16 June 2014

I've been reminding myself a lot recently that anything worth anything is worth anything. 

I'm so exhausted. Every minute of every day I am so tired. I feel healthy. Two years are catching up to me, I think. Mind over body, mind over body, mind over body...

We had a hard week. Actually, we've had a hard few weeks. We just cannot find solid people. We have done literally everything I have ever done or ever heard of and never done. I even got on my bike and biked around in 105 degrees! I got a flat tire. 

As I have written before, President Toone made a promise at the start of the transfer that every companionship could baptize this transfer. As of last week, every companionship in our zone was on track to do so. Half of them already have, the other half (minus us) had someone on date. 

Every companionship was assigned another companionship to pray for. They pray by name for those they are teaching. This last week we asked the zone to pray for us so that we could find someone. Before my personal study on Thursday, I got down on my knees and begged for someone we could find, teach, and baptize before I go home.

During my personal study I had a strong impression that we should alter our morning plans and spend an hour calling former investigators. We have two phones and thus were both able to call. We set up around five appointments after over fifty calls. 

The first lesson we had set up was with a woman who had only been visited twice,  years ago. We visited her and I was blown away by how powerful a spirit they had in their home. We had a great lesson and as we sat there teaching, I reflected back on the last two years. It has been hard, but it has been amazing. I don't want to be released as a full-time missionary. We taught this family and they all accepted a baptismal invite. We were very excited.

The next day was our monthly ward visitors center trip. We took the daughter-in-law to the visitors center. Her answers were just perfect. When the sisters asked her why she came she said, "I see so much happiness here. I want it." She loved the Joseph Smith movie. Afterwards she said, "That book...where can I get it? I love reading and I want to read it." Afterwards in another display she said, "This is what I want."

She accepted a baptismal date for June 28th. That's a mighty fine birthday present. 

On the drive home we sat in the back seat, ecstatic, as our investigator talked and became friends with the member. Remember, we taught the daughter-in-law at the older woman's home the day before.

The member asked where she could drop her off and the daughter-in-law replied, "_____." 

She doesn't live in our area.

No.

No...

That was a hard moment. We had to refer her over to the sisters in a different ward.

That was a very hard moment.

Yes, she is still going to get baptized and that is wonderful. It's hard to put into words why it is so sad to lose someone to a different area. There are no words.

That was a hard night. I felt tried to my last straw. I felt ready to give up. I felt like the Lord was trying to break me. And I almost let him.

I opened my scriptures and stumbled upon something that changed my perspective. 

 15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!
 16 And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!
When people try to tell me that God doesn't answer our prayers, I immediately think to the many many many times He has answered me. 

That scripture taught me that although we have not baptized in some months, I can find joy in my efforts. We're doing absolutely everything we can. Isn't that enough? We've frequently discussed what else we could do and we do it. 

Nothing worthwhile is easy.

Last night was the last Mission President's Devotional of my mission. Elder Myler and Oscarson drove up from Yuma to perform a musical number. They go home with me. Elder Sylvester and I translated. It was another unique experience of being lifted above our ability. It was smooth and felt natural. 

That was the last time I'll see many of the missionaries here. We only had five minutes after it ended to say goodbye since we had another meeting with missionaries right afterwards but it was a sad moment. I was happy to see a family I had baptized in Mesa there.

Exciting news! The church has released an electronic progress report that is accessed through lds.org! Gone are the days of spending time writing a paper progress report for the ward council! Stake and ward leaders can access an auto-generated progress report at any time from any device! 

President Toone got a cool new Tahoe. It's the only car he fits in. The Traverse he had was way too small for him. I offered to give him our Corolla for it but he sad no.

On the 27th of June we will be going to the Gilbert temple for one last temple session with all the missionaries that go home with me! There are six of us. President and Sister Toone will go as well. Can't wait.

I'm honestly toying with the idea of being a car salesman. 

A miracle we saw last week was that every single less active that we visited and invited came to church! One family works all night on Saturdays and used that as their excuse. We were bold with the parents and they came on Sunday with a big smile on their face! 

We were also surprised by a family of former investigators that showed up to church! There is still hope for a baptism before I finish my mission! 

If I've learned anything on my mission it is that happiness and optimism are choices we make. In the midst of a trial we decide whether to overcome it with a smile on our face or a frown. We control what happens most of the time, so why don't we? Why don't we take our happiness into our own hands more often?

Love you all!
EJ

1 April 2013

Dear Family and Friends, 

We set our baptismal goal for the month of April this past week. As a zone we're going to push for 22 and as a companionship we're going to be aiming for two. We had two names for those the day we set those goals. And then everything fell through. Everyone this week, literally everyone, dropped us. On Saturday evening we were looking over our area and how we had nothing at all. While walking and talking to people on the street on Saturday it hit us how destitute we are. 

We walked into a returned missionary and asked for someone to stop by and he said he had no one. He asked us if we had done some things to find people like: talking to bishops (done), going through former investigators (visited every one), asking for referrals from everyone (doing it everyday), praying for miracles (done), inviting people to the easter pageant (done), we have no over aged youth in our area, no part member families, and no unvisited referrals. We really have exhausted every resource we have available and had nothing going at all. This was evident during our weekly planning session since we had a lot less things to do.

We have been trying to get another ward given to us so we can be busy.

So yeah, these last 6 days have been really really hard. It has been hard to stay motivated since 1% of the population here "belongs" to us (YSA between 18-30 and no kids, and latinos). Regardless, we went out and worked and had lots of lessons and lots of OYMs. And at least 60% of those lessons were with people anti-ing us. Ah, it's so exhausting to hear the same things over and over from so many different people about how ignorant we are and how we're evil and aren't christian, how Joseph Smith deserved what he got, etc etc etc. I've never met so many people who just get up in arms so quickly and just throw down and yell. We talked to one guy this week who was a returned missionary who fell away from the church and just started grilling us on archeological evidence, or lack thereof, and more. After 15 minutes of him monologing on evils in the church I told him, "It sounds like you have done a lot of research trying to prove this all wrong. If you spend half of that effort trying to prove it right your life will improve and you'll be a happier person. Have a good day" and we walked away while he was still talking and yelling at us. So that has been exhausting as well. 

This week wasn't all hard though, just 6 of the 7 days. I finally got a picture back that I left in Tempe (says, "Go to work or go to hell - Brigham Young") that Elder Sawyer gave me in Yuma when I left.  Haha it gets better but that will come later in the letter!

We stumbled upon a copy of the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith this week and have been having a good time reading some of the things he has said in the past.

I also started reading Jesus the Christ again. Getting anti-d so much has encouraged me to learn a bit more about his life and more.

We keep finding couches in weird places so naturally we take a picture by them.

I have been working a lot harder on my personal spanish study hour each day. Back in Yuma I could slack off because just about every person we spoke with spoke spanish but so few here do. We have a giant grammar book that I have been working through doing all the practice things and whatnot and it has helped a lot. Wish I would have started that 8 months ago...

So now for the miracle of the week. Actually, before that, I found a horse. Nay, I tamed a wild horse! (no pun intended)

Ok, miracle time. Yesterday's YSA sacrament meeting was one of the best I've been to. Two awesome musical numbers and great talks. After the closing prayer I was sitting there thinking it couldn't get any better when I heard, "Elders, there's someone here you have to speak with, he's super interested." Music to my ears! To give a little bit of a background, we use about an hour a couple times a week to call down the YSA ward list (since the area is too big) and challenge people to invite friends to church then introduce them to us. So we thought this was someone that had actually done that! Turns out it that wasn't the case. A recent returned missionary (RM) brought his friend to our ward. The RM lives in Mesa but drove all the way here to accompany his friend who lives here to our ward. We talked a bit and learned a bit more about his friend. They work together doing construction. Where do they do construction? The Gilbert Temple! They do the stone work for the inside. Apparently they use stone imported from Israel for the flooring and it will be mostly uncarpeted inside. He's going to give us some of the tile! So they work together and they talk about the church all day every day. He told us he's looking for the truth and is open to what we teach, wants to meet with us, and loved church.

We taught him right after church and he loved it and is super interested.That was the ray of sunlight in a week of storms. We're really excited about what's to come.

This week was a good lesson learning week. When things fall short and you push through them you get blessed. I guess that's what "Endure to the end" means even though the end in this case was 7 days. In Church yesterday someone said, "any excuse for non action weakens the character." It was cool to see how right after the hardest week we get blessed with an awesome person to teach. 

Thanks Eric, Mom, Will, Ian, and Jeff R for the letters this week! 

Love,

Elder Johnson