17 December 2013

Time. They say time flies. That isn't true. Time doesn't fly. Time doesn't even exist. I was sitting in my chair this week and realized that I hit 18 months really soon.

Whatonearthhappened. 

From 10 months to 16.8 months, I honestly thought that the mission would be the rest of my life. That was all that I thought about. Nothing else even mattered to me. Well, nothing else DOES matter to me, but something weird happened yesterday and that's why I'm talking like this.

Yesterday was our mission's Christmas Party. It was awesome. More on that later. During the testimony meeting, all I could think about was college. No matter what I did, all the thoughts that came to mind were about college. 

This was not timely. We had just finished the most ridiculous week of my mission with over 60 lessons taught and 30 of them with members present. Ridiculous. So many. We worked so hard. Everyday we were doing everything we could to make everything possible happen. And we saw it. We have four people with a baptismal date and four progressing towards baptism and nine at church and seven new investigators and 15 referrals received. Obscenely good week! I was so in the zone!

And then that testimony meeting hit. Gah. Afterwards I went up to President Toone and asked him what I should do. He looked at me, grabbed my shoulders, smiling, and said, "Elder Johnson...the spirit is telling you that it is time to start planning for the future."

NO. NO NONONONONONONONO.

I'm not "trunky" at all, not distracted, but the idea of planning for myself rather than other people is shocking me. 

And then Elder Oscarson told me today that he and I are the ninth oldest missionaries in the mission. 

And that the sisters that came out with me are going home in three weeks. Today we went to the temple as mission and got the following pictures of the original District 38D from the MTC. 

Anyway, other things happened than me going into shock. 

The Gilbert Temple open house is approaching. The pass along cards have arrived. They're nice. They don't want us handing them out on the street; rather, praying over those that we are teaching and sharing a few. They're not giving us the 700 per companionship that I requested (surprise!) but rather more like 100 </3

We aren't allowed to go to the open house. We are expected to send our investigators to the temple with members. Not all that said considering that the very first sessions after dedication are reserved for missionaries. Hopefully I won't be too far from it for that.

It is a unique experience to meet on a monthly basis with the Stake Presidents in our zone. I don't know why they trust us as much as they do, but they do. I'm twenty and they're 50+ and very experienced. But these meetings are so inspiring. I learn about humility, patience, love, boldness, honesty with oneself and others, and effectiveness. I look forward to those meetings. They meet with us to discuss the state of the work and how the wards are doing, any concerns or miracles we're seeing, and offer us some guidance. It's awesome. They reach out to us warmly. 

It was especially cool to be in the temple this morning doing some initiatory work and find the high councilor over missionary work in one of the quadrants. That was also a special moment. Really, they're such powerful people and great examples.

Today has brought the first three trainings that I've been assigned to do on effective use of Facebook. Mom, I bragged about you again. I talked with President Toone last week about how I felt the mission has lost focus on Facebook as it has appropriately shifted focuses to help the younger missionaries. But I felt it was an important topic and as I sat talking with him he told me that he wanted me to meet one on one with every zone leader companionship and train them on how to train their stewardship. It has been highly effective so far and I've already figured out a ton about the state of the mission in regards to Facebook. Doubling every zones total teaching opportunities per week is my vision.

Speaking of vision, I want to comment on how inspired this has all been. The APs put together the zone conference and made "Vision" the focus. At the same time and without knowing, I put together the Facebook training and had vision as my focus! INSPIRED!

It is reasonable to say that between 60-80% of our mission is yet to teach their first lesson on Facebook. A missionary who isn't busy is a homesick missionary. And that's the big struggle of the mission right now. So we're expecting miracles out of this.

Ok, now I can talk about the christmas conference. It all started on Sunday night with a Mission President's Devotional. All the missionaries and as many investigators as possible were invited. Elder Gaspar, Anderson, and I played a special musical number on, respectively, Viola, Violin, Violin. We played, "Silent Night/Still, Still, Still" arranged by Sally DeFord and had someone on Piano. That was a lot of fun - wish I had recorded it.

The christmas conference continued all day on Monday, starting at 7:00am with a breakfast. Yum. That day consisted of some AMAZING talks by President Laney (one of the amazing Stake Presidents I previously mentioned in this letter) on how Jesus Christ is a healer and the difference between being cured and healed. He's a doctor and spent the time noting how doctors cure but don't heal. He used the parable of the 10 lepers and how it uses cured/healed interchangeably to refer to the nine and to the one. Amazing. If you want my notes just let me know.

The Mesa Arizona Temple President and wife also spoke to us. That was phenomenal and they gave us some great pointers for how to get a lot out of a temple visit. 

The rest of the day was full of some fun activities, lots of musical numbers, a visit from Santa (nice and naughty list for missionaries and the funny stories that landed them on each list). It was a fun experience.

The conference culminated in a temple trip this morning. We went extra early to do some initiatories -that was fun. Elder Gaspar missed the temple session so went through alone afterwards haha. And then he missed the mission picture because he went through a later session...

We went to the temple twice in two weeks since we were sneaky and planned the temple trip the first week of the transfer and got to go again. Genius! Normally we just go once a transfer. Inspired! 

The trip last week was super insane. We forgot about it. No, really, we did. We go to the 7:30 session and at 6:52, while exercising, we realized that we had a temple session in 40 minutes. So we RACED home, changed SUPER fast, met our ride 10 minutes late, and got into the session as they shut the door. That. was. Intense. I hate being rushed through the temple haha.

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone! I hope everyone has a GREAT week! 

With love,

Elder Johnson

10 June 2013

I got in a car crash this morning. Well, it wasn't really a car crash but this metal pole jumped out of NOWHERE and broke our right side rear view mirror. Ahhhh, my driving record isn't perfect anymoreeeeeeeeeeeee. We've already called it in and will be dropping it off later today to get fixed and whatnot. The ONE time I park next to the pole...the ONE TIME! I hit it backing up at 2mph, if that. 

Gah.

Before I forget, THIS WEEK IS THE LAST WEEK OF THE TRANSFER. I don't know where time has gone! So, if you're not planning on sending a letter by Wednesday to me, you should probably send it to the mission home (see side bar  on blog for address). I'm 98% sure we'll both stay in Chandler but you never know. Since we're both new here, since I'm training, and since we have so much work it's almost guaranteed we'll stay. I hope. 

This was an awesome week. We didn't find as many as we did last week but now we have 4 people with a baptismal date in June and they're all progressing. We're pretty excited. 

Speaking of baptismal dates, you'll never believe what happened. The person that was supposed to get baptized June 15th got anti'd....

....

But it didn't go bad! Our investigator actually anti'd the guy back! It was actually his old pastor from his old church and our investigator went off on him! The investigator was at church yesterday and we had him meet with our Bishop for a bit. 75 minutes later they came out of the room - both happy. This baptism will be the first baptism this ward has had for almost 10 months now and we will have found and baptized him in 3 weeks! He is crazy prepared and there have been some unbelievable miracles in his conversion story that I can't write here. Unbelievable. Almost. He also did the commitment from the sunday school lesson from last week to compile his four generation family history chart haha. 

We had a pretty cool experience with him this week. We planned to go over the 10 commandments with him but the spirit prompted us otherwise and we talked about the Book of Mormon for the whole time. He has struggled reading it since he has such a strong testimony of the Bible. The lesson changed things and he's doing really well now. At the end of the lesson he spent 15 minutes thanking us for being so supportive and loving and how he feels something different from us etc. It was pretty humbling to hear him testify about the role that we have been able to play in his recent life. 

The Mesa Mission President told some stories recently about how their missionaries were stalked. But by who? But members of the Cornerstone church. They have anti Mormon classes in their church, offered during services on Sundays, and they send people to follow LDS missionaries around and knock on the doors that the missionaries visit. We had the same guys in Queen Creek and looks like they're hitting the Phoenix area hard. They anti all the investigators they can find. Usually I wouldn't put the church name in the email but these guys take it too far.

The temple this week was awesome. I learned Elder Myler got red lighted from Tiwi (in-car GPS) hahahahaha

We met someone who had a "Chweenie dog" this week. What a terrible creation.

This last week we were visiting with some investigators from Dominican Republic, and Chile. They all said where they were from, Elder Diaz said Argentina, our member said Chile, and then it was my turn. Naturally I said Brazil but for some reason they didn't believe me.

I walked up stairs this last week for the first time in months! We never go up stairs because there's nothing upstairs of any building that we ever need...

So it's officially hot. 113-115 was the high this week and we were out on bikes. I think the most depressing thing is when we're biking home at 8:55pm and see one of the giant screens with the temperature and it says 107' F. Kills me.

I thought Arabs might have been onto something for the heat. Nope. Still hot.

Speaking of bikes and car crashed, I almost got hit again this week. We were biking up north to visit someone and this car was pulling out of a parking lot to turn onto the road. This person decided that she didn't need to stop for the stop sign and  plowed through. I swerved out of the way and my pedal just about his the front of the car. 

On Sunday yesterday I was getting ready to sit down when I was approached by one of the members. He asked me, "will you translate?" There are some English families that were present and the normal translator wasn't there. I said yes and got ready and was pretty nervous. Everything went perfect until the youth speakers got up. They spoke so fast and mumbled into the microphone. I looked at the Bishop on the stand and he looked at me and laughed. I just whispered, "sorry!" into the microphone and the people with the translators on just laughed. It was a pretty fun experience and I was a lot more attentive than usual. There were some awesome talks. My favorite was on an experience from girls camp where they blindfolded some of them and had them walk an obstacle course holding onto an "iron rod." There were people without blindfolds walking around trying to lead the people with blindfolds astray. One of the leaders (blindfolded) told of one girl who tried to "tempt" her by saying, "Help, I'm lost!" The leader then responded, "Come and walk with me, we will go together!" The youth 'tempter' then said, "aren't you a leader?? Help me, I need your help!" The leader told us that she couldn't tell if the girl actually needed help or not and was trying hard to decide whether or not to check (which would have disqualified her. She likened it to people who may have wandered who need help but aren't willing to come where the good is and she said we can't leave the path to help them but we can invite them and encourage them to come walk with us. It was a pretty touching story and excellently delivered. Our investigators loved it.

We are teaching a woman who is from (I'm going to butcher the spelling) Guahaka, Mexico. She speaks a very interesting dialect that has some similarities to spanish and sounds awesome. She also speaks some spanish.

We are taking a recent convert out with us to visit some people. He has been looking for a new house to move in with his young child and pregnant wife. We took him to visit the above-mentioned investigator who had just that day put her house up for rent and is the perfect price and location for our member. The blessings of missionary work!

I think I love spanish wards so much because the overwhelming majority are converts. It makes taking people out with us more personal for a lot of our investigators.

Right now we're teaching a young husband and wife who are expecting their first child. The father is drinking a lot and the wife broke down in tears telling us how she worried for him as a result. We had a member with us who was a convert and had been through the exact same thing  and he bore super bold testimony to the husband about how he needed to change now. It was pretty cool to see how bold we can be with the spirit and if it's loving. They didn't make it to church since someone stole the husband's identity in Mexico and was doing some money scam.  The family is going through a lot and there's a lot of stress in their relationship but they both said yesterday that they think this can save their relationship and their family. It's awesome to see people change, I'd say that's my favorite part.

We ran into an unbelievably drunk man yesterday. He was too drunk to even shake my hand and we told him that was the last drink he should ever have again in his life. I thought he was going to punch me, he looked so mad haha.

Remember the Jehovah's Witness I wrote about last week? Well we ran into her again. By ran into her I mean we knocked her trailer door. She answered and was surprised to see us. She had told me to research some anti thing she told us last week which I learned about (thanks Sister Hines!) and told her the real story. She told me she had more for me and would give it over next time we saw. Anyway, that wasn't the point of stopping by. I told her I had read her magazine and found it interesting and offered to give her one of ours again. She declined and said, "Jehovah already has spoken to me, I won't read it." I left it on her doorstep by her door with our phone number on the back. She gave me four more magazines and a book. She couldn't comprehend that I was genuinely interested in what she believed and that I like to understand the people I teach. Her question was, "if you believe you already have the truth, why are you reading this?" I told her that if we aren't willing to put our testimonies to the test then we don't trust God. Anyway, those little magazines did the same as the one last week  did - just strengthened my testimony of the restored gospel. It still blows my mind that they never talk about the role that God plays in their church today. Never. Not once. I think she thinks she's going to convert me. I have a lot of respect for their beliefs but not the way they go about sharing them. I think the religious zeal goes a bit too far. We talked to someone this week who said that some Jehovah's Witnesses that stopped by three years ago talked so strongly to her about how she's going to hell that she tried to kill herself. Too far.

It has been a good week and next weeks letter will have a baptismal picture attached!

Thanks Katie, Jamie, Sister Hines, and Eric for the letters this week! 

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Johnson

6 May 2013

Dear Friends and Family,

 

Transfer calls..............didn't happen.

 

We got a text at 9:30 saying that instead of calling that night they would make all the calls at some point today. They also decided to take away P-Day and so we only have from 9-12 today and they said from 2-6pm the entire mission is to stay indoors, clean the apartment, and prepare the area books as if we are all getting whitewashed. No one knows what is going on. Based on the AP calls that were made it seems like we will both be staying in Queen Creek for another 6 weeks and Elder Allen would finish his mission here. We made our own transfer board and have pretty much every option written out haha. Staying here another transfer would almost guarantee me to stay in the Gilbert Mission.

 

Which would mean 16 months here.

 

So a lot depends on the phone call we get today. In the meantime, probably just keep sending letters to the mission home again this week to be safe.

 

____

 

 

It was so hot this week. We have been getting not only hot air but also hot wind which makes it pretty bad. I think the high was 100 and it will still get 10-20 degrees hotter. Everyone always asks us why we wear dark slacks and church shoes. That's a hard one to answer haha. But luckily people are very kind with giving out cold water bottles. Sometimes we just walk holding the cold bottles against our face to keep cool. There is an SUV being sold down the street and the two selling points written on the window are "LOW PRICE" and "COLD AC."

 

I got so acclimatized to the winter in Yuma, this'll be a fun one. I was just remembering too how in my enthusiasm I suggested that we Sawyer and I bike a couple of times a week down in Yuma when it was 120. I must have been crazy haha but we had awesome results. He finishes his mission tomorrow!

 

This past week was probably one of the most upsetting anti's. We talked to him on the street and he told us how his preacher tells them all how our church is false and whatnot. I told him that if our preacher really knew what we taught he would be a member. We headed down the street right after that to visit a less active member. As we were walking into the home the anti biked around the corner of the street, jumped off his bike, and walked into our less active members home to give us a DVD that "proved the falsity of everything we taught." I traded a pass along card for the DVD then put it in my backpack to be disposed of later that night. The fact that he came into the members home to give that was the only upsetting thing.

 

There were many other angry people too.

 

We also met the first RLDS/Community of Christ person I've ever met in my life this week. Actually, she left it to join the baptist church but we got to learn a bit about their beliefs and it was a nice talk.

 

I wrote about that awesome potential from last week, the one who went to church and that baptism for the sisters. This week she told us that she was too busy for us again.

 

Every time we make a little bit of progress it just all falls away.

 

One of the things that has been brought up over and over this week was the temple; people talking about open houses and whatnot. It has been fun to go along with what was said at conference how everyone is invited to the temple! We have told lots of people that and it has been cool to see their interest spike. Unfortunately they were all referrals for other missionaries but the work is progressing nonetheless.

 

I'm 99.99% sure I'm staying here.

 

There's not much more to say. Nothing happened this past week worth much note.

 

 

Thanks for the letters: Mom, Eric, Will, Sis. Hines, Mark, and Grandpa and Grandma W for the package!

 

Con amor,

EJ

 

 

A prairie dog.

11 March 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

This was kind of an interesting week.

 

That's an understatement.

 

The week started out pretty well. On Monday night we were walking around trying to find people and stumbled into a super sketchy park. It was 8:30pm and there were no lights except in a pavillion. There were two girls there, probably 20 years old, that we went to talk to. They freaked out when we said hi since we surprised them. We started teaching them and they invited us to sit next to them on the picnic table. We awkwardly ignored it and taught them standing up haha. Anyway, they seemed pretty interested so we set up a return appointment for a few days later.

 

When we went by to visit them, we saw a car outside and someone yelled, "Hey Elders!" Bad sign since the girls weren't members. When we got closer we asked if ___ and ____ were home and she said, "...I got here this morning and the house was empty. They disappeared." They had been renting the house and either went all out to get away from us or gave us a time they knew they wouldn't be there for (which happens a lot.) They had just moved there too which was strange. Anyway, the land lord was a Mormon and we talked to him for a bit and he was very surprised they disappeared as well. He went to work cleaning it out to rent again haha. People are weird.

 

I'm going to explain more about our area than I did this week and about the house that we live in. Yeah, we live in a house which was surprising for me. We have a yard of rocks and a backyard of rocks. People don't even try to water grass so they just do desert landscapes or rocks. We had hundreds of weeds in the front and thousands in the week. We got a notice from HOA saying we had a few days to clean the front out or we would get a $50 fine from our personal accounts. So we cleaned the front but not the back. The other Elders have a recent convert who offered to give us goats for a while to eat all the weeds out haha. Anyway, so the house is alright. There are four of us living there which is good and bad for obvious reasons. Two bathrooms which is nice but we sleep on bunkbeds which isn't fun. Super uncomfortable. This house has carpet unlike my apartment in Yuma which was all tile and cold in the morning. We have a garage that the housing coordinators use to store dozens of desks so we park in our driveway. All the backyards are surrounded by stone walls which is pretty ugly. We live in the smallest house in the neighborhood.

 

Queen Creek itself is a unique place. There are some parts that are somewhat urban and others that are super rural. There are tons of horses here and we will often see people riding their horses down the side of the road. Rodeos are big. The town is stuck between urbanizing and, well, not. Most people have moved here recently since Queen Creek (QC) is so young.

 

The way that missions work is that it is a geographical area divided into zones. We cover probably 600-700 miles in a seatbelt across Arizona divided into 11 zones. Some big enough to bike across, others hours across like Show Low and Yuma. Anyway, you get assigned a zone and you can't leave it.

 

Unless you're a spanish elder in QC. We cover three zones and 90 square miles since we cover the spanish ward and singles ward. Needless to say, everyone we teach is super distanced which gives us a problem with our car. We got cut from 1150 miles a month to 1000 which isn't possible so I called the assistants yesterday, presented our case, and got 100 miles back.

 

This week was interviews with the mission president for our zone. He came down on Thursday, we got trained on planning (again) and went in and had 12 minutes each with him. Some went longer, some went shorter. My first interviews in Yuma we each had 30+ minutes which was way nice. It's kind of crazy to think that that's really the main time he gets to know us since we don;t see him often, about once a month. Anyway, I went in and talked about one of our investigators who is experiencing "demons" in their home. He said some pretty funny and interesting things haha. All in all it was a good time. The first thing he said to me, kind of to break the ice was, "So...do you miss Yuma yet?" At transfer meeting when he called my name he said, "...and Elder Johnson who has spent his entire mission in Yuma." When he mentioned that I was adjusting, he kind of sadly said, "Yes, spanish work right now is struggling in the valley." With the mission boundries changing, it will be interesting to see how spanish missionaries get moved. Right now, 2/3rds of the spanish missionaries are west of the valley. There's only 6 of us in the valley/show low. We should be getting new mission calls soon.

 

We had a pretty awesome miracle this week. Before yesterday we had two people on date for baptism this month. One of them fell off yesterday since he didn't come to church. The other is 100% a miracle and nothing less. When I came into the area all I heard was about how dead it was and how we would have a dry (baptism-less) transfer. Put that behind and went to work. We are teaching one guy in spanish (even though he will get baptized into YSA) and he cancelled every lesson this week since he was going to be in California all week on a surprise trip. When we heard that we were pretty concerned since he is on date for March 16th and we hadn't taught him any of the commandments. The rule is they have to be living all the commandments for at least 10 days before baptism. If not they have to get pushed back. On Saturday night we were supposed to meet with him but that fell through as well. At this point we were super nervous. All week I had been praying that he could be prepared enough to still get baptized on the schedule day even without us teaching him until 6 days before his baptism. On Sunday he was at church and we took him aside and taught him everything then and there. As we went through the commandments, every one, he spoke on how he had in the last few months or years stopped those things that were against the commandments and started to follow all of them. So, having never been taught these before, he had miraculously been keeping them all! So now we are moving on towards his baptismal date making this more or less a 10 day baptism. Nothing short of a miracle.

 

I wrote last week about a YSA investigator who was super solid who had been thinking about baptism. Well, we got a letter from someone in her life who is a less active member that, summarized, said: "We shouldn't push baptism the first visit, that we scared them away, and we can't push baptism if we only know their first names. It was disappointing since the investigator is very prepared and is being kept from progressing from a less active member who is a part of the investigators life.

 

We get to go to the temple on Wednesday!

 

We taught a lesson this week to a Jehovah's Witness. Some things I learned:

    After this life, we all come back to life for a millenium where we can try everything over again without temptation so that we can all become perfect. Then the devil is unleashed and those who didn't get good enough in that millenium will get defeated by the devil. So what's the point of this life if we can all try again after?

    Maybe that's all I remember...

Anyway, we tried to pray with her afterwards and she said, "I've been praying all day, I don't want to pray anymore!" JW's will never let you pray with them. Doing so makes us "like the pharises praying in the streets seeking praise."

 

We also found someone on the street this week who told us to go away since we "didn't understand." When I asked what that meant she said, "I died! It makes sense now!" I asked, "what makes sense?" And she said, "It's all clear!" hahaha

 

I found the name Alpheus Cutler on page 151 and 205 of the History of the Church pt. 2 book. Apostate relative!

 

I also found something a little more dangerous in our house this week. A scorpion! I was looking through Elder Allen's ties and noticed something on the bottom. When I looked closer it was a scorpion! We grabbed a cup and caught it. We've had it in our home trying to find something to feed it. Well, we also found a massive spider on our house today. We put them in the same cage and made them angry and they fought. The spider got stung 3 times and then we had to come email. Our backyard is infested with lizards so maybe we will add a lizard to the match this afternoon and see who wins.

 

We were tracting down a street this week and 1/3 of the doors said that the neighborhood was a no soliciting neighborhood. Good thing we don't sell anything! Everytime we heard that I would say that we aren't soliticing, we are inviting! ONe guy said, "You guys better go! They'll come for me and then for you!" And then slammed the door. Another guy threatened to call the cops on us and I told him that we would still be in the neighborhood when the cops came. They never came. It's illegal in Arizona to kick ministers off of public property. People try to use that excuse all the time to get us out of neighborhoods.

 

A dust/rain storm his this week and did some intense wind damage. The worst part was the mud... the area we do most of our spanish work is called LIttle Mexico and doesn't have paved roads. Our poor car changed from red to brown.

 

Last night we were talking to people in the street pretty late and one woman told us we looked like hitmen.

Thanks Grandpa Wolthuis, Eric, Mom, Will, Margareta, Ian, Grandpa Johnson for the letters! It was great to hear from all of you this week!

 

All in all a good week.

 

Thank you all for your continued support!

Love,

Elder Johnson

 

17 December 2012

Fun times with Santa Clause

Christmas in Yuma

Happy Birthday Grandma Johnson! Wishing you the best birthday ever!

 

Today is Monday but today is not P-day. Since the mission christmas party is tomorrow in Tempe. We have time to shop and write emails today but that's it.

 

This past week we had interviews with President Howes. Elder Valdez and mine were scheduled first at 7:45am. Since we wouldn't have much time in our areas this month to proselyte (Elder Cook, Christmas party, interviews, christmas, etc) President kept them to 15 minutes each. A lot less than last time haha. Interviews were really good. Learned some good things that will help us be better missionaries. President Howes definitely can speak with power.

 

This week was a 2 baptism week for us. Both went smoothly and well. The first one was the most attended baptism I've ever been to wth well over 60 people. The room was full and people were standing. The second one had considerably less, probably 12, but was just as powerful. I was in charge of filling the font both times and I guess the water was a little too warm the first time. The thermometer read 90 F. Woops. When they walked into the water they both looked at me and mouthed "IT'S TOO HOT." Good times. He asked me to confirm him a member of the Church which was my first spanish blessing. To say I was a little nervous probably wouldn't do it justice. Nevertheless, it went smoothly except for saying that that God was happy that he joined his (the baptizee) church. I meant to say that God was happy he was joining His (God's) church. Bah, semantics.

 

Last night was the baptism for someone that I taught with Elder Sawyer. When I got transferred, she was on date to get baptized. Even though the baptism wasn't 'statistically' mine, I was super happy to see her make that step of faith and was happy to have been a part in teaching her. She has overcome many trials and her life and is an example for everyone. That was the most stressful baptism I've ever been to though. Elder Lanier, Sawyer, Valdez and I all ate dinner out in the Foothills that night (yesterday). The baptism was scheduled for 6pm and we left dinner at 4:45 (my goodness the best dinner I've had on my mission. I don't even know what it was but it was delicious). They (Lanier and Sawyer) still had to fill the font (~40 mins), print the programs,get the baptismal suits from our car, and set up the room. Well, we didn't get back to Yuma until 5:25. We split up and we helped them prepare by printing off the programs (which was clearly rushed since they even spelled their own names wrong - we fixed that) and getting the baptismal suits. The baptism didn't start until 6:25, late as usual for our spanish branch haha. Anyway, I told Elder Sawyer to be careful with the hot water and I guess he overcompensated. The water was ice cold. The woman he baptized took like 5 minutes to get into the font. After the baptism, they realized the woman's locker room door was locked and no one had the key. People were bristly walking in and out of the room trying to find the key and it was, well, stressful. Ater 10 minutes they found a key and let her into the locker room to change haha. Wasn't even my baptism and I was stessed out. But that's ok because once she finished changing and came out we ( the 6 missionaries) sang a cool rendition of Nearer my God to Thee. We're probably going to be doing that at every baptism from now on. It was pretty powerful.

 

We taught a lot of lessons this week. 28. Unfortunately, only 7 of those were with members present so I'm not too pleased.

 

And that was because we broke our phone 4 days ago. We were sitting in a members car and the phone slipped out of a pocket and, wouldn't you know it, fell straight into a cup of something. He grabbed it quickly and took the battery out and we let it sit in rice overnight but it was already dead. So for 4 days we've been struggling to do everything. It was especially stressful to plan and figure out baptismal details without a phone. How did old missionaries do it?...

 

I forgot my scriptures at an investigators house this week. While we were walking around the corner, I heard a little kid scream, "HEY WAIT." I turned around and saw him running with my giant scriptures in hand haha. That would have been bad.

 

We baptized someone who lives in San Luis this week (~30 miles away). For 2 days we had tried to find someone to come with us to a lesson and give us a ride and no one could. On a whim we called someone who we knew was very busy. He has a large family and works 80+ hours a week. As soon as we asked him he said, "Of course, let me move my schedule around." Man, that man has a testimony of prioritizing the Lord. It was humbling to see him take 2.5 hours (trip there, lesson, and trip back) out of his very busy day and help us. The lesson was amazing and the spirit was very very strong. Despite it being 50 degrees, we all felt warm that afternoon. He gave a great talk at the baptism too. Something he said that I really liked was, "We live in a world of darkness...but it doesn't have to be dark for you. The light of Christ shines brighter than ever." Amazing experience.

 

This week during personal study, I had a moment of realization. It finally hit me how much sense everything makes in the gospel. Everything just...works. Surely something so perfect can't be incorrect. I don't remember when or why it hit me but it did.

 

One of the most common things we here down here is, "It's all the same God, why does it matter how you worship? I do it in my own way." I was flipping through the Old Testament this week and found a pretty great scripture.  8 ¶For my ^athoughts are not ^byour thoughts, neither are your ^cways my ^dways, saith the Lord.
 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ^aways ^bhigher than your ways, and my ^cthoughts than your thoughts.
Sometimes we don't understand why we have to do something but we need to remember that there's someone who knows better than all of us.

We went to a Tamale festival this week haha. Down in Sommerton (~15 mins from border) they threw a giant party and advertised it for weeks. Since we cover that English area we went down there to see it and see some former investigators. It was a massive dissapointment. $2 for a Tamale "pass" and then $2 per tamale. Psh! There were well over 2,000 people there though. We left empty handed but ran into some snowbirds from Utah who bought us a big bag of them haha. Only in Yuma would there be a party centered around Tamales.

 

I got our family Christmas card this week. There are two ways you can tell Mark made it: 1) He used the picture I told him not to, 2) He made himself look taller than me haha. Just wait, I'll come back 6'11" and show you who's boss.

 

We were in our sketchy part of Yuma last night talking to people at around 8:30pm and we pulled over and started to get out. Someone walked past the car and looked into it. When we opened the doors, he jumped and quickly walked away. The person we were going to visit was the same way he was walking so we went that way. He was terrified that we were cops haha. He then decided to walk into house...which just happened to be the house we were going to. The look on his face was priceless when we said Hi and then when we said we were missionaries. I think we'd get to talk to more people if we weren't wearing white shirts and ties. Then we wouldn't be thought of as cops.

 

We are focusing this week on working with referrals from members. The other day, we were driving behind a member who was going to work. On a whim, while he was driving, he stuck his hand out the window and pointed to a house. We pulled over to the house while he drove away. The family told us to come back another time which we did last week. Turns out the family of 3 have LDS parents but aren't members and the daughter (12) wants to get baptized. Sometimes we don't know who is ready for the gospel, so why try to determine who we think is ready when in reality we don't know who is? The gospel is something that blesses everyones lives. Let it!

 

Thanks Mom, Dad, and Natalia for the letters this week. I'll respond tomorrow on the car trip to Tempe.

 

We get to go to the temple tomorrow! Never been so excited haha. Just hope I get better by then. Last two days have been pretty flu-y.

 

How is the range in the temperature so huge in deserts? 120 during the summer days, 30s during winter nights.

Why does, at the end of the Old Testament, it say, "the end of the prophets?"

 

Merry Christmas, love you all,

Elder Johnson

23 August 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Whew, time at the MTC FLIES by. We have 11 days left as of today and we're all starting to get excited to get out of the MTC.

Earlier this week I stumbled upon an Elder with a tiny Preach my Gospel. It is about the size of 2 notecards with all the pages, pictures, notes and everything of the full size one. I asked Hermana Olsen where I could get one (Since I'm worried about weight for my bags when I fly out. I planned on sending the full size ones home to save weight.) and she said since the Church didn't publish them, you have to go around and buy them and technically they're illegal. Well, I walked into the bookstore yesterday and apparently the church has just started publishing the "pocket sized" P my G's (Preach my Gosepls). I quickly bought one for an obscenely expensive $3.20. A steal. Spanish copies are coming this week and I'll buy one of those too. I will then send my English and Spanish full size P my Gs home to family where they can read whatever notes I have (I'm transfering mine over). I haven't taken a ton because I figure I still have 1.9 years left, no point over marking it now. Anyway, they're awesome and way more convenient.

At the MTC, Apostles, or Members of the Quorum of 12 Apostles (Think James, John....modern time though) try to make it to the MTC every 9 or so weeks. The week before we came to the MTC, there was a huge conference here where almost all the apostles came and all the mission presidents. All the missionaries here got to meet their presidents. I'm jealous. Anyway, we are running out of days here and we still had not had an apostle come speak at a devotional. On Monday night, in my nighly prayers, I asked if we could be blessed with the opportunity to hear an Apostle of God speak to us. I ended my prayers and thought nothing of it. The next day, devotional day, as we were singing in the choir, someone walked on stage. Immediately, the whole room stood up. I recognized the person as Elder Anderson, one of the 12 Apostles. Elder Myler leans over to me and goes, "Why is everyone standing up?" I excitedly said, "Elder Anderson!" He then said, "Who's that...OHHHHHHHHH" We won't let him live that one down. He delivered a great devotional about 10 things President Monson would have said if he was there (it was his birthday that day.) I don't remember them but one was, "Since you are on the Lord's errand, you are entitled to His help." Entitled to His help.What a powerful idea. Anyway, my prayer was very much answered. God knows the desires of our hearts before we do. Prayer is showing that we care enough to ask and have enough faith that we can receive the answer.

We just got back from the temple. We went an hour earlier than our scheduled time because there are lots of lines there. We did initiatories today. The spirit was so strong and I felt great feelings of peace as I was there. Since next week is our last P Day, we're toying with the idea of doing initiatories, endowment, and sealings in one day. That would be special.

For the entire time I have been here, I think as I have mentioned before, I have had a hard time sleeping. A couple of weeks ago Elder Myler and I went to the onsite doctor and I asked if I could get sleeping pills. He said no at the time but if it continues to come back. His concern was that I would wake up sleepy....which I did already since, you know, I wasn't sleeping. On Monday night I got a solid 3 hours of sleep which was enough proof for me to go back to the doctor. I had also woken up that night standing in the hallway. I told him it was time for the sleeping pills and he agreed. As I was walking to pick up the perscription, I ran into none other than Sister Wood, Roland's mom. She was driving up and pulled over and said hi and that she had just dropped off a package my mom sent. I said thanks, hi, and goodbye. What were the chances that I would see someone from Virginia while walking on a small sidewalk outside the MTC in a small city in Utah. It was a fun experience. Anyway, since I got the pills I have slept wayyyyyy better. Tropozene I think are what they're called. Supposedly they're anti depressants (spelling?) but I get a smaller dosage. I'm definitely not depressed. He told me to take one a night, two if absolutely necesarry. The first night I took two pills just because I wanted to sleep quickly. Within 20 minutes I was having a hard time walking since I was so dizzy. I fell asleep so fast and slept like a baby. I took one last night and didn't wake up tired at all. I think one is the magic number.

Elder Myler and I are the new Zone Leaders for our zone. For those who don't know, there is a, I hesitate to use this word because it isn't really applicable, hierarchy on the mission. Not in the sense of power, but in the sense of responsibility. You get a mission president who is in charge of 100-300 missionaries in an area and his two counselors. You have an Assistant to the President. Idon't really know what they do. Next, you have Zone Leaders who are in charge of all the missionaries in a large geographical area and then district leaders and then "regular" missionaries. Zone Leaders are responsible for helping maintain order, helping new missionaries, and more. In the MTC their responsibilities are a bit different. We help with new missionary orientation, help resolve conflicts and more. For the sake of time I won't go into much detail. Moral of the story is that we're now the missionaries in charge of ~60 missionaries in our zone. It's a lot of work but very rewarding.

Yesterday was an exciting day, too. We got to be "Hosts" for new missionaries which essentially means we escorted the new missionaries when they got dropped off at the door to their rooms/classrooms etc. It brought back memories of the first day I was here, or what is left of them. That was a crazy day. Lots of crying. Lots more than I remember. Elder Myler also had to go to the Orthodontist to get his retainer re-glued. As such, we got to go off campus via shuttle to the place. I had forgotten there was a world outside of the MTC, Temple, and soccer field.

It rained last night! Finally.

I finished Jesus the Christ this week. What a book. 5 weeks later I finished the most dense 780 page book I've read since the Count of Monte Cristo. Maybe I shouldn't compare those two books but both were great, relatively hard to read. I learned so much about the life and ministry of Christ. Everyone needs to read it. The climax, in my mind, was the last two days of His life. He knew it was coming and was very ready. I learned some really interesting things about Pilate, the Roman governer who sentenced him, officially, to death. I've always heard about how guilty he was of that action but the more I read it the less I thought it. He tried five times to stop the people from sentencing him, four more times after he tried, and twice during the lashings. His wife had a dream that he should not do anything with ¨¨this just man¨¨ and he even said, "my hands are clean of the blood of this just man." His responsibility to his job and the guilt of his life beforehand came back and he was, in my mind, almost forced to do so. I do not view him as half as guilty as the Jews who gave him an illegal trial and killed him. He was the man who "signed the paper" but it was with regret. He is obviously accountable for his actions as agency comes in at some point, but he is the "less of two weavils" (who can quote that movie)

I met an Elder who watchs Formula 1! We geeked out about it for a bit. He's serving in Montreal. He told me F1 is the 5th largest GDP on Earth since they spend over 3 trillion a year on it. I haven't heard that number but I wouldn't be surprised seeing how Ferrari alone spends 500,000,000$ on engine research alone.

Spanish is making me REALLY good at Charades. Good luck when I get back trying to beat me.

On Sunday, for no reason at all, we tried to see who could go the longest without speaking. Elder Myler went 5 minutes, Elder Jacobsen went 3 hours, Shreeve went 6, I went 8, and Thorsen went 8.1. It was a long day.

Mom, Dad, Grandpa and Grandma Wolthuis: Do you know a Bonkemeyer family from Sweet Home Oregon? One of my good friends here is named Bonkemeyer. He told me his father worked in the logging industry in South Africa (they're Americans but he runs a business down there) and I mentioned my grandpa owns a tree farm. He asked where, I said a little city near Sweet Home Oregon where they live. He got all excited and said his Dad worked in logging in Sweet Home in the 80s. I don't know his Dad's first name but the last name is Bonkemeyer. I said my Mom's side is named Wolthuis. The two are not very common names and he said he recognized Wolthuis from stories his parents have told. Think hard, it would be awesome if you knew them.

I heard a story about a man who was asked what his biggest fear was. He said, "I live in constant fear that I will offend someone." - J. Reuben Clark.  

Thank you Aunt Carmen, Mom, Dad, Eric, Will, Mark, Natalia, Manda, and Aunt Andra for the great letters this week! I'm writing this at 9:50am, a little earlier than usual which means if I get any mail today it won't be able to be included in this. Thanks in advance.

Thank you all so much for your continual love and support,

With Love,

Elder Johnson

2 August 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Despite this being letter four, we are approaching week six in the MTC. They count weeks strangely. As such, we are now within one or two days of being halfway done. Time sure does fly. Someone here said it spot on, "Days feel like weeks, weeks feel like days."

Just wanted to thank my family, the Hines, Scott, Alex, Michael, and Max, Grandpa and Grandma Johnson, Natalia, Katie and Brother Campbell for the letters this week. Letter are always so fun to get and it's nice to hear what is going on outside of these walls. I've never felt so in the dark about what's happening in the world. Luckily, I'm in the light for all that matters for the next two years. I think that was everyone, if not, I'm sorry.

We were sitting in on one of the devotionals this last Tuesday. Elder Pinegar spoke about "Why we are here" and some other topics. He told a lot of great missionary stories about missionaries receiving life saving revelation and whatnot. It was one of the best devotionals. I also heard one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Right before it started, some elders behind me started talking about US history. I heard, verbatim, these words, "Do you know why the White House is white? It's because when Canada invaded and defeated the United States, we burned down the White House. They had to rebuild it and white was the only color left." I later found out they were from Canada. I let them have pride for something and didn't correct them. We started talking about the Oil Sands since they were from Alberta. Unfortunately, they didn't know much on the topic.

I finally learned how to roll my R's this week! After years of being taunted by Mark with him "machine gunning" me, I can finally do it. Granted, it isn't so smooth yet, but I'm learning. It's crazy how quickly we are learning here. We just sat down and in 15 minutes I had learned it. I have spent hours and hours growing up trying to master it. The MTC is amazing.

Something about the MTC is making me sleep walk. I've sleep walked once, maybe twice in my life. It started last week. I woke up at 3am and didn't know where my sheets were. (Elder Myler and I are the only two in our four person room). I found them hanging from the empty bunk above Elder Myler. I had either put them there or thrown them. The next day, I woke to find my socks folded on his bed.

But it only gets better. Three nights ago or so, I woke up in someone else's room. The way the rooms are set up is that the buildings are rectangular. There are two bathrooms per floor in the middle with a hallway going around their perimeter with rooms on the outside of that hallway. Our floor has two zones: zone 38 (mine) and zone 40. They are split down the middle. In the middle of the night I woke up in room 219. I sleep in room 243. Those are different zones. I do not know how I got in their room and how I left mine, but I did. I freaked out and stumbled out the door. Half awake, I half walked half crawled around the hallway looking for my room. It took two laps to realize that I had passed it twice. I knocked on my door a couple times without looking at the room number. On the second knock, I noticed it wasn't my room either so I stumbled away not wanting to be the person standing, half awake, outside their room banging on it for them to open it. So I got up again and kept walking. After a while I found my room with the door barely open. It was a tad stressful. The next day I was talking to Elder Myler about the incident and he said he remembers me walking out of the room around 10:45. He got up since I had sleep walked before but assumed I was going to the bathroom so he let me go. Some companion he is... (sarcasm, he's great.) He said he waited a bit for me to come back but when I didn't he just fell asleep. Weird, I know. But I've gone two days without sleep walking so maybe I'm cured. We joke around that I have an evil spirit (we've been reading about Christ casting out Evil spirits when he was in Israel)

One of the games we play as a district to spice up the MTC is to pretend we know other Elders here. Since everyone has name tags and only calls each other by our last names, it's pretty easy. We'll go up to a random person, one person on one person obviously, and be like, "Oh, Elder ____! How are you? I haven't seen you in forever!.....remember me? I moved away _____ years ago" and so on and so forth. Most of the time they call us out on it at the endwhich is fine but others it gets going and going. One such Elder started saying, "wait, you're from Alpine, Utah? 5th Ward?" It was perfect. Just putting words in Elder Shreeves mouth. It's harmless fun and makes the long days a bit more exciting. For the sake of time, I'll cut out the specific stories and leave it at that.

We were reading in class the other day, out of the Book of Mormon, and I had two interesting insights. In Moroni 7:6, it says something along the lines of offering up a gift to God 

 6 For behold, God hath said a man being ^aevil cannot do that which is good; for if he ^boffereth a gift, or ^cprayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real ^dintent it profiteth him nothing.

I started thinking about if prayer is a gift to God. Do we give him gifts when we pray? Obviously he wants to talk to us and it's up to us, most of the time, to open that channel. The other one was in the first five verses of 1st Nephi. Lehi sees the vision of Jerusalem getting destroyed if they don't repent. What if Jerusalem is representative of us and if we dont repent, we will get destroyed as well? Nothing too deep in these two insights, just little thoughts I had while reading that struck a chord with me.

I met three elders going to the DC South mission (that's my home mission for anyone who doesn't know.) Mom and Dad, keep an eye out for Elder Gustafson, Allred, and Felt. They're all from Calgary, Alberta, CA going to DC South. I told them it was the second best mission after Tempe, AZ. It's close though.

Mom, turns out those black pants we got that were machine washable aren't. Luckily I caught a glimpse of the tag first. The two grey ones are but the two blacks from Mr Mac are not. Too bad.

One of the Hermanas in our district got a package of cookies. It had home made oreos, which I had for the first time inside. Those. Are. Heavenly. *hint hint*

A little excerpt from a letter that made me laugh out loud. Brother Campbell apparently emailed you, mom, and said you responded instantly to it. Just reminded me of the few times that instead of calling you about an emergency, we've emailed you because you're better at responding to email than picking up your phone.

It dawned on my yesterday that I have only known the Elders in my district for ~32 days or so. It feels like we've known each other forever. Maybe it's because we get along so well, maybe it's because we spend every minute of every day together, but either way, it is crazy. Sad to think that half of us will be splitting up for two years to Peru, California, Canada, and AZ. It has been fun though,

We got to go to the temple today. It's great to see such a profound difference between even the outside and the inside. It is hard not to notice the strong spirit inside. You always feel good in the temple, but sometimes something just sticks out. One such occasion was today. I felt such a great feeling. It was almost as if someone was saying thank you to me. Pure elation was the emotion. The Church is true as are all it's teachings. No way it can't be. Anyway, I had some other interesting insights which I'll avoid mentioning in this letter but the temple is a great place to just think. It's refreshing and a great place to be. Glad to know I've got a few temples in Arizona.

Oh, speaking of AZ temples, can anyone find out for me which temple(s) are inside the Tempe, AZ mission?

I really am running out of things to say about the MTC. Seems like the letters are getting shorter and shorter. Everyday here is so similar since it's just classes, studying, and whatnot. If anyone has particular questions they want answered, let me know.

Random questions:

Why can't we draw what we see? What causes us to be unable to convert what we see to what we draw?

In Genesis during the creation recount, it mentions the two commandments that God gave to Adam and Eve. One: Do not eat of the tree of knowledge. Two: Multiply and replenish the earth. Our district went to the temple today and I started thinking about that. We know that Adam and Eve had to break the first commandment because they could not have kids in the garden so either way they were breaking a rule, hence why we believe we are not accountable for Adam's transgression. But why use the word REPLENISH? "Re" in English means to do something over again. Refill your cup, refuel your car, redo an assignment and whatnot. Does anyone know why it uses the word replenish? Just something I thought of and am unable to answer. I'd love to hear ya'lls insights. (We have a Texan in our district...)

Love you all, thanks for the letters again

Elder Johnson