3 March 2014

New address! Who will be the first one to write me?!? 7611 S 36th St #214, Phoenix AZ 85042

There must be a God because I'm back with Elder Myler!! We are so excited to be together again and we've had so much fun already! And we're in South Phoenix, baby! The crack capitol of the USA a few years ago and home to what we lovingly call the Phoenix Zombies! 

We had done the "math" right before transfer meeting and figured out that we would probably be together. So we went to work and started planning what we would do when President Toone read our names and that we'd be companions. 

The normal procedure goes like this, "And in Phoenix South 11, Elders ____ and _____" The missionaries then get up and go hug, sometimes with lots of excitement, sometimes with less haha. 

We wanted to leave a mark. So we played baseball. How?

When President Toone said, "Elder Myler and Elder Johnson," neither of us stood up. Instead, Elder Diaz stood and pitched an imaginary ball at an Elder who swung an imaginary bat. Someone else yelled, "FLY BALL!" 

That was our queue. We were sitting on opposite ends of the room and stood up when we heard that. We stared at the ceiling looking at the imaginary ball and ran to the back of the room with our hands in imaginary mits and then ran into each other. After recovering from the "shock" we "noticed" that we were companions, got excited, and ran back to our seat.

It was the most memorable one of the day. 

Elder Myler is the THIRD companion that I have had twice haha. I've never heard of that happening before more than once! 

We talked a lot about the area. Elder Myler believes it has been under-performing and in the four days that we were together in the past week we already set an area record. The future is exciting! We are both on the same page for everything and it's AWESOME!

South Phoenix is completely different than Mesa. Whereas Mesa was poor, South Phoenix is destitute. It has everything that comes with a poverty-stricken city: drugs, violence, gangs, and intense minority groups. Things are rough down here but I LOVE it. My second day gave me the taste for what South Phoenix would be like:

The ward that we serve in, just a Spanish ward, is amazing. It is very organized (DREAMS DO COME TRUE), the members share the gospel on their own, the Bishop is excited, the ward mission leader is amazing, and great things are happening already! The members have very...unique...pasts but that's ok, all that matters is the future! They're converted and are converting many! Retention is at 80% for the first year - probably the highest that I've seen in any ward. 

There are 18 missionaries in the zone including us, a fraction of the 30 that we had in Mesa. I was sad to see Mesa go but I was excited to be able to serve in a zone so small. There is a family atmosphere here. 14 of the missionaries here are Spanish speaking.

We have a 2014 Toyota Corolla. We picked it up with 30 miles on it. It has a backup camera?! Hahahaha. And no tiwi :D

Within my first two days here I had an experience that has changed my life and has changed my mission. We were at the church waiting for our member to show up to take us to some lessons and the Sister Training Leaders (STLs) called us with an emergency. They were alone at a different church building at 7"30pm when a man ran up to the locked door and started pounding on it while screaming, "I NEED TO GET SAVED, LET ME IN!" 

After a few minutes, he fell onto his knees in tears and the sisters talked to him through the door. They called us and we floored it over. 

When we got there they were talking to him outside. He was a meth addict and has been haunted and tortured by "the devil and evil spirits." He was 20 years old and clearly had been through hell in his life. He had piercings. We took him inside the church and into the chapel, sat him down, and told him his life wasn't going anywhere. He told us some of his recent experiences, which were shocking, and told us that he was willing to give anything up to have peace. He was desperate, depressed, lost, and confused. 

We gave him a priesthood blessing and he immediately calmed down. It was night and day. His voice level softened, his countenance changed, and he recognized that he was a child of God.

That was humbling in and of itself.

He told us that he had been clean for 11 days. He was so proud of that. And you know what? I was proud of him for that. 11 days is not very long but that was all the hope that he had. In his eyes, he was winning! And in mine he was too.

As Elder Myler and I got in the car to drive back, we reflected quietly on that experience. This kid was my exact age but our lives were going in completely different directions. 

I could have been (name changed) "James." I could have been a meth addict, running around alone at night being haunted by personal demons. I could have had his life.

But thanks to everyone that preceded me, I am not. I am serving a mission for James. He is my purpose. I am out here going through what we do everyday for James' everywhere. I am serving a mission so that James' children don't have to experience what he did. I am serving a mission so that James can trust himself, can believe in himself, and can believe that his future is as bright as he wants it to be. I am serving a mission to say thank you to my ancestors for helping me be who I am today. This isn't for me; it is for all of them. But what it has done for me is inspiring.

I would do anything for any 'James,' because I've seen James' change. And it's the best thing ever.

That experience was so intensely profound that it has changed the way I approach everything. I wake up at 6:30, exhausted beyond belief, for James. I work hard all day everyday for James.

And it is all worth it. Every. Single. Second. 

James has changed my life. There are few other single moments in my entire life that have impacted me as much as 'James' did in that moment.

Yesterday was the Gilbert Temple dedication. It was a special experience. It was a little strange hearing such loud sounds inside the celestial room, but whatever! President Monson strangely didn't look very happy. 

I found my apostate great great great (etc) grandpa in the Doctrine in Covenants! D&C 132:124! Alpheus Cutler!

We had a cool experience this last week in a meeting with the DLs and STLs of the zone. We met together to discuss the needs and make a training plan for the month. It was exciting to see everything come together as we refined ideas and made plans. That's the coolest thing to experience.

This past week was Mission Leadership Council (MLC). I love MLC. I learn so much at MLC every single time.

However this time President Toone thew a curve ball. President Eyring, when he gave President Toone his final interview, commissioned him to teach the missionaries of the Arizona Tempe Mission how councils in the Lord's Church work. So that is what we have been doing.

But at MLC we counciled in a different way. We did a mock High Council disciplinary meeting. It was intense, terrifying, and inspiring. I've never felt the way I did when being involved in that practice. It was agonizingly sad and unbelievably peaceful at the same time. Weird combination. I won't go into the specifics for what we "role played" but I had never felt what I did before. 

At MLC, President Toone also spoke to the missionaries that replaced Elder Diaz and I in Mesa in front of the whole group of 40 of us. He said that we were all there to support them as they replaced Elder Johnson and Elder Diaz in Mesa, "a zone that was run marvelously and magnificently." That was a nice moment. 

On Saturday night, contrary to previous instruction, President Toone invited all the missionaries to watch the Gilbert Temple Cultural Celebration video. It was hilarious. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time and I *think* that the humor was planned. It was also very well done and ran smoothly, despite the massive rainstorm. That was the first time it had rained in months. I honestly can count on one hand how many times it has rained in the last six months. 

Thanks for the letters Susie and Family! 

Miracles are going to happen here! I'm so excited to be here in South Phoenix and even more excited to be here with Elder Myler! #ComoSeDiceANDALEPUES

Thank you all for your continued support! Be sure to like and share my posts on Facebook so that more people can see them! 

Con mucho amor,

Elder Johnson

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

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!