Major Dental, Car Show, Wall Repair, & Baptisimal Talk - 02/02/2015

Sorry about all of these dental problems. I'm doing better at brushing and flossing I promise.

Anyway this week nothing to crazy. Just the same old same old. One cool thing was that I was able to learn how to repair a wall by patching it up with sheet rock and the spackling it. I also got to give a talk at a baptism. Pretty much on the spot and people were saying it was really good! So I think I am getting better at speaking. 

Other than that, we did have a great p-day.  We went to guitar center and then the mall. Pretty chill day, it felt great to get away from South East.

If you have any more info on the dentist then let me know. 

Byeee

Love your son (the first) 

Sore Gums, Transfers, Crazy Lady's, Food Poisoning, Car Chases, and Did I Mention Sore Gums? - 01/26/2015

Well well well, I'm not even sure we're to start this weekly email. his week my gums on the left side of my mouth, both top and bottom were inflamed and it hurt all week!! The only thing that would make it feel better was when I drank some cool water. This helped me drink more water then I have ever in my life. Over the course of one day I would drink around 160 oz of water. This was like every day, just so my gums wouldn't kill me. 

This week was also transfers so I got a new companion. His name is Elder Paul. I don't know him too well yet, but I am sure he is great. Before transfers elder Elliott and I didn't do much. He just wanted to say bye to some people so went all over. It was fun. Wednesday was transfers. After the transfer meeting, I let elder Paul get situated. Then we went with the other Elders to meet a crazy lady they have been helping. When we got close to the place where she was staying, she was already walking towards us. She told us that she had a missionary opportunity for us. As we walked with her she was talking about this pastor who was ready for the gospel. So I thought we would be just going to his house and talking with this guy but I was greatly mistaken. We walked right up to their church. So at this point I thought we were meeting him there, but as we were walked in we saw that there was a session going on so we sat down and joined them for a few minutes. The lady walks right up to the pastor, gives him a Book of Mormon, and our phone number, and then we left. Ha ha it was kinda crazy. Then we walked back with this lady to her house and she gives us food for dinner. All of a sudden this ice cream truck pulls up out of nowhere. These ice cream trucks are famous for DC. They are called weed wagons. People call them that because with all the other normal goodies that they sell, they also sell drugs out of them. While we continue to talk to the lady about this, she gets this look of disgust, and she walks right up to this truck and starts flirting with the guy, trying to get information from him. She walks back and tells us to write down the license plate info. This lady is insane! We did not want to get wound up into some problems with the drug lords.  Good thing nothing happened.  We started walking back and when we almost got back home 8 police cars went flying by back the from where we came from. Hope it wasn't related. 

The next day we had district meeting after district meeting we headed to lunch and then went home. My mouth was in lots of pain so I did not want to leave the apartment so we did weekly planning. We finally made it out of the apartment to go to dinner. Dinner was miserable! Each bite I just wanted to rip out all of my teeth. At the end I started to feel sick as soon as we got home so I went straight to bed. I would slept wonderfully but my body wanted that food out of my stomach, so I woke up around 11 and had to relieve myself out of my face, to put it nicely.  This happened every couple of hours through the night but nothing was coming out after the first time. Even the next day I still had a few episodes where my roommates, who were downstairs, were wondering if I would live through it or not(it's pretty funny looking back on it). I stayed in bed for the rest of that day. The only thing that made it better was that my companion and one per roommate had gotten sick as well. It was a tough missionary work week.  We did get rested up though.

     

Other then that I did have pretty crazy thing happen. On one of the nights I started to feel better, we witnessed a car chase.  It was freaking crazy hahah I'll send you the video. I'm not sure if mom would find it cool till I was home if you know what I mean. 

President Eyring, New Investigator, and Goals - 01-12-2015

President Eyring is so cool! I loved listen to him speak! As soon as he walked into the auditorium you could feel the special spirit about him and how he is a special witness of Jesus Christ. It's really crazy to think that he has probably seen him with his own two eyes. He talked about a lot of things. He pretty much said that he didn't really prepare anything and he was just going off of personal revelation and talking about what people in the room needed to here and I definitely feel like that he said what I needed but I didn't even know. He talked about how the best way to teach is to love them, but it is impossible to love someone who you just met by yourself.  You need to ask your Heavenly Father for that love and for him to tell you something about them. And I feel like that's what has been missing a lot of the time. It seems like the mission is all about the numbers which I hate because I forget that these numbers are precious souls to God and it seems a lot of our mission leadership forgets that as well. I loved that experience. 

That was definitely the best moment of my week as far as missionary wise. Other than that, it kinda was a bummer week. We were supposed to have two investigators at church (at on point we were suppose to have 3) but all of them ended up baling:/. We will have to recommit them this week. 

One of the miracles we were able to see this week was me and my companion had to bike to this members house and it was freezing cold. We got there and the member we were there to see was asleep. But the son who is a non member was there and he said we can come back and talk to him sometime. So that was good.

So for my goals, I have made a few so far, but I am planning on making some more. Alright for physical I want to be able to bench my body weight by St Patrick's day which I think I should be able to do. I got 135 up today so I still have a long ways to go but it's getting better. A social goal I have is to talk to at least 10 people a day on the streets. A spiritual goal is to read from the Book of Mormon everyday. And yep those are a few of the goals I have.

Love Elder Johnson 

Mission Conference, New Year, and President Eyring is coming for a visit - 01/05/2015

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thank you for the emails I really enjoy them! This week has been really slow with the holidays and all. Everyone seemed pretty busy with other things. We were pretty busy with mission things. We had our Mission Conference on Saturday. It was really good. We all got a lot of motivation to start the new year out right. I think this week is going to be really good. Only thing that could hold us back is if we get snowed in. Which is a good possibility. There is snow in the forecast for tomorrow. Hopefully it isn't too bad. 

Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun at Christmas. Those party's are always a blast. Can't wait for the 2016 holiday season. It will be so amazing. The holidays on the mission are great and all but it's just not the same. 

Unbroken looked really cool. I saw a couple of trailers for it before I came put and it looked super cool. I will for sure have to see that when I get back. 

That's pretty exciting about Corbin and home schooling. Hopefully he will be able to pick up things better with you than he does in school.

Thank you so much dad for the goal template. That is so cool! I will for sure do it. I'll do it tomorrow for study. I am sure that will help a lot. I haven't made goals yet but I have been thinking about making some and so that will be great. 

Probably the biggest news from this week is that we found out that President Eyring is coming to speak to our mission! I'm really excited. I don't think I have ever told you guys this but his brother is in charge of the visitor center and he is getting released on Saturday so that might have to do with why President Eyring is coming out here. 

Other then that nothing too exciting besides us picking up a few new investigators. Hopefully they will be interested. 

Thanks again! I really miss you guys! Love you!

Love Elder Johnson

P.S. Dad, One of my roommates is the drummer for the band Sonsapapa. He has let us listen to a few of their songs and they are pretty good! They aren't on iTunes yet but you can look them up on Facebook. They are pretty sweet. Have a great week!!