternoon to see how it went but I'm optimistic. Through a miracle the family is where they are. Through a miracle they have accepted a baptismal date for next week and through a miracle it will happen. I believe in miracles.

The miracle of that story is even better when compared to the disaster of this past week. One of the people we have been teaching with a baptismal date for last weekend came to us and told us she didn't want to listen to us anymore. We sat down with her and tried to figure out why but she just got up and left. It was pretty sad to see someone come so far and then just disappear.

Where one falls away, three fill it I guess. It looks like we can pass our monthly baptismal goal if the father OKs the baptism. Miracles!

This past week was the Christmas party in Tempe. It was fun to drive up and enjoy the program and go to the temple. The Christmas program itself included talks from President and Sister Howes, the area authority, and the APs. In between the talks were multi zone musical numbers. Two-three zones were paired up and given a song to practice and perform at the party. We were put together with Chandler and Maricopa, both 2 hours away. We never practiced with them or on our own. Turns out they never practiced either haha. We were called up in front of the mission to sing and man, terrible doesn't even begin to cover it. One Elder was conducting who had no idea how to do it. To begin, he held his hand and just waited. The choir of ~30-40 people sat in silence for a good 15 seconds. The pianist told the conductor to start and so, naturally, the conductor started singing thinking that we would all join in. No one did. So he sang the first three notes way off pitch and the whole room just started laughing haha. Finally the pianist just started playing and we all tried to join in. Well, throughout the two minutes we were up there, the pianists music fell off so he stopped playing, the singing was waaaaaaay off tune and no one can count beats and it was just the worst musical performance of my life haha. I don't think I've ever had such a hard time trying not to laugh. As soon as we were finished we all walked back to our seats and I just about died of laughter. Most of the performances were pretty bad, not as bad, and President Howes just got up and laughed it off and said they probably won't do that again. Golden. It will be one of the funnier memories of my mission I think. After that we had a huge lunch/dinner given to us by members in the area and got to get together with all the missionaries in the mission. It was fun to see my MTC district again and to say goodbye to some of the missionariesI've come to know who are going home in a few weeks. All in all a good experience. The Mesa temple is unbelievable.

This week we were walking in the ghetto part by the farms and a 747 flew over us at like 300 feet. Suuuuuuper low. I took a picture of it and looked at it later on my camera and zoomed in. It had, written on the side, "Trent 100 - First to power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner." and then I noticed that one of the four engines is the very engine that is on the 787. Pretty cool. Picture attached. Guess they were advertising to the farm workers?

Jeff Jardine showed up this week in Yuma! Got a phone call from a Virginia phone number and picked it up and he said that the mission president had OK'd him taking us out to lunch. Sweet! We met at In 'n Out the next day and had a good time. It was nice to see him and his family. Thanks for stopping by!

I met two people this week who know where Sweet Home, Oregon is and have been there recently. The Slaters and the Borgersons. Those sound familiar to anyone?

What is it called when there's like a halo around the moon? I've never seen one before but remember learning about it in Physics. I got a sweet picture of it on exchanges this past week. Attached.

Remember the family of the the man that Elder Sawyer and I baptized? The ones who hated us then loved us? They're getting baptized tomorrow and the father, the man we baptized, is going to be able to baptize them. I can't even wait. So exciting. Just a complete turn around in their lives. That means that 4 of the 5 people that Elder Sawyer and I taught all the lessons to will have been baptized in the last 2 weeks. Very cool. They challenged all the missionaries to a game of softball afterwards. Challenge accepted.

Not a ton else happened this week.

Tonight from 6-9pm is P-Day and all day tomorrow is P-Day as well. We are going carolling as a district tonight to recent covnert houses. Should be fun. . Thanks Sister Hines, the Lewis', Grandpa and Grandman, Mom, Natalia and Annie. Tomorrow I'm catching up on letters for the last few weeks, I promise.

17 December 2012

Fun times with Santa Clause

Christmas in Yuma

Happy Birthday Grandma Johnson! Wishing you the best birthday ever!

 

Today is Monday but today is not P-day. Since the mission christmas party is tomorrow in Tempe. We have time to shop and write emails today but that's it.

 

This past week we had interviews with President Howes. Elder Valdez and mine were scheduled first at 7:45am. Since we wouldn't have much time in our areas this month to proselyte (Elder Cook, Christmas party, interviews, christmas, etc) President kept them to 15 minutes each. A lot less than last time haha. Interviews were really good. Learned some good things that will help us be better missionaries. President Howes definitely can speak with power.

 

This week was a 2 baptism week for us. Both went smoothly and well. The first one was the most attended baptism I've ever been to wth well over 60 people. The room was full and people were standing. The second one had considerably less, probably 12, but was just as powerful. I was in charge of filling the font both times and I guess the water was a little too warm the first time. The thermometer read 90 F. Woops. When they walked into the water they both looked at me and mouthed "IT'S TOO HOT." Good times. He asked me to confirm him a member of the Church which was my first spanish blessing. To say I was a little nervous probably wouldn't do it justice. Nevertheless, it went smoothly except for saying that that God was happy that he joined his (the baptizee) church. I meant to say that God was happy he was joining His (God's) church. Bah, semantics.

 

Last night was the baptism for someone that I taught with Elder Sawyer. When I got transferred, she was on date to get baptized. Even though the baptism wasn't 'statistically' mine, I was super happy to see her make that step of faith and was happy to have been a part in teaching her. She has overcome many trials and her life and is an example for everyone. That was the most stressful baptism I've ever been to though. Elder Lanier, Sawyer, Valdez and I all ate dinner out in the Foothills that night (yesterday). The baptism was scheduled for 6pm and we left dinner at 4:45 (my goodness the best dinner I've had on my mission. I don't even know what it was but it was delicious). They (Lanier and Sawyer) still had to fill the font (~40 mins), print the programs,get the baptismal suits from our car, and set up the room. Well, we didn't get back to Yuma until 5:25. We split up and we helped them prepare by printing off the programs (which was clearly rushed since they even spelled their own names wrong - we fixed that) and getting the baptismal suits. The baptism didn't start until 6:25, late as usual for our spanish branch haha. Anyway, I told Elder Sawyer to be careful with the hot water and I guess he overcompensated. The water was ice cold. The woman he baptized took like 5 minutes to get into the font. After the baptism, they realized the woman's locker room door was locked and no one had the key. People were bristly walking in and out of the room trying to find the key and it was, well, stressful. Ater 10 minutes they found a key and let her into the locker room to change haha. Wasn't even my baptism and I was stessed out. But that's ok because once she finished changing and came out we ( the 6 missionaries) sang a cool rendition of Nearer my God to Thee. We're probably going to be doing that at every baptism from now on. It was pretty powerful.

 

We taught a lot of lessons this week. 28. Unfortunately, only 7 of those were with members present so I'm not too pleased.

 

And that was because we broke our phone 4 days ago. We were sitting in a members car and the phone slipped out of a pocket and, wouldn't you know it, fell straight into a cup of something. He grabbed it quickly and took the battery out and we let it sit in rice overnight but it was already dead. So for 4 days we've been struggling to do everything. It was especially stressful to plan and figure out baptismal details without a phone. How did old missionaries do it?...

 

I forgot my scriptures at an investigators house this week. While we were walking around the corner, I heard a little kid scream, "HEY WAIT." I turned around and saw him running with my giant scriptures in hand haha. That would have been bad.

 

We baptized someone who lives in San Luis this week (~30 miles away). For 2 days we had tried to find someone to come with us to a lesson and give us a ride and no one could. On a whim we called someone who we knew was very busy. He has a large family and works 80+ hours a week. As soon as we asked him he said, "Of course, let me move my schedule around." Man, that man has a testimony of prioritizing the Lord. It was humbling to see him take 2.5 hours (trip there, lesson, and trip back) out of his very busy day and help us. The lesson was amazing and the spirit was very very strong. Despite it being 50 degrees, we all felt warm that afternoon. He gave a great talk at the baptism too. Something he said that I really liked was, "We live in a world of darkness...but it doesn't have to be dark for you. The light of Christ shines brighter than ever." Amazing experience.

 

This week during personal study, I had a moment of realization. It finally hit me how much sense everything makes in the gospel. Everything just...works. Surely something so perfect can't be incorrect. I don't remember when or why it hit me but it did.

 

One of the most common things we here down here is, "It's all the same God, why does it matter how you worship? I do it in my own way." I was flipping through the Old Testament this week and found a pretty great scripture.  8 ¶For my ^athoughts are not ^byour thoughts, neither are your ^cways my ^dways, saith the Lord.
 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ^aways ^bhigher than your ways, and my ^cthoughts than your thoughts.
Sometimes we don't understand why we have to do something but we need to remember that there's someone who knows better than all of us.

We went to a Tamale festival this week haha. Down in Sommerton (~15 mins from border) they threw a giant party and advertised it for weeks. Since we cover that English area we went down there to see it and see some former investigators. It was a massive dissapointment. $2 for a Tamale "pass" and then $2 per tamale. Psh! There were well over 2,000 people there though. We left empty handed but ran into some snowbirds from Utah who bought us a big bag of them haha. Only in Yuma would there be a party centered around Tamales.

 

I got our family Christmas card this week. There are two ways you can tell Mark made it: 1) He used the picture I told him not to, 2) He made himself look taller than me haha. Just wait, I'll come back 6'11" and show you who's boss.

 

We were in our sketchy part of Yuma last night talking to people at around 8:30pm and we pulled over and started to get out. Someone walked past the car and looked into it. When we opened the doors, he jumped and quickly walked away. The person we were going to visit was the same way he was walking so we went that way. He was terrified that we were cops haha. He then decided to walk into house...which just happened to be the house we were going to. The look on his face was priceless when we said Hi and then when we said we were missionaries. I think we'd get to talk to more people if we weren't wearing white shirts and ties. Then we wouldn't be thought of as cops.

 

We are focusing this week on working with referrals from members. The other day, we were driving behind a member who was going to work. On a whim, while he was driving, he stuck his hand out the window and pointed to a house. We pulled over to the house while he drove away. The family told us to come back another time which we did last week. Turns out the family of 3 have LDS parents but aren't members and the daughter (12) wants to get baptized. Sometimes we don't know who is ready for the gospel, so why try to determine who we think is ready when in reality we don't know who is? The gospel is something that blesses everyones lives. Let it!

 

Thanks Mom, Dad, and Natalia for the letters this week. I'll respond tomorrow on the car trip to Tempe.

 

We get to go to the temple tomorrow! Never been so excited haha. Just hope I get better by then. Last two days have been pretty flu-y.

 

How is the range in the temperature so huge in deserts? 120 during the summer days, 30s during winter nights.

Why does, at the end of the Old Testament, it say, "the end of the prophets?"

 

Merry Christmas, love you all,

Elder Johnson