Juggling Two Wards, Life On The Farm, and an Investigator with a Baptism Date - 04/27/2015

Hey everyone! hope every thing is going well. It has been another fun week in the mission field. It's been really fun and challenging learning how to balance to work out between two wards. I think we are getting a better handle on it but we can still get better.

     

This week we have met some really cool people.  I am liking this area and these wards more and more. I hope I get to stay here for a little while.

  

Sorry that this email is coming late, today has been an awesome pday. So our mission has an area for missionary's to work on a farm and today we were able to go to this farm and we were able to do all kinds of fun stuff. We went fishing and that was sweet. I caught a fish, it was just a little guy but it was fun. We played with some goats and some ponies and horses haha it was great.

   

I am excited for this next week. It should be a good one. We will be eating with more Ward members from both wards and we should also be meeting with some of the investigators we have. Right now we have one investigator with a baptism date. He is an interesting guy.  He has moved his baptism date several times so we are hoping that he is ready.

Thanks for everything guys. Sorry this is so late.

Transfers, New Companion, and Gaithersburg - 04/20/2015

Hey everyone! How has it been? This week has been great!! As you all know it was transfer week and I got transferred. I was able to get transferred to probably one of the best wards in the mission and my companion is awesome! Lucky me. I am excited for this transfer to be able to get some work done.

The crazy part of this past  week was that not only did I get transferred to the Gaithersburg Ward but we also cover another Ward because we don't have enough Elders to cover areas so they combined some. So we will now be going to 5 hours of church plus meeting for both wards every Sunday whoopy! Ha ha I have never had so much church before in my life. Because of serving in two wards at once we are always doing something which is awesome! Both of the wards have some solid investigators. We will see how that goes. Sorry for the short email I was pretty busy all day and I haven't been around wifi, but hopefully you enjoyed this one. The next email I'll give you more information. Have a great week thank you all 

4.12.2015

These are all the missionaries leaving the area. (Except for the Elder taking the picture)

And cherry blossoms from P-day adventures.

Transfers, Solid Investigators, and "You Should Teach Us Not To Cuss" - 04/13/2015

Hey everyone! How has all of your week been? As for us missionaries in the Anacostia Ward, it has been very crazy and hectic. This week is transfers and last Saturday we found out if we are leaving our not. Well, we have 3 leaving out of the 7 that are here, so we knew that there were going to be big changes in the Ward, but we had no idea it was going to be this big. When we got the call out we found out that every single missionary in the Anacostia Ward is getting transferred out. I have no idea why this is happening, things are going very well for the Ward. We have a total of two baptismal dates and increasing amount of new and potential investigators, but I guess President wants to change something up. He has been pretty frustrating lately, I'll just leave it at that. 

Anyway this week has been pretty sweet for Elder Paul and I. Towards the beginning of the week we taught our investigator, Nica. She has been progressing a lot! We taught her the plan of salvation and after the lesion she was talking about how she wants to be sealed with her new husband forever in the temple. We were very excited to hear this from her. 

   

We were also able to pick up a new investigator this week. She was an investigator before and then she was dropped so we are hoping that she will be ready this time. Later in the week Elder Paul and I were able to go and check on tons of less actives and former investigators. We found out that most of them don't even live there anymore. During checking on these people we had a police car pull up to us and told us  " you know this is a very dangerous area right?" We replied "yep, we sure do" and then he told us "okay well stay safe." Haha it was funny. Another funny quote, I think this was from the same day, was this kid who was about 5 that was outside an apartment complex where a former investigator lived.  He asked us if we were the police and we told him no, we are church people. Then he told us "oh you, should teach us how to not cuss" I asked him, "oh do you cuss a lot?"  The little kid said "we cuss a lot!" Haha really funny.

On Sunday during announcements, our Ward Mission Leader told the body of the priesthood that all the missionaries were leaving and they all were like what the? Haha it's going to be a crazy transfer. 

Thanks for the emails! Love you guys.

- Elder Johnson 

Easter, General Conference, Jesus the Christ, and a Temple Trip with Althea - 04/06/2015

Hey everyone! Happy General Conference and Easter weekend! I hope all of you were able to listen with a payer in your heart and a question in your mind that you may have received revelation that you needed for your life. My personal experience was great. I felt uplifted and guided. I had questions and all of those were answered in multiple talks. The power of personal revelation is real and I have a strong testimony of that. 

   

On another note, these past couple of weeks, I have been able to study the life of Jesus Christ through the book Jesus the Christ. I have never felt closer to my Savior while reading and pondering this book. It is truly scripture written by an apostle of the Lord. I recommend this book to everyone. I am not even half way through, but I have already learned so much, about His Atonement, His love for his family, and the desire to do his father's will. I have been pondering these things almost constantly the entire week leading up to Easter.

This week has been very memorable because we were able to the temple with a member of our ward, watch general conference, and celebrate and remember the resurrection of our Savior with the Anacostia ward. Althea has been trying to get to the temple for several months now, but this week Elder Paul and I were able to join her as she went through for her first time. I will remember this trip forever. The spirit was so strong and the temple was so peaceful because of the lack of missionaries there. Although it is great to see all the missionaries in the celestial room, it can be quite distracting and disrupt your efforts on trying to listen to that still small voice. Althea was well aware of the spirit all throughout the temple . She told us several times "this is what heaven must feel like" It was a great experience.

General Conference was a much needed break for me. We watched all sessions, excluding one, at the Anacostia chapel. I found this conference to be very powerful, and spiritually up lifting. I really enjoyed Elder Hollands talk. (just like the other 15 million members) He is a very powerful teacher. I also really enjoyed President Uchtdorf talk in priesthood session. It answered a lot of the questions I had going into conference.

     

Sunday we were able to celebrate the resurrection of Christ with the ward members. Before the 1st session we went to our ward mission leaders house and had an awesome breakfast with them. Then we watched conference as we were curled around our bellies. Once that session concluded we made our way to the chapel where our ward was hosting a pot luck. There was lots of food from all of the ward leaders, We once again stuffed our selves and watched the concluding session of General Conference . It was a great Easter.

   

I enjoyed this week very much. I hope that all of you had the chance to remember and reflect our Saviors sacrifice and love for all of us. As we ponder the Saviors atonement we can all see how loving our Heavenly Father is to set up a plan that we may return to him. He gave up his only begotten son for us. And Jesus Christ loved his father so much that he was willing to do what ever was asked of him. Let us all strive for that same love Christ had for his father and do the will of our Heavenly Father. I know if we try our best to do this we will be blessed. 

Thanks for everything. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen.