Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Getting to see the Pope, Getting to Know Members, and Getting Transfered - 09/28/2015

Hello Everyone,

I apologize for the late email. Thank you to all of those who have emailed me, it is well appreciated. This week has been a very exciting one. We have been spending quite a bit of time getting to know the members of the ward. It has been very intriguing talking to these people about their past and how they have ended up in the place they are now. We have had a wide range of people to talk to. We talked to a a single mom who had a very rough upbringing in New York City. At age 12, because of the living conditions, she ran away from home and since that day she has never seen her mother again. Her life story is quite incredible. We also were able to meet a less active member who was cut from the Miami Heat due to an accident that would require a knee replacement. This man also has a very close connection to Theral Bailey. His sister was married to him and they had a kid together.
Unfortunately they did split up and this man baptized their kid.
   
Another exciting thing that has happened this week was that the missionary's serving in the Gaithersburg 1st Ward were able to go see the Pope address congress, and lucky for me, I serve in that Ward. It was very cool. We woke up at 3:30 am to get ready. We were at the Metro at 5 we got to the lawn of the Capital at 6 and the Pope did not speak till 10. His speech to Congress was about 20 minutes and after we concluded he walked out of the chamber to the back of the Capital Building to address the thousands of people on the lawn. It was an amazing experience and it was only possible because a member in our Ward knew some people who had tickets because those tickets had been sold out.

Another awesome experience we had was we were able to go to Dr. Prince's home for dinner tonight. He and his wife are the ones who are running Madison field's. It was a great experience. They each gave us great advice for life and it was something that was worth while.
     
On Friday we had a chance of helping out with a food drive at a grocery store. It was awesome to see everyone being so generous. We were able to fill up 4 boxes of food.  It was so fun and it felt so good. That project was part of an event called Day To Serve. It is something that the Area 70 created with the state of Maryland. And so there are a lot of service projects that missionaries and members are all helping out with.
      
Saturday I found out that Elder Rowley and I are both leaving Gaithersburg so we will be transferred out on Wednesday.
  
Thanks you so much for all that you guys do. 

Have a great week!



Elder Johnson






    

Monday, September 21, 2015

Busy Investigators, Lemonade and Book of Mormon Stand, & Competitor Missionary's - 09/21/2015

Hello Everyone,
     
This past week was a slower week. We did not have many lessons and we have not found anybody that is interested. We did have a couple of lessons with our investigators that went really well. One of our investigators told us that he wants to be baptized, but now is not a good time because he is very very busy. This week we were also able to get a hold of Rutendo, who is probably our most solid investigator. The only problem with her is that she is insanely busy. She literally hops on a plane to go to another part of the country every week, so that makes it very difficult to meet with her. 
       
A fun thing that we did this week was a lemonade and a Book of Mormon stand. We did that as a district. The location we did this at was at a very busy bus stop. We handed out quite a few Copy's of the Book of Mormon, but we did not find anybody that was willing to learn more. Probably the most exciting thing that happened was when missionary's from another faith started talking to people. They started off being nice and then they just tried to shove there religion down everybody's throats, including ours haha. It was really weird. 
     
Anyway thanks for everything! 

Have a wonderful week byeee! 



Elder Johnson  

Monday, September 14, 2015

More Finding, Terrifying Missionaries, and a Bible Memorizing Investigator - 09/14/2015

Hello Everyone,

This week has been a good one. We have been focusing on building our teaching pool so once again we have been doing a ton of finding and this week went much better then the previous couple of weeks. We were able to add a few people that showed a little interest. We will be focusing on continuing adding people to our teaching pool along with trying to get a hold of these people and start teaching them the lessons.
    
There were a few funny things that had happened the past week. One of the events took place while we were knocking doors towards the end of the night. It was probably around 8:30 so it was the last house of the night. We knocked on the door and we waited. We saw a lady peak out of curtains from the upstairs windows. We keep on waiting and eventually we heard her walking towards to door. When she opened the door at first she could only see one of us, but when she opened the door all the way and saw both of us she just flipped out and started yelling out of pure terror as she saw two white kids in white shirts and ties at her door. She shut the door pretty fast on us haha.
   
Another funny thing that happened occurred while I was on an exchange with the Zone leaders. We were knocking doors and this man opens the door. He looked at us with a very confused face. We proceeded to tell him that we are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He then begins to start asking us all kinds of questions about what bible we use. He told us that he also reads from the King James version. He then asks us to take our bibles and turn to John chapter 3. He tells us that I doubt that anybody in your church can do this. Then he starts quoting the chapter word for word. I thought he would stop after a few verses but, no he goes through the entire chapter only mixing up a couple of words. then he asks us a few more questions about doctrine and what we believe. He asked about the trinity, we talked about prophets, and other scriptures. The only thing we had a different view on was the Sabbath day. He believes it to be Saturday which makes sense. After having about an hour long discussion he seemed to like us a lot. He was giving us advice how to bible bash with Jehovah Witnesses. It was pretty funny. He was certainly a character. We will be studying up on our bibles and hopefully we will see him this week.

Thank you everyone! Have a great week.


Elder Johnson       

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Ward Youth Party, Madison Fields, and Finding Efforts - 09/08/2015

Hello everyone! 

I hope you are all had fantastic Labor Day weekend. Everything is pretty normal here. The only thing different about today is that all the places we can use the computers are closed, the place where we going shopping is closed, and all the roads that we take to get to our apartment are closed because of a Labor Day Festival haha.

This week has went pretty well. We have had solid lessons with our investigators. They are starting to progress which is awesome! We were able to go a ward youth party which was also great! We got to talk to them and get to know them better. We also were able to work on the farm this week! It was great! The name of the farm is Madison Fields. It's this really cool place that helps with special needs adults. They have a really cool video about it on YouTube I encourage all of you to take a look at it.

Other than that, we have been doing lots and lots of finding. We have been knocking on people's doors, talking to them in the streets, just trying to find someone that will listen, and are having very little success. Tonight was actually one of our better days we found two people that are interested in learning more and with one of them, we set up an appointment for later this week.
      
That was pretty much our week. Sorry for the boring email. I'll be sure to take notes of the exciting and funny things that happen this week. Thanks for everything guys, have a great week! 


Love you all,


Elder Johnson