Monday, July 25, 2016

Death Interview, Death Dinner and an Amazing Temple Trip - Two More Days!!! - 07/25/2016

Hey everyone! The end of my mission is here. It has been an amazing experience being able to serve the people in the DC area. I have been very blessed for all the experiences, both good and bad, that I have been able to go through. I have been able to meet some of the most amazing people and see their lives change because they chose to follow Jesus Christ and His example. My testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ has grown exponentially. Because of the things I have seen and the things I have felt I have a much greater understanding of what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Thanks to all of those who have followed me on this journey. I appreciate all the emails that have been sent and I am look forward to talking to all of you guys!
     
This week has been pretty great. We had our death interviews and death dinner with President Johnson and we had an amazing temple trip as well! Have an amazing week everyone! I will see you guys this week! ðŸ˜±







Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Single Digits....9 Days Left - 07/18/2016

Well this week has been petty interesting. It has been hard meeting with the people that we are working with because it seems like everyone is out of town with their family vacations. We have been checking on a bunch of new move-in referrals with no luck, so far.

Needless to say it has been a pretty slow week. A couple of pretty cool things did happen though. We were going through a bunch of names of members that the ward wanted us to visit. We finally got a hold of one of those family's and they said we could come over. So we went over there and introduced ourselves. We had an awesome conversation with them and got to know them pretty well. They hadn't been to church since last year because of health problems. They have been pretty lonely due to being house-ridden and so they are always open to having visitors over. They shared with us a few stories from their lifetime, they shared some of their hobbies that they enjoy, and after all that, we were able to share a spiritual thought with them. That may seem just like any normal visit, but that visit helped remind me how simple missionary work can be. One of the hobbies this member was into was 3D printing. He totally said he would make me a 3D printed name tag.
     
This week we also had a solid lesson with a less active member and his family. People have been asking him to come to church for a while now and he hasn't budged. We ended up focusing on some of the Christ-like attributes that are found in Preach My Gospel. We focused on trying to excited commitments that will help build his faith so he will have a desire to act. It will probably take a couple more lessons, but I think he will be coming back to church soon.
     
President Johnson and sister were making their rounds this week. I had pretty short interviews with both of them because I will be getting my departing interview this week. It's pretty crazy to think about it haha.

In other exciting news, I was able to visit with members in the Gaithersburg ward. I am trying to visit a lot of people before I leave and it is kinda getting hectic, especially with the distance. I am hoping I will be able to visit a good chunk of people this week.
     
Sunday was the Why I Believe fireside up at the temple visitor center. President Johnson and sister Johnson spoke and it was awesome! The more around them the more I like them. It think they will do great things for this mission. After Why I believe  I got to talk to tons of members of past wards and got to say good bye to them. It was a pretty great night. 

Thank you guys for the support see you all in 9 days ðŸ˜³






Monday, July 11, 2016

Moving Party, Epic 4th of July P-Day, and Meeting the New Mission President - 07/11/2016

What's up everyone! I hope you all have had a fantastic two weeks! Sorry about last week! It was a pretty epic pday, but I will get back to that. The week before the 4th was a pretty good one. We
were able to meet lots of families in the ward through our meal appointments. This ward is really good at feeding the missionaries and not only is it great because of the food it makes it a lot easier to
meet the ward. Most wards, the missionaries pass a calendar around, but this ward, the mission leader assigns people to feed the missionaries, so we are getting fed every single night. We have met some awesome family's who love to do missionary work.

I named him Otto the Tick...Yes mom I pulled the whole tick out, I contacted the doctor and the bite is doing fine :)
One of these awesome family's called us up one day and asked us if we would help move one of their non-member friends. Our roommates and us headed over to house and surprised these people, who were planning on moving all over their stuff by themselves. It was a sweet way to kinda introduce the Church to them. Later that night the family who had asked us to help them had us over for dinner and they invited the family we helped move over. We were able to talk and visit then, we shared a spiritual thought about the importance of family's. It was awesome! That same week were able to get a hold of most of our investigators in the area book! It has been pretty hard to get a hold of them since we have been in the area, but things are finally starting to pick up.
   
One of the biggest highlights from the last week was the 4th of July! This year the 4th of July landed on a P-Day and our new Mission President, President Johnson, gave us an all day P-Day and let us stay out till 10:30. Unfortunately we were not allowed to go to the National Mall (where the Washington monument, Lincoln Memorial, and that kinda stuff is) so a bunch of us missionaries got together and had a big barbecue a the Holmead chapel in DC. The chapel is really old and they only use it for young adult actives so it worked out perfectly. Once it got late, we made our way to a high school which over looked the mall. Unfortunately everybody and their dogs were lighting of all these little fireworks and that made the air so smoky that we couldn't even see the fireworks going off at the mall. Fortunately there were a bunch of apartment buildings lighting off fireworks on top of the buildings, so we could still enjoy them. We packed up around 10 to make it back to the DC Zone Leaders apartment so we could be in on time. There ended up to be around 11 missionaries trying to sleep in this tiny studio apartment that had no carpet. Needless to say it was a very long night and most of us only got a couple of hours of sleep because of the uncomfortable sleeping conditions. The next day, Elder Schank and I made our way out of the city to a stake center, via metro, to pick up our car and made the long drive back. Surprisingly we were able to make the whole day with out taking a power nap. We spent most of that day just checking on potential investigators.


Another huge highlight of the week was that we were able to meet President and Sister Johnson. They seem awesome and they will do great things for the mission. You can for sure tell they have that greeny fire and they are ready to rock and roll. Not going to lie it is pretty hard to attempt to build that relationship with them when you have a pretty short time left, and when they are focusing on the younger missionary (which is a good thing). They will do a lot of good for the mission. The rest of the week has been the grind. We have been able to work with a lot of the focus family's in our ward and we are continually meeting with our investigators. So far we have not seen too much progress with them, but we are still working hard at inviting them to come unto Christ.

Thank you guys for all the support!

Have a great week!
    


Elder Tyler Johnson

Epic Rope Swing!!!


Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Busy 4th of July...07/04/2016

Hope you all had an awesome week! I'm very sorry but today has been a really busy day. We have had an awesome and safe Fourth of July I will all update you on my we next week! 

Have an awesome week!!