May 26, 2014

Have you ever wondered what it is like to almost die?

I'll tell you.

Mexicans here love dogs. All dogs. Maybe it's a $5,000 pit bull. Maybe it's a $0.10 Chihuahua. Whatever it is, they have it. 

This last week we went to visit the house that has the dog that almost killed Elder Myler a few weeks back. Bad idea. As Elder Myler and I (on our last day as companions) pulled up to the home, I noticed something was wrong...

But what was it?

As I looked closer I could see the evil German shepherd lurking behind the fence. And then I saw it! The gate was open just a crack! I knew that if it got up and ran for the gate before I could close it we would die. And this guy was important enough to risk it! So I slowly got out of the drivers seat and asked Elder Myler to grab a rock.

But in my excitement I did not wait for him to be behind me.

I slowly approached the fence...

Stared the dog down...

and then it was up! Around the corner of the house came running the other dog: a huskie! I sprinted for the gate, the dogs sprinted for the gate, and we met in a clash of life and death at the gate! 

I put my hand out to push it closed right as the German shepherd jumped it with its mouth open. It beat me to the gate! The gate flew open. 

Not knowing what else to do I kicked my leg out and hit the gate with my foot, closing it again and almost squishing the German shepherd at the same time. I kept it closed with my foot as the dog stood up, probably 5 feet tall on its feet with front paws on the gate, barking at me.

I was sure I was dead.

AND THE GUY WASN'T EVEN HOME.

When we started to drive the car away I had to pull over and pause for a second. That was one of the scariest moments of my life haha.

That's a true story.

I got an amazing letter this week from one of the families that I baptized in Mesa. In it they talked about their recent trips to the Mesa temple to do baptisms, their plan to get sealed in January, and a progress report on callings and other things that are going on. It made my day to get that! 

I thought my week could not be any better after that. 

And then transfer day came.

I was heartbroken to learn that Elder Myler would be leaving. He got sent to Yuma in a pretty hard situation. I've been praying for him. 

I learned that coming to Mesa would be Elder Sylvester! He is almost identical to Elder Harder. And we are almost in the same situation. When I was called to be a zone leader last July, Elder Harder was in his last six weeks and taught me the ropes. I had been out a year. Well, Elder Sylvester has been out for a year and I'm in my last six weeks. They have the same mannerisms and the same way of speaking, the same interests, and many other similarities! We already teach really well together because, well, I've already had him for six weeks (as Elder Harder!)

We're having a lot of fun. He's a great missionary with great intentions. And he speaks Spanish suuuper well! 

But transfer meeting got even better when I heard a missionary say, "Elder Johnson, someone from Yuma is outside waiting for you!" 

What? for me? from Yuma? Do they even remember me? It has been two years! I had no idea who it could be.

I walked outside and heard a man yell for me...

I recognized that voice...

I got a little feeling of what heaven feels like when I turned around and saw the very first person that I baptized! He was heading my way and we met up and gave each other a big hug. He was in tears as he told me how grateful he was for everything we did for him. He continued on about how much better his life has been in the last two years.

I can honestly say that I have never felt so happy in my life.

And then he made me even happier. He said, "In the last two years I have baptized my mom, my dad, my aunt, my uncle, and my sister!" He is very active in the branch and has had leadership callings down there. You'll recognize the face in the attached picture if you scroll back on my blog to last November :) :) :) :)

What a great moment that was. I have not seen him in two years.

Words cannot describe the joy that I felt in that moment. And now he's baptizing everyone down there! 

Before transfer meeting, President Toone called us into his office to tell us about the upcoming transfer. He told Elder Myler about his assignment and me about mine. And then he said, "You two need to know how I feel about you..." The next few minutes were very humbling to know how much President Toone loves and trusts us. He did not want to split us up.

That man has changed my life.

As we were walking out I looked back and said, "I'd love to see the transfer board before I die, President!" (Die is slang we use for finishing the mission.) 

He said, "Close the door," with a smile on his face. What?! Transfer meeting hadn't even happened yet! It was the fulfillment of 23 months of imagination.

He walked us through each aspect: why some pictures were sideways, what colors meant, etc etc. 

I'm approaching the one year mark of serving with Elder Hardy! He was "born" into Mesa when I got transferred there. We have been together ever since. He's a wonderful missionary.

This last weekend was the first part of our mission fast. It will continue next weekend. At transfer meeting, President introduced to the rest of the mission the plan he had to fast as a mission so that every companionship could baptize this transfer. In each zone, we are to assign each companionship another companionship that they will pray and fast for so they can achieve that. For example, we are praying and fasting for some sisters and they're doing the same for us etc etc. We're already seeing the miracles come in.

For example, Phoenix South zone led the mission in almost every single statistic this last week. A few months ago it was second to last. 

We heard amazing stories yesterday of people showing up to church and asking to be baptized the next week, of the First Presidency giving two men in our stake permission to be baptized less than a month from when the letter of recommendation was sent (unheard of) and even more amazing things! 

I have never fasted without a miracle. Never. Not once. 

Miracles happen. Every. Single. Day.

Let one happen in your life! You need to ask for it! 

I was able to go back to Mesa this past weekend to watch one of my recent converts (from December) baptize the rest of his family :) He did amazing.

I was OVERJOYED that 3/4 of my recent converts from Mesa have gone to the temple to do baptisms. That made me so happy! 

There were 16 missionaries at the baptismal service. President Toone called us beforehand, upset, and asked what we should do about it. There will be a policy change in the future because half of those missionaries didn't ask to go until the day before or day of. I asked a month ago! But the new policy is no going back to old areas for baptisms. 16 missionaries is way too many at one baptismal service! 

Well, the miracles continue! I'm feeling really good. We're working hard. I've prepared 23 months for these last six weeks - I'm ready to make them my best yet! 

Thanks for the letters!

Love you all,

Elder Johnson

10 February 2014

Compromise and adaptation are always good. This week we are helping our ward and stake and mission make some adjustments.

We'll start with the Gilbert Temple Open House. The missionary aspect of it (which isn't supposed to be called that but whatever) is not run well. The tent that people go in and are supposed to visit afterwards to sign a comment card is out of the way and the sister missionaries who aren't allowed to proselyte stand at the entrance and talk to each other. 

We were expecting referrals everyday from the open house. In our companionship we haven't gotten a single one yet. The zone has received six in three weeks.

So we made some phone calls to the committee chair and talked to him about making it more productive. The missionaries are under strict instruction not to proselyte. But the ushers are not. We threw around the idea to have the ushers standing by the exit of the temple and the entrance of the tent to invite people in.

They called us later and said they would make the change but that was the extent to which they could go. The church does not want people to feel pressured with the open house. That's probably why Elders aren't invited- we'd baptize too many people :)

This last week reaffirmed why I love the Latino culture. We had a meeting in a member's home with a part member family that we are teaching. I asked them all to consider a miracle that they have seen in the last 24 hours. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes and the wife said, "I wake up breathing everyday."

The way she said it was so sincere. I think their culture is so much more aware of the small things that they have been blessed with. I love it. 

Gringos...

I broke the churches new referral website this last week. I told you how a couple of minutes ago I accessed it when I wasn't supposed to and got five missed phone calls from SLC. Well, they gave me the go ahead to try it out for a while. This last week I figured out how to break into the global referral pool, giving me access to every single mission and area's referral pool! Woops!

I called them and let them know. They thanked me and got right on fixing it. I suppose they haven't found the fix yet since the website has been down for two days. 

While skimming through the list of referrals in the DC South mission I found someone that I knew from high school! How cool!!

I had a really cool experience with planting seeds a while back. At our last mission-wide meeting two missionaries from Yuma came up to me and said: 

"Did you serve in Yuma?"

"Yes! Six months of heaven!"

"Guess what? We got a phone call this last week from a random guy in Yuma who had found a pass-along card in his couch with Elder Sawyer and Elder Johnson written on it!"

Pause. Elder Sawyer was my trainer and we were together 19 months ago. And this guy just found the card.

So, never lose hope when something you do doesn't work instantly! This man stumbled upon something I gave him almost two years ago and he is only now ready to act! 

How cool!

We got dropped by three people this past week :( One of them moved, another got anti'd, and another got evicted.

Ok, returning to my "thesis" statement of this letter, things are changing.

For the better.

I went on exchanges this past week with the APs and to their ward. I left in awe. Their ward has the following organization (see picture)

The paper is a rough draft of our plan but it is basically the same.

The idea is to split the load and reduce the burden that the ward council has. The ward mission can do everything they do and more. The ward in Tempe has 40 ward missionaries. Each sub-committee is in charge of things like baptismal programs, teaching, fellowshipping, temple trips, invitations to activities, activity planning, etc.

It is genius. It is inspiring. And we're going to make it work here!

We're working on selling it to the bishops right now. They are correct when they say, "We are undermanned right now!"

You know what? You will always be undermanned until you baptize more people. I've been thinking about the story of the St. Thomas branch in Canada that baptized the architect, plumber, etc to build their church. I have enough faith for that.

"If missionary work is the number #1 priority, everything else will come." - the Bishop of that ward in Tempe. Member conversion deepens, members have missionary opportunities, ward members are involved, retention increases, and ward efficiency increases.

I'm willing to sacrifice to make it happen and I hope that our wards will be too! Every transfer the work stalls because of transfers. With this system in place, that will not happen because the ward, as they're supposed to, will be leading the efforts.

Good things happen to those who adapt. Success comes to those who compromise.

Anyway, I appreciate all of your support!

Love, Elder Johnson

4 November 2013

This is going to be a quickly typed letter. President Toone has asked me to do another write up on the mission's facebook page about some things...

A few weeks ago I sat down with President Toone and he asked me to be the technology specialist. "I'm asking you to do something but I don't know what I'm asking you to do," is what he said. I said ok, left the room, and nothing happened. Facebook had just gone mission-wide and I was getting so many ideas I didn't know what to do with them. He told me that all these ideas I presented to him were answers to his prayers. That was humbling. This past Monday night at MLC he made the assignment official. 

And with that assignment the week became un poco loco. 

This was a crazy week. No, this was a hectic week. No, this was an insane week!

Why?

Because iPads went mission-wide. 205 iPad minis arrived in the mission on Sunday night. The church got a killer discount from Apple. 

2%.

On Monday from 5pm-9pm we had a mission leadership council meeting (MLC) where we talked about the needs of the mission. On Tuesday from 8am-12am we had a special training for the MLC about how to use the iPads. Lee Donaldson, Director of Proselyting, came as well as the other leaders to introduce the technology and how to use it. From 1pm-4pm, three zones gathered, including ours, to receive the iPads and the training. 

 

 

 

President Toone and Lee Donaldson asked me to be present at all the meetings. After the first day, Lee Donaldson came over to me, pulled me aside, and said, "Do you think you could do all of this?" At first it sounded like a job offer hahaha. He continued and said, "Can you replace all of us and do these trainings? We don't feel we need to be here since you can do this for us."

And so they all left. 

They left me in charge of the training on how to enroll the devices in the program, how to train on the AreaBook app, and so forth. They downloaded the presentations onto a flash drive for me and said adios. 

All day on Tuesday we were doing trainings.

All day on Wednesday we were doing trainings,

All day on Thursday we were doing trainings.

I've never spoken so much in my life. The phone has never rung so much in my entire life. Missionaries from every zone and area have been calling us with questions. 

On Thursday morning we woke up at 5am to prepare to go to Casa Grande and Yuma. We were at the mission office at 6am preparing the car with 80+ iPads, four routers, a 100 foot long ethernet cable, a projector, laptop, and dozens of other materials. 

At 6:15 we realized we had lost the 70$ cable that connected the iPad to the projector. The cable was one that the SLC reps had given to me and said, "send this and the routers back to use in a month." The presentation would be very difficult without it.

President Toone gave us his credit card and sent us to Walmart to buy a new one. Yesterday we found the old one and sent it back to SLC today.

At 8:00am we arrived in Casa Grande. There wasn't enough bandwidth and the internet was super slooow.

At 1:00pm we left to Yuma. At 4:00pm we arrived. 

President Toone surprised us and the APs by putting us up in a hotel for the night. It. Was. Awesome. It was also the first time in 16 months I had been on an elevator! That was the best night sleep I've had in my entire mission.

The training in Yuma went smoothly. 

I was fortunate enough to run into someone I had taught months ago in Yuma. When I had left something big had happened in his life and it didn't look like baptism would happen soon. Well in Yuma last week he told me that he had married a member and had been baptized. It was heartwarming and made the trip 5x better.

The drive there and back was a nostalgic experience. 

We spent the night in the hotel, woke up at 4:50 the next morning, took pictures by the California state line, and started our journey back to Mesa. We arrived 1 minute before our Friday morning planning meeting started.

So yeah. Hectic week. Less than 12 hours of sleep in two days and each of those days was over 17 hours long. 

I was reflecting on how cool this experience was the other day. It was one of the highlights of my mission. I got to train alongside the director of proselyting, someone who I have deep respect for. He was the Mission President in the District 2 videos and apparently a close friend of Grandpa and Grandma Johnson! He made a nice comment about them to me.

We also had the opportunity to go to dinner with President and Sister Toone and the assistants. That was a very special experience.

The vision of the AreaBook app is amazing. The ward mission leader and bishop will have access to the app and the missionary's planner. He will be able to make plans for them. All information will be streamlined and clearly visible. A progress report will be generated automatically and submitted to ward leaders. 

We are already seeing miracles from the AreaBook. The sisters were putting in a former investigator from long ago and felt inspired to call him. He wanted to meet immediately. He is now on date for baptism. We found two new investigators in the home where one of our former investigators used to live but recently moved from. We never would have found them without looking at that sheet and digitizing the data.

Miracles. Miracles everywhere.

At church we only had one person we are teaching there. A decline from eight or so the week before. Not surprising since we barely worked our area this week. But he loved church. He got up and bore his testimony. He's from Kenya and everyone loves his accent. He offered one of the most powerful prayers I've heard in my entire life and we walked out of the lesson shell-shocked. BAM.

10 September 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I caught the 3:10 to Yuma!more on that in a bit, though.

Two things: I don't speak Spanish and it is really hot.

My Address:
Elder Paul Johnson
1600 W 12th Street
#3422
Yuma, AZ 85365

What a crazy few days it has been! Left the MTC at 5am, plane left at 8, and landed at 10. On the plane, I fell asleep for the first ~20 or so minutes then woke up to find Elder Jacobsen talking to the guy next to him. I was in the aisle. The guy, named Mark, was a grad student at ASU studying communications. I butted into the conversation and we had a great discussion about communication, our plans for the future, and what missions are. It was a very relaxed conversation and flowed well.

Once we landed, we were quickly scurried up by the mission presidents, assistants, and his wife. We all somehow squished into two MAVs (Mormon Assault Vehicles - long vans) and went on our way towards the mission home. Luckily, it was only a 20 minute drive. Once there, we unpacked some things and threw it into a room in the Church. We had a short brunch where we got to meet people and talked for a bit. They split us up into two groups: one that went and OYM'd (Open Your Mouth, contacting random people on the street) and one that was interviewed and did a short orientation. We were in that second group. Interviews were nice and short. After that, Elder Myler and I were dropped in a random trailer park and told to go pass out some copies of the Book of Mormon and talk to people -- in Spanish. We were still companions because we had not received our companions for the field yet. We walked around and talked to some people. Our first contact...words cannot describe how bad it was. We walked up to a woman cutting Cactus for dinner and tried to talk. Words didn't really come out. She just sat there laughing. It was way too awkward. We opened to a scripture, gave her the book, and just left. After that, they slowly got better.

The rest of the day were meetings with the staff and whatnot. We had dinner at a members house, taco salad, and then we dispersed to spend the night with a member. We all stayed in the Tempe area. The one who Elders Jacobsen, Myler, and I stayed at were awesome and very welcoming. We talked a bit and then fell asleep at 8. It had been a long day. Since they did not tell us where we were going or who our new companions were, we were all dying that night. The next day was the day!

We woke up at 5:45 to get ready and then left to the church to have the transfer meeting at 7:15. Once there, we talked a bit with the misison president and his wife about things I can't remember but were doubtlessly important. You could sense the excitement in the room. They moved us into the chapel after 2 hours of meetings to meet our trainers and learn where we were going. When we walked in, all the trainers (companions that help introduce new missionaries to the area) were sitting on the far left side of the room. We were told to sit on the far right. One by one, President Howes, the mission president, read off a name of the trainer, a name of the trainee (us), and the area they would be serving. Lets see if I can remember: Elder Jacobsen is in Skyline, Elder Myler is in Chandler, and... I can't remember where the Hermanas are. Woops. They read everyone's name off and eventually I was sitting by myself on the right. They had saved me for last. I was dying, but, naturally kept a cool face, yo. I heard my name, my trainers name (Elder Sawyer, 16 months in, form Meridian, ID), and then Yuma! I had been saying that if there was one place I wanted to serve, it was in Yuma. Yuma is the border zone. Then they said we were whitewashing into Yuma.

Whitewashing means that they take both the missionaries who were there out and put two new ones in. They do it to put a breath of fresh air into the area if it is struggling a bit. Whitewashing and training means that both he and I have no idea what we are doing here haha. The first couple days we spent ~6 hours planning and looking through the Area Books. It was hard. Furthermore, when we walked into our apartment, it was a mess. They had had a "party" the night before. Lots of things were on the ground, there were burnt papers (?!), and more. Mom, if you thought MY room was bad... We spent 3 hours a couple days ago cleaning out one room and found 3 garbage bags full worth of trash. We have a lot to do today. There are also cockroaches and bed bugs have come back. I haven't seen any bed bugs yet...Mmhmmmmm

Our apartment is nice, size wise. We have a sweet view (I forgot my camera in our room...I'll have pictures next week..) of a trailer park and then the desert right after it followed by some grande mountains. Ooh, and a small canal/stream/river!

Yuma is hot. Hot. Hot. If you leave a water bottle on the ground it melts. If you leave a CD case on the dashboard, it melts. It is dry, too. Luckily, we've had two days of showers and awesomeeeeeeee thunder storms. Thunder that shakes houses, lightning that is everywhere. Anyway, they give missionaries a car down here (we drive a swagger wagon. Dodge van, can't remember name) a car and give 1000 miles a week. We bike once a week (picked up bike, by the way. thanks!). They say being sent to Yuma is like banishment. We don't get to go to a temple even though we're close to San Diego, we don't get Dear Elders often, we don't get to go to mission meetings, it's really really really hot. It doesn't really feel like the US here. Lots and lots of trailer parks and Mexicans. The city isn't tall and the landscape is quite literally a desert. There are stray dogs, chickens and roosters running around the streets. The poverty is unbelievable yet the people are so welcoming. More on that in a bit... Just real quick, Yuma is large geographically but few people. There are only 4 companionships here, one of which are the Zone Leaders (ZLs).

I made it through the entire MTC without ironing once. On our first day, I started ironing but Elder Sawyer told me that there's a dryer on our balcony. Never ironing my shirt again!

I've joked about how it rains when I leave or go places. It rained for 3 days before we left the MTC, it rained when I got here! Move over Schumacher,there's a new rain master in town. [Schumacher is an F-1 car racer who must have the rain follow him too.]

Food. We eat at a members home 6 nights a week. We've had Pizza, Beans, Shrimp/Cervichi and ALMOST Menudo. I think I'm going to die in Yuma. I eat it but every time it almost comes up. Of everything we've eaten, I'd say Pizza is the best but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it still. Cervichi is the devil. Bane of my existence. It's like shrimp and..other stuff, I don't even know what. We ate at this one members' house. It was a trailer without a table and a tiny couch and two chairs. The Sisters in the area eat with us so we stuffed in. There was room for the two sisters and Elder Sawyer and me sitting near each other, no more. She fed us cold Cervichi. I ate about half and while the host stepped out to grab something, Elder Sawyer, like a boss, switched plates with me. He ended up eating mine, a Sisters, and his own. Como un jefe [like the boss]. Did I mention it was cold? Straight out of the fridge. They didn't have power in their trailer. Their willingness to help out was humbling though. Menudo is what I'm most scared to eat. It is the stomach lining of cow in a soup.

But first, let me explain the last two days. We have given five blessings in 1.5 days. For some reason everyone has been asking recently. Two have been in English, three in Spanish. Elder Sawyer takes those ones. They take a lot of time out of our day since three were at the Hospital (2 year old girl had top lip bitten off by Dog, needs surgery, older less active woman asked, and  third was a woman who wanted one also) Let me preface the story with this: I've been praying a lot for my taste buds to just die for 2 years. On the way out to our dinner apt I was saying a prayer in my heart that the food would be spaghetti or something. As we are driving out, a huge storm comes in. We're talking 40+ mph winds, rain, LOTS of lightning, and sand! (There are lots of dust storms here, like hundreds of feet tall walls of dust coming at you. Waiting to get a picture of one...). Anyway, we're driving there and then we see power go out everywhere. Since the desert is flat, you can see everything. We pull up to the house and they said since the power went out, they couldn't cook the Menudo and instead had to order Pizza. I've never been so happy to eat Pizza in my life. Little blessings like that keep you going. I doubt that will work for two years, but we'll see. I think between my prayers and the willingness to give so many blessings, we got a little one in return.

While we were in the hospital, a nurse asked us to go visit a woman who just got transferred in. As we were walking in, a Border Patrol dude/agent/guy stopped us and said, "Who are you and what are you doing with my convict?" He was pretty intense about it. we told him our business and he let us go. Inside we learned (Or Elder Sawyer did. Remember, I can't speak Spanish) that she had been in a group coming across the border illegally and the coyote left her behind in the desert to die. US Border Patrol found her and saved her. I can't imagine knowing that I am about to die and being alone in 110 degree weather. It's kind of crazy how close we are to all the action. Unfortunately we're not ON the border (That's the San Luis district, we're in Yuma, ~15 miles north) but we see everyone coming through the Yuma hospital.

We cover three wards for our mission area. An English, a Spanish Branch, and a Young Singles Adult. Not sure why that last one since they usually send ZLs  [Zone Leaders] there but we have it. The English branch is pretty large, the YSA [Young Single Adults] has about 25 and the Spanish branch has about 40. It seems dead. I leaned over to Sawyer and mentioned that and he said, "We're here to save it."

In the 6 days we've been here, we've taught 3 lessons, 2 of which were yesterday. Everyone listens but no one follows up. Must be a cultural thing. Most people are really nice.

But some aren't. We were walking around this one trailer park and went up to these guys. Lots of tats, cigarettes. They were angry with us and told us that we were in their gang zone. We mentioned what we were doing and they lightened up. Intense stuff. One group had a shotgun pulled on them. I love Yuma!

Selective poverty is also clear. Nice cars, nice phones, but living in a tiny powerless trailer. Sad.

Lots of homes have solar cells. Makes sense. It's so bright... I'ma need to find me some shades.

For one of our investigators, we're teaching him to read. That officially starts tomorrow. Never taught anyone to read before...especially in a language I barely speak.

I should clarify a bit. I understand about 25% of what people say but since they mumble and talk so quick I can barely get that. I can usually speak relatively well for being so 'young.'

That's all I have time for, expect some sweet pictures of a dust tornado thing, rain storms, a gross spider, desert landscape, and more.

Thanks Tori, Natalia, and Doug for letters and brownies! Quick note on Dear Elders: since I'm in Yuma, I get Dear Elders once every 3-4 weeks. We're 3.5 hours from the mission home which is where they go.

 What causes time to slow near a blackhole? Can someone look up the etymology of Apostle and Apostasy and tell me why the words are so similar?

"It's so hot up in dis club that I ain't got no shoes on"

With love,
Elder Johnson