June 23, 2014

This past week was a week of highs and a week of lows. Isn't every week?

On Tuesday we had a great visit with one of the amazing members of this ward. We saw miracles that night. One miracle was actually life changing for our member. Years ago, he had worked closely with a young man struggling with some major problems. He had involved him in church ball and youth activities and then completely lost contact. This was in '93. They were very, very close at that time. 

We had felt inspired to swing by a family this past week, not knowing why, with this member. We got to the door and were very surprised to learn that the man living there was the great friend of the member who came with us. They embraced in tears and it was a very tender moment for all of us: being reunited with a lifelong friend, blessings of following the spirit, and another chance for this man.

Afterwards he sat in his car and thanked us profusely for 20 minutes. I didn't realize how much he loved us. The feeling is mutual.

This past week concluded my last zone conference as a full time missionary. President Toone spoke on the challenge they had extended to have every companionship baptize this transfer. As you know, we haven't. We haven't for 4 months. He talked about the background of the challenge, how he had felt inspired months ago at a training with Elder Bednar to help his missionaries, us, grow in faith. One man commented that his only regret as serving as a mission president was not helping his missionaries truly understand what faith is. He said, "Do not let any of your missionaries end their missions in a crisis of their faith!" President Toone said he had immediately thought about my group that goes home next week. He did not want us to end in a crisis of faith.

I'll admit, this has been a transfer that has really tried my faith. I've learned that faith is what we have when we have nothing else. 

Anyway, with that background, President Toone had felt inspired to help the mission grow in faith. He assigned a committee to come up with the specific challenge (to baptize per companionship this transfer) and he had sustained it.

That was the challenge that was extended. But he said with it came another challenge, from the spirit, to have every companionship experience a moment of conversion this transfer.

Looking back, it would have been so easy to give up. We had nothing going for us any of our weeks. Every solid opportunity we found was taken from us, either by family opposition or people moving randomly from our area. We haven't taught anyone solid this entire transfer. It would have been so easy to give up. 

But faith is what we do when we have nothing going for us. And we practiced our faith. We worked. We worked hard, every single day. 

Elder Sylvester and I had a great talk this past week about that. Our area has not seen great success but we have in our own personal lives. Sometimes success isn't visible to others, but it visible to me and it is visible to God. 

President Toone also introduced something amazing. Remember how the Arizona Tempe Mission is the coolest mission in the world? How we were in the first group of 44 missionaries in the world to have iPhones/iPads and even Facebook? Well, the First Presidency has chosen the ATM (Arizona Tempe Mission) to pilot another program. A program designed to change the MTC (Missionary Training Center) forever.

The Program - Applies only to Spanish for now:

This new program will include a Pre-MTC experience which will last six weeks.

Missionaries will be assigned a tutor who will train them in the six weeks prior to the MTC, during the MTC, and for rest of their full time mission.

 

Missionaries currently leave the MTC at level 4 Spanish. With program, missionaries will leave at 7.

 

Tutor will be involved daily in the "First 12 Weeks" training program. They will be involved over Skype.

 

After training, the tutor checks in once a month to follow up on progress. During the last two months in the field, the tutor checks in daily and helps prepare the missionary to return to normal life (dating, resume work, college prep, etc).

 

When the misisonary finishes the mission, he is given the opportunity to serve as tutor for a future missionary who will be called to serve in the same mission that the tutor served in.

It begins July 4th. 

Crazy cool! A year ago, Lee Donaldson said, "The First Presidency  has their eyes on this mission."

We have been asking referrals from EVERYONE this past week! On Monday it started well - we got four referrals! We taught them for about a week and ended up dropping them, but it was still a great opportunity for that member to feel the missionary spirit! 

I love this district and this zone. Aaahhhh. 

All of my shirts are ripping. This past week, in tucking my shirts in lightly, two of my shirts ripped. I don't think I'll be taking any of them home...they're all pretty worn out. 

We had a miraculous experience this past week. We were driving to visit someone and I had a strong impression to turn a different way to visit a less active family. On the way to that house, I had another impression to stop at the house 100 feet from the members and knock the door of a potential investigator we had never contacted.

Upon leaving the car, we noticed a man leaning against the wall drinking a beer. We went over and talked to him. We had an amazing experience talking to him about his potential and how we can all improve. He said he wanted to be better, that he had the desire to improve, but didn't know how. I asked him, "Are you willing to stop drinking?" 

"Yes."

"Then  pour that out."

"Right now?"

"Yes."

And then he poured his beer out.

Those are some of the best moments, I think. Few people have enough faith to do it. When they do, you can see a fire in their eyes as they recognize that they have the ability to overcome their weaknesses. It was inspiring. 

We returned to our car and said a prayer to thank God for that miracle.

He did not go to church but we knew that God put him there for a reason. 

Church yesterday was very intense. It began with disappointment as everyone we invited cancelled. That was hard. It continued with stress when we learned that a woman would be showing up to try to get a man who was recently released in prison back into trouble  She got him there in the first place. She called us, gave us a false name, and asked if her friend was there.  We didn't know who she was at the time and said yes. We mentioned it to our Elders Quorum President (EQP) and he immediately got very worried. We put a plan into motion to keep them from coming into contact. 

We had two Elders sit with the woman and her mother during sacrament meeting. The man we were protecting, a man wanting nothing but to fix his life, was sat in the front by the front exit door. The Elders Quorum President sat in the back on his side, ready to pull him out the front door.

Right before the closing prayer, the mother stood up and left. We didn't know to where.

As soon as the closing prayer was said, Elder Sylvester and I stood by the two hallways to make sure the women did not get past. The other elders guided her slowly to the next class. 

The EQP quickly stood and guided the man out the door. Turns out the mother was standing in the door opposite and saw them leave the other door. She panicked, ran to her daughter, and the two women ran outside to the parking lot trying to find the man.

The EQP walked around the corner, saw the women, and grabbed the man and they hid behind a car and worked their way back inside the church.

The women hid in their car watching for him. 

We got the man to class.

After the first hour they came back inside and lied to us about a daughter that he doesn't have.

They asked if there were houses for rent in the area. Then they got angry and left. 

It was the most intense sacrament meeting ever. Even the stake president was there! We got him around safely, luckily. 

Haha, that was a good memory. 

Anyway, thank you all for your support! I'll have one more email after this one - please let me know if you have any questions! 

Love,

Elder Paul Johnson

5 November 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Election day is tomorrow! 30% of Yuma missionaries voted. Tisk tisk. This big hurricane sounds like it could turn the election...

This letter is a tad late today since we have been lizard hunting all morning. We have a ward member who is a biologist and does a lot of research for some of the universities and so she took us out to the border to find stuff. She had these long poles that had a little noose on the end that you stick around the lizard's neck. Unfortunately, we didn't catch any since they're all hibernating. Psh. But we did see a fox and a jackrabbit and a real live Mexican bird! It flew across the border like it was a joke. Guess that wall needs to get a little taller. It was a good time and we walked about 2 miles into literally nothing. I now know what it's like for Mexicans to run across the border. We found cell phones, backpacks, water bottles. Basically everything BUT lizards and snakes. I almost expected to find a body.

This was a pretty awesome week. We had a baptism into the Spanish branch on Saturday morning and later that same day we baptized another one of our investigators into the Yuma Valley English speaking ward. Next Saturday we're going to get a baptism for our young single adults branch. That's 3 baptisms in 7 days and into every one of our units! We've worked for those. I'll see what I can write about each of their stories.

Ok, so our first baptism on Saturday was for someone we found on our fifth day out. We were still going around trying to figure the area out since we got white washed into Yuma. We prayed before we left the apartment that day and told God that we would talk to anyone he put into our path. Well, we were driving to meet one of the investigators the previous Elders had and when we got there, no one answered. We decided that we would walk past the car by one block. At the corner, we ran into a man and his family. We told him who we were and what we did and he invited us to walk with him to his house. They had been swimming in the awful dirty canal. Anyway, we're walking over to his house and he is talking about how none of his friends talk about God, he doesn't understand why people look at the cross so much, and he didn't understand why some people worshiped Mary. We were just walking and thinking, "yesssssss." Well, we sit down and teach him and things go well. We go by about three to five times a week depending on his schedule and get to the point where we have taught him almost everything. He accepted it all without question and we put him on date for the 13th of October. One night we went by to go see how he was doing. It was an unplanned visit. Walking up to his house we saw him and his friends sitting in front of his house smoking and drinking. When he saw us, he freaked out, threw the joint on the ground and came over to us very embarrassed. We talked a bit and ended up pushing his baptismal date back. The next Sunday he was at Church and LOVED it. Can't even emphasize it enough. We had to leave a little early and he waved us away without even looking up. Well, fast forward 3 weeks and there we were standing outside the baptismal font. He managed to get his family there (they never listened to us) and they got there at 10:45 for the scheduled baptism at 11. Whew, first hurdle passed, he made it. 10:55 came around and no one was there. At 11:00 the pianist showed up as well as the branch president. We were getting worried that no one would show up. One of the things he loved most about church was how everyone came and talked to him and how happy everyone was. Well now his support group wasn't even at the baptism. We decided to wait a couple more minutes out of faith. Man, I thought Mormon standard time was bad, Mexican standard time blows it away. At 10:15 about 25 people showed up but the person who was supposed to be conducting the program wasn't there. We went on without him. Fast forward to the time of the baptism. He asked me to baptize him and he and I walked back around to the baptismal font. What we saw was terrible. All but 1.5 feet of water had leaked out through the drain. Bah! Well, we walked down into the water and I gave the prayer but his legs were sticking out of the water when he was laid down flat so I did it again. This time I had to push his whole body under the water. His back was on the floor of the font. But it worked! During the time that we changed, I had Elder Sawyer do what we do back home - that is, pass around note cards to write your testimony on while someone plays prelude music. The Yuma stake had never done it before and loved it. The baptism was a success and he was confirmed in church the next day by Elder Sawyer. People there said it was the most amazing baptism they'd ever been to. We had a really bold lesson with him that I think saved his baptism.

The other baptism was equally amazing. This one was for the Yuma Valley ward. We found ____ at Church on our third Sunday. She had friends who were members who decided to take her to church on a whim and introduced her to use that day. She had been through a lot. We taught her twice a week for 1.5 months and helped her overcome an addiction to cigarettes. It was a humbling experience to be involved in it with her. The mission uses a program to help smokers quit that involves drinking unsweetened grapefruit juice after every meal because it puts a foreign taste in your mouth or something. Well, we invited a recent convert to our lessons with her and her two member friends and we all said we would drink grapefruit juice after every meal with her (but in different places, obviously.) We worked and worked and worked and sent her encouraging messages everyday until she could say she had quit. The baptism was performed by the husband of the woman who invited her to church. It was an amazing baptism and there were some incredible brownies to be eaten afterwards.

A good week indeed.

We stopped by the Young Single Adults (YSA) FHE activity last Monday with our YSA investigator. They played murder in the dark and did some activity where they put jellybeans in a plate and covered them up with whipped cream and you had to fish the jellybeans out with only your face. Everyone insisted that Elder Sawyer and I go first so, for member trust, we did. I won but ruined one of my $1.99 ties that I got recently. But that doesn't matter since I won. The person in charge felt bad so she bought me two ties and owes me an additional $6, all her idea. I'm not complaining. It was actually pretty degrading afterwards haha. They were all taking pictures of us with whipped cream all over our faces kneeling on the ground haha.

We did the New Testament read-a-thon this week. From 8am to 5pm we read at the chapel. All the missionaries were out of money for October. We told one of the Sisters in the Yuma Valley Ward (the same one who referred the baptism in the same ward) and she said she'd take care of food. She got on Facebook that night and put it as her status. She said 19 women commented all volunteering to take food. There was a lot of food during the read-a-thon... It was awesome to see their willingness to help us out in a time of need.

One of the things that stuck out to me during the read-a-thon was a new definition of faith for me. I read Matthew-halfway through Luke and had a cool insight. I think faith is more than just something that is hoped for and not seen. I think faith is also every Christlike attribute: patience, love, diligence, humility...the list goes on. With those attributes, our faith grows because we put others before ourselves. I could write more on it but for time purposes I'll leave it there. There is a part in Mark where it talks about Jesus "marveling at the faith" of someone. I want Christ to marvel at my faith.

This year the Yuma Stake is broadcasting stake conference. The stake is basically 2 hours across and people aren't going to drive that far. Never heard of somewhere doing that before!

The Yuma Zone is talentless. No one plays piano or can really sing. Don't stop playing piano if you're learning! In the Spanish branch there are two people who know how to play piano who taught themselves in the last year since no one else can play. We have to borrow people from other wards to play piano at our baptisms.

I've heard about a franken-storm hitting the east coast? Details?

Do Stake Presidents have keys?

Dad, what was your baby blessing pet peeve?

Can someone confirm all this I hear about  tanic acid turning stomachs into acid? I'm pretty sure every missionary uses it and I'm not sure I believe it.

How far do ants walk in a lifetime?

Thanks Ian, Susie, Annie, Doug, Mom, Eric, and Will for writing this week. I'm not going to be able to write much since I'm all out of stamps and buying new ones means foregoing lunch but I'll see what I can do! Due to time constraints today, I'll probably not get back to most of you this week. Lo siento [I'm sorry]. But thank you all so much for writing! I really appreciate it and love you all

Con amor,

Arizona has the best sunsets!

That's a wild tarantula.

Welcome to the desert.

Probably my manliest pose ever.

Elder Boyd in that picture is licking the skull of a lizard that was eaten by a bird that impales their prey on sticks and then eats them. He got $6 out of it.

Elder Johnson