30 December 2013

Well, Christmas has come and gone and with it it has brought many miracles! 

It was nice to be able to Skype home. I'm still waiting for you to put the pictures on Facebook! It was a fun conversation! Thanks family, you're the best!!

Speaking of family, I was able to do something unique this past week: Skype Mom and Mark into two separate lessons that I had! We were teaching two separate lessons at the church building that night and had wifi and thought, 'hey, Mom speaks spanish...lets get her into this lesson!" and then, "Hey, Mark barely speaks English, lets get him into this lesson so he can learn a little more english!" They both went great.

And they were both baptized two days ago :)

We've recently decided that we aren't going to visit people anymore. This last week was our first time doing that for an entire week.

To clarify: our investigators come to us. We have their fellowships pick them up and take them to the church where we meet and talk. For new investigators, it is a great opportunity to give a tour of the chapel. For current investigators, it is a great opportunity to get away from the many distractions we so often run into: TV, music, cars, angry family members, birds, chihuahuas, and drugs. It works.

Mom, remember the awesome woman that you met over Skype? She and her entire family went to her son's baptism and to church the next day. They loved it. More on that later.

Christmas week is always a hard week to find people to teach. On Christmas Eve we worked until 1:00pm and then had P-Day until 6. At 6, we went caroling as a district. Those are always great memories. We got in our "drug rugs", santa hats, and went and visited some great people. We never said we were great singers but it was an awesome experience.

After the caroling, we met together as a zone and had a testimony meeting. It was a highlight of the week.

Christmas day was fun. We got up and did our morning studies and then the rest of the day was a P-day. That's when I skype'd home, had a nice lunch at a member's home, and then got together as a zone to play floor hockey. Fun times.

Like I said, we had two baptisms this last weekend. They're both amazing people who have developed strong testimonies. One was found, taught, and baptized in a grand total of 18 days. The other has been about three months. One of them was baptized amidst intense family opposition. Preachers got involved, anti literature was shared, and negative things were said. Regardless, this person stayed strong to the testimony she had received and was baptized. She said, "God has told me this is for me. I must do it." She's an awesome example for us all. 

It always makes me sigh when family members say, "HEY, BEFORE YOU GET BAPTIZED COME LEARN ABOUT MORMONS FROM MY PREACHER!" What? How is that even logical? I would never go to a Buddhist to learn about Catholicism. I would never go to a Mormon to learn about Wickens. To. The. Source.

We have changed how we do baptismal services. Historically they go, 

1. Opening hymn

2. Opening prayer

3. Talk on baptism

4. Ordinance of baptism

5. Talk on holy ghost

6. Welcome to ward

7. Closing hymn

8. Closing prayer

I've never liked that. When I was with Elder Harder we threw away the welcome to the ward's because they drag on and chase the awesome spirit that follows a baptismal ordinance away. But we tried something new this past weekend and it was AMAZING. The new baptismal program went like this:

1. Opening hymn

2. Opening prayer

3. Talk on whatever

4. Talk on whatever (don't need two)

~~hymn~~

5. Ordinance of baptism

6. Recent convert shares testimony

7. Closing hymn

8. Closing prayer

BAM! No refreshments. End on super high note, leave. The service only takes about 30 minutes then and it is so much more powerful.

I have another exciting announcement! Elder Holland is coming to our mission in a little under two weeks! And President Toone asked if Elder Myler and I would be involved in a violin/vocal/cello/piano musical number for him and two mission's worth of missionaries! We'll be performing, "Because He Lives," and it's super hard. I spent three hours getting five measures down...and I'm still not confident about it. It'll come together though, it always does somehow. It is so much fun to practice together. Mom said on the Skype call, "You're playing more violin on your mission than you did in your last year home!" 

That's sadly true....At least more in Mesa than I did back home.

Mesa Zone ended the month with nine baptisms. Seven of the nine came from member referrals and the other two came from mormon.org self referrals. Interesting how that works. Elder Diaz and I sat down yesterday and prayerfully put some new ideas together for the month of January; things we can and need to improve on to do better. We know we can! All those nine people have such strong testimonies and are so grateful. They have the desire to share the gospel too because they've seen and felt the change that it has made in their lives.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Thanks family for the letters!

Con amor!

Elder Johnson

16 September 2013

This week was the most amazing week until Sunday. 

We found 11 new investigators, more than we found all of last transfer combined, and 7 of them had accepted a baptismal date for Sep 28. But 5 of them fell off date for various reasons last night which was way unfortunate...more on that in a bit.

Last week I said goodbye to Elder Harder. I was sad to see him go but I'm excited for what's ahead of him.

This past week started off perfectly. I got bit by a pitbull. I was on exchanges with Elder Mack (since his companion went home as well) and we saw this guy that we decided we'd talk to. I should have taken more notice of how the dog's leash was tied around the man's waist. Anyway, we talked to him and I asked if I could pet his dog. "Make sure you're sure of yourself!" Whatever that meant I walked toward the dog and all the sudden in a thrash of teeth, blood, gore, and pain the pitbull was dragging me behind it to what I thought was my sure death.

Ok, maybe it didn't happen like that but it did jump up and grab my knee and bite my knee! I stepped backwards in shock and the guy said, "well, you should have been more sure!" and then walked away. KSJDFLAKJSDFAKSJDFKALSDFA. I could have gotten his dog taken away if I wasn't so nice! Oh well. 

We had an awesome experience finding a family to teach this week. We OYM'd into a woman outside an apartment complex and we talked with her a bit and had a nice conversation. We asked her if we could return the next day at a certain time and she accepted! When we went over we were surprised to see 7 people inside the house! We sat down and had an awesome conversation with them and they all accepted a baptismal invitation. They're doing really well and a wedding and a baptism are in the mix for the future. A really faithful, open, and genuine family. 

That has been my goal in OYMs. I want to leave every OYM having gained a new friend. I talked about that last week but people need to see us as people not just, "HEY WE'RE THE MISSIONARIES FROM THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR MORE?" And then if the answer is no, "OK, DO YOU KNOW ANYONE..." etc. There's so much more to these street contacts than that!

On Wednesday I picked up my new companion! His name is Elder Gaspar and he was in the Phoenix mission before! He's great and guess where he's from? Stafford, VA! Small world! I've had two companions in a row from the East Coast! His family is from Peru so he's 100% Peruvian blood and fluent in both english and spanish. Obviously I'm supposed to learn spanish or something since I've had three native speaker companions which I've never heard of happening before. And he plays violin too! AND HE HAS SEEN KUNG POW ENTERS THE FIST AS WELL! He's super humble and a powerful missionary so we're going to have a lot of fun together. 

Another small world story. For the Dewey family in Washington...Renee Taylor, your babysitter, is in the Arizona Tempe mission! I met her this past Wednesday. The one who babysat your kids? Craaazzzyyyy.

One of our recent converts is really struggling right now. I don't want to go into too many details but the state has picked her up to keep her safe from herself and they won't tell us where she is. no one knows where she is and they won't let us contact her. She needs the ward now more than ever and we can't do anything. Super frustrating.

We're really excited for a different investigator who has accepted a baptismal date for two weeks from now! She is so prepared but her health problems are going to present a challenge. She has had some amazing experiences getting her to where she is now and she is more ready than ever! 

It's hard to see people struggle. Whether it be spiritual, financial, physical, whatever. And it is even worse when people say, "they brought that on themselves, I'm not going to help." This past week we got to spend some time with an amazing person who is struggling with one of those three things. This person commented to us about all the judgement he has received and how it is really making him question things. Just be aware that little acts of kindness make a world of a difference. Do something good for someone today. Help someone in need. You never know who's hurting and you never will unless you try. 

Oh my goodness this last week I saw a Fisker Karma! If you don't know what it is then google it. It drove right through Mesa (of course) and on probably to Scottsdale but it was sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. 

One of the stakes in our zone is tiny. Four square miles by four square miles. An entire stake! They're on the Gilbert side, quite a ways away, but we had an awesome meeting with the stake presidency the other day. It is always really humbling and inspiring to see these powerful men make time at 7am to meet with us and listen to the work we're doing. This particular stake president comes very prepared to these meetings, complete with an agenda and both his counselors. The missionaries in that stake are working very closely with their leadership and miracles are around the corner.

And that's something that we're working on - a smooth connection from the top down. Facebook is making that possible as more and more stake presidents, counselors, and bishops get on Facebook. It makes the connection and the correlation between all levels seamless and easy. 

We had our correlation meeting this week over Skype. Information was shared via email and text and video conferencing provided all other interaction needed. The wards and members are getting really reallly excited about this new technology as are we.

We just need to help the mission be effective. Our teaching opportunities almost trippled this past week because of an hour a day on Facebook. We just had a conference call with President Toone addressing some of his concerns and talking about some success we've had as a companionship over Facebook.

This past week I committed someone to baptism over Facebook. This person lives in Texas and I was able to teach her twice: once with my first companion Tanner Sawyer and the second time, yesterday, with Mark, my brother. She brought a lot of concerns up yesterday and kind of fell away from the commitment she had made to baptism but it was a special experience to be able to teach and testify with both of them, especially considering I haven't even seen Mark in three years and won't for one more. I'm in contact with the mission president where the person we're teaching over Facebook lives and he is super excited for this. Their mission isn't on Facebook until February. Apparently President Toone brought this experience up at the conference all the missionaries had in Texas this past weekend with Elder Neil L. Anderson! Wooo!

It was also really cool this morning to see Tracy Watson, the director of proselyting for the world (for the church) comment and testify on my status in response to a nonmembers comment. Everything is so connected! It's cool to have a connection to leadership of the church through Facebook since we're testing out this new stuff. Fun fun fun fun fun.

Thanks Eric, Will, Dallin (In France!), and Grandpa J for the letter this week!

Thank you all for your support, for liking and sharing posts on Facebook, for sharing your own testimonies on Facebook, for being great friends and for being great family!

Con amor,

EJ