Merry Christmas!!! - 12/28/2015

Hey everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas! I know I did. Because of Christmas being this week, the work was a little has been a little slow, but it still has been enjoyable.

     

On Monday we did our normal shopping at the local grocery store and the we hung out for most of the day. Towards the end of Pday we realized that we needed to grab a couple of things from Costco that we had forgotten about so we rushed over before Pday was over. While we were shopping Sister Prince was shopping at Costco as well so we said hi to her. She ended up buying a bunch of groceries for us. It was very thoughtful of her. After we were done with Costco Elder Bentley and I went caroling with some people in the ward.

      

Tuesday started out with having breakfast with one of our investigators and then we taught him some of the plan of salvation. After we had finished up we traveled to the chapel for our district meeting. After the District meeting, the zone leaders had prepared hot chocolate for us. Unfortunately most of it burned. After District Meeting, we spent a lot of time trying to contact the referrals that we keep receiving. After we had finished with that we went to the visitor center with some of our members.

     

On Wednesday we had an appointment with Harold (the guy who fainted at church). Harold loves the missionary's so much. He had prepared stockings for Elder Bentley and I with different presents. It was very nice of him. After that, we were finally able to meet some of the other Brazilians from that apartment. We taught the restoration and It went really well. There are just a few hang ups for these people, but I think we will be able to overcome them.

     

On Thursday we had breakfast with our investigator, David. We finished up the plan of salvation and we tried committing him to a baptismal date, but he is not ready. He wants to be baptized, but he feels like he needs to make some changes in his life before he sets a specific date. We are still working with him and we are hoping that we will be able to break down that barrier. After we had finished with David, we finished up with some gifts that we were going to get for an elder that had not received anything for Christmas. Then we went and helped this guy move into his new place, and yes this is on Christmas Eve. We helped for a good chunk of time, till we had to leave for another appointment. The appointment we had to go to was with Igor. He is so solid! We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and he loved it. He was even telling us what he knew about the the different kingdoms.

After that appointment we went with our roommates to a party in Chevy Chase that Harold invited us over to. It was a great party! Tons of food and drinks, lots of things to do, and there were lots of missionaries. We even got really nice ties as the door gift. It was very fun. This was actually the same party I went to last year. After we had finished with the party we raced home and put together all of the presents we got for this Elder who had not gotten anything. We gave all the stuff to some other missionaries that were going over to stay the night. They smuggled all the presents in and once the elder fell asleep they put everything under the Christmas tree.

     

Friday was Christmas!! We woke up early so we could open our presents as an apartment. It was great! It reminded me a lot of home.We had our Christmas Conference at the temple visitor center. The Cooke family put on the devotional. After they had all spoken, the Assistants presented the Cooke's Christmas gifts. The mission had given them a Redskin's jersey with all of the missionaries signatures. The other gift was a dinner the assistants put together a few weeks earlier. The dinner was shown to us in a little video they had put together. After the gifts had been presented we were able to watch a movie. Well, how it went down was the Disney castle showed up on the big screen... Then Star Wars music started playing.... Then the classic intro started with the Star Wars Episode 7 "The Force Awakens" in huge letter then all these words go flying up the screen. Everyone was cheering like crazy. Right when the movie was suppose to start the screen went black and then the words "Just Kidding" covered the entire screen. Haha we were not happy haha. Instead of Star Wars we watched Inside Out which was still pretty good. After the movie we walked over to the Stake Center, had lunch, watched the mission talent show, and then we left and drove to a members house to Skype and have dinner. Being able to Skype my family was awesome! It was great to see everyone. After we had finished with that we sat down and had a nice dinner. And that was pretty much our Christmas Day in a nut shell.

     

We spent Saturday getting back into the grind. We spent a lot of time planning and trying to set up some appointments with people, but it was kind of difficult because we are still in the Holiday season. We also went up to the visitor center. We were going to meet up with one of our investigators, but he never showed up.

     

Sunday we had our normal Sunday meetings. We were able to get one of our investigators to church. It was the first time he has attended and he seemed to enjoy it. We were a little nervous because in the priesthood meeting it was a hard core pornography lesson, but he seemed to enjoy it! After church we met with some members for a late lunch/early dinner. Then we spent more time setting up appointments with different people and then we went to the Festival of Lights again with our investigator Igor and his mom who just flew in from Brazil on Christmas Day. They both loved it very much. Igor's mom could not stop crying at all the lights and the music and the Christmas trees. It was pretty cool.

     

Thank you all for all the support you give me! It really does mean a lot. And sorry about the long email It has just been such a great week! Have a Happy New Year and I will talk to you guys next week!

🇺🇸ElderJohnson🇺🇸

Merry Christmas, Book of Mormon for the Chick-Fil-A Lady, Festival of Lights and Davis Allen! - 12/20/2015

Hey everyone! merry Christmas! I can't believe it is all ready here again! Time is really flying by! This week was very enjoyable!

Monday: Monday as pretty relaxed. We started of our day with going over to Dr. Prince's home. (He is the same guy who owns the farm we work at.) We sat in his Library ate some cheese and had some very interesting discussions. It was quite nice. For the rest of that day we pretty much spent it on shopping. One of the places we went to was a church book store. Elder Bentley, our roommates and I bought a Book of Mormon for this lady at works at Chick Fil A. All of us have been going to Chick Fil A pretty often for the last transfer and almost every single time we go she gives us free food. This lady isn't a member so we thought that a nice Book of Mormon with her name engraved was a very appropriate gift. We also made a shirt with a picture of our faces haha! It's pretty awesome! That's how we spent most of our Monday. 

Tuesday: We worked on the farm and had a good ole time as always.

Wednesday: Most of the day was taken up by our transfer meeting.

Nothing crazy happened, most of the people stayed in the same areas.

After transfer meeting we visited a few members in our ward and checked on referrals from the Christmas events they are putting on at the visitor center. We have about 15 people that we need to get a hold of, but they are doing a really good job at hiding. We have only been able to get a hold of three of them and they told us that they were not interested.

Thursday: We visited with some less active members. One man we visited with is from Turkey. He is a very cool guy, he has been in the United States for most of his life. He immigrated to the US when he was very young. He became a tailor by trade and had become very success until 2008 when the market crashed. He had owned shops all around the country, but unfortunately he had to close down most of them. He now works in Chevy Chase. He can't come to church because he works every Sunday,  but he told us that he is planning on retiring sometime in January so he can start going to church again. 

Friday: Us and our roommates went to Chick Fil A for lunch and we gave that lady the gifts that we got her. We told her she could only open the Christmas Cards and she has to wait till Christmas to open the other ones. She was very excited and very happy. After that we spent most of the day trying to contact those referrals again with little success

Saturday: We started our day with teaching one of our investigators about the plan of salvation. It went pretty well. He gets distracted very easily so we are going to have to teach him differently, so he will be able to concentrate. After that lesson we spent the rest of the day contacting and trying to build our teaching pool.

Sunday: we had our normal Church services. Five of our investigators were suppose to show up, but they all got hung up with something. After Church we visited with some family's and then later in the evening we went to the Festival of Lights. At the Festival of Lights we saw three of our investigators! It was awesome! We got to set up an appointment with all of them. I also saw a very familiar face that I have not seen in about a year and 5 months. Elder Allen was visiting the temple visitor center! It was so great to see him. Sounds like he is doing an awesome job!

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas! Thanks for all you do!

  

Helping on the Farm, Festival of Lights, a Baptism Date for Igor, and Christmas Caroling in Spanish?? - 12/14/2015

Hey Everyone! I am so sorry for this late email. It has been a pretty busy day. This week has been a great one. On Monday we relaxed the whole day and then some members took us out to Cafe Rio. After we finished up with that we went and visited the member who had passed out at church on Sunday. He seemed like he was doing okay. His health has been declining for the past little while now.

     

Tuesday we had our district meeting and then we headed up to the farm to help out with riding. It has been really fun. The kids we help are great. Every time they step up on to a horse they have the biggest smiles on their faces.

    

A lot of Wednesday was spent checking on referrals that we have gotten from the Temple's festival of lights. And to make a long story short, none of the referrals answered the door or their phone and so we had a lot of free time. Earlier in the week, a lady from the ward called us telling us about these neighbors who were wanting to learn more about the gospel. So we decided to call her and see if we could get the information about these people. She answers the phone, but she said she was really busy and she would call us back. So Elder Bentley and I we sitting in the car waiting for this member to call us back while this van comes up to us and starts honking at us. We rolled down the window to talk to the person and it turns out she was the mother of the member who was going to call us. We get talking and it turns out that she has all the contact information for these neighbors who want to learn more about the gospel. We call them up and one of them was home and available. We headed over to his place and taught the first lesson and now he has a baptismal date!! His name is Igor and he is a boss.

Thursday we went on an exchange with the young men's president. We visited some less actives and it helped us get to know the members a little better.

     

Friday we spent the majority of the day contacting people. And later in the day we went to the temple's visitor center for the Festival of Lights. It was great.

Saturday we went contacting at the metro stop. After we concluded with that we were invited to participate in singing to the elderly. Funny thing about it was that elder Bentley and I were the only English Elders and the rest were Spanish. So every few songs they would all bust out in Spanish and we would just stand there awkwardly haha it was pretty funny.

      

Sunday was stake conference and we once again had the chance to go back to the visitor center for Festival of Lights with one of our investigators.

     

Thanks for everything you do! If you could send me our address as soon as possible. Anyway have a great week!!

This is my Happy Face!!!!

National Mall for PDay, Mission Temple Trip, Festival of Lights at the Temple, New Investigators, Ward Christmas Party and Christmas Devotional - 12/07/2015

What's up everyone!! This week has been a good one.

Monday we went down to the National Nall for Pday. We went to the this spot on the mall where the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building, are directly in front of you  and then to your left the White House, and directly behind you is the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial, and on your right is the Jefferson Memorial. It is a really cool plaice where you can see the history of this great nation in every direction. After we found that spot we walked through the WWII monument to the Lincoln, all the way around to the Jefferson memorial building then clear over to the capital building, to the Library of congress. It was a long walk but it was worth it. At the Jefferson monument, when we first got there it was silent and nobody was there. Then all of a sudden busses of students came pouring in and it was no longer quiet haha.  The cool part of this was that there were two schools from Utah there and we were treated like celebrities hahaha. Tons of the girls asked us for pictures and tons of the guys asked us for mission advice. It was awesome! At the Library of Congress we got lost in the basement looking for the place to get our library card. We finally found it after walking around for probably a half hour.

Tuesday we got out a little bit early from our studies to go trackting and the Lord blessed us. We only had an hour and a half before we had to leave to a meeting and in that time we were able to teach two lessons. Both of them seem really interested, but one of them lives in Georgia so we sent that referral off. After we had finished we headed to our district/zone meeting. Once that meeting was over we traveled to the farm and spent the remainder of our day helping autistic kids ride horses. We all really enjoyed it.

Wednesday was our missions temple trip and that is always a great time! We are so blessed to have a temple so close by. It has become probably my favorite Temple. The view never gets old and inside it has an awesome colonial feel to it. After the temple we ate at Olive Garden because one of our roommates had some gift cards and he payed for all of us. It was very nice of him. The rest of he day was spent by going to member appointments. The members treat us very well in this area.

Thursday we spent pretty much all of our day checking on less actives with little success. We were able to get into one home and the people seemed very nice. We invited them to the ward Christmas party and they said that they would try to come, but they did not show up. We will be visiting them again shortly. Thursday was also the first night of Festival of Lights at the temple and we were able to go with a member. It was great! The lights look great! And the musical performances were awesome!

Friday we spent the majority of the early part of the day trackting. Later that day we were suppose to go on an exchange with the mission president, but he ended up not coming because he was really busy. We had a few lessons set up with investigators. The one that did happen was awesome! His name his David. He is from Haiti and he wants to look into our church because his girl friend is a member.  We taught him the restoration and it went very well. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he got very excited.

Saturday we had a finding activity that some sisters in the district set up. We went to the metro and talked to people. It was pretty great! We were able to teach a few lessons to people while they were waiting for their buses. Unfortunately they were not to interested. After we had finished with that we went over to a member for dinner. Once that was finished we headed to the ward Christmas party.

Sunday during church we had member pass out twice and so the ambulance came and picked him. It was pretty scary luckily the Derwood ward is chuck full of doctors. When Harold passed out, there were 4 doctors in the room so he was in very good hands. After church we checked on less actives till dinner. After dinner we went to the temple visitor center for the Christmas devotional. It was excellent.

I hope you all have an amazing week! Merry Christmas