1 July 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Gilbert, Scottsdale, Mesa....the Tempe mission has been cut into pieces! Today President Toone starts as the new Tempe mission president and the day that President Howes hangs up the tag. I'm going to miss them but we're all excited about what lays in store for the future.

We're teaching a young couple expecting their first child. The husband struggles with alcohol and the wife is all ready to get baptized. It's the worse when we go over there and see him struggling with a beer and see her in tears because of it. We sat down with just her last week and taught just her and then the next day just him. It was a pretty bold lesson but, again, it's great to see how bold we can be if the spirit is there. Things like, "you're letting your future family down," don't offend people if the spirit is there. And it helps them change. They've committed to get baptized on the 13th and we're going to get them married the same day! The next day when we taught them, they held hands and asked, "What do we have to do to get baptized?" MUSIC TO MY EARS! Afterwards we knelt in prayer and had the him say it. It was such a sincere prayer and afterwards we knelt in silence and they were beaming with joy as they continued to pray in their minds. At church yesterday the soon-to-be-wife said, "I'll never stop coming here."

Speaking of weddings...one of our investigators got married this week! He was supposed to get baptized this Saturday but they planned their honeymoon on top of it...Bah! I realized this was the first wedding I've ever been to. 

We are also teaching someone who told us a crazy story about how he had been involved in some bad things and got on a truck to "do a job" and the people kicked him off the truck in the middle of the desert. He wandered in the desert for two days without shoes and lost 20 lbs. His feet were all bloody by the time he finally got back to his family. He had pictures to prove it and all. I've heard some of the craziest stories of my life these last few weeks...

We moved to this apartment complex near an Intel factory. Tons of Indians live near us. We taught one a lesson the other day and asked her to pray. When she prayed she chanted/sang something in her native tongue - it was awesome!

For my birthday this past week the Bishop and his family called and all sang happy birthday, it was great haha. They were out of town on vacation too!

This past week I got a package full of gummy bears. But they weren't bears. They melted into gummy globs hahahaha. Arizona!

The bears weren't the only things melting this week. 117 degrees on Thursday and since then it has been over 110 every day. Not fun. Especially on bikes. I think the worst part is biking at night because for some reason my eyes just dry out and tear up. Whoever decided to settle Arizona was crazy.

Our apartment complex has a tiny gym inside. We've been going in the morning and leaving super super super sore. 3 days later and I still can't raise my arms. 

Remember the guy who was supposed to get baptized two weeks ago who cancelled the day of? Well, we hadn't seen him since then. We hadn't even gone by after he told us his path was elsewhere. But two days ago I felt like we had to go see him and so we did. As we knocked on the door, he opened it slowly and we saw his TV. The "Special Witnesses of Christ" DVD that we gave him was playing and he was listening to the testimonies of the 12 Apostles. The Restoration DVD was also out and open and he had seen it too. In the time that he had decided not to get baptized, he had been fired from his stable job where had was payed more than anyone else for the same amount of work (that he found after we started teaching him), his family is going through a crisis, his house has fallen back into a mess, the cockroaches are back, and he hadn't left his house in a week. We talked to him, helped him recognize the difference between having the gospel and not, and invited him to a baptismal service and church. He went to both! We're going by tonight and will invite him to get baptized this next Saturday. Miracles! Every week!

We've been really bold with lots of people this past week and we're seeing the blessings. 

Someone we're teaching told us another crazy story. He lives with two people, we'll call them Jose and Pedro. Jose is a drunk but also 'is very religious.' Pedro is his brother, very religious and doesn't drink. Two nights ago our investigator and Pedro woke up because Jose was screaming, "I'M THE DEVIL, I AM GREATER THAN GOD!" They told him to quiet down but Jose got violent and tried to kill them. He told us that his said his eyes were all red and he was stronger than normal. Pedro and our investigator tackled him to the ground and yelled, "In the name of Jesus Christ, in command you to be gone!" Immediately Jose quieted and apologized. That's a crazy story eh?

Last night I finished the Book of Mormon. 5 weeks exactly! That book is true. I think my favorite part of being a missionary is seeing people gain a testimony of it. There is so much power in those pages and I know that it was translated by a Prophet of God.

Yesterday morning we had a meeting at 6:30am with the stake presidency, the high counselor over missionary work, and all the Ward Mission Leaders in the stake. Ours was in Mexico. They trained on how to get the members involved and use the video segments we saw in the broadcast from last week. It was awesome. The ward mission leaders spoke about programs they're using. Some of the ones that stuck out are, "let your mormon swagger shine," a program where the missionaries and ward missionaries visit members and give them arm bands with "mormon swagger" to remind them to share the gospel. They hand a tie off to a family each week to remind them daily to do missionary work. Other programs included getting the missionaries to speak in church, perform musical talents, and more. They talked a lot about ward council and how it needs to be focused on missionary work and have the 15 name program working constantly. It was super inspiring to see wards so organized and the members so involved in missionary work. We heard stories of wards with historical yearly baptisms of 3, 4, or 5 jumping to over 50 due to involvement from the members. We left inspired. We have been praying for ideas and yesterday we got an answer. The Gospel Principles teacher came to us and said, "Elders, I've been praying a lot about what my family can do better to help you and I thought of this idea for a ward activity! We used it in Mexico and it worked miracles!" She then went on to explain it and called it, "Trip to Hawaii," or something like that. Sounds great!

Spanish wards have a reputation for not being so organized and members being not so involved. It is an unfortunate reputation that in many cases is earned. Well, we're going to change that. We met with the Sisters and we're making a plan for what we can do to get the work moving. For two hours yesterday we brainstormed and finally have a basic rough draft for our plan of action. It will take lots of refinement and practice but we know the ward can do it. It's going to be really hard to follow up and stay on top of things but we're committed to it.  Bring it on!

We also met with one of our members, a branch president who implemented a plan like it and had 50 baptisms his first year. We talked a lot with him and his overarching advice was, "help them set goals." Duh! Why didn't we think of that?! He said that they as a family set a goal for how many families they're going to help come to the church per year. This year their goal was one. Not a high number but a number they committed to. Want to know how they're doing? They are the fellowships for the young couple we're teaching. I don't mean we just take them to the lessons, I mean they've become true friends. Yesterday they had them over for dinner. Last week they took them to the temple, took pictures, framed it, wrapped it in gift wrap (with a bow!) and gave it to them. They visit with them during the week and give them advice, help, and are there for whatever they need. They're helping our investigators find a car so the soon-to-be-husband can get to work and church. Take notes! They're the best fellowships I've seen or heard of in my entire mission! We asked him how we could help others catch the same spirit and his answer was humbling. "I'll never be able to pay the Lord back for what he did." And then he said, "When you ask the members to fellowship someone, say, 'will you take this person with you to exaltation?' Then they won't be able to say no!" Hahahahahah. Ah, such a great family. He gave us a ride last week and when we thanked him his reply was, "I made a promise to give all I had to the Lord. I intend to keep it." No words can describe how great he is. And then said, "behind every man is a better woman." Just an exemplary family. 

We had four investigators at church yesterday and a family we helped return to activity. The ward is getting excited about missionary work and things are going great! The Sisters had an investigator there and a family they are also reactivating. The ward hadn't had more than 2 investigators at church for 'many months' months and now the work is flourishing. 

How do cars make cold air for the AC? How does an AC work?

Thanks Sister Hines, Mom, Dad, Eric, Will, and Brother Aegerter for the letters this week!

Love you all lots and thanks for all you've all done for me! 

Elder Johnson

17 September 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm going to send a couple emails since these computers won't let me compress files/pictures. Expect 2-5 emails, only one with text.

This week has been a little less hectic than last week. As we've gotten settled and a little more of a grasp on things things have fallen into a place a bit more. That said, we're still working our way around things. 

One of the interesting things that the Church is doing with the mission vehicles is installing "little black boxes," known as Tiwi's. They're connected to the cars electronics to measure G forces, RPMs, top speed, etc, and compared to a GPS signal and measured speed limit on a certain road. If you go above it, you get three warnings. On the third, a report is sent to salt lake then forwarded to President Howes, the mission president. It will speak to you over the speakers and say, "check your speed," and then "speed violation recorded." It was cool for one day.

It has been funny to see people's reactions to us in the evening. We biked up to this one guy yesterday and started talking to him. When we first said "Hello," he wasn't facing towards us. He saw us, jumped, and started to run. When he realized we weren't cops, he started laughing. He was trippin hard and really drunk. Good guy, though. We had a nice conversation on how he has drawn closer to God when he has been in jail. He's on probation and not supposed to be drinking or smoking. Similarly, some of the latinos will jump and run from us because they think we are immigration or border patrol.

I was talking to the Mission President about how Prop 1027 has affected missionary work in Arizona. If you'll remember, Prop 1027 is about the legal immigration/illegal and search and arrests. He said millions, literally millions, have left Arizona and the amount of Spanish missionaries in the Tempe, Arizona mission have dropped to 30. There are ~200 total missionaries in this mission. 

Speaking of politics, the people here are surprisingly "loud" about what they think. Elder Sawyer and I were biking around the other day and came across a couple of guys drinking. We started talking to them about the Church. One of the guys suddenly asked us who we were voting for. Sawyer and I didn't say anything. Then the guy said all Mormons vote for Romney. I said, "this one isn't." I left it at that. He asked if I was a socialist then. When I said no, he said, "It's not about political parties anymore, it's about capitalism vs socialism." If I wasn't on my mission, I would have said that even the socialist party "disowns" Obama and asked the man if he liked the street his house was on since it was paid for through "communal" taxes. Luckily I held back. After I saw one Elder freak out in the MTC (literally yelling about politics. Not my fault! I was just asking questions) I've been working on cutting back on that. It is actually surprisingly hard. Even the members here like to talk about Romney. In a Correlation meeting we had (talking about ward missionary work with ward members), this one guy spent about five minutes talking about how Romney will be the savior of missionary work and the church will grow so quickly as a result of his name being out there. I put my head down, bit my lip, and tried to zone out. He went on about how he wishes everyone had the vision he had. If I wasn't on a mission, I would have said something like him being president can go two ways. It can go really well for the church, or it can follow the trend that almost all US Presidents face, and that is, being hated by the world because we go and do whatever we want, whenever, wherever. There's a reason the world hates US Presidents. And then as you said Dad, what if the world hates him and starts taking missionary VISAs away? Based on what Romney has said in the past about increased military use, who knows. But I'm on a mission so I stay quiet on these topics for 2 years. Some people get too emotionally involved in politics. Once emotions get involved, logic and manners go out the window. It isn't worth ruining a missionary relationship over politics. But really, staying quiet on that is way hard.

Elder Sawyer and I went biking thrice this week. We did two half days and one full day. On the full day we went 21 miles, and we went 7 and 9 on the two half days. We're sitting at a solid 37 miles this week. My "cyclometer" has a thermometer on it that measures the temp at ground level which is more likely what it is for us since the waves reflect off the pavement. It has been between 102-117. I'd say it's accurate to +-3 degrees. It gets to 100 degrees at night which is nice and down to 85-90 in the late night. 

We have also started going to the gym most mornings. They have ergs/rowing machines! I've been doing 1k sprints, then running a mile, then weights. Weights are boring.

We got anti'd this week! We biked past this guy who yelled, "mormons er'y mile!" We laughed and kept going. About two minutes later we heard someone yelling at us. Turning around, we saw Thomas biking as fast as he could at us. We laughed again and stopped to let him catch us. He was yelling, "hey, want to learn about the Bible?" We said, "do you?" He went off on how the Catholic church was The Antichrist and church of the devil, how the world was created in one day and not seven, and some more crazy things. After 30 minutes, we just left him. He was probably 65 and definitely not "all there." Mexicans are nice. I'm turning into one since I'm red now. 

Is Mark home?

I got chased by my first dog! Luckily I was on my bike but that thing jumped the fence and ran after me. Once I noticed that it was right behind my heel (on my bike, I was), I braked hard and swerved into it. It barely missed my tire and ran off. I won.

It has been fun to see how many people have never heard of Joseph Smith here. It provides us the opportunity to teach from scratch and not have to dispel misbeliefs like that we're Amish. We get that one here.

We met one guy in a trailer park. He looked pretty high. We spoke to him a bit and then he asked, "hey guys, do you mind if I come chill at your place for a bit?" Never expected to hear that one. 

We ate this corn soup thing this week. It was the worst texture. Other than that, I'm surviving. I think that beans are going to become my new favorite food whether I want them to or not. People eat a lot of beans.

We did a deep clean of our apartment this week. We have to do one more since we have cleaning checks this week. We can't walk barefoot since our feet turn black. We spent about 2 hours vacuuming, cleaning window sills, and finding junk everywhere. We have a long way to go. We are getting a floor cleaner thing this week, we need it bad. 

Mom and Dad, I'm missing an SD card I sent home ~3 weeks ago.

Mom, please link this talk here. "The Peace and Joy of knowing our Savior Lives." Russel M. Nelson 2011 in December. (https://www.lds.org/liahona/2011/12/the-peace-and-joy-of-knowing-the-savior-lives?lang=eng&query=m+peace+%28name%3a%22Russell+M.+Nelson%22%29 ). In there is this great quotation by Joseph Smith, "The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again on the 3rd day, and ascended into Heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."

I've noticed gas prices have shot up in  recent days. I asked one of the members about it and he laughed when I told him that gas prices usually follow world crisis. He told me that indeed there have been many as US ambassadors have been killed in the middle east. Is that true? 

We were biking two nights ago down a hill. Elder Sawyer was in front, I was following. We got going pretty quick. As we were going down, I felt as if I should slow down. Just as I did, a car flew past the stop sign and would have hit me had I not slowed down. I was able to turn myself and go behind it. Little promptings save lives. 

Quick question: why does the church buy different makes of different cars? In Yuma zone alone we have a Chevy Malibu, my swagger wagon - the Dodge Caravan (I think that's the name..), a Pontiac Vibe, and two Corollas. I imagine it's due to deals the church is given but who knows.

I forgot to mention this one last week. Apparently in the Tempe zone the members are very...involved in every day lives of missionaries. I think it was President Kimball who used to say, "every member a missionary." President Howes likes to say, "Every member a mission president." Apparently they get calls if missionaries haven't shined their shoes, if they're driving too fast, etc. So funny. Luckily that doesn't happen much (to my knowledge) in Yuma.

I got called on to give a talk in our Spanish branch yesterday. They gave me plenty of warning, a solid 10 minutes. We were getting ready to leave our apartment when the phone rang and the second counselor, Hermano Steenstra (from Netherlands, fluent in English, dutch, Spanish), said that their speaker cancelled and if I could speak. I wasn't too nervous but my limited vocabulary made it...interesting. I shared Isaiah 41:10 and how we can get strength through Christ etc etc. 

We have an investigator who is rock solid. She's ~20, has a strong catholic background, and draws all these great connections between the bible stories and the readings that she is doing in the Book of Mormon. She gives insightful feedback that I learn from and has enjoyed our visits and church. One time we stood up, forgetting to say a closing prayer, and she said, "hey. don't you leave without saying the prayer!" Needless to say she's progressing well.

I was wrong about Dear Elders! I got one from William this week. You just have to pay for postage to get it directly to me. It comes in an envelope. I think you can get them printed at the mission home but they take 3-6 weeks to get to me if you don't pay for postage (45 cents) and send it to me. To clarify: if you pay for the postage stamp on a dear elder, it will get to me in ~3 days and will be mailed directly to our apartment. If you do not, it will be printed at the mission home and take 3-6 weeks to get to me. So pay the 45 cents for a stamp!

Thanks Natalia, Sister Hines, and William for the letters! It is great to hear from you all. Replies are in the mail.