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

3 June 2013

The big news of the week is...

It's hot!

Ok, the real big news is that we have someone on date for June 15th! He came to church for the first time yesterday and really really loved it. Sometimes it seems like the hardest part is getting them to church. We've been working to talk about church with them from Monday to Saturday so they know we expect it all week and not just tell them on Saturday night. I'm pretty confident he will get baptized but we will have to talk on the word of wisdom since last night he told us about his past with other substances. Probably won't go into detail here on that but he gave us a little of his life history - it could be a movie.  

But to rewind to earlier in the week... On Monday I realized that my the fabric that covers my belt loops is wearing off and is white. So in a stroke of inspired GENIUS I colored over the white part with a sharpie. Ta-da! Good as new. 

We went to Carls Jr this past week and I ate a hamburger (only the third time on my mission) and root beer for the first time. It was weird haha. That's not a big part of Mexican's diets.

President Howes changed the district meeting calendar. For the next 5 weeks, instead of training, as a mission (but individually) we will be reading the Book of Mormon focusing on the Doctrine of Christ. It has been awesome to reread it focusing on one topic. I've learned a lot. We read from 9-11:30 and from 11:30 to 12 we share thoughts on what we read. Everyone else commented on the overall theme being "faith" but I found tons more instances of "enduring to the end." I guess that's something I need to work on.

My favorite spanish phrase is, "no manches." Literally translated it means, "no stain," but in mexican slang it means "no way!"

We had interviews with President Howes this past week. These were his last interviews before he goes home. I was prepared to ask him some intense questions but instead, for my last 15 minutes with President Howes, we just talked about ties haha. It was a fun conversation and culminated with him trading me a tie and me giving him the one around my neck. He doesn't trade ties very often and I made sure he wrote on the one he gave me. He told me that if I ever saw him wearing the tie I gave him in a meeting I can't say, "hey, that's my tie!" Guess that means it passed the test.

This past week we were biking around talking with people and this guy on a bike biked past us. We followed him and tried to talk to him. He said, "NO BRO, I'M RUNNING, I GOTTA GO!!" and biked really quickly ahead. Unfortunately for him we were biking the same way. After about 15 seconds of bike sprinting (word?) he slowed down again, looked behind him, saw us again, and started pedaling as quick as he could again haha. This happened about 3 times. 11 months ago I might have thought it was uncomfortable but I live for those moments now.

We talked with someone this week who lives in Maricopa, where Elder Myler is serving. I got to call him to pass it off to him and it was fun to talk to him. Love that guy. Near the end of the call he said, "oh, I have a referral for you!" Sweet, I thought! He gave me a name then the address. The address was, "866 u-s-m-e-l-l." He pronounced it oosmuhl. I read it out loud to him and said, "that's a street!?" Then I realized that it spelled out "you smell." Ah, gets me every time! 

We get to go to the temple on Wednesday for the 7:30am session. 

We were hoping for a new car this past Wednesday. On Friday night the APs texted us and said, "will you be at home at 9? Stay focused!" I was so sure we would be getting a new car! Turns out it was some sick joke haha. 

We stole a dog this week. 

Maybe stole is the wrong word. We were walking around a trailer park and there is always this little pug that never moves so I approached it to see if it was alive. It got up and ran at me. Thinking my life was in jeopardy  I got ready for the worst. 60 minutes later it was still following us around. Eventually it ditched us to chase a cat but we're hoping it found its way home. The trailer park isn't that big.

In that same trailer park we ran into someone we had seen before. She told us about how she wanted to change and would have to quit smoking after her surgery. I told her that if she wanted to change she would have to start now. After some pushing and prodding I convinced her to give me her lighter and in return I gave her a picture of Christ. Victory! The lighter is now a trophy on my desk. That's the second lighter I've taken. 

I have reached a milestone. I've gone four weeks now without getting an "aggressive driving" or speeding violation. I've been a little more careful since I'm yellowlighted and if I get more violations I'll get red lighted and not be able to drive haha. It's probably Yuma's fault. I got four aggressive drivings in one day once...and I didn't even drive crazy! 

We OYM'd a woman this week who was very quick to tell us that at death the family is dissolved. She told us all of this in front of her kids. We don't get that point of view very often but I've heard it all. Thanks Queen Creek!

I talked to the first white Jehovah's Witness this past week that I've found in Chandler. She was very quick to attack Joseph Smith. I don't think I've ever met one who went at him so quick. We managed to keep it a cordial conversation and she went on about some court cases about plagiarism and the Book of Mormon. I found it ironic that that was her argument since they believe all government is corrupt. Keep in mind this entire interaction was less than two minutes. She brought up the God's name thing and I asked her just a question, no more. My question was, 'if we're supposed to pray to God by calling him Jehovah, then why didn't Christ do that in any of his prayers.' She couldn't answer the question but that was fine since I wasn't trying to attack her. I offered her a pamphlet which she declined then asked for some of their literature to study. I like to understand the people I teach. She returned a few seconds later with a copy of a magazine with their basic beliefs.By the end of the conversation we both respected each others beliefs and she had a better opinion of LDS missionaries. It was a nice exchange.  I read it that night and used their given scripture resources to see how they support what they believe. But after I had studied their basic beliefs I left knowing one thing: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the fullness. The member that was with us for that OYM wasn't happy that I took their literature but I see no problem.

It's really hard to teach a lesson with cockroaches crawling all over the place. We have a lot of investigators in this one area and there are 50x as many cockroaches as people. Ahhhhh.

For some reason there is a store in Chandler that sells Hot Tubs. I can't imagine why. There is always a "SALE" sign outside.

It has been really interesting to serve in different wards and see how the members react to new investigators at church. From what I've seen, the Spanish wards are far better. The great great members introduce themselves to the investigators, sit with them, and socialize with them. They walk them around and explain little things to them. I love the Spanish wards but I wish I knew how to play piano haha. 

 

[From mom:  interesting to see that last comment.]

Thanks Eric, Annie, Sister Hines, Natalia, and Mom for the letters this week! 

I got locked out of my account again for refreshing too many times. Lost the story about eating fish and getting sick (fish ew). and some other comments. 

Thanks so much for all your support! 

Con amor,

EJ

27 May 2013

I thought I could cut my hair pretty well. It's not that hard, right? In the clipper box I was looking for a 1/2" size but only found 3/8ths. There's barely a difference there, right?

Wrong. I'm bald! I've never had such short hair!

Me confidently cutting it:

And realizing that I had no hair:

[I am having trouble saving these pictures as jpgs. . . they only give me the option of html text from his email and they don't show up on the blog when I copy and paste his letter from my email.  Any suggestions?

The really ironic thing about this is that I (his mom) always cut his hair.  When he was in high school, one time I grabbed the buzzer without realizing that it didn't have the attachment and I went to work on the top of his head.  He never forgave me for that very short strip of hair that had to grow out.  So, it makes me smile a bit to know that he did it to himself.]

What makes matters worse is that we have interviews on Wednesday and I'm bald.

...

We are officially moved into our new apartment. They stopped by this week and told us that we're moving this morning so we have spent the last few days taking some of our lunch hour moving some things and a 2 hour blitz this morning with 6 missionaries carrying heavy things and beds over. Our NEW ADDRESS is 1287 N Alma School Rd #149, Chandler, AZ, 85224. We are in the same complex just on the other side in a two bedroom for when new missionaries come in.

I never thought I would say this...but I love beans.

The highlight of this week was the leadership meeting on Wednesday. Brother Watson (global director of proselyting) and President Donaldson (Mission President of the District 2 DVD, comp of Watson) came by to give our mission a training.

A major theme was how to maintain success in the first months of having a new mission president. He spoke on how stats almost always drop when a new mission president comes in and to avoid that we need to "stick to what we know and do what the new guy says." They stressed that a lot, especially since the Tempe mission is the highest baptizing in the south west. We'll see what happens when our mission gets cut into all the surrounding missions.

But that's not all they talked about. One of the districts in the Mesa zone is getting a shiny new toy, called an iPad. They're piloting "Electronic Area Books" in our mission in one of our zones. Instead of a giant binder with tons of papers, each companionship there will get an iPad for one purpose and with one app: Area Book. I don't know all the details, I only know that Chandler was supposed to pilot them originally then we got dropped :( Pretty exciting eh? Apparently only 2% of the worlds missionaries (65,000) update their area books every night.) I believe it.

But that's not all! We learned some cool things about our mission. Originally we were told our mission wouldn't gain any zones - only lose. Well, turns out we're picking up 2 zones from the Phoenix mission - downtown phoenix - and 36 new missionaries from there. Crazy! Apparently it's super Hispanic. Woo!

And he mentioned a cool number. Ready? By July of 2013, sister missionaries will make up 21% of the missionary force. Yeah, that's a big number... but by July of next year it will be 50%.

 

Crazy!

But it gets better! They also announced a global broadcast that the church will be doing on June 23rd. The First Presidency, the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, the Quorums of 70, and new mission presidents will be attending and it will be opened for the whole world to see. They said that the first presidency used the word, "historic," which they never use. They said it will change the course of missionary work forever and it will be all about member missionary work. They said that President Monson will be always remembered as the missionary work prophet and the announcement in October and this should cement that. Apparently Elder Nelson commented that the gathering of Israel will be even more miraculous than Moses bringing the children of Israel through the wilderness. Oh, and "this [a broadcast like this] has never been done in the history of the church before."

It was an 8 hour meeting and I left wanting more.

But moving on...

For planning morning on Friday I brought a bunch of chilis (Chil de Arboles)  to the church. The whole zone plans together and almost everyone ate one. I remember when that was me...

I saw another Delorean this week. And a Maserati.

We've been struggling to make miles work. We have 600 per month but at the start, the other Elders at 800 and drove as such. Then we got cut to 650 then cut to 600. We use our car to drive to meetings, church, and dinners and we still use more than we can everyday. I've made some phone calls, worked my connections, and hopefully we'll get some more haha. It's an 18 mile round trip to church and to meetings during the week and we only have enough for 15 per day.

This past week we went over to one of our trailer parks, Sunshine Valley, to visit some people. It was Saturday morning. As soon as we got inside we looked around and the Jehovah's Witnesses were everywhere! Dozens of them! They avoided us like the plague which was ok because I didn't bring my bible.

This past week the mission got a shipment of 2013 Chevy Cruzes. We're crossing our fingers that we get one since our car is a 2010 Corolla. The 2013 Corollas have touch screens for media interface but no GPS. The missionaries in the mountains get Jeep Grand Cherokees.

Gmail locked me out of my account for refreshing it too much (like it did the night I waited for my BYU admission letter) and the draft missed two paragraphs but we're out of time so this will have to do.

Thanks for the letters Mom, Eric, Dad, Will, and Katie! 

I'll try to write everyone back but we're moving things around our new apartment and lots to do!

With love

EJ

20 May 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

"What are you doing to have so much success?"

Those are my favorite words to hear in a phone call. On Sunday night we got a phone call congratulating us on keeping the zone afloat this week.

I think 'success week' doesn't really do it all justice. We unfortunately had someone fall of date, no baptisms, no one progressing, but in all other aspects we've had a miracle week. 

It started last Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were decent days teaching a moderate amount of lessons, but Wednesday was when it all fell into place. We had planned to go visit some formers in the morning and then some other formers later in the morning with a member family. We had no luck on our own from 10-11am that morning and went back to meet up with the member family. With them we visited a former investigator family who all had a baptismal date that then disappeared..  Well, they're still missing. When we were piling back into the car to head home I felt that we had to go knock on a different door - one that we hadn't knocked on who we knew was a former investigator. We drove over to the trailer, knocked, and she answered in tears. One of her sons is in jail and they have been struggling for a long time. She was taught two years ago by two different elders and wasn't ready at the time. She said that she always saw other missionaries walking past her trailer but never to it. We sat down with her and talked about trials and overcoming them and committed her to a baptismal date then and there! It was cool to be guided to someone who was finally ready to accept the gospel. Unfortunately she's the one who fell off date, but that's a different story. We were pushing for a 2 week baptism but will probably change that and head towards the 15th of June instead of the 1st. We are meeting with her and her husband tonight to talk with them about the church and our role as missionaries. They have a lot of potential.

Another great potential came from an idea from district meeting. The training was on making lists of contacts with people - not necessarily people that are interested, but just a list of EVERYONE they know. After that we pray over the names and sit in silence as the person marks each name they feel prompted to mark. Then they call them and invite them to sit down with us to meet. Well, we implemented that this week to resounding success. We got 5 referrals from one family and 10 from another (still waiting for their addresses.) The first person called her friend and set up a lesson right then and there. We stopped by on Saturday to teach her friend and had a nice chat and invited her to church. Well, she showed up to church with her family of five in tow as well! Woooooo! It was cool to see them participate and take the sacrament as a family. We have another appointment with them tonight and we are going to extend all a baptismal date for probably June 15th as well.

Our Bishop pulled us aside and thanked us yesterday - this was the first time they had had investigators in church for "months." The members did an awesome job introducing themselves and talking with the investigator family. We did a lot of background coordinating as well to let people know they would come but even those we didn't talk to reached out. Success.

We have been working with someone who had a baptismal date for the 11th of May but cancelled just before. I wrote briefly about her last week. We met with her once this week with another member family and had an awesome lesson about setting examples. The parents testified about how they sometimes had to encourage (or pull) their kids to church when they were younger but how it always paid off. They had a daughter there who shared her testimony about her grateful she was for her parents doing that to her. It was pretty tender. Anyway, we knelt in prayer afterwards and told her to tell her kids why church is important to her to see if they'll go with her to church.

They didn't go :( We'll keep working with them though.

It's hot! Ahhhh. Air temperature is bad but hot air, that just kills you. We got cut 50 miles for some reason and we're biking over 10 miles a day. Speaking of, my "cyclometer" speed rating often jumps from like 2 to 14 when I'm maintaining a constant pace and then it will just go to zero after some time. Anyone know why? Readjusting it temporarily fixes it but then it gets out of place again. Very frustrating.

We went to the reservation this week to do some baptismal interview. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I've been on a complete reservation before. It was a bit...different. The chapel was...different too haha. Dirt roads, everything was dead, it was a different world. We spoke with the senior couple who covers the reservation and they told us about some of their challenges, specifically about how there is no word for "commitment" in Pima and no one is willing to firmly commit.

On Monday we had a pretty cool experience. We had a referral for a trailer that ended up not existing. As we went to the car a member pulled up and gave us a super solid referral that we will be visiting sometime this week. A family that moved from CA and wants to go to our church. In the right place at the right time! What's that saying? Be where you ought to be when you ought to be there doing what you ought to be doing.

I think one of the highlights this week was biking around town and OYMing this family. After the lesson all five of them accepted a baptismal date but all five of them are for the English missionaries. 

We got news yesterday that we're moving out of our apartment next week instead of in 3 weeks. Ugh, there's so much to do before then... Good news is that we'll be in a two bedroom, bad news is that means that there will be four missionaries which is often too much fun.

We found a pet ferret this week? One of the neighbors is watching over it until someone claims it.

We were in a trailer park talking with some people and some kids challenged us to a game of knockout. I told them that if we won they would have to listen to us for a few minutes. I won. Now we have a bunch of potential families to visit! 

One of the priests in the ward offered to make us wood pens this week and laser inscribe them with whatever we want. I asked him to make, "Elder Johnson - Arizona Tempe Mission" and then on the other side, "Barrio Ray 5 - Chandler, AZ" He'll be using cherry wood and they look sweet!

Thanks for the letters Natalia, Jamie, Jeff R, Mom, Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa J!

Its been a good week and we have a good one to come! 

PS: If you find the turtle let them know!

With love,

Elder Johnson

13 May 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

 

It was fun to Skype home yesterday! Especially being able to talk to you guys back home and having Mark skyped on a laptop at the same time...never done that before!

So I guess the big news is that .01% of the time I'm wrong and am not staying in Queen Creek. I was 99.99% sure I was staying haha. 

Chandler is a lot different than anywhere I have ever served. Yuma and Queen Creek had more farm fields than people it seemed. Our address is 1287 N Alma School Rd #174, Chandler, AZ, 85224

On Sunday night we were awaiting our transfer calls and as I wrote last week, they never came. Monday afternoon before the calls Elder Lanier and Sawyer called to say goodbye and told me I would enjoy this next few transfers, whatever that meant. That night as we were waiting around the house waiting for transfer calls President Howes called and asked me to be trainer among some other assignments. I was pretty nervous. Later that night the Zone Leaders called and said I was leaving (President Howes doesn't tell us if we're staying or leaving) which meant that I would whitewash train - just like how I started my mission down in Yuma. Whew I was pretty stressed out for that!

At transfer meeting we found out that five visa waiter Elders came in. Elder Myler was there as well as some other people I've gotten to know. "the Argentine" was slated to come in for 3 or 4 transfers but never came in due to visa problems. Everyone was fighting to get to train him since he is a native speaker haha. Anyway, long story short, I am training Elder Diaz, "the Argentine," and am having a great time. He is super energetic and very prepared to be a missionary. Already I've learned lots from him. I also realized that Elder Diaz is the first 18 year old spanish missionary here! Also the first one to come in for 3-4 transfers.

The rest of the transfer meeting was crazy. President Howes chose this past meeting to make all the changes for the mission split. All the missionaries in the valley/phoenix area were invited and told to bring all area books. They then changed just about everyone's wards, moved apartments, split zones and moved districts. Cars were swapped and taken away for some and weird changes were made to boundaries. They've moved districts from one zone to another zone now. I can't imagine prepping a mission for a split haha. I guess that's an accomplishment though, eh?

When we first got to our apartment, I walked in the door but was very very confused when I saw a TV that was on and a computer. I looked around a bit then realized I had walked into someone else's apartment! I quickly ran out of the apartment and opened the door next door (?) and walked into ours. Unlike in Yuma, it was clean and everything was put away. Lots of food too!

So far we have been speaking tons of Spanish. I talk to him purely in spanish and he talks to me in English. I help him with his English and he helps me with my Spanish, kind of like with Elder Valdez but I'm trying not to be as lazy and am speaking more Spanish this time. I've already seen tons of improvement in just six days!

We cover the Spanish ward here. It was probably the most energetic ward I've ever been in! The Bishop is from Bar(th)elona Spain and has the very unique accent. He is an awesome guy and very very energetic with a young family. The ward had us stand up in sacrament meeting to introduce us, in Sunday school, and gospel principles. Never had that happen before! There hasn't been a baptism in the ward since September (when Elder Myler was here) but we're going to change that. Having a native speaker in a Spanish ward makes a HUGE difference. Not to mention there are seven 'Diaz' families in the Spanish ward haha

I was flipping through the Ensign and saw a picture of someone familiar ..Jim Kabbani!? Ensign from Oct 2008. Cool story!

Finding our way around Chandler has been an adventure. Someone in a ward that we don't cover offered to give us a ride around Chandler to show us all the streets and whatnot so we did that our first night. We drove over 30 miles and it was super super helpful. The roads are relatively easy to understand.

We found out that we're getting moved into a bigger apartment next month. It seems like every time I unpack I get told I'm moving.

We've been biking a lot. In Yuma I had 1,000 miles per month, in Queen Creek I had 1,100 per month and here we get 650. The area is a lot smaller but the Elders before used a lot of miles at the start so we bike 15 or so miles every day. It's hot, too...

The chapel for our ward is nine miles away which doesn't help too much. 18 mile round trip before lunch time on Sundays.

Elders quorum on Sunday was pretty funny. The lesson was all about being a good husband - we sat there awkwardly. It felt like a marriage prep class. 

We have one investigator in our area that was on date before that fell off. She was supposed to get baptized on the 11th but called the Elders and told her that she didn't want to on the 5th. We went by and visited her and found out that the problem is that she works a lot and rarely gets to see her kids. Her kids don't want to go to church and she won't go unless they go. So we're working with the Young Women's leaders to get the daughter interested and involved. The woman is very prepared and has a strong testimony but won't commit without the daughter. Usually the kids aren't the set back. 

Our district goes down to the Native American reservation. I'll be doing like 6 baptismal interviews down there on Wednesday and Thursday haha. In our district is a senior couple of who cover the reservation. They're on fire! Really nice senior couple, lots of energy, and a good sense of humor. Our district has no other Elders, just two Spanish sisters, the senior couple, and us. 

The Spanish work in Chandler is "legendary." I've heard about this ward and area my whole mission. We see more Hispanics in one day than I did in 3 months in Queen Creek. We have been busy talking with people and orienting ourselves. Chandler is full of apartment complexes (not vertical ones) and trailer parks. Perfect! 

Driving down the main street is a pretty nice experience, visually, but as soon as you turn off of it things change pretty rapidly. Imagine my surprise when I saw this Ferrari!

I had almost the worst OYM of my mission but luckily saved myself. We went up to talk to someone on the street and asked her algunas questions. She responded that she wasn't interested. I offered to give her a card and she said, "I wouldn't be able to read it anyway!" I assumed she was blind and started to say, "Well if you see us and need anything..." but stopped myself at, "if you s-" Whew. To my defense, her guide dog didn't have one of the typical leashes and she didn't have a cane and was out with her kids. Disaster avoided! 

Anyway, we're in a good place doing good work in a good ward. Life is good.

Thanks for the letters: Andra and Grandpa and Grandma J!

Con mucho amor,

EJ

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.

29 April 2013

Dear Family and Friends, 

Transfers are May 5th so if you plan to send anything, probably do it today or tomorrow, and if not by then then send it to the mission home. That address is 1871 E. Del Rio Drive, Tempe AZ 85282.

This was a record breaking week. We beat our own record for street contacts/OYMs and set the mission record, and our zone also set the mission record for most OYMs in a week. The total zone number was 1,828. Elder Allen and I got 604 of those. We walked a lot. A lot. We also got pretty good at turning OYMs into street lessons and set another record with 59 lessons on the street.

The APs noticed and are coming on Thursday to have a 'sit down talk.' We'll see what that means. 

A quote that stuck out this week. "Just because you're tired doesn't mean you deserve to rest."

It has been getting quite hot this week. According to our car it hit 100 twice. Both of those days we walked over 8 miles. We walked pretty far this week.

We stopped at one home to speak with a family and their backyard fan had melted and all the blades were bent downward.

In one of our street contacts this week we went up to some teenage guys talking at a corner. We introduced ourselves briefly and as we were saying what we did one of them yelled, "Want to get sacrificed?? Then keep moving!" The other one started to yell obscenities at us as we offered them a card and then the other one flipped us off. Fun times with them. 

We picked up four new investigators this week. Three of them were spanish and things looked really really good. We taught them a lesson and they thoroughly enjoyed it. We went by the next day and they said they were moving to California, didn't know when, and didn't want to set up a return appointment. 

Huge red moon this week.

This past week the sisters had two baptisms. One of their investigators getting baptized invited a friend who happened to live in our area. She loved the baptism and came to church last week. We are meeting with her on Tuesday and have high hopes for her. She is spanish. The ward reached out to her really well at the baptism and she already has quite a few friends. This is the one we've been waiting for!

This upcoming week we have planned to go by every single one of our former investigators. We have over 60 names planned out; one of those has to go through.

In what's called 'Little Mexico' (two streets worth of Hispanics) we went and OYM'd two women sitting outside. One of them interrupted us and said, "I'm not interested, I'm a witch!" Haven't heard that one yet so we weren't how to respond haha. There's a first for everything.

In that same area someone told us that they caught a rattlesnake in their front yard a while before that measured out to nine feet. Their son wanted to keep it but when it attacked him they "had no choice but to cut it's head off." Why you would want to keep a rattle snake 9 feet long is beyond me!

I got a note from Elder Sawyer this week. He is serving in Mesa right now and finishes his mission next week. One of our recent converts, the one who baptized his family, is getting the Melchizedek priesthood soon and is a counselor in the Young Men's presidency! Their next stop is the temple! Such good news. It's crazy to think that he is going home soon.

On Friday night we were going around talking with some people on the street and inviting them to learn more about the church. We spoke with one man and his very first words were, "Well, the fact is that you are a cult who doesn't worship Jesus." Things went downhill from there on both our sides. My biggest pet peeve is when people tell me what I believe when they obviously have no idea. He went on and on about how faith was all you need to be saved and that we were going to hell. It wasn't a very good street contact.

On our way back to our car, we took a shortcut through a golf course because we were short on time and it was around after 8pm. There are no street lights anywhere in Queen Creek. The suburbs are also built all around golf courses. Peoples back yards are often part of the course. Anyway, we took a shortcut across this course in pitch black joking about snakes and alligators. Elder Allen noticed a long white shape on the ground and said, "What's that?" Just then we heard a really weird loud gurgly sound and something jumped from the ground. I was in the front and saw it first so I turned and ran and Elder Allen yelled, "RUN!" A few feet down the grass we turned around... Turns out it was a high power water sprinkler. I almost died! It could have been a gator!

Speaking of golf courses and backyards, I was walking down the road and a stray golf ball flew past someone's house and hit a tree 6' from me. I almost died! 

Proof that Queen Creek is unique. Something in the above picture isn't normal...

Stake conference was yesterday. Elder Villareal from the 70 came, President and Sister Howes were there, the Mesa temple presidency, and the stake presidency. We were pretty sure that a stake split was going to happen but nothing of significance happened. Some quotes I liked:

"Those who seem to deserve love the least deserve it the most." - P. Howes

"Being temple worthy automatically makes you mission worthy, but I'm not sure sure if the other way is true." P. Porter (of Mesa temple)

There was a big emphasis on family temple trips, even if to just see the grounds.

President Porter spoke about how people shouldn't stop going to the temple because the Gilbert one is opening soon. Apparently a lot less people have been going recently.

A really cool comment from E. Villareal was that apparently announcing the age change to 19 for sisters wasn't pre-planned and Elder Cook told Elder Villareal that it was an example of prophetic revelation. Chevere.

On a similar note, the mission will be gaining over 20 sister missionaries in the next 3 months. That makes more spanish Sisters than Elders.

Anyway, thanks for the letters,Gpa J, Gpa Wm Annie, Mom and Dad, Eric, Will, Jeff R, Natalia, S. Hines, and Tanan! Hopefully I have time to write you all back today! 

With love,

Elder Johnson