11 February 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

To begin, I'm 90% sure I'm getting transferred this week. The APs came down and dropped a hint that I'm going to the valley. So if you plan on sending me a letter while i'm in Yuma, send it by Tuesday (tomorrow). If not by then, then send it to the mission home. The mission home's address is: 1871 East Del Rio Drive, Tempe AZ 85282. I'll know my new address on Tuesday of next week (20th or 21st) and will be able to let you know sometime after that.

 

Transfer calls are next Sunday night and transfers themselves are on that Tuesday or Wednesday, not entirely sure which one. This transfer will only be 5 weeks long. For all the missionaries in our mission (the world?) who are serving right now, they will go home a week early. This transfer is what makes that possible. So looks like I'll be home July 1, 2014 instead of the 8th and miss my birthday by 3 days.

 

There was a gun threat at two schools this week. They evacuated everyone to the Stake Center parking lot and we saw border patrol cars and cop cars swarming the place. Should have gone in, there were so many people to talk to!

 

These last two weeks have been full of lots of tracting. For some reason for 1.5 of those weeks I didn't carry any copies of the Book of Mormon to hand out. In all that time in all our finding techniques - not just tracting - we found 2 investigators. It was getting pretty frusterating. Then durnig personal study this week I felt prompted to throw a few copies in my backpack (something I should have had the whole time) and as we went out that day we found 2, then 4 the next day, then 5 the next day. We found 11 people since Wednesday of this week, a massive increase compared to the 2 of last week. On Wednesday, we had taught 9 lessons, all with a member present. By Sunday night, we had taught 37 lessons with the majority being with members. Whew, I learned my lesson! As soon as I made that change we found tons of success. We had 8 people with a baptismal date and everything was looking great!

 

And then none of them came to church and they all fell off date. That was a pretty frusterating morning, waiting for people and havnig the rides we found them tell us they wouldn't come. So after church we ran over, dropped a few of them (stopped teaching) and went out to find people. By the end of the night we had found 4 people who had accepted a baptismal date - nothing short of a miracle. It's a little sad to 'know' that you're leaving and see all this success. We're working hard for it and I want to leave it better than I found it. We have a lot of really solid people we're teaching right now and we have at least one person with a baptismal date for every Saturday in March. That's the goal: to be baptizing weekly. The trick is to stay motivated and energetic because this week was pretty exhausting.

 

This week my personal goal was to be more bold with people. Last night was a pretty cool experience with that. We were teaching someone - very high, very drunk - who was complaining about all his problems in life and how he wanted to change. I told him that change starts now and "invited"/strongly encouraged him to pour out his 40 oz right then and there. He said, "you know what...." and turned around and poured it all over the ground. Pretty cool to see how as we raise to our callings and qualify ourselves we can fufill our callings and teach with power. Unfortuantely he isn't in our area but I'm excited to see what he can do.

 

We're teaching/were teaching someone who just wasn't doing anything. Last night we had a really bold lesson with him and told him that if he doesn't put in work, we can't help him. We asked him if he was willing to put in the work to qualify himself to return to live with God again and he said, "no." We were sad for him but happy that we could have put it in words that were clear and exact. We left him the copy we gave him some weeks ago and let him know that he can call us at any time.

 

Our miles in our car were cut from 1,000 to 900 for the month. Subsequently, we've been biking a lot more; everyday for about 10 miles. We ran into someone walking down the street the other day and he just started throwing down on organized religion and how it judges people. He compared me to Hitler haha. He got pretty upset and we were pretty frank with him about life and what we need to be doing. He told us that he had recently given up all electronics so that he can avoid worldly things. I pointed to the iPod he was listening to and asked what he quailfied that as. Maybe that was the wrong move, maybe not, but he flipped out. Went on for 5 minutes about how judgemental I was for pointing out his flaws and how Jesus would never do that. We told him that was exactly what Jesus did to the Pharisees and Sadducees (spelling?) and biked away to him yelling at us. Probably not the best street contacting experience we've had haha but definitely memorable.

 

En route to one of our lessons this week we stopped to talk to two women. An intended five minute mini lesson turned into an hour lesson. For 30 minutes we tried everything we could to leave but they wouldn't let us. They went on and on about how Jesus didn't get resurrected into a body because the body was what made the atoning sacrifice work and how he's a great spirit.Everytime we would show a scripture they would say, "now show me in my bible...".  Turns out they were Jehovah's Witnesses and were trying on purpose to make us miss our lesson. They succeeded. We went and knocked on her door and turns out it was the wrong door. The guy there invited us right in and accepted a baptismal date by the end of the lesson. We stopped by our intended lesson later that night and met with her as well and she also accepted a baptismal date. Tender mercies...

 

Haha we tracted into this guy named Adolfo Castro this week. I don't think his parents thought those names through very well.

 

Highlite of the week was a baptism! I mentioned last week that I would tell a little more of the story this week. I'll just talk aboutt he baptismal service itself. She was very nervous when she got there and didn't want to take the "pre-baptism picture" in the jumpsuit so we took one with her in her sunday dress instead. The baptismal service was awesome. Great talks, great spirit, great baptism. She said afterwards, "I feel...so at peace." That defines the spirit that was there pretty well. Just...peaceful. Picture attached.

 

We had the opportunity to teach a family this week. They were very passionate about how deathbed repentance is ok. They quoted what Christ said to the thief on the cross. We taught a little about the spirit world and what that scripture meant in relation to post-mortal life. They started to understand it a bit more at the end. This was also the first family we taught that said that prophets weren't needed anymore since we had the Bible and since prophets only prepared the way for Christ. We had a nice conversation about how Christ is perfect and so is his church and how it is unchanging, just as he is. Showed her Amos 3:7 and some other scriptures. They didn't believe us about the spirit world so Elder Valdez pulled out 1 Peter 3:18-19 and she was awe struck at that scripture. I'm excited to teach them again, it's really pushing me to learn a lot more as well as finding more scriptural refernces for what we teach.

 

It's easy to get caught up in a lesson and forget all about the scriptures. President Howes says that in every lesson the scriptures need to be out, in hand, and open because the spirit can flow from the pages and that we need to be using them more than we do.

 

On a completely different note, in Arizona it's legal to sit in a truck bed while it's driving. We went out with someone this week who didn't have enough space haha. Picture attached. It was freezing.

 

Last sunday (Feb 3rd), Elder Valdez and I shared out testimonies. Right after sacrament meeting we were asked to speak in Church the following week and someone else asked us to teach mission prep the following week. So yesterday, we did both of those things. Elder Valdez spoke on Christlike attributes and I spoke on the spirit with stories of following promptings and miracles I've seen. It was a lot of fun and turned out better than I expected. 

 

Which was good since we didn't prepare at all to teach mission prep and it wasn't so good haha. Right afterwards the bishop asked us to do a fireside next week for all the youth in the ward. We'll prepare more for this one, I think.

 

So in the last two weeks I've had a bit of trouble with one gear on my bike, gear configuration 1-8. When I bike, the chain slips every other pedal/pump/whatever the word is but only on  that gear. What can I do to fix it? I end up biking on 1-7 or 2-4 instead of 1-8 which I'd prefer to use.

 

Thanks for the letters Mom, Eric, Will, and Lyle!

 

Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Johnson

 

if you plan on sending me a letter while i'm in Yuma, send it by Tuesday (tomorrow). If not by then, then send it to the mission home. The mission home's address is: 1871 East Del Rio Drive, Tempe AZ 85282

 

February 6, 2013

I'm not ready for the summer to come yet. It was in the upper 80s this week. To think that it can still get 40 degrees warmer...

 

This last week we were biking around town and hopped off the bike to knock on a door. As soon as I knocked, I heard a gun get cocked and then the door open. There was someone standing with a rifle by his leg. Turns out it was a cop. He said that people have been targetting cops and he was doing a checkup on his 'weapons.' He had a flak jacket and helmet on the ground and that's all we saw but it's a little nerve wracking to hear a gun get cocked behind a door haha.

 

We were teaching a lesson to a recent convert this week and during the lesson there was a knock on the door. An Elder that served here who has since gone home walked in! He was in Yuma when I first came in and taught and baptized the man we were visiting. He lives over in California somewhere and it was pretty funny to see him walk in. He's the second missionary that I've served with who has come back and visited us after their mission. We got to catch up for a little bit and it was cool to see and hear about everythjing that he has done since he finished his mission.

 

Someone asked what one of the more interesting parts of teaching people here is. I would probably have to say hearing people "pray in tongues." While we are offering a prayer or they are praying, we'll hear them start whispering and making weird clicking sounds and whatnot. The first few times it was really surprising but since then i've kind of moved past it - it's pretty distracting. Definitely interesting to hear as I've never met someone who does that before. When we try to teach them that we don't do 'that,' they are amazed that anyone can "talk to God not in tongues." We testify that God understands our thoughts and the feelings of our hearts and we don't need to try to speak differently for him to understand us. Christ taught the way to pray.

 

Found this cool quote from 1976:

"In the last 126 years, the world's population has increased four fold, but Church membership has increased 56 fold! In other words, Church growth was 14x faster than the population growth. In 1850 there were 60,000 members of the Church vs a world pop of 1 billion. In 1976, there were 3,650,000 members vs a world pop of 4 bil." Now, there are over 15,000,000 members worldwide.

 

While biking this week, we heard someone yelling at us from the side of the street. We pulled over and she said, "Do you guys have a book for me?" Just what missionaries want to hear! We pulled it out and she tried to grab it and run. Weird first impression... We taught her a little introduction using the pictures inthe front of the Book of Mormon and the whole time she was asking crazy questions about crazy things. Really weird. We ended with a prayer and asked when we could come back. She told us that all she wanted was a copy to read sometime. We left our names and number on a card in the Book as well as a reading. She tried to invited us into her home at the end but we declined and she got pretty offended. She said, "Is there an evil spirit in here or something!?" Maybe something will come of that?

 

This week was a pretty hard week. We found only two new investigators and had lots of lessons cancel. A usual week has about 5-10 new investigators, 4-9 of those being people we talk to on the street, ~1 being a referral. We got called out this week for having too many investigators without a baptismal date. Preach my Gospel says that by the second lesson, the person should have a hard baptismal date. Pretty intimidating, that. Well, we took it to heart and repented. We put 5 people on date for baptism this week for this month. It is always interesting to see how people react as you extend that invitation to be baptized on a certain date. What it does it, I guess you could say, weeds out those who aren't prepared yet. We are here to teach those who are ready to accept the gospel and make changes in their life today.

 

Along with that goes dropping investigators. When someone isn't keeping commitments like coming to chruch, reading, or praying, they aren't progressing and they're not dedicated. We are taught to "drop" those investigators. This week we will be dropping probably 6 people which is very intimidating. We're going to call it a "faith drop" since we don't have many names to teach right now. We need to find people who are ready.

 

Something funny happened at church yesterday. We were walking around the hallway to the other side of the church and we heard someone say, "Elder Johnson, Sister (Cassie) Rasmussen says hi!" I stopped and said, "what?" This member had been in San Diego to get sealed to his family and went on a tour. Guess who their tour guide was?! Hahahaha, what are the chances.

 

This week we went to visit some of the members who are over 8 years old and not baptized (Over age youth - OAY). We tracted the neighborhood of one of them and every. single. person. except two slammed the door or yelled something at us. Probably won't go back there for a bit.

 

Working yesterday was interesting. Since it was Super Bowl Sunday, no one wanted to see us or come out with us.

Got to see a plane get fueled mid-air! Pretty cool.

One of the things that we've been working on is inviting members to do things. In the General Priesthood meeting which we missed, someone spoke and challenged everyone to set a date and not a name. What that meant was that, for example, "But Feb 28th I will find someone to invite to Church and talk to the missionaries." Setting goals this way can encourage us to work harder and with a deadline we are more diligent in our efforts. So that's my invitation to you! Pray and set a date so that you can take action in a missionary way. You'll be amazed, I promise!

 

This week on Thursday we'er going to be having a baptism. We are very excited and so is she. I say it over and over, but it's awesome to see how far the gospel takes us. More on this next week.

 

Thanks Mom, Eric, Tanan, Will, Sister Hines, and Susie for writing this week! It was great to hear from all of you!

 

With love,

Elder Johnson

 

3 December 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

 

I turn 5 months in two days. Time flies.

 

That poorly exposed picture is of my Yuma district before transfers. 3 of those 8 are gone. From left to right, they are: Elder Sawyer, Elder Boyd, Elder Berriman, Elder Johnson (Me), Elder Lanier, Elder Mackay, Sister Drake, Sister Thompson. Elder Boyd got called to Show Low and I heard that in transfer meeting, when he heard it, he got up and started singing, "I'm dreaming of a white christmas" until President Howes told him to stop. Sad I missed it!

 

Transfers were this past week. Because every companionship in Yuma went through a change, 6 of the 8 missionaries had to go to transfer meetings in Tempe. As a result, Elder Mackay and I were the only ones who stayed in Yuma. We covered the entire stake for the day. The only missionaries in all of Yuma (Yuma to Heider). But that was just for like 8 hours. Because we had no lessons set up that day and the entire district was gone, the Zone Leaders challenged us to get 80 OYMs, or 80 street contacts. We accepted that challenge. And did it. It was ridiculous haha. Every. single. person we saw we talked to. We only got like 3 lessons out of it too. And since that was the end of the month of November, we had only 20 miles left in the car so we walked all day. By all day I mean from 8am to 6pm. By the end we easily had walked over 10 miles. Anyway, the zone leaders now owe each of us a tub of bluebell ice cream. I'm going to cash in for some Dutch Chocolate. That stuff is heavenly.

 

All the new missionaries and the returning one from training meetings got back at 6pm that night. My new companion is Elder Valdez. He's from Quintana Roo, Mexico, just below Cancun. He has only been speaking English for as long as he has been on his mission which is 8 months. We're a pretty young companionship. There are only 3 native speaking missionaries in the mission so I got lucky. My Spanish is going to get really good this transfer and his English is going to get better too. We're trying to only speak our mission language so he speaking English, me speaking only Spanish. The language barrier has presented some interesting problems so we're working through that. Our month baptism goal is 3.

 

And that goal got off to an unfortunate start. We had one baptism on date for the 1st of December but due to Word of Wisdom problems got pushed back. Hopefully we can get him excited again and get him on date for next week or the following.

 

And we had one investigator who wasn't progressing but now will absolutely not be progressing for at least 8 years. Let's just say a gun and 12 bullets were involved. No one died (I think). He got bailed out and came to church though!.....People were coming up to us and telling us about it at church. Since we get no access to the news, we had no idea.

 

Elder Valdez and my first night out turned a little intense. We went to talk to this guy who came over and just starting calling us out for every single thing you can imagine. He was a super scriptorian and before we decided to leave he said, "and next time you guys come back, memorize more scriptures!" I wanted to say that it's not about having memorized scriptures, it's about how you feel and act. He went on about how we need to celebrate passover and how the 2nd coming was in 1948. I read to him the one part of (book of) Revelation that I actually understand about the two prophets being killed and he couldn't respond. Bible bashing doesn't get you anywhere though so we just bore testimony and left. Nothing else you can do to in that scenario.

 

As I said last week, I got transferred a couple blocks away and out of my sweet old apartment. The one we're living in now is worse. Way worse. Half the size, really dirty, and missing lots of things. Even our door is broken. The apartment office said it would be $125 to fix it and the mission OK'd it so all we need to do is let the apartment complex know it's ok'd.

 

This has been a pretty stressful week. Since there are now 6 Spanish missionaries in the Spanish branch (compared to the previous 4), we had to split the areas. The zone leaders got all my old investigators and I got a new ward. So this transfer I'm 1/2 white washing. A new Spanish area, a new English ward, and the same other English ward. I don't cover the YSA branch anymore. But it has been hard to start from scratch (again) and try to build it up. Hopefully we can have as much success as I did last transfer with Sawyer.

 

Speaking of the YSA branch...drama! At Church yesterday, we were studying in the foyer and saw the branch president's wife run out of the chapel and grab the branch president and rush him inside. They looked pretty scared. So naturally I followed them. One of the members was non-responsive and looked like he was passed out. A couple of seconds later, he just collapsed. Chaos. His fiance's nose started bleeding and she fainted from fear. The member who was non-responsive was out for 1-3 minutes. I think the only way he could have been safer would to have been in a hospital. Eight marines, 2 EMTs, and a nurse are in the YSA branch. Not to mention a doctor was in the hallway. The firetruck/ambulance showed up and got him conscious again after a bit. It had happened to him 3 times before. He didn't want to go to the hospital for certain reasons but they eventually convinced him. As the EMTs walked out, one of the members said, "and you guys  thought you weren't going to church today!" That relieved a lot of the built up stress haha.

 

Saw another meteor this week! Not half the size or the coolness of the last one but it was pretty cool. They're pretty easy to see when there are no clouds or trees.

 

We met a man this week who started anti-ing us the second we said hi. Before we left, he said, "you guys are just a little cooler than Jehovah's Witnesses." I guess the people here don't really like them. Or us.

 

Polyester ties were banned this week. President Howes said missionaries were getting out of control with the styling. So sad. Now I have 60 ties that I can't wear. If I can find a box I'll probably be sending 1-2 boxes of ties home. There are some sweet ones and some hideous ones. Get excited. It mostly just affected the Spanish missionaries since for some reason Spanish missionaries tend to wear more polys than English missionaries.

 

I got a tiwi card! AKA I have permission to drive. Since Elder Valdez is from Mexico, his home license isn't recognized. We drive a 2011 Corolla. I have to stoop waaaayyy down to get into it. Not a huge fan but it gets sweet gas mileage. It's no swaggerwagon though. The first day in it I accidentally sat on my sunglasses and broke them. Bien triste [very sad].

 

We had a pretty cool experience yesterday with an OYM. We were walking down a street and I felt like we should knock on a door. No one answered. We turned around and saw a family sitting on their "yard" (it was all dirt.) so we went and talked to them. Turns out they're all really really interested in family history. They're going to the family history center at the church building this week. Hopefully they'll start listening to us and learn about the church

 

So the week after I get transferred out of my old area, that family we were teaching decide to get baptized. Ahhjhhhhh. At least I'll still be in Yuma to see it. Apparently they kept asking Elder Sawyer why we got split up and if it happened because we did something wrong. [If you're not aware, missionaries regularly receive transfers to work in different areas or with different missionaries.  Just part of the mission culture]. Good times.

 

I was reading a bit about resurrection this morning. Christ was the very first one to get resurrected, right? He, obviously, had lots of faith! It's kind of like someone telling you to jump off a cliff and saying you won't get hurt. You do it because you trust the person, but the fall down would be terrifying. I had never really thought about it like that before.

 

What causes languages to change over time?

 

Thanks Camie, Sister Hines, Alex, Sister Christensen, Cassie, and family for the letters this week! Awesome to hear from all of you!

 

Love you all so much, merry almost Christmas,

Elder Johnson