May 26, 2014

Have you ever wondered what it is like to almost die?

I'll tell you.

Mexicans here love dogs. All dogs. Maybe it's a $5,000 pit bull. Maybe it's a $0.10 Chihuahua. Whatever it is, they have it. 

This last week we went to visit the house that has the dog that almost killed Elder Myler a few weeks back. Bad idea. As Elder Myler and I (on our last day as companions) pulled up to the home, I noticed something was wrong...

But what was it?

As I looked closer I could see the evil German shepherd lurking behind the fence. And then I saw it! The gate was open just a crack! I knew that if it got up and ran for the gate before I could close it we would die. And this guy was important enough to risk it! So I slowly got out of the drivers seat and asked Elder Myler to grab a rock.

But in my excitement I did not wait for him to be behind me.

I slowly approached the fence...

Stared the dog down...

and then it was up! Around the corner of the house came running the other dog: a huskie! I sprinted for the gate, the dogs sprinted for the gate, and we met in a clash of life and death at the gate! 

I put my hand out to push it closed right as the German shepherd jumped it with its mouth open. It beat me to the gate! The gate flew open. 

Not knowing what else to do I kicked my leg out and hit the gate with my foot, closing it again and almost squishing the German shepherd at the same time. I kept it closed with my foot as the dog stood up, probably 5 feet tall on its feet with front paws on the gate, barking at me.

I was sure I was dead.

AND THE GUY WASN'T EVEN HOME.

When we started to drive the car away I had to pull over and pause for a second. That was one of the scariest moments of my life haha.

That's a true story.

I got an amazing letter this week from one of the families that I baptized in Mesa. In it they talked about their recent trips to the Mesa temple to do baptisms, their plan to get sealed in January, and a progress report on callings and other things that are going on. It made my day to get that! 

I thought my week could not be any better after that. 

And then transfer day came.

I was heartbroken to learn that Elder Myler would be leaving. He got sent to Yuma in a pretty hard situation. I've been praying for him. 

I learned that coming to Mesa would be Elder Sylvester! He is almost identical to Elder Harder. And we are almost in the same situation. When I was called to be a zone leader last July, Elder Harder was in his last six weeks and taught me the ropes. I had been out a year. Well, Elder Sylvester has been out for a year and I'm in my last six weeks. They have the same mannerisms and the same way of speaking, the same interests, and many other similarities! We already teach really well together because, well, I've already had him for six weeks (as Elder Harder!)

We're having a lot of fun. He's a great missionary with great intentions. And he speaks Spanish suuuper well! 

But transfer meeting got even better when I heard a missionary say, "Elder Johnson, someone from Yuma is outside waiting for you!" 

What? for me? from Yuma? Do they even remember me? It has been two years! I had no idea who it could be.

I walked outside and heard a man yell for me...

I recognized that voice...

I got a little feeling of what heaven feels like when I turned around and saw the very first person that I baptized! He was heading my way and we met up and gave each other a big hug. He was in tears as he told me how grateful he was for everything we did for him. He continued on about how much better his life has been in the last two years.

I can honestly say that I have never felt so happy in my life.

And then he made me even happier. He said, "In the last two years I have baptized my mom, my dad, my aunt, my uncle, and my sister!" He is very active in the branch and has had leadership callings down there. You'll recognize the face in the attached picture if you scroll back on my blog to last November :) :) :) :)

What a great moment that was. I have not seen him in two years.

Words cannot describe the joy that I felt in that moment. And now he's baptizing everyone down there! 

Before transfer meeting, President Toone called us into his office to tell us about the upcoming transfer. He told Elder Myler about his assignment and me about mine. And then he said, "You two need to know how I feel about you..." The next few minutes were very humbling to know how much President Toone loves and trusts us. He did not want to split us up.

That man has changed my life.

As we were walking out I looked back and said, "I'd love to see the transfer board before I die, President!" (Die is slang we use for finishing the mission.) 

He said, "Close the door," with a smile on his face. What?! Transfer meeting hadn't even happened yet! It was the fulfillment of 23 months of imagination.

He walked us through each aspect: why some pictures were sideways, what colors meant, etc etc. 

I'm approaching the one year mark of serving with Elder Hardy! He was "born" into Mesa when I got transferred there. We have been together ever since. He's a wonderful missionary.

This last weekend was the first part of our mission fast. It will continue next weekend. At transfer meeting, President introduced to the rest of the mission the plan he had to fast as a mission so that every companionship could baptize this transfer. In each zone, we are to assign each companionship another companionship that they will pray and fast for so they can achieve that. For example, we are praying and fasting for some sisters and they're doing the same for us etc etc. We're already seeing the miracles come in.

For example, Phoenix South zone led the mission in almost every single statistic this last week. A few months ago it was second to last. 

We heard amazing stories yesterday of people showing up to church and asking to be baptized the next week, of the First Presidency giving two men in our stake permission to be baptized less than a month from when the letter of recommendation was sent (unheard of) and even more amazing things! 

I have never fasted without a miracle. Never. Not once. 

Miracles happen. Every. Single. Day.

Let one happen in your life! You need to ask for it! 

I was able to go back to Mesa this past weekend to watch one of my recent converts (from December) baptize the rest of his family :) He did amazing.

I was OVERJOYED that 3/4 of my recent converts from Mesa have gone to the temple to do baptisms. That made me so happy! 

There were 16 missionaries at the baptismal service. President Toone called us beforehand, upset, and asked what we should do about it. There will be a policy change in the future because half of those missionaries didn't ask to go until the day before or day of. I asked a month ago! But the new policy is no going back to old areas for baptisms. 16 missionaries is way too many at one baptismal service! 

Well, the miracles continue! I'm feeling really good. We're working hard. I've prepared 23 months for these last six weeks - I'm ready to make them my best yet! 

Thanks for the letters!

Love you all,

Elder Johnson

18 November 2013

I bought corn and salad for the first time in my life last week from the grocery store and ate both for lunch and got sick. Lesson learned: healthy food is not as healthy as everyone thinks it is. I knew I should have bought those donuts...

This past week was a week full of 'stuff.' On Wednesday we had interviews with President Toone. He came over to visit the zone. As he did those privately with each missionary, Elder Gaspar and I did trained on some aspects of missionary work. It was a lot of fun.

For part of my training I was going to address how we can be more excited about what we're sharing. I had everyone tell me their favorite hobbies and asked for someone to volunteer who was the most passionate about his/her hobby. One of the Elders raised his hand and volunteered. He was way into dungeons and dragons so I had him teach me the basics in about three minutes and try to get me interested. It was a really effective way to demonstrate the difference between being excited and energetic about something as you teach it and being rote and emotionless. It taught the principle pretty well and everyone got a good laugh. By the end of the practice he had convinced me that I should be a halfling named grapling hook hahaha. 

President Toone does his interviews a little differently than President Howes did them. He interviews each companionship together and then each missionary individually. This shortens the available time for personal interviews but allows him to address some important things for the individual companionship. The interviews were around 5-15 minutes. 

My one-on-one interview with President Toone was awesome. It turns out he knows Grandpa Johnson! That came up as we were walking out the door haha. These interviews are always very uplifting and inspiring times. It's amazing what you can learn in 5-15 minutes.

If you'll remember, last week we did a zone fast. Our zone saw many miracles. One of the miracles we didn't even realize until later that week when we got a phone call from newly weds (as of a week or so) who both returned from their missions within the last two-six months (they knew eachother before hand). They had moved into the ward the day before we fasted. They are SO excited for missionary work, it is AWESOME! Their first sunday they invited us and one of our investigators over for dinner. That's tomorrow. We're pumped. I went out with them on splits last week while Elder Gaspar was supposed to go out with someone else (more on that later.) 

That was probably one of the best evenings of my entire mission. And I think it was all because of one lesson...

No one we were visiting was home. No one wanted to listen to us outside. We went over to one of our appointments and managed to find her home. That single lesson was the best one I've ever taught in my entire mission. That night was the culmination of howevermanymonths of practice and study. I felt like the spirit was guiding everything I was saying. It was really cool to hear her comment, "I really feel the spirit..." The members did a perfect job with their insights and the spirit was super powerful. 

I walked out of that lesson on cloud 9 haha. That was an extremely uplifting experience. As we pulled into the church we noticed Elder Gaspar was still there. His member had never shown up so he had sat on the stage making phone calls for an hour and a half while the spanish ward played soccer hahahaha. He wasn't too happy hahahahaha. 

We are both convinced that them showing up when they did was a miracle of fasting.

Another unique thing that happened this week was Skyping home.

It wasn't a normal skype call. Nah, not really. My Dad had the idea to Skype me in to his lesson in church about hastening the work of salvation. So, projecting me onto the wall, I was able to talk and share some experiences with the members of the local congregation I went to in Virginia! That was cool! 

Sunday School at the Arlington 2nd Ward, Virginia

I was thinking about that this morning...that was probably the first time in the history of the church that that has happened. There is a lot of hype from other missionaries about that experience as well - the picture was almost perfect for it - Dad was just out of the screen though. 

The exciting week culminated with a hectic night last night. We had forgotten that they were planning on us to translate at the mission president's fireside. So, with an hour or so to go before it started, we made some phone calls and arranged for the lesson we had to just go to the fireside and hear the talks. 

Elder Gaspar and I were asked to accompany the ward choir in the spanish ward with our violins so we had, the day before, found two violins that we borrowed. 

And then the musical number for the MPF cancelled. We volunteered to play a violin duet and were accompanied by Elder Myler on piano. It came together really really well, especially considering we had an hour to practice and only went through it twice with Elder Myler. 

The piece wasn't hard - Beautiful Savior - but having not really played for three years, I was surprised! It was almost flawless. 

Our names were on the program for translating and for the musical number haha.

If you'll look at the picture, you on the Wolthuis side of the family recognize some familiar faces! We made the healthy decision to go to Wendys for lunch last week. After we had ordered, this family walked in and said, "Hi, missionaries!" 

Elder Paul Johnson, from Arlington, VA (son of  Rene Wolthuis Johnson, grandson of Henry B. Wolthuis) with Darrell and Christy Burnette of Tuscon, AZ (son of Ivan and Leone Burnette, family friends of Henry Wolthuis and family from 1968 onward, originally from Sweet Home, Oregon.  It's a small world!) meeting at a Wendy's in Mesa, AZ

We exchanged pleasantries and answered the traditional, 'so where are you from?' questions. They said they were from Oregon, I said, "Oh cool! My Mom is from Oregon but it's a small place you probably won't know."

They said, "Try us."

"Sweet Home."

"What! Wait...what is your Mom's last name?"

..."Wolthuis?"

"Oh myyy!"

The rest is history. Turns out the Burnetts (spelling?) are very close family friends of Grandpa and Grandma Wolthuis and my mom and all her siblings and have known them for decades! Small world! If I remember, they're in Tucson now. They are both retired and are putting in mission papers! 

Twice a month we have the opportunity to meet with the stake presidents in the two stakes our zone covers. These are always wonderful experiences. The Gilbert side of Mesa zone has those meetings at 7am and invites all the missionaries in the stake over. 

Some of the wards there are struggling and the missionaries weren't so happy. They expressed their concerns.

I sat intently waiting to see how the stake president would respond. He is a friendly man, very kind, probably in his late 40s. 

I can't remember everything he said, but what he said was so perfect. I was blown away by his answers and advice he gave to the missionaries in his stake and knew that he was an inspired man. I hope they all apply what he said! 

Anyway, this has been an exciting week! More than half of our teaching pool dropped us or got dropped. Our number of lessons dropped from 55 to 35 but the quality sky rocketed. We are expecting a baptism this next Saturday and President Toone will likely be the one baptizing her - they've met a few times and he is the momentum behind a miracle in her life! Pray for her, she's going through some hard times right now overcoming some challenges. 

The church is true! 

Thanks for the letters Mom, Eric, Will, and Grandpa and Grandma! 

Cuidense!

Elder Johnson

25 February 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

On Sunday night of last week I got the transfer call and let you guys know that P-Day. My last few days in Yuma were awesome; we got to visit some recent converts and say goodbye and I got to be with Elder Sawyer and Elder Valdez.

I rush packed that last night to get everything ready to go. With the car filled and packed with six missionaries and luggage, we headed out of Yuma at 7am and arrived at the mission home just before 10 am. On the drive up we saw a bunch of cops FLYING past our car. When we caught up 10 minutes later we saw them running at illegal immigrants on the train tracks. Quite the sight. Don't see that everyday.

All the missionaries in the entire mission were called in to that transfer meeting. I was expecting that we all got chastised but it turns out it was quite different news. Turns out that the Arizona Tempe mission is getting split into the Arizona Scottsdale mission, the Arizona Gilbert mission, and the Arizona Tempe mission. All the missionaries in these areas will be getting new mission calls in the coming weeks and there is a very good chance that I could be serving in the Mesa, Phoenix, Gilbert, Tempe, Scottsdale, or even a California mission. Rumors floating around are that the Yuma area will get put into a California mission. Big news! This goes into effect July 1. I'll keep everyone updated.

Anyway, that big announcement was made and also all the big announcements about transfers. I waited and waited and waited and didn't hear my name until just about the end. I was transferred to Tempe. I went from the furthest from the mission home to the closest haha. I didn't do anything, I promise! 

Tempe is pretty cool. It's a lot different from Yuma. Tons of people, big college town with all those ups and downs. It has a hugely different feel from Yuma but I'm learning to love it. The work is a lot different as well. We taught 15 lessons this week, half of what we taught in Yuma on a good week. We spend all our time in trailer parks and small apartments. It's hard to find new investigators and the teaching pool of the area I came into was basically nonexistent. 

We spent the week working hard to find people and only found one person. We also did two days in a row of fasting. That was pretty exhausting. The first day was with an investigator and her family that she could make it to Church (get off work) and the second day was with an Elder who was diagnosed with cancer and sent home. The whole mission fasted for him. We're hoping for the best. Though the investigator didn't make it to church that day it was cool to see them all fasting and practicing their faith. Theyll be at church next week. It was pretty exhausting. 

I was starting to get used to Tempe and just finished unpacking yesterday. And then....at 9:40 pm our cellphone rang. President Howes was on the phone. He asked Elder Harder (my companion) and I to go somewhere quiet and put him on speakerphone. We did. The first thing he did was apologize and then said that I was getting transferred somewhere else to replace someone who just went home. Four days into my new area and I'm already getting moved! I've packed more in the last 4 days than the lats 7 months! But I'm happy to go wherever. Elder Lanier called that night from the office and told me to be there at 11:30 am toady (in an hour or so). He wouldn't tell me where I was going, just that it was "the complete opposite of Yuma!" That means I'm either going back to Yuma (to open up a new area in Somerton), to Gilbert, or to the Mountains/Show Low area. I got some more out of them when they said that they have to lose their P-Day as well which means I might be going somewhere far away like Yuma or Show Low. But we will see, I'm willing to go wherever. I'll send a letter home when I get settled with my new address but until then, keep using the mission home one! (1871 E. Del Rio Drive, Tempe AZ 85282)

If I go back to Yuma I'll be happy since it's Yuma but I was so excited to go to the temple. We aren't allowed to go in Yuma since it's too far away. Show Low can go to the Gila Valley and everyone else goes to Mesa. With the upcoming mission split, there's still a chance I can serve in Arizona and not have a temple in my area.

Church on sunday was interesting too. Here in Tempe they have a spanish ward, not a branch. There were quite a few people at church on sunday which was cool. I was a little disappointed to see that most people speak English and will try to speak English with me if I let them. They teach the youth classes in English as well.

But that was the big news. I didn't do anything to get emergency transferred haha.

The other big news is that it snowed here! We were bringing all our stuff into our apartment and it started hailing and snowing for 2 minutes. The apartment is/was so nice, probably the nicest in the mission from what I'm told. Too bad I'm getting kicked out of it. It even has "Valet Trash," haha. Some guy with a giant "trash cape" runs from floor to floor picking up trash between a certain time and takes it to the dumpster.

Rewinding back to Yuma for a second. The Elders that Elder Sawyer and I replaced in Yuma had a recent convert who just hit her year mark as a member and also just got her mission call. Guess where she's going? DC South! Keep your eyes open for an Hermana Sevilla. She's spanish speaking. Small world.

On the drive to dinner one night we passed a giant field with the most intense RC Airplane airport I've ever seen. Runway, grandstands, you name it. There were three planes flying around and they were pretty big. One was a zaggi and the other was a piper cub.  

Other big news of the week! For the first time in 6 months I haven't had Eggos for breakfast! Who knew that brown sugar and maple oatmeal was so filling and good...Pretty cheap, too! I'll probably live off of Pop Tarts and Oatmeal for the next 6 months and then find something else to eat, probably Eggos haha.

Thanks Grandpa J, Eric, Will, Mom, and Natalia for the letters! I hope I'll have time to write everyone today but it just depends on where I get transferred to.

Anyway, I need to get ready to get transferred somewhere. Thank you all for your continued support! 

With love, 

Elder Johnson

Pics: saying goodbye with Elder Sawyer and Valdez.