Football on the National Mall, Loudest Lesson Ever, Senior Missionary Cupids, and a Baptism that Started Off Cold, but Ended HOT - 02/15/2016

Hey everybody what's up!

It's time for another weekly email. This week has been pretty great. We are finally kinda getting the hang of our area. 

On Monday we went down to The national mall and played football with lots of elders. It was great to see everyone especially because we are not able to meet as a mission anymore. After football we went to the mall to get lunch and then we chill the rest the day until it was Time to go to a member meal. During this member meal Elder Lee, my companion, started getting super bad hiccups. He then ran to the restroom. When he came out he told me that we should probably go. It turned out that he got sick so we went home. That was our Monday night.

      

On Tuesday we met with a recent convert from the ward. His name is R****z and he is from Jordan. He is really cool guy and he is preparing to go to the temple. After we have finished up with him we spent pretty much the rest of the day checking on referrals and contacting. A little bit later in the day we had an appointment with a less active man by the name of Brother S*****k. He is an older man with some health problems, so he is not able to make it to church. The missionaries had been meeting with him for a while now so we kept up the tradition. Brother S*****k is pretty much deaf, which made the lesson pretty interesting. We literally had to yell at him the entire time. When we thought we were talking loud enough he would stare at us like he had no idea what we said. There were a few times during the lesson that I had to stop myself from laughing. I had to say the prayer at the end of the lesson. It was so hard not to laugh. I am pretty sure the neighbors two houses down heard everything we said. We should have counted that as a member present. When we finished up with him it was time to go ward correlation with our ward mission leader and the other missionaries in the ward.

     

Wednesday we had our weekly planning session which consisted of mostly calling people trying to set up appointments. After we finished weekly planning we went finding for a little while then we headed to dinner with the family in the ward.

Thursday we had our district meetings. Probably the most entertaining part of that was one of the senior elders dressed up like Cupid and handed all the missionaries valentines candy. It was pretty funny, but I also felt very uncomfortable ha ha. The worst part of the day was that we had almost all of our appointments cancel on us so we had to go about finding. When it came to dinnertime we walked over to the member who is feeding us. Turned out he was still at work and the only person who is home was his son-in-law. Elder Lee and I talked had an awesome conversation with him. He is a really cool guy, he is from Florida and right now he is doing an internship. He is a convert of only few years so it was really cool here how the Gospel has blessed his life. After we finished talking with him we walked back to our apartment. As soon as we walked through the door we got a call from the member who was supposed to feed us. He told us that he just had gotten home and that we could come back over and eat dinner with him. It was a pretty funny dinner, everything was just thrown together and it was actually really good. The member's name is Brother S*****n. He works for the United States Army and I am guessing he does some pretty crazy stuff because he would not talk about his job at all.

     

Friday was a pretty good day. We had a referral given to us by another missionary. He set up an appointment for us. We taught this lady the first lesson and it went pretty well. She seemed kind of interested and she said she would come to church when she got a day off, but she is generally pretty busy. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her again. After we had finished with her we are headed over to a member who had just recently moved into the ward. She Asked us to come over and give her a blessing because of some hardships of her life. It was awesome to be able to use the priesthood to help her. Later that day we spend time checking on referrals again. I wish so bad that they would pick up their phones and answer their doors. Later that night we had an appointment with some investigators. Their names are S***t and S***a. The missionaries have been working with them for quite some time now and it was great to be able to introduce ourselves and get to know them. S***t had a baptismal date, but an issue came up in one of the lessons. We found out that he still wants to work towards baptism which is great! We hope everything works out with him.

On Saturday we had a few appointments. We were checking on this lady who had requested missionaries to come over and give her a book of Mormon. We had given her a Book of Mormon about a week ago, but we were not able to teacher. So Elder Lee and I dropped in to see if she was home. Her husband answered the door and he invited us in. The lady who had requested the missionaries was asleep so we talked with her husband. He's a really cool guy with some struggles in his life right now. We talked to him about the restoration briefly and he said that it was very interesting and he would like to learn more, but not at this time because of some things that are going on in his life right now. After we had finished talking with him. We decided we would drop in on the Igor. We had not been able to get a hold of Igor the entire week and it was kind of frustrating because he is our main guy right now. We knocked on the door and it turned out he was home and he was really excited to see us. He told us that his phone had not been working properly so it has been hard for people to get a hold of him. We taught him a few of the Commandments and he says that he does not have any problems except for coffee. He hasn't had coffee for a few weeks now, but he is having a hard time ignoring the temptation.

Sunday was pretty exciting. We had our normal church services and then we had a ward baptism right after church. The ward mission leader had put Elder Lee and I in charge of filling the font. While we start to fill the font we noticed that the water was really cold. We talked to the ward mission leader about it and he told us that there was a hot water heater in the basement that we may have to adjust. So Elder Lee, myself, and the ward mission leader went down to the basement to turn up the water heater. We went to the baptismal font and the water was heating up. When it came to the baptism I guess it wasn't enough. The water was still really cold. During the confirmation the fire alarm started going off. As soon as the blessing is over everybody evacuated the church building. Couple minutes later about four fire trucks pulled into the church parking lot and started to investigate the building. It turns out that the hot water heater overheated and it started to produce a lot of steam which set off the fire alarms. It brings a whole new meaning to baptism by fire.

Well that was pretty much our week. 

Have a fantastic week and I hope to hear from you soon

Byeeee

Transferred to White Oak, Bitter Sweet Goodbyes in Derwood, Aussie Companion, and Getting to Know the New Ward - 02/08/2016

Hello everyone! I hope that you all have had a great week. My week has been a little crazy!

On Monday we just had a ton of fun with our zone. We had lunch at our local chapel then we headed to the ice skating rink. It was a great way to close out the transfer. That night we got the phone calls that told us where we were going and who our companion was going to be. I found out that the kid that I was suppose to train was a visa waiter and it turned out that he got his visa so he is not coming to our mission which means I am not training. The companion that I am getting is Elder Lee and we were both leaving our old areas and heading to the White Oak Ward. I was super surprised and shocked. The crazy thing about being sent to White Oak is that Igor, our old investigator, moved into White Oak last week. So I will be able to teach him! I am so pumped about that! 

Tuesday had our last district/zone meeting and it was very bitter sweet. Most of that zone has stayed for a while and they were making some big changes to the areas. After the meeting we did our tour around the ward. It was really hard saying goodbye to the ward. It was for sure one of my favorite areas. The last stop of the night was Betsy and her family. It was very hard to say goodbye. That family is so awesome! the kids had put together a thank you basket. That was one of the nicest things that someone has done for me. When we got home I spent the rest of the night packing. 

Wednesday we headed to the stake center to meet our new companions. My new companion, Elder Lee, is from Australia which is pretty sweet! He is a really cool guy. He has been out on his mission for about 6 months now. We spent pretty much the whole day trying to get situated. Since we were packing a lot of people's stuff we had to run back up to my old apartment and pick up the rest of my things because they would not fit into the car. 

Thursday we had our missionary meeting with the new zone. It was really fun, but really weird. There are so many missionaries that I have no idea who they are. They all seem great though. After the meeting we went shopping. After shopping we ate then we checked on a bunch of referrals. 

Friday we spent the entire day checking referrals in the area. 

Saturday we were able to get permission to go up to Derwood and have lunch with Betsy, her family, Elder Bentley, and Elder Woodis. It was great to see them again. After we had ate lunch we were able to meet a couple of members from the ward. 

Sunday we went to church and we really started to get to know the members in the ward. Overall this week has been pretty slow trying to get use to the new area. We are really excited for the work. 

Thanks for all the support guys! 

Have a fantastic week!

Escape From the Snowed-In Apartment, Hoop Dreams, Snow Shoveling, Blessing for GG, Temple Trip, Transfers and Training, and BETSY's BAPTISM!!! - 02/01/2016

Hello everyone! How is it going?! This week has been an amazing week! It will for sure be one that I will never forget:

Monday we were finally able to get out of our house. We were allowed to use our cars from 3 pm to 6 pm so for those 3 hours we spent the time just out and about. When it got to be 6 pm we went back inside. Our dinner appointment was nice enough that they came and picked us up so we could still have dinner with them. After dinner we were supposed to go to Betsy's. The family we had the dinner appointment with was willing to take us over. Unfortunately, on our way over to Betsy's we go stuck behind a snow plow so we were not able to get to her house.

     

On Tuesday we went to the Stake Center to go and play basketball. Elder Bentley and I were the first ones to get there. When we pulled up we saw that the entire parking lot of the church was buried with 3 feet of snow. We thought that there was no way we would be playing basketball so we started to drive home. A few minutes later we get a call from one of the Elders we play with telling us to get back there. We parked across the street at an elementary school. With nothing but our shorts on, we made the long journey to the front doors. It was flipping cold! #BallisLife. After we had finished basketball, we got ready and had our study's. After our studies  we were able to get over to Betsy's. We had the Zone leaders come with us so they could conduct the baptismal interview and Betsy passed! That was probably one of the shortest interviews I have ever seen. After her interview we started setting up her Baptismal Program. We decided, with the Ward Mission Leader, that we should scoot her baptism to Saturday so she could be confirmed on Sunday. After we had that all set up I was able to give Betsy's daughter, GG, a blessing. She had surgery the next day so we thought it would be a good idea to give her a blessing. It was probably one of the cutest things ever ( I promise I am a man). She was just kneeling down playing with her toys and we all came around her and placed our hands on her head. It was such a sweet experience. After Betsy's we met up with our roommates and we headed to lunch at Chick-Fil-A and Cheryl was there. She hooked all of us up with multiple free Chicken Sandwich cards. After lunch we pretty much spent the entire day shoveling people out of the snow. He helped some of the sisters in our district get there cars out of the snow. It was really fun! It was very tiring though. Since the snow storm had melted a little,  the snow is now really heavy and wet.

     

Wednesday we had our temple trip as a mission! As always it was a great experience. It was especially great because we are no longer allowed to gather as a mission because of some changes in Salt Lake. So now we don't get to see everyone very much. After lunch we had our regular meeting with Harold. After our visit with Harold we headed to our Ward Mission Leader's for dinner. During dinner we set up the program for Betsy's baptism. Everything went really smoothly. During this whole week we had contact with her sister-in-law, who is a member. She helped us out so much.

     

Thursday we spent the entire day shoveling snow for random people. It was very fun, but it was also very, very tiring. At the end of the day I got a call from the Mission President. He told me I am going to be training again. I am still not sure my feelings on that.

     

Friday we headed down to the church's book store and we were able to scrounge up enough money and we were able to buy Betsy a quad for her baptism. In this quad Elder Bentley and I wrote our testimonies in it. Then we gave it to the sisters who had also worked with her, so they could write their's. After we had finished getting that all organized we went back to Harold's to have lunch and also pick up a crystal Washington, D.C. Temple cube for Betsy. After we had finished with Harold. We went and visited Sister Puckett. We made some sick eagle shirts with her.

     

Saturday was Betsy's Baptism!! It was awesome!! Everything went awesome! Her bother-in-law performed the baptism. Everything went very smoothly. After Betsy was baptized, her mother-in-law gave a super powerful talk. She also said that her family had been praying for years for Betsy to be baptized and for her husband to come back to church. She said that they almost gave up on Christmas. Elder Bentley and I got a hold of her a couple days after Christmas. It was really cool to hear how very thing just fell into place. That was probably my favorite baptism that I have attended on my mission. I love Betsy and her family so much! The rest of the day was spent shoveling snow whoop whoop!!

    

Sunday Betsy got confirmed so now she is officially a member of the Church! Ahhhh! So great! We had Ward Conference so it was very long day. After church we had the Ward Council meeting with everyone. After the meeting we went straight to dinner with a few families. It was a fun night!

     

So I am very sorry for emailing super late, but it has been a pretty crazy day! So we had our zone active and we went ice skating and it was really fun! After that we headed back to our apartment and filmed another dance off video and it is sick! After we did that we went to dinner with a great family in the ward and after that we went and visited Betsy and her family. It is so sad. I am getting transferred out of the area and so it was the last time I will see them for a bit. They gave me a small package full of things. They even got me a small iHome speaker! Gosh I am going to miss them. Anyway thanks for everything!! Take care!

ElderJohnson

Snow Week, Further Lesson's with Betsy and Igor, Back Flip's and So You Think You Can Dance!!! - 01/25/2016

What is up everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful day and you all had an awesome week! I know I did haha. 

Monday was pretty chill. We didn't do anything to crazy. We pretty much spent our day doing shopping and just relaxing. For dinner a family from the ward took us to Cafe Rio which is always great!. After dinner we had a lesson with Betsy! We taught her the last lesson, so she is pretty much ready for her baptism. We are very excited! For that lesson we also brought some priests along with us so they could help fellowship Betsy's 17 year old son who has been starting to come back to church with his mom. It went really well.

     

Tuesday we pretty much spent the whole day calling people and checking on less actives since our meetings were canceled for the week due to the missionary broadcast that we watched on Wednesday. It was a pretty long day.

     

Wednesday we watched the world wide mission broadcast which was really well done. They shared a lot of good things. It was a good reminder of the preach my gospel basics. After the 2 hour broadcast we went to our weekly appointment with Harold. He told us of a storm coming and he insisted that he buy us some groceries. So we went to the grocery store next to his place and picked up some food for the storm. Elder Bentley and I knew of the storm, but we hadn't known it was going to be that big. After we were done with Harold's we went to dinner with a family in the ward. Their names are the Padilla's and yes they are related to Brent Padilla who use to be in AF 10th ward. Haha small world. When we got out of our dinner appointment it had started to snow! It was awesome! that was the first snowfall this season that actually stuck to the road. Anyway we had an appointment with a referral that we had gotten a couple days before. Her name is Millie. We knocked on her door and she welcomed us in very kindly. She let us sit down and share a lesson with her. At the very beginning of the lesson she asked us to make it quick because she had to make dinner for her kids. So we shared about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Millie really enjoyed it. She loved our visit and she just kept talking to us and asking different questions. The lesson ended up being just over an hour long. She is very interested and we committed her read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She accepted that with no problem. We are very excited for her. When we got out of our appointment it was still snowing. It took us an hour to get back to our home and usually it would only take 30 minutes. You would have thought that there was a foot of snow on the ground, but there was probably less then two inches. I was the one driving and I was weaving through cars. The average posted speed was 45 mph. Most of these cars were going 15 or less with their hazard lights. It was pretty funny. We also got a call out from President Cooke telling us a little bit about the storm coming and how they put $20 on each of our cards and how we need to go shopping because we would be stuck inside for a few days.

     

On Thursday we went shopping, getting ready. The looting had already began. A lot of the fresh produce was gone and the shelves started to look a little empty. After we had finished shopping we went home and did some weekly planning. After weekly planning we had dinner with a family in the ward. After dinner we went on splits with the Young Men's President. That evening was awesome! We were able to get in contact with one of the referrals and we set up an appointment with him for the next day and we were also able to get a hold of Igor. We have been trying to get a hold of him for the past month with no luck. We were giving him a call to see if we could come over and teach him a lesson. While on the phone I was praying so hard that he would answer the phone. My prayer was answered! Igor answered the phone and we were able to teach him about the World of Wisdom! Part of the reason why it has been so hard to get a hold of him is because he as moved a couple of blocks out of our area. Elder Bentley and I are very sad about this. We loved teaching Igor. He is such a good guy and he has so much potential. During the lesson we started to talk about switching missionaries to him. Igor was also sad about this. He told us a little bit about his back story and the feelings he was having. He came from Brazil to America with nothing and with nobody he knew. We knocked on his door just a couple of weeks after he had moved form Brazil to America. He told us that when we called him to ask if we could come over, at first he was a little hesitant, but as soon as he saw us, something inside him told him that he could trust us and that we would be friends. He then told us that we were his first family in the US and he wanted us to stay in contact with him. It is going to be very hard not to be able to teach Igor all the way, but we will for sure stay in contact with him. After we had finished with Igor, the Young Men's President had to get gas for his care.He literally stopped at 3 different gas stations because they were all out off gas. People had been lining up all day to fill up their cars and gas tanks. Needless to say we got in pretty late because of that.

     

Friday we quickly went to our appointment with the referral that we contacted the night before. We then when shopping for a couple last minute things and then at 12 pm we were locked into our apartment because of winter storm Jonas. We have been locked in for almost 4 days now. We had to be a little creative to keep our elves from not going insane. But overall we have had a lot of fun. We spent some time reading, we have been learning how to do some back flips on the ground. We even got into a Dance off with some other missionaries in the mission. Haha it has been a great time. The total snow fall where we are at is about 32 inches. 

Thanks for the emails! 

Keep them coming! 

Video's:

Snow Pictures:

Have an awesome week!

First Snow of the Season, Butt Dialing 911, Crazy Wolf Lady, & an Evening with the Washington's - Praise the Lord!!! - 01/18/2016

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful week! It has been a pretty good one for us. 

Monday was just a super chill Pday, nothing really exciting there. 

Tuesday we had our meetings and then we went to work on the farm. It was really fun. The kids we we're helping were enjoying it and seeing the smiles on there face just makes your whole day better. While we were helping with riding in the barn, it started to snow! It was the first time that is has snowed this season and let me tell you Elder Bentley and I were pretty excited. 

On Wednesday we spent the day meeting with recent converts and less actives.  We also met with Harold, who is the member who takes care of our meal calendar. He is a very interesting man. He is really lonely so he loves to spend time with the missionaries.  After dinner we had our lesson with Betsy. We were teaching the world of wisdom and the Ten Commandments. I was kind of nervous about this lesson because the very first time we met with Betsy, she was wearing a I Heart Coffee shirt. We went over the lesson. Other thank her kids being really rambunctious and our phone butt dialing 911, the lesson went well. She didn't bring up any concerns about the word of wisdom and she committed to follow it.

On Thursday we met with some less actives. One of the guys we had met with had been a member since the 80's, but he stopped going to church 18 months after his baptism because of a few trials in his life. He is currently agnostic and he doesn't know if he will ever come back to church. He said he has nothing against the church, he just has something with God. It made me pretty sad that he has spent a good chunk of his life in that state of mind. I hope he will turn around sooner rather than later. We were also able to spend some time with Brother and Sister Chaney for dinner. Brother Chaney was baptized about a year ago and he is a really solid member of the ward. After dinner we went to our ward mission leader's house to have our ward correlation. It went really well, Brother Matsen is really good at what he does. 

On Friday we spent a lot of time at the bottom of our area visiting some lonely members. We visited this lady named Sister Puckett. She is known throughout the mission as the crazy wolf lady.

She is very kind and she loves the missionaries. One of the things we helped her out with was buying some supplies, so she can make some shirts. (She was the lady who made our wolf dream catcher shirts). We also had a finding activity at the metro. It went pretty well. I was able to teach a couple of lessons, but nobody was really interested.

Saturday we spent pretty much the entire day checking on all of our 17 referrals. It actually went really well. We were able to drop in on a couple and we were also able to set up a couple of appointments for this week. Saturday evening we had a very interesting dinner. Probably one of the craziest dinners on my mission. It was at the Washington home. A little background on the Washington family. Sister Washington is African-American and she is very proud of that. She is one of those people that just goes on and on about race. She has been a member for quite a while now, but she has been less active for years. She has just started coming back to church for about a year now. Sister Washington is married to Darrel, who is also a member, but he is not active at the moment. They have three boys. Sister Washington invited two of her friends for over for dinner. We found this out when we arrived at her home. She put Elder Bentley and I together with her nonmember friends in the front room by ourselves. Sister Washington proceeded to tell us to start talking about the church with them. It was pretty awkward, but we tried our hardest to make the best out of it.  All throughout the dinner, relatives of the Washington family kept piling into the cramped apartment. All of them moved into the family room to watch the football game, while Elder Bentley and I were in the front room trying to make good conversation with these friends of Sister Washington. When we were about finished up eating, Sister Washington invited us into the front room with everybody else. She told us that she wanted us to share a quick message and tell people who we were. She then proceeded to mute the TV while everyone was still trying to watch the football game. She then told everyone to be quite and listen to us. So I told  the small crowd of about 20 people that we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that we go around teaching people about how they can live happy lives and how they can come closer to Jesus Christ.

Elder Bentley shared his brief testimony and added that we do not worship Joseph Smith. After he had concluded speaking, Sister Washington went around the entire room having everybody say something religious. There was a wide spectrum of religions represented in the household. Most of these people were Christian, but there were a couple of Muslims. When it came to be Sister Washington's turn, her whole speech was pretty much about racism. She told everyone that the church was no longer just for white people, but it is also for the black people now. One of  her sons told her to stop making it all about racism. She then told him that it is all about racism. This whole conversation was very awkward because Elder Bentley and I made up two of the three white people in the entire house. The rest of the 20 were all African-American/African. I found it very amusing, it brought me back to the good old days in Anacostia. When everyone finished with what they had to say, Sister Washington randomly broke out into an old Baptist hymn that I had never heard of. Everyone started to sing along. If you have ever seen one of those Baptist choirs in a movie or on TV, that is pretty much what it looked like.  Elder Bentley and I were just awkwardly standing in the corner not knowing what to do.  Ha ha, it was a very fun night. 

On Sunday we had church like all the other Sundays, but this Sunday Betsy came once again. Yeah!! She had an awesome time with her kids. Her two kids went to primary and they both loved it. Her older son Alex went to young men's and he also seem to enjoy it. The ward did such a great job of fellowshipping all of them. Betsy is planning on being being baptized on 31st of January. We're very excited for her. Later Sunday night we went to the visitor center for the Why I Believe fireside.

It was excellent, the main speaker was a man by the name of Terryl Lynn Givens. He is a professor down in Richmond Virginia. He has written a few Books.  He wrote The Crucible of Doubt, The God Who Weeps, and Wrestling with an Angel. He gave an awesome talk! After the fireside I talked to the sister missionary who has also been working with Betsy. She told me that she had been talking with her about the Word of Wisdom. Betsy told her that after her fasting, she had not had the desire to drink Coffee. That made me very happy to hear.

    

Anyway that was our week in a nut shell. Thanks for all of the emails that you guys have been sending. It really means a lot. 

Have a fantastic week!

English Lessons with the French Elders, Betsy's Answer, A Visionary Man, and Exchanges with President Cooke - 01/12/2016

I apologize in advance! This email looks like my brain just threw up on the page. Sorry everyone...

Hey everyone!

I am so sorry about the late email. This week has been sweet! Monday was just another super chill day. We did not do anything super exciting. 

Tuesday we had our usual meetings and once again, the farm was canceled last minute, so we had an open day. We we helped out the French Elders teach English which is always really fun. And after that I was able to get a hold of a family that was in my first area which is probably 10 minutes away. They invited us over for dinner, and let me tell you, it was so fun. It was Elder Bentley and I, and two other missionaries who live right next to us that went. One of the missionaries, Elder Warens, served in the ward a couple transfers after I left. It was really great to see them. They are probably one of my favorite family's I have come into contact with on my mission.

Wednesday we had our normal visit with one of the crazy members in our ward. Our roommates and us also had dinner with the Natalie (the recently returned missionary) and her friend. After dinner, Natalie and her friend came with us to our investigators lesson and it went really well. We were able to find out that she had been praying and fasting to know if the Book of Mormon was true and if this was the true church. She ended up getting her answer on Tuesday. This investigator's name is Betsy. Betsy and her family were visiting the Festival of Lights at the temple. A sister missionary contacted her and asked if she would like missionaries to come and visit her and Betsy said yes. A couple of day's later we got the referral so we went and knocked on her door and nobody answered. We tried a couple of times, but still nothing. Finally a couple of weeks later we got a hold of her over the phone and we set up a lesson for December 30th. That day roles around and we show up for the appointment. We go in and got to know the family. We find out that it's actually a part-member family. Betsy is a non-member. She has 3 kids, Alex age 17 (he is a member),  Aiden age 7, and Gigi age 3. Her husband and his family are members, but he is very less-active. So we started teaching her the first lesson and it went pretty well. At the end, she said that once she got her answer about if the Book of Mormon was true, then she would be baptized. We then set up an appointment for the next week. Okay,  fast forward to this past Tuesday, January 5th. One of the sisters during our meeting was asking us about some referrals that she sent off from the visitor center and one of them was Betsy. We told her everything that had happened up until that point and she was very excited. She told us that she would follow up with her over the phone. Now this brings us back to Wednesday at her appointment. Betsy tells us that she had been fasting and praying to know if the Book of Mormon was true and if the this was the true church. She started her fast on Monday the 4th. On Tuesday she was still fasting for her answer. Some point later in the day Betsy was watching Mormon messages with her kids. During one of the messages her mind drifted into a "prayer mode." While she was in this state, the sister missionary missionary called her and she felt the Spirit so strongly that she started to cry over the phone. So she told us that she had her answer and that she wanted to be baptized. So we set her date for the 30th of January. That lesson also went really well! We taught her the plan of salvation and let me tell you,  it helps so much went you are teaching with members who have just gotten back from their missions. Haha, sorry for the very confusing story, my mind is all over the place. It would be much easier to be able to tell this story in person. 

Thursday we were visiting with one of the less actives in the ward. His name Is Josef and he is from Turkey. We were going into this visit with the mindset that we were going to teach him the first lesson, so we could get some practice and help his memory. Well that was certainly was not what happened. We were able get through the first point and then out of nowhere he tells us that he has visions. He starts describing all of these visions that he has had and all of the ones that have come true. It was pretty trippy.  

On Friday we had exchanges with President Cooke and it went really well. We had a really great evening planned out. We were going to take him to both of our investigators who are doing awesome right now, but one of them canceled on us so we took him contacting at the metro station for that time. We took him over to meet and also help teach Betsy. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went really well! The Spirit was super strong. 

Saturday we had a couple of lessons with some less-actives and a recent convert. Later that day we were suppose to go to the temple with a recent convert, but he was not able to make it, so we visited some other people. 

Sunday was great! Betsy and her kids came to church and they loved it! It was awesome to see them all there!

🇺🇸ElderJohnson🇺🇸

Happy New Year! How Do you Solve a Problem Like Sunny? 1:00 o'clock Church, and New Year's Resolutions - 01/04/2016

What is up everyone! Happy New Year! 

I hope all of you guys had an awesome, and safe New Years! It was pretty crazy hear! Let me tell you haha. It has been a pretty great week. 

Monday was a normal chill P-Day. Nothing to exciting. 

Tuesday our lessons with our investigators got dogged which was unfortunate, but because we did not have any appointments planned, Elder Bentley and I were able to help the French missionaries teach an African to speak English. It was really cool! In the process of helping teach English we were able to learn some French as well.  

   

Wednesday was pretty interesting. We were on our way into an appointment with a new investigator when all of a sudden we get this call from a North Carolina number that neither Elder Bentley or I have ever seen. I answer the phone and it was a little man with a thick Asian accent. I could not understand him for the life of me. I thought he told me to hang up the phone and he would text us, so that is what I did. I hung up the phone and then 5 seconds later we got a text saying why did you hang up on me? So I quickly called him back. Thank goodness this time I could understand him much better. He told us his name is Sunny and he wants to learn more about Jesus Christ and the Mormon Church. Elder Bentley and I were pretty stoked. We talked to him for a few minutes before we walked into our appointment. We found out that he lives in North Carolina and he got our phone number off the computer. We told him we would call him back as soon as we got out of our appointment. He asked us what time we would call him, so we told him around 3. We went into our lesson and it went really well. It was a young part member family. We commited them to reading the Book of Mormon and almost baptism. We also setup an appointment for next week. Our lesson went a little over time. As soon as it hit 3:01 we get a text from Sunny asking us what happened to us. As soon as we were out of the appointment we called him. He was kind of mad at first, but we were able to calm him down. We told him that we would get missionaries in his area to contact him and we would call him back on Saturday....( to be continued)...

Thursday we spent a lot of time finding with little success. Our mission had announced that after 5:30 on New Year's Eve we could not proselyte. So we pretty much spent that time with members. A family in the Ward was having some of the youth over for a party and they invited us as well. That night was full of good food and board games. 

     

 Friday was a non-proselyting day because of the holiday so us and our roommates had a pretty chill day. We enjoyed ourselves with some Cafe Rio and we spent a good chunk of the day transferring photos and videos off our iPads on to our flash drives. Elder Bentley and I had dinner over at a member’s home. When we got there all of the Spanish missionaries in the zone were there so it was packed, but it was lots of fun. The lady who was feeding us was originally a member of our ward, but for the past year she has been going to a Spanish ward with her son so she feeds all the missionaries from both wards. After dinner, all the Spanish Elders left and Elder Bentley and I got to sit down and talk with Lulu (the member who feeds us) and Natalie (Lulu's daughter who just got back from her mission a month ago). It was so much fun. They are some really cool people.

     

On Saturday we were in our studies and all of a sudden we get probably 5 texts within 10 seconds. We check the phone and it was... Sunny (story continues). He sent us 5 of the same texts. They pretty much said "What happen to you guys? Did you read my last text I sent?" So Elder Bentley gives him a call. We tell him that we would give him a call back at 11 when our studies ended. 11 comes around and Elder Bentley calls him up. Sunny tells him that missionaries have not contacted him and he wants to learn more, so Elder Bentley proceeds to teach the first lesson to him over the phone. He commits him to read the Book of Mormon and he commits him to be baptized. After he got off the phone He goes to LDS.org to call the bishop of the ward that covers the address that he had given us. The Bishop picks up the phone and Elder Bentley tells him he needs the missionary's number who serve in the area. The Bishop asked what the name of the referral was, so Elder Bentley tells him. The Bishop proceeds to tell him not to worry about it. He tells Elder Bentley that Sunny is a member in his ward and he has been a problem. He has been calling missionaries all over the United States wanting to learn more about Christ. The Bishop told Elder Bentley to block Sunny and he was already working with Sunny on that problem. THE END. The rest of the Saturday was spent with a couple of members. One of them was Harold, who is the person who passed out at church. He just got back from Hawaii and wanted us to give him a priesthood blessing. I was able to give him the blessing and while I was giving it I felt inspired to say that he would get better. I know God has a plan for him. I just hope he is willing to align his will with God's will.

     

Sunday was our first day of 1:00 o'clock church. It felt really weird walking out and the sun was setting... Kind of depressing haha I felt like those penguins in Antarctica during those dark winter months.

     

Sorry for the lengthy email once again. I hope you all enjoy the start of the new year and I hope you all have made some kind of New Year’s resolution that you will keep longer than a month, I know I struggle with that, but I feel like this year will be different (I know, I know... everyone says that). If any of you guys were wondering here are a few of the New Year’s resolutions I have made:

1.       No carbonation :(

2.       Write in my journal every day

3.       Drink at least 60 oz. of water a day

4.       Exercise everyday👌👌, except the Sabbath 🙏

5.       Read the standard works.

Thanks everyone! Have an awesome week! Please!

🇺🇸Elder Johnson🇺🇸