12 May 2014

THERE IS NOTHING MORE DISGUSTING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THAN BED BUGS.

Good thing they haven't found my bed yet. Poor Elder Myler is getting eaten alive. We tore the house apart this morning and somehow did not find them. Three apartments in the Phoenix South zone are infested now.

...South Phoenix is under attack! 

This was a week of success on Facebook. I committed two people to get baptized in Africa, sent three referrals to local missions, two were contacted, two have a Book of Mormon, two are reading it, and one is meeting with missionaries later in the week.

The people of Africa are prepared.

This past week I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Nelson  He, totally by chance, was traveling through the Arlington 2 ward when I gave my farewell talk. He entered the field six weeks after me and is a wonderful missionary. We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of success in those few 24 hours. He will be living in the same apartment building as Elder Myler and I and we hope the three of us are in the same ward! 

This week was also a week of continued miracles in the South Phoenix zone. Things are exploding. We've seen our average lessons double for two weeks straight now. This week was particularly exciting as the success was spread very evenly across the entire zone. Every Sunday night we meet at 8:30 to report stats and send them to SLC (via wifi sync) and it was so exciting to watch companionship walk through the door at random intervals and shout for joy as they reached a goal they set and run around and give everyone high fives. There is a special family feeling in this zone right now that is drawing everyone together. It's amazing how happiness is the best medicine for anything. 

With that success so evenly spread, we often wonder what makes it so hard to put people on date in our own area. We've never done more than we are now but the people just aren't saying yes to the invitations. We extend invitations literally in every single lesson. But joy is abundant in the face of opposition because this is the Lord's work and we know who wins at the end of the day.

Montana del Sur is a ward that never ceases to amaze me. The Bishop has been a member for 16 years, three of which in the Mission Presidency and three of which as a Bishop. He is a saint of a man and a living example of love, consecration, and service. Nothing makes us happier than when we get a call during the week from Bishop saying, "Elders...I've been thinking and praying about _____ (investigator.) How is he/she? How can I help?"

This ward has the missionary spirit because the Bishop has the missionary spirit. It's amazing!

The temperature has been uncharacteristically nice in Phoenix this past week.

One of the things that never gets old about missionary work is talking to the most interesting people. This past week we visited a home that was listed on the membership list. As we got closer three men approached us, obviously drunk, and when we asked if a woman lived there they said, slurred voice and all, "SHE'S DEAD..." Ok..."Wait, she lives down there, by that red truck!" 

We thanked them and walked away.

There was no red truck on the entire street. There was a red bush.

Alcohol...

DID I MENTIONED THAT WE HAVE BED BUGS?!?!?

On Friday afternoon during my spanish study I finished my reading of the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It took me 10 months to read the first 100 pages and two months to read the last 500 haha. I guess I wasn't really trying for those first 100. 

That book is true! Before I read it I would pray. After I read it I would pray. And every time I read it I knew that it was true. Read it. It will change your life! Reading it has brought me closer to God and has helped me make even the smallest of decisions. I set a goal to finish it in a certain amount of time and I made it. It was an enlightening experience. I'm currently reading through the New Testament and set a goal of four weeks to read the entire thing. The scriptures are the best.

Spanish wards are exciting in ways that English wards can never be. For the Mothers day party on Saturday the ward had a dinner that was prepared entirely by the men. Guess what we ate? Spaghetti with meat sauce and salad haha. Then there was a night of talents. The Elders Quorum did the best mariachi that I have ever seen. Except none of them sang or played an instrument. They made instruments out of cardboard and danced to Mariachi music and pretended to sing and play it. It was absolutely the funniest thing that I have ever seen before. They did a great job and it made everyone laugh. 

Next week I'll have the pictures.

There's just a different air in Spanish wards. In the face of so many trials there is so much joy! True joy comes from faith.

Happy Mothers day Mom! It was fun to Skype home yesterday and talk to you. Did my letter get to you this week? Thank you for everything you have done for me! You'll find more in that letter :)

I have had the best timing to go on a mission ever. In the past two years: missionary age has changed, my mission has been split, I've experienced two mission presidents (each for a year), online proselyting has rolled out, we have received iPads, AreaBooks have gone electronic, a temple open house has happened. Can you imagine more exciting things happening!?!? 

Yesterday at church I saw something very unique. I saw a family of 5 Muslims walk through the door and sit down! I went over and introduced myself and quickly learned that they came with their friend, a retired Air Force officer. He had served for years in Iraq and this man was his translator. I don't know how much detail I should go into for safety reasons but it was an amazing experience to meet this humble, humble family. I tried to shake his wife's hand and was politely denied: Muslim women do not shake hands of foreigners. They were very scared that they would offend me with that. They are an angelic family.

The man that brought them was sent by the First Presidency to be the first mission president in Afghanistan. He organized the church there, was the first branch/mission president,, baptized the first convert in Afghanistan. During his service he had zero proselyting missionaries with which to work. And do you know what is cool? I'M TEACHING PEOPLE IN AFGHANISTAN OVER FACEBOOK! 

Good things are happening. Next week is transfers. If you would like to send a letter (which you should) and cannot do so by Thursday, you will have better luck sending it to the Mission Office. I hope and pray that Elder Myler and I stay together. This is our last transfer. If this was ever likely to happen, the timing is perfect for it now. I'm going to remind the Office that we have bed bugs and we wouldn't want to spread them around the mission with a transfer :)

Have a fantastic week!

Love,

EJ

5 May 2014

A lot of crazy things happened this past week. Why don't we start with Tuesday?

The Tuesday following MLC is always "zone meeting," meaning that we train, not the district leaders. Prayerfully, we chose to discuss goals and goal achieving as our topic. The Sister Training Leaders (STLs) trained on goals that are wishful thinking and faith-filled goals. We followed up with how prayer is involved.

There is a lot of power in prayer. One of our wishes was that every missionary serving in the Phoenix South zone would leave that meeting with an increased desire to pray for specific goals and then pray to achieve them. 

We switched things up a bit and put the chairs in a giant circle and gave some time so that missionaries could share experiences that they had had with setting goals, in whatever sense, and achieving them. We heard some great stories about scholastic goals, music, scouting, sporting and more. All of the success came as the people did everything they could, consistently, to hit the goal they had set.

And then one missionary shared the best story I have ever heard. His story was about how he had become the best at Call of Duty. It was the funniest 5 minutes of my life because he was completely serious. He ended by saying, "And then I did it. I did what no one else had done! I unlocked the gold UMP! My eyes literally teared up. I paused my game. I turned off my PS3. And I went to school so proud of myself! But no one cared! And then I decided that there was more to life than games!"

Hahahahahahah I wish I could give it just a little bit of justice to how wonderful the story was. Everyone was dying. It was the perfect story. The missionary who told it is one of my favorite people in the world.

At the end of our zone meeting we had every missionary split up into their companionships, go somewhere in the church, and pray together about very specific things. There was a very special spirit as we left that day.

And since then the miracles have come. We doubled our stats last week. Doubled! Amazing miracles happened with people coming out of nowhere to get baptized, surgery dates being changed so that baptismal dates could be moved up, and many more mighty miracles (that's a lot of Ms). God is a God of miracles and if you don' t believe it, ask Him! 

People are interesting. We met a young girl this week who told us to come back later to talk to her parents. So, when later came around, we went back. We knocked on the door and she opened it with a big smile on her face. She was probably 9. From the back of the house we heard, "SHUT THE DOOR! WE'RE NOT INTERESTED, WE'RE CATHOLIC!" The girl innocently said back, "I'm not catholic!" Quickly the mother said, "SHUT THE DOOR."

95% of the "Catholics" we meet don't even know what Jesus did during His life. We know those are the ones baptized as babies who never ever went to church. The other 5% are my favorite ones: the ones who know and practice what they believe. If you're going to use something as an excuse, at least believe your excuse.

This past week we had interviews with President Toone. But they weren't normal interviews. They had a meeting with Elder Bednar this past weekend and were committed to getting the information to us as quickly as possible. So, instead of one on one interviews, we met and learned from President Toone. As part of that meeting, we were asked to give a training as well. More details on that to come.

The meeting with President Toone was amazing. I'm going to write some quotes. These come from Elder Bednar.

-"Successful missions can be measured by how active the grandkids are."

-For you to think about: What is it about missions that make them so powerful in conversion?

-"Talk to your missionaries about their memories from primary or young mens. What was their motivation to do something? Normally a treat. We have failed our children in helping them do things for the wrong reasons. Doing things because you get something is not the right reason. As missionaries, we need to act because it is what we are supposed to do, not because something is being offered. Our testimony of acting for the right reasons will bless us for the rest of our lives. 

-"Act, do not be acted upon."

The way that missionaries are called has changed.

This is the new method:

1) Three or four Apostles go, all together, every Friday, to process 200-300 new missionary calls each week.

--The set up is different. Each Apostle sits across from two screens. Sitting by him is a member of the Missionary Department.

--Each Apostle comes to this meeting while fasting and praying.

2) Picture of missionary comes on screen. Apostle asks questions while reading his background information. The representative from the missionary department responds as if he were the missionary. A small conversation is had. It is an interview [based on the information submitted by the missionary].

3) Then the Apostle says at a random point, "Show me a picture of President ___ from the ___ Mission."

--A picture of said mission president appears on other screen

4) The Apostle considers the Mission President. 

--"What do you have to offer Elder ___, President ___?"

--Another small "interview" is had.

--The relationship between the mission president and the missionary is now as important as the missionary and the mission.

5) The Apostle seeks for a confirmation on every single instance that the mission and the mission president are right for the missionary

Intimate evaluations are done with not only where the missionary serves but also with whom. Companions included.

"There is no mistake when Elder ___ is assigned to the __ mission with President ___. There is a reason a missionary is called somewhere, gets sick, and is reassigned elsewhere."

Amazing, right?

I had planned to go into a lot of detail about a devastating thing that happened to one of our investigators. It involves permission from a spouse but there is much more involved. I've been reflecting a lot about this topic this week. But I just want to ask one question to everyone who is reading this: What are you doing right now that is impeding the [spiritual] progress of someone near to you? Now why don't you stop? 

It was the saddest moment I've had in many months

As part of our training we also taught about the importance of fast offerings and raising the level of our fasts. Fasting isn't just going without food. It is a process of delicate preparation and then persistent prayer. And it works. We challenged all of the missionaries, under direction of President Toone, to donate fast offerings and fast with more intent.

It worked. Miracles? A less active family came to church for the first time in a year, a part member family did for the first time in months, and a family we're teaching managed to come! In a different companionship, a boy decided to get baptized in two weeks! 

I've never fasted without miracles. They're everywhere! 

Anyway, I need to run now! Thanks for the letters family! 

Have a great week and HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! 

Love,

Elder Johnson