Elder Tyler Johnson - Washington DC North Mission: April 2016

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

New Investigator, Service on the Farm, and a Fun Zone Activity - 04/25/2016

Weekly Video Update

Zone Activity

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

100 Days Left!, Thank you cards, Service at the Farm, Cherry Blossom Parade, Ward Dance Limbo, and Why I Believe with Senator Pressler - 04/18/2016

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late email! It's weird how fast the weeks go by. I don't really know what to say anymore because I feel like I've said it all by now. In emails and in person. We did a lot of service this week, and because of that, I now have some color to my face and arms.

Tuesday we did a few check ups on members and a few others. We figured it'd be a good time in the afternoon since school gets out around 2:30 and we'd catch a few at home. We did our best but only some of the Carver family was home so we had a good chat and talked with them about Sister Carver's conversion and about the work. We're doing this new thing where we made some cards with our pic on it, writing something like a thank you in it, and leaving it at all members so it's a reminder to do missionary work that day (assuming they put it on their fridge and see it before they're out the door).

Wednesday we had service at the farm and it was great! Helped move some dirt around, sprayed for weeds/bugs, trimmed trees, and had a great time serving. The guy that runs the program there is Mark, (I don't know his last name). He's a real nice guy. We met with Marie, one of our investigators, that evening and brought Mary Ellen Blewett along with us to meet her. We talked a lot about how the church makes life better and Marie agrees with all we talked about. Now we just gotta get her to act! :) read a bit from Mosiah 2. Mary Ellen is a great missionary and actually taught most of the lesson haha. Good stuff.

Thursday was meetings, then we helped Kevin Clark do a few things and then they fed us dinner. Such a nice family. After dinner we head up to the farm for an over night exchange.

Friday we were at the farm most of the day and it was good. Did a lot of weed spraying and weed pulling. It was actually pretty fun. We then hustled over to the Chipman's for dinner then helped set up for a Ward dance for Saturday.

Saturday day was pretty cool so listen up. Sis. Cooke was able to set up a sweet service opportunity with Events DC for the whole mission, so about 150 18-20 year old missionaries. We got to help out at the Cherry Blossom parade on Constitution Ave. downtown. Some missionaries were ushers and some balloon holders in the parade. We had to be there at 8 am and we got our green long sleeve volunteer shirts. We wore them over white shirts a tie and had our name tags on the front so people easily identified us as LDS missionaries. Sick right? We did that for the better part of the day til mid afternoon. We visited some investigators that have been giving us the slip lately and had some success in contacting some of them. We attended the Ward dance and only participated in the limbo pole song haha. Was good to talk with people there.

Sunday we attended the meetings and they were fantastic. Teachings of the priesthood and prophet. Some great questions were asked then answered. Dinner at the Elliott;s was so much fun! :) We had Why I Believe and the speaker was Senator Larry Pressler from the Chevy Chase Ward. He was baptized last year on 19 April, 2015. He spoke about his story of becoming baptized and it was over a 30 year period.

Over all it was a great week! I love being able to serve people and I feel like it is one of the most affective ways to do missionary work. Thanks for all that you do! Have a great week! Byeeeee

100 Days Left!!!

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Improving Missionary Work in the Kentland's Ward, Pony Rustling on the Farm, Dinner With the Pattersons, a Good Meeting with a New Investigator, and Igor's Baptism - 04/11/2016

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great week, it's been awesome to read your emails so, thank you so much for sending those. This past week has been kind of tough but, it was also pretty fun.

On Monday Elder Crandall and I pretty much chilled for the entire day. We went to one of the nicer malls in the area and looked at all the things that we can't afford. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be haha. After we had finished at the mall we went home, ate some food, and then we went to the Miller family to have Family Home Evening. It was really fun! We shared a short message and then we played games with the family.

On Tuesday we checked on a bunch of less active members but unfortunately nobody was home. We did drop by one of the members the missionaries had to been teaching and we had a nice discussion there. After we were done visiting with her we had dinner at our Bishops house. We met with his family and got to know them. After dinner we had a talk with our Bishop about some things we can try to implement in the ward to get people excited about missionary work. For a while now, the Kentlands ward has been really slow in the area of missionary work, so we are trying to come up with some other ideas that would be beneficial for the ward. It was a great meeting and I think it will help the ward out a lot.

On Wednesday we had service at the farm. It was really exciting to be able to go back to the farm and to work. We spent most of the day trying to catch a pony so, we could hook it up to a cart. It was pretty frustrating, but it was pretty funny. We have a few videos of us trying to lasso this pony. While we were doing this I actually got a massive rope burn on my hand. One of the missionaries was able to get a lasso around it's neck but, the pony pulled loose. The pony started running in my direction and so, out of instinct I went and grab the rope. The rope slid right through my hand and now I have a massive rope burn. After we got done at the farm we had dinner with one of my good friends!

Levi Patterson and his dad were in DC for the week and they got in contact with us and said they wanted to take us out to eat. It was awesome being able to see them! After dinner we went and checked on some more people but unfortunately nobody was home.

On Thursday we had our district zone meeting. The meeting went pretty well, I did not have to plan too much because the zone leaders were planning on taking most of the time, so that was nice. After our meeting we met with a family in the ward for dinner. After dinner we had an appointment with one of our investigators, Marie. This was the first time I had met with her and this was the first time Elder Crandall had met with her since being back in the area, so we went into the appointment with the plan of introducing ourselves and building a relationship with her. It went really well. She is very nice and is very open to us and about her concerns. We are pretty excited for her and we feel like she will be able to start making those steps in the right direction.

On Friday we had our weekly planning session and then we went out and knocked on doors and checked on some less-actives.

On Saturday we did some of the same things with really no results. We were able to make some contact with a few less-actives in the area, so that has been nice.

Sunday we had our regular church service and after that we headed down to my last area for a baptism. Igor finally got baptized!! It was so awesome! I am so happy for him! I was able to give the talk during the baptismal service. After his baptism we spent some time getting caught up with Igor and with the other missionary's in the White Oak Ward. Once we had finished we drove back up to our area for dinner with some members and then we went to the Miller family for a family home evening since they were going to be busy on Monday. And that was our week!

Thanks for everything guys!

Have a great week!

Igor's Baptism