once again,
Elder Johnson
Monday, September 26, 2011
A bit more...
we went on splits on friday. it really wasnt that exciting except that my district leader elder kiser had this INTENSE conversation about God with a couple of muslim guys that stopped us in a car. it was in the pouring rain and elder kiser didnt give up. elder jean and i just held the umbrella while he testified of Christ being the son of God and how joseph smith was the prophet who restored the gospel. i did some more studying about some old testiment stuff cause i figured im going to get asked one of those questions one of these days so i might as well be prepared for it. so i thought that was pretty cool how much my district leader knew about the muslim faith and how much he knows too. that is all.
once again,
Elder Johnson
once again,
Elder Johnson
Another week of interesting people
Well not a lot happened this week, just a bunch of interesting people that we met. Last monday for pday we played zombie capture the flag which was super awesome and super hard to play even though we were only playing against one zombie. also last pday i realized how pricey NYC is and how over priced food is. wonder bread is 4$ and milk is 4.79$. what a rip. anyway i guess thats what you get for wanting to live in a city that 18 million other people want to live in. for the zone activity i made a quiche that was OK. and that is being generous. being on a missionary budget i didnt put that much bacon in it and no ham so it was pretty much spinich. it was SUPER healthy haha. this week im going to make chicken lime soup and that should be yummy.
the people we met with and taught were a little different this week. We taught the Dure family who are the haitian family that we found two weeks ago. its hard to teach them cause they all have different schedules and their father doesnt let us come into their house without being completely distracting and drives the spirit away. we are now on the thrid lesson for two of the sisters marie-francois and marie-carmel. the third sister shirlie has been taught the fourth lesson and is pretty much ready for baptism except that she has to get sundays off and come to church. the rest of the family, which is the mother susane and the brothers philip and alex, is still on the plan of salvation.
The second person we tried to meet with is Emmanuel jean. Everyone here has the name jean or marie in their name. its REALLY confusing when you look down your contact list and thats all you have written. haha. Emmanuel has yet to meet with us but is really interested and works a lot, just like the rest of NYC. we met his friend at the door and she wouldnt even tell us her name cause she was so against us. it was really funny after though cause as soon as elder jean and i (mostly elder jean) spoke in creole she opened up and told us her name. we even saw her the next day and she stopped us and talked to us. people are really funny here ahah.
The third person we are teaching is Jamarie. Hes from Trinidad and is 11. his step mom loves church and has been a member for years. she started to bring jamarie to church and he wants to get taught the lessons. apparently hes afraid of water but i think we can fix that pretty easily ahah. we helped his mom clean out her place so she could start renting the bottom floor of it. the guy that is moving in is lds and an rm and hes even a musician. i think he will be great for teaching and his family sounds super awesome. jamaries mom's (sis brewster) daughter works at the chase bank where we get cash from our cards from. shes kinda inactive but we come by and see her every couple of days when we need cash. she usually sees us first and stops to say hi.
Ive met some pretty interesting people like i said this week. First there was Evet who was a referal that was in the area book. we stopped by her house to find that she had broken her leg in two places and had no insurance cause shes right off the plane from haiti. her son wasnt paying for much help and she said he only works two hours a week. kinda was a touchy subject for her neighbors that were in her house cause i think they think that hes a lazy bum that ditched his mom when she needed a lot of help. we really dont know what to do with her but just to visit and teach her. we were going to talk to the bishop about if there is someone that we can put her in contact with that could help her. we know that we arent supposed to solicit the welfare program of the church so we were just looking for a way for her to get some insurance or a green card or somehting. sad story and we really want to help but there is almost nothing that we can do that will help her directly.
Another person we met on the bus yesterday noticed that we were missionaries for the church and asked about us. i confirmed what he said and asked if he was ever interested. he shook his head no so i gave him a pass along card. upon receiving this he picked up his phone and dialed the number on it to get a free book of mormon. he was speaking english so its not like there was a language barrier like there usually is but w/e... we were going to get his address and phone number either way haha.
anyway thats all for this week. thanks for the mail. i got a lot of letters this week that i will try to respond too. btw it takes about 5-7 days for mail to get to me from Texas. so yeah. oh yeah and send me some pictures on whats happening at home! ill see if i can locate a card reader so i can send some home too. have a great week everyone!!!
Elder Johnson
the people we met with and taught were a little different this week. We taught the Dure family who are the haitian family that we found two weeks ago. its hard to teach them cause they all have different schedules and their father doesnt let us come into their house without being completely distracting and drives the spirit away. we are now on the thrid lesson for two of the sisters marie-francois and marie-carmel. the third sister shirlie has been taught the fourth lesson and is pretty much ready for baptism except that she has to get sundays off and come to church. the rest of the family, which is the mother susane and the brothers philip and alex, is still on the plan of salvation.
The second person we tried to meet with is Emmanuel jean. Everyone here has the name jean or marie in their name. its REALLY confusing when you look down your contact list and thats all you have written. haha. Emmanuel has yet to meet with us but is really interested and works a lot, just like the rest of NYC. we met his friend at the door and she wouldnt even tell us her name cause she was so against us. it was really funny after though cause as soon as elder jean and i (mostly elder jean) spoke in creole she opened up and told us her name. we even saw her the next day and she stopped us and talked to us. people are really funny here ahah.
The third person we are teaching is Jamarie. Hes from Trinidad and is 11. his step mom loves church and has been a member for years. she started to bring jamarie to church and he wants to get taught the lessons. apparently hes afraid of water but i think we can fix that pretty easily ahah. we helped his mom clean out her place so she could start renting the bottom floor of it. the guy that is moving in is lds and an rm and hes even a musician. i think he will be great for teaching and his family sounds super awesome. jamaries mom's (sis brewster) daughter works at the chase bank where we get cash from our cards from. shes kinda inactive but we come by and see her every couple of days when we need cash. she usually sees us first and stops to say hi.
Ive met some pretty interesting people like i said this week. First there was Evet who was a referal that was in the area book. we stopped by her house to find that she had broken her leg in two places and had no insurance cause shes right off the plane from haiti. her son wasnt paying for much help and she said he only works two hours a week. kinda was a touchy subject for her neighbors that were in her house cause i think they think that hes a lazy bum that ditched his mom when she needed a lot of help. we really dont know what to do with her but just to visit and teach her. we were going to talk to the bishop about if there is someone that we can put her in contact with that could help her. we know that we arent supposed to solicit the welfare program of the church so we were just looking for a way for her to get some insurance or a green card or somehting. sad story and we really want to help but there is almost nothing that we can do that will help her directly.
Another person we met on the bus yesterday noticed that we were missionaries for the church and asked about us. i confirmed what he said and asked if he was ever interested. he shook his head no so i gave him a pass along card. upon receiving this he picked up his phone and dialed the number on it to get a free book of mormon. he was speaking english so its not like there was a language barrier like there usually is but w/e... we were going to get his address and phone number either way haha.
anyway thats all for this week. thanks for the mail. i got a lot of letters this week that i will try to respond too. btw it takes about 5-7 days for mail to get to me from Texas. so yeah. oh yeah and send me some pictures on whats happening at home! ill see if i can locate a card reader so i can send some home too. have a great week everyone!!!
Elder Johnson
Monday, September 19, 2011
Flood Service
Ok well im at the public library so i have limited time to type today. so ill see what i can muster up in 30 min.
this week we were called to serve to help new jersey recover from the hurricane irene. they also got flooded again last week so the damage there was alot andit was kinda sad to see everything and everyone and the state they were in. the first time we went it was a wednessday. we went with our zone in the mission and met up with the elders in new jersey. the houses we did then werent really that bad but still effected. the first house we helped out was this guy in his 50s and he had a dodge viper and then his wife pulled up in a bmw z4 and THEN he drove away in his ford f350 with a full cab.
it was kinda wierd serving someone who was well off but still his basement was flooded out and all the walls had to be replaced. we ripped out the wood 2x4s that were holding up his walls and that was pretty much it. the next house we needed to wear masks cause of the mold that had started to grow from the water. it was 2 weeks past the flooding so add that with sitting water and thats what it looked like. anyway they ran out of masks so i didnt get one and they didnt want me to go in the house cuase i could have gotten sick. so i just kinda sat outside like a bump on a log cause they had nothing for me to do, i talked with them a little and made em smile so at least i was helping their spirits.
the next day we went was on saturday and this day we went with the ward. there were only two people who went on the bus with us cause everyone else drove their own vehicles. so we only worked with the ones on our bus. it was kinda sad that we only worked with only two members cause we were hoping to get to know the ward better but it was all good cause we got 2 referrals off of them and they said they wanted to help come teaching. it was a small but needed testimony that alot of help comes from the ward that is much needed.
so the first house we went to was this guy who was about 70 and his house was RIGHT by the river that flooded... so everything from like 6 feet up and under was destroyed and needed to be replaced. it was so sad cause he was sleeping in his car cause he had no where else to stay. his house was BAD. everything had mold on it and worst of all he had a hobby of fiddeling around with electronics so we hauled a bunch of computer equipement out and i just about died. the poor guys kitchen was even worse. good thing that the sister missionaries took care of it though cause i couldnt even breathe neer the kitchen. anyway we had the task of removing his carpet and move stuff out to throw out. i wanted to do more but there wereother people that needed help just as bad.
we did a short job of removing some dry wall for his neighbor after that. it was fun cause we got to remove whole walls with nothing but a crowbar and a hammer. verry fun for 19 year old guys. after that short work we went to another neighbor down the street and moved everything out of his place to the couches to dressers. we then TORE DOWN a shak that had floated into his yard. that was sooo tiring.
i have 5 min left :O our investigators are going well. they showed up to church and are keeping commitments. i think we will baptize one this next sunday and two next sunday. these are all in the same haitian family we found last week. we have a lot of people to see that were referred to us but the service toook alot of our time last week. so pretty much we have a lot of potential and just need to hit the pavement hard. oh and i made a kiech that is gunna be eaten today by our district. ill tell you how it goes. and we FINALLY mopped our place and so its clean!! yay!!! anyway love you all and write me some more!!!!!!!!!
elder Johnson
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
At the Mission Home
Monday, September 12, 2011
In the Concrete Jungle
sak pase!!!!!!
well this week was particularly exciting. our prayers were finally answered!! we found a family of 18 haitians. 8 of which are of baptism age. they all committed and we are super excited for them. unfortunately their father is really catholic and is really against us being in their home so we have to teach outside. the first lesson we had in the house the dad cussed us out in creole and was particularly mad at me cause i was white. that sounds really racist but thats how it is. they have a lot of feelings like that for the french who they rebelled against so i can understand if hes still feeling like that but i dont think he realizes that im from texas...... oh well.
the other thing that went not so well with the first visit was the fact that we brought another sister in the ward that was haitian so she could talk with them. she kinda stirred the pot with him cause she has a REALLY strong testimony and isnt afraid to share it lets just say. the last not so good thing that happened was that they didnt show up for church this past week. we checked on them right after but they werent home. they are all so receptive so i think this is just a fluke in their schedule.
besides that family we really dont have many people to teach. my trainer was sorta "blinded" into the area which means he wasnt familiar with the people that were last being taught that were in the area book. so we went through all the potential investigators last week and found out who was interested and who wasnt. we have a couple of people to visit this next week though. one speaks french and another is a haitian lady who said to call before we stopped by. not much but something. so this next week we are going to be doing a lot of finding days.
my mom is so cool. not my maternal mother sherry johnson but my mission mom. its just more mission lingo that your dad is your trainer and your mom is the sister missionary who is the oldest sister in the district. and then from that you have grandparents and great uncles and all sorts of relationships. its kinda cool cause you automatically have friends when you get here. anyway sister basset is my mom. she has baby whipes, hand sanitizer, chapstick, and even granola bars on her all the time. its pretty funny cause she acts like everyones mom haha. dont get my wrong that i still love my real mom. especially cause she gave me this super cool quilt that glows in the dark haha.
anyway this week for pday we are going to play dodgeball again. last time was so fun and i was somewhat good at it. yesterday was 9/11 too. so for a commemoration to the event, new york had two giant spotlights shine up in the air. we went over by the brooklyn bridge as a district at the end of the day and took some pictures of it. hopefully they will show up well on my camera but it was pretty cool to see it in the sky with the bridge too.
haha one last story, so i totally got shut out on saturday twice. the first time we were looking up a former investigator. it was my turn to lead for the day so i knocked on all doors, led us around on where to go, and did all the talking. well we knocked on this guys door and he opened it up. i told him we were looking for "Basil" and that we were missionaries and wanted to talk to him. the guy just said "ah ok" and shut the door never to be seen again. even after we knocked again. the second time we were calling everyone on our list to see who we could meet for the next week and i did the same thing explaining that we had a message about jesus christ that we wanted to share as well. well this one guy didnt even day anything after "hello" after which i heard a distinct hang up sound. we all started laughing but we still kept calling others too.
anyway thats all for this week and hope that everyone back home and that is on their missions are doing fine. im praying for everyone in haitian and appreciate all the mail i keep getting. keep it up!!!
love,
Elder Johnson
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Here in the Big Apple
HEY EVERYONE!!!! ITS YOUR FAVORITE MISSIONARY AGAIN!!!
Well i finally got here. NYC is totally weird. weird as in ive never experienced anything like it before.
to start the story off where i last left you guys the last week at the mtc was pretty different considering that i would be soon approaching a time that i had long been waiting for. we did our normal routine but with a few extra classes and in field orientation. they were all really inspiring but nothing compared to what ive felt so far. finally it was monday and 4 am and we headed to the air port. we got on ok BUT one of my suitcases was over by one pound!! but the lady who checked my bags served in NY South too so she let it slide. first perk for being an elder of the Lord haha.
on the plane ride i sat next to an older guy and a guy in his 30s. the young guy was coming back from a fishing trip and was jewish by descent but not by religion. so the way he explained it he pretty much gave up on God and was not going back. So after talking with the atheist i talked to the other guy. he explained that he doesn't believe in anything he cant explain with numbers or cant see. so i figured he believed in Scientology because he was from italy and explained that alot of people believed that from where he was from.
so after no success i just shot the breeze with them and got off the plane. first thing i noticed about new york is that there are crazy drivers here. like REALLY crazy drivers. they somehow drive defensively and extremely aggressively at the same time. my companion likes to just walk out in the street and try to cross where he is. I swear that he will get hit one day but he is convinced that he will be save. i tried to explain what kayla explained to me that God still lets us use our agency so he will still let us do something stupid. SO bottom line is im not playing in traffic.
the first night we stayed at the mission home that had no power from the hurricane so that was interesting to use flash lights and candles. the first day we went out and contacted people. it was then that i realized that everyone and anyone lives in new york. you have every color of the rainbow on the street and it seems like no one speaks english either cause everyone is always talking in a different language and alot of things are written in a different language.
the next day we went to the transfer meeting. the night before and on the plane ride i found out that there were two other missionaries from haiti that would be going to new york as well. at the transfer meeting i found out that i would be serving with a native haitian elder jean, and with elder jones our trainer who is from Kentucky. after the transfer meeting i found out that we didnt have a car.... and me and elder jean had about 3 pieces of luggage to carry all the way to brooklyn from queens. it was about a 40 min walk WITH a train ride so we were more than ready to get to our PAD (missionary term for residence). so we finally get to our pad and elder jones doesn't seem all that excited while we are walking there. i realized once we got there that the place is old... and no one has lived in it for a while. not only that but over the course of the next week the most white people i saw in one day was 6. so yeah i live in the ghetto in a ghetto house and i pretty much love it.
its so much better than anything i could get at the mtc and it has AC (we got a new one two days ago and it has a remote!!!! exciting i know) and it has a shower so i really have nothing to complain about. yesterday we went over to the ASL and english missionaries pad and theirs is a thousand times nicer. i was kinda jealous but i knew that what we have is more than enough for us to sufficiently live.
the first day we were there we realized we didnt have any food either. so we kinda went like 12 hours with out food cause we didnt have time the night we got there to go out so yeah that was very interesting... the people im teaching mostly speak english. the ones we teach in creole elder jean usually teaches most of it cause i can barely understand what everyone is saying and because of their crazy accent. it was the same case with sunday school. the sister that taught talked SO FAST. anyway elder jean teaches me for an hour straight each day and we talk constantly everyday.
we have 4 investigators and no baptismal dates but we are working on that. well thats all for this week but ill try to write some individual letters today as well. thanks so much for all the mail and emails. if you are going to send me a letter send it to the mission office address which is
85-69 60 drive
Elmhurst NY 11373
they will forward it to my pad so just send everything there and not worry about when i have transfers or what not. SEND ME SOME LETTERS PLZ!!!! :)
have a great week everyone!!!!!
Elder Johnson
Well i finally got here. NYC is totally weird. weird as in ive never experienced anything like it before.
to start the story off where i last left you guys the last week at the mtc was pretty different considering that i would be soon approaching a time that i had long been waiting for. we did our normal routine but with a few extra classes and in field orientation. they were all really inspiring but nothing compared to what ive felt so far. finally it was monday and 4 am and we headed to the air port. we got on ok BUT one of my suitcases was over by one pound!! but the lady who checked my bags served in NY South too so she let it slide. first perk for being an elder of the Lord haha.
on the plane ride i sat next to an older guy and a guy in his 30s. the young guy was coming back from a fishing trip and was jewish by descent but not by religion. so the way he explained it he pretty much gave up on God and was not going back. So after talking with the atheist i talked to the other guy. he explained that he doesn't believe in anything he cant explain with numbers or cant see. so i figured he believed in Scientology because he was from italy and explained that alot of people believed that from where he was from.
so after no success i just shot the breeze with them and got off the plane. first thing i noticed about new york is that there are crazy drivers here. like REALLY crazy drivers. they somehow drive defensively and extremely aggressively at the same time. my companion likes to just walk out in the street and try to cross where he is. I swear that he will get hit one day but he is convinced that he will be save. i tried to explain what kayla explained to me that God still lets us use our agency so he will still let us do something stupid. SO bottom line is im not playing in traffic.
the first night we stayed at the mission home that had no power from the hurricane so that was interesting to use flash lights and candles. the first day we went out and contacted people. it was then that i realized that everyone and anyone lives in new york. you have every color of the rainbow on the street and it seems like no one speaks english either cause everyone is always talking in a different language and alot of things are written in a different language.
the next day we went to the transfer meeting. the night before and on the plane ride i found out that there were two other missionaries from haiti that would be going to new york as well. at the transfer meeting i found out that i would be serving with a native haitian elder jean, and with elder jones our trainer who is from Kentucky. after the transfer meeting i found out that we didnt have a car.... and me and elder jean had about 3 pieces of luggage to carry all the way to brooklyn from queens. it was about a 40 min walk WITH a train ride so we were more than ready to get to our PAD (missionary term for residence). so we finally get to our pad and elder jones doesn't seem all that excited while we are walking there. i realized once we got there that the place is old... and no one has lived in it for a while. not only that but over the course of the next week the most white people i saw in one day was 6. so yeah i live in the ghetto in a ghetto house and i pretty much love it.
its so much better than anything i could get at the mtc and it has AC (we got a new one two days ago and it has a remote!!!! exciting i know) and it has a shower so i really have nothing to complain about. yesterday we went over to the ASL and english missionaries pad and theirs is a thousand times nicer. i was kinda jealous but i knew that what we have is more than enough for us to sufficiently live.
the first day we were there we realized we didnt have any food either. so we kinda went like 12 hours with out food cause we didnt have time the night we got there to go out so yeah that was very interesting... the people im teaching mostly speak english. the ones we teach in creole elder jean usually teaches most of it cause i can barely understand what everyone is saying and because of their crazy accent. it was the same case with sunday school. the sister that taught talked SO FAST. anyway elder jean teaches me for an hour straight each day and we talk constantly everyday.
we have 4 investigators and no baptismal dates but we are working on that. well thats all for this week but ill try to write some individual letters today as well. thanks so much for all the mail and emails. if you are going to send me a letter send it to the mission office address which is
85-69 60 drive
Elmhurst NY 11373
they will forward it to my pad so just send everything there and not worry about when i have transfers or what not. SEND ME SOME LETTERS PLZ!!!! :)
have a great week everyone!!!!!
Elder Johnson
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