May 21, 2012

well once again not alot happened this week. today its really rainy and this keyboard that i have in the library is really hard to type on so this might be a short email.

church this week was exciting cause willy came to church!!! yay!!! we have really been talking with him about baptism a lot. and when i say a lot we have really come down on him for the past 3 visits. the last time he asked why we were talking so much about it and i responded "cause you are ready!!" but he said the same thing that everyone else says which is "no... i need more time... i need to understand more" but when we go through the baptisimal questions with him he has no problem with anything or with believing in any of the doctrines that we teach. very frustrating but its just part of life i guess.

a lot of other people that we wanted to go see were ALWAYS not home and juked us every time. its really frustrating once again but now its really testing my patience. i guess i need to go read chapter 6 of preach my gospel. President nelson is going home soon so we are going to have a huge conference this next 6 weeks to send him off and welcome the new president. kind of exciting but kinda wierd too at the same time.

i think im getting fatter. its sad but true. the members here in plainview give us SO much food and SO many groceries. i guess i got what i asked for. :/

we had an interesting experience yesterday when we were visiting an investigator of ours. we knocked on the door and once again he juked us and was not home but one of the girls that lives with him answered the door. she is 16 and actually lives in bay shore but she goes to her grandmas house every week end and is actually a member!! we didnt know that so we treated her like a normal fearless but we eventually pried her open a little and found out that her family are members and that she is less active. she said she didnt practice the religion much but i told her that god was looking out for her cause we had found her and was actually teaching someone that lives in her grandmas house!!

after that we gave a blessing to her grandmother which was interesting cause she was really mad that she was sick but we gave the blessing and she was grateful to our service to her.

thanks everyone for the loads of emails this week and keep working hard and may god bless you all!

-elder johnson

May 14, 2012

so things are going good here in plainview newyork. so transfers and everything went well and all and i think im going to like my new area and stuff. my companions are elder anderson and elder mun.

elder anderson is from florida and speaks french and is fluent in latin too. yesterday he wrote out 9 conjugation forms of the verb "to love" and took up a whole sheet explaining it. hes really smart and also has a mind like a steel trap. he quoted all 3 movies from "the matrix" for us yesterday too during dinner. he says he can do the lord of the rings as well as a lot of disney films too. hes super funney and i love him already. he was supposed to go to france but his visa is delayed for some reason or another so he is temporarily reassigned to here until he gets his visa.

elder mun is from korea and he told us he spoke "a little" korean when in fact he speaks it fluently. he only has 2 transfers left in his mission but he is still a REALLY hard worker and has yet to give up. its really nice to see that he still has the fire and that he has a really great character too. hes super fit too and loves to do sports. in fact our zone leaders love sports too.

so... we have been playing basketball EVERY morning at 6:00. in case you are familiar with my basketball skill ill tell you dont worry cause it dosnt exist. BUT i am getting better every morning and i feel sorry for the elder that gets stuck on my team cause i have lost every game so far in the trasfer haha.

we have investigators but all of them except jean michelle and a lady by the name of manet. jean michelle is having some complications in understanding us so we are going to switch from speaking english to creole. he says he understands but he really doesnt. he really isnt keeping comitments so we are trying to work with him on that. manet is having a hard time working over 40 hours a week as well as some family/marital issues. pretty much besides that EVERYONE juked our appointments. so we just visited a bunch of people that werent home.

thats pretty much it for this week. i didnt have a lot of time so sorry for the short emails. the first picture is us in the library :) the second is keagan who im going to baptize this next week :D and the last is a billboard that we thought was funny, advertising that divorces were on sale.

thanks everyone and good luck this next week with school and work!! love you all!!!

Saying Goodbye Again (May 7, 2012)

well i have some news for everyone. im getting transferred again.... i really dont understand why cause im still training elder cutshall. we were supposed to be together for 12 weeks and all with this new training program that we have but i guess things changed. im going out to plainview with elder mun and elder anderson. elder mun is this asian american guy that everyone says is cool and elder anderson is new to the mission cause he was supposed to get his visa to go to france but they sent him here cause it was delayed or something. idk but elder campbell is going from that companionship to here to take my spot. its really wierd but i guess i really dont know what weird is cause that has been my whole mission. ive always been under weird circumstances so here we go!!

so yeah this week made this melancholy taste in my mouth while i said goodbye to people even though it was just like i arrived yesterday. the pictures im attaching are some of the families that are here and that i will definitely miss. but anyway on to actually talking about the work...

so like i said before this week was interesting particularly because we had two moves to help out with. both taking a good 4 hours to complete each. oh the work that can be accomplished by the help of 6 or so missionaries. keagan and mariah were one of the two. they moved out of the home of the portlocks and into the home of the laconas, surprisingly another mormon household. this time keagan and mariah will be paying rent though. they are both working really long and hard hours to start a family which is really good for the both of them. i know im going to come back and see keagan get baptized cause i know he knows its the right thing to do but he just needs to get comfortable with the idea of it.

rosanka is still doing good. we met with her and she expressed her concern that she doesnt fully believe that everything that joseph smith wrote was inspired of god. its kinda wierd but we really tried to tell her that it was a black and white sorta thing. either he was inspired of god or of the devil. still not really any changes but she is still coming to church and living all the standards. all we need is for her to say yes and we can do it! frustrating but we are working through it.

we got a good referral from the other elders about a lady named pauline, but then we found out it was really carline. regardless her daughter was really nice and were impressed on how good of guests we were and invited us to come back again. we gave them a book of mormon and invited them to read and pray. hopefully when we come back that they can be able to give up some certain life styles too. we are praying hard!!

i also asked a sister in the ward about an investigator that comes to church every week but has yet to be baptized and it turns out that she is moving to plainveiw?? NOT A COINCIDENCE. im going to follow up and meet her and tell her about how i JUST SO "HAPPENED" to pull her name out of our huge area book and become attached to it and follow up on what happened to her. definately the lords work happening here.

well thats about all i have this week. be sure to tune in on sunday for my call home on mothersday. good luck to everyone and may the lord continue to bless you all. nap we!!

-elder johnson

so this week was pretty cool. we had some good stuff happen as well as some miracles and all while i have felt horrible cause of this cold that i have. really its not that bad cause im drinking cough syrup like it goes with pancakes. (dont worry i read labels and know dosage information. the first indicator that cough syrup is serious stuff is that they had to ID me to let me buy it, glad i was over 19.  everyone at church was very concerned too for my well being which is nice to know and kinda funny that everyone flips out when a missionary gets a little sick.

so onto the more interesting stuff i had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the zone leaders last saturday which was really fun cause we had NOTHING planned. BUT we ended the day by doing a lot. we knocked around and nothing really happened but then we went to this haitian members house and where checking to see if she was home. she wasnt and apparently she spends weeks at a time in haiti and leaves her 11 year old son and grandmother to raise her 5 year old daughter and tend to the house. she had been home twice since i have been here in lynbrook and have yet to catch her at home. but the real miracle that happened was that we were teaching her son and he was real interested and we set a baptism date with him!!! it was amazing that we just dropped in and got a date with him!!!

next thing that i should probably mention is that rosanka set a baptism date with us too!!!  she came to church this last week and the only outcome i can see is her getting into the font with us. we are super excited and cant wait. the sisters in the ward are really stepping up and getting to know her better. she was even invited to a barbeque!!!!!!

the family we knocked into last week wasnt home when we stopped by again but we are going to see if we can get their telephone number and call em and set up a time with them. we rushed out of there last week and didnt get it but it will turn out i know it.

keagan is progressing again. we met with him and he said that he would get sundays off so he could come more often. we went over temples with him and his wife and he said he wants to get sealed in there. so we told him he has to be a member for a whole year and then he can go in. with all the college kids coming home we will get them some friends and in no time he will jump in with us and rosanka. its going to be awesome.

im so glad that things are working out for the better and we have grown closer to the members with the barbeque. they are getting involved more with missionary work and i can see and feel the different spirit that comes with it. if you have not already you should create a mormon.org profile or at least look at some of the cool videos on it. do it for elder johnson!!!

love you all and i pray for you always too. good luck and stay safe.

-elder johnson

April 2, 2012

well ladies and gentlemen its a boy! this week i was able to have the privilege and the responsibility to receive a new companion FRESH out of the mtc. unlike me he spent 12 weeks in the spirit prison while i was only in there for 8. already he has my respect. BUT more importantly he has the desire and the fearlessness of a missionary already. it is super amazing to have a really good companion and i really needed it since the teaching pool that we have is really small right now... like really small. since none of the people that we were teaching were not progressing they had to be dropped and so we have found ourselves with no one to teach. BUT we have found come possible people last week that we are giong to try and reach out to.

in other news general conference was superb and it was nice to get a *general conference special edition* letter from kayla which was awesome. it was super sweet to see that some of the talks given directly connected to some of the people i know. both here and back home. we splurged for lunch inbetween sessions and got chipotle and a bag of airheads and recess peanut butter cups.

the ONLY lesson we had this week was with keagan. no one else let us in but im glad to announce that im a successful missionary. meaning that i am still fearlessly inviting the people of new york to come unto christ. but yeah the lesson with keagan was elder cutshalls FIRST lesson and he did great. we invited him to be baptized and there was NO WAY that he didnt feel the spirit. after elder cutshall invited him he sat there for what seemed like forever. his wife then did THE WORST thing to do which was to suggest that he perhaps needed some more time. he was thinking so hard and so deep and i KNOW he felt that it was true but still something was holding him back and he said yes that he needed more time. so close but yet so far.

we are seeing grandma toh tonight and we are going to invite her as well. ill tell you a follow up cause we havent seen her in a while as well. my companion and i are praying every day and night to have some one to be baptized. with faith, diligence, and an eye single to the glory of God anything can be accomplished and i do believe that. thanks everyone for the letters and have a great week!!

-elder johnson

March 12, 2012

well apparently no one got my computer science reference last week but i guess ill just be a lonely nerd... but yes this weeek.....

as for the events that transpired this week nothing really out of the ordinary happened. but on friday i did have the opportunity to go on exchanges with one of our fine zone leaders elder parry who is companions with elder last. so elder last and i switched. but the thing is i went to far rockaway (yes its kinda far away) and was at the ZLs pad for a whole day. so elder last likes to live his lifestyle the COMPLETE opposite as me so it was kinda difficult to eat almost nothing and live in an immaculate germ free environment for a whole day. but as soon as i got back i ate my steak so i lived. that day was pretty much filled with appointments with people that solely spoke spanish so i just kinda sat there like a bump on a log...

but yeah as for the more exciting news we found a couple of more investigators in the family of sister pierre. bother her sister's mother in law and her two nieces were interested. the mother in law came to church and said that she would be back in two weeks. she was super nice and excited to come. i hope that we can meet with her on tuesday and give her a bible and have a restoration lesson with her as well. to know a little bit more about sister peirre she is haitian and speaks no english so it was a little difficult for her to move out to long island where almost everyone speaks english and she cant find a job. but she is a spiritual giant and i have come to love her in the previous weeks. as for the neices rose and fabian they come down everytime we go to sister pierres to teach her english and they both are asking good questions. rose is reading daughters of our kindgdom which is a new book about the relief society.

also some thing new that happened this week is that i found a free pair of aviators!!! that just so happened to be of the RayBan brand.... tender mercy of the lord?? but yeah the pictures attached show those. also in the pictures are some at the PMG bowl with my mission president and the hosts in some rediculous collored suits.

also this week we are planning to go to the temple with sister pierre, brother alex, and a recent convert steve. it should all go well and im super excited to see these people enter into the lords house and partake of the blessings within. they will only be doing baptisms but it still is really speacial for them and im going to try to make it as such by the best of my ablilities. sorry but thats all the time i have for today cause we have a zone activity at a state park but talk to yall next week!!!

-elder johnson