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

March 5, 2012

so you get meda super awesome points if you understand the subject line to this email. NO CHEATING!!! dont use the internet to find out. anyway so ill mix things up and explain the pictures first and talk about this week later. so the first one is the bedroom of the son of our branch president. it reminded me of home. my favorite part about this picture is the fact that it ends RIGHT at the door haha. the next one is a broken exit sign we found but then i attached a plug to it and now it lights up. we will be hanging it up as soon as we figure out how to. p days are so fun.... the next one is elder hunter who is one of my pad mates. he went to dixie state before he came on his mission and is from utah... dont remember where. it all looks the same anyway.

so yes my week wasnt particularly exciting but we did happen to have a SUPER nice family just plop right into our laps. a member called us and said that one of his coworkers was asking questions about the church and so he invited us to come over and we have had two meetings with them and it has been REALLY well apparently. i say it like that cause they speak spanish... and i dont. so the whole time we went over i just kinda sat there. i picked up that they were agreeing to a lot of things cause they said "claro kue si" a lot which means i agree or something like that.

our other investigators arent look so hot but i did send some members out to call them and reach out to them cause that has seemed to work here in the past. this week will be a lot different as we are going to find new people and follow up on some potential investigators. one of them in particular came to church last week and hasnt returned our calls or messages until yesterday when she said that she was depressed and found that something was missing in her life and didnt really feel it at church. part of the problem was that she slipped in and then out and that the subject that was being talked about in sacrament was the word of wisdom in the old testiment. which led to the explanation of the mosaic law and ALL the animals that they couldnt eat and HOW they ALL HAD to be prepared. anyway so i got to testify to this lady via text message about the love our savior has for each and one of us and how us as missionaries loved her and wanted to help her find that happiness that she was looking for. she said we could call this week but didnt really agree to meet with us. so hopefully i can persuade her to just meet with us one and see how it goes.

another person that we are trying to meet with is the daughter of a really less active member becuase of really bad medical problems. but his room mate is a recent convert and is really cool. like really cool. so he is trying to help us help this family and introduce the daughter to the gospel even though it sounds like she is being a rebellious teenager. it really is hard to see how families fall apart out here and how fragile life really is. sometimes its really hard to understand what people are going through especially if it has never happened to me but the thing that i have really found out that works is love. and if people dont have that family that can support that then the ward does.

as for today we will be going to queens to a "preach my gospel bowl" no one knows the details but the mission president said the winner gets to go to the temple with their zone. my district actually isnt participating but we will spectate as the freeport district from our zone represents us. it should be very interesting. a gym with the whole mission in it having one on one combat about preach my gospel. nothing in the history of new york has sounded more blood thirsty than this!

so yeah thats about it for this week. i feel like im running out of stuff to say so some one ask me a question or two.....

thanks to everyone that sends me mail via web but ill respond to the kind that comes in letter format as well. :-)

good luck and until next time my friends !!!

-elder johnson

Feb 27

yeah thx everyone for responding to my messages last week it was super good to see my inbox full. yay!!! so yeah im going to make a shout out to brother parker cause of my horrible grammar but all ill say is that God called me preach the gospel and not to write coherent letters home. sry but its been a bad habit for a while and bad habits die hard heh.... ps look at my sweet paragraphs!!

so this week i had a couple of events happen to me that were quite memorable and that i would like to relate to you. first off earlier this week we were trying to find a haitian guy by the name of grasias. we pulled up and i began to talk with this man outside his house who was apparently his stepdad. well one thing led to another and he told me to go away and never come back. i must say it was rather funny cause i told him i was a missionary and that i loved him and wanted to meet his family and if he needed anything to call us, at this point he proceeded to cuss us out and never to come back. i saw grasias at church that week and he said sry about his rather uptight stepfather. it was fun.

next on the list is that we had a lesson with this african family who mostly speaks french but we needed two translators to go from english to french to dan which is an african dialect. it was VERY interesting and a first. i got to speak some horrible french with them which probably didnt make any sense. but they loved that i tried.

the next experience was much more serious and kinda tramatic. we visited our friend who was turning his life around but we found out he had checked into rehab becuase of a relapse. we talked with his mom who is a faithful member and left to our next appointment. this sister though call us right as we left and asked us to turn around cause she thought her husband was having a stroke. well we turned right on around went in and sure enough her husband was on the floor and 911 was called all right before my eyes. im very surprised how calm we(the elders) all were regardless of what had happened. so we just visited this brother today and he is doing better. his poor wife has had a lot with this as well as her son going to rehab so keep this family in your prayers.

other than that life is just continuing as normal. we have 2 ish people starting to get ready for baptism but other than that its all normal.

the first of these two is Elizabeth who i might have mentioned last week but ill explain again how she is looking for a church that is family oriented. she told us last week that the BOM was true but the only problem is her bipolar husband that doesnt seem very friendly to the concept of us. we need to meet him to just say hi but i think he will be a great obstacle for elizabeth to overcome.

the next is keagan who is 19 years old, married, and is temporaraly living with some members here after driving here with his wife from arizona with no plans. they just kinda showed up one day and mariahs (keagans wife) mother called the bishop here looking for a place for them to live. so all this has come to pass and we are trying to help them understand the temple and to baptize keagan so they can go and get sealed as a family.

so yeah thats pretty much it for this week and thanks again to everyone and ill be praying for all of yall.

-elder johnson

Feb. 21, 2012

hey everyone im being a bad missionary today and got lazy yesterday and so im emailing today.....HA only if satan had ANY power over me. im emailing today cause yesterday was presidents day and of course everyone knows that presidents day is a HUGE holiday (im pretty sure we didnt even get school off that day) but anyway the libraries are closed and all the little kids are out of school for the week. what lucky ducks. but yeah so UPDATE>>> im not in brooklyn anymore. i am now serving in the city of lynbrook which is right out side of queens and is in nasseau county on long island which is not in brooklyn nor queens but on the island of long island and so thus it is considered on the "island" even though all these places are on the island. its wierd yeah i know but nevertheless im here speaking creole.

things here are really different namely that my area is HUGE and people actually have houses out here. it reminds me of back home but cold and the roads STILL dont make sense. so the first week has been me sitting in the passengers seat as i let elder miller (my new companion) drive me around and tell me oodles of information about the people here and i still dont feel like that i know as much as i should.

but yeah im starting to know that haitians now that ive been to church once and elder miller and i are going to start hitting them hard starting with those that are in our ward. ok so when i said that we have the best mission i really ment it cause there are still people here that are going to church and speak french, spanish, dun (and african dialect), as well as the haitians and none of them understand the english church service. so its been a real challenge with translation and the branch president told me that he had requested me for a while now and has a lot of work for me to do. already i like this guy.

the ward here still has its slight dysfunctionalities as the city did but there are a lot more members, youth, and more people interested in the gospel. its a real backwards change for me coming from an opposite place just last week.

but yeah here are some pictures of our SUPER NICE PAD THAT HAS A COUCH!!!! ... A COUCH!!!!! WHAT A BLESSING. there is another of elder millers birthday at the branch presidents home and the last but not least is the ongoing scoreboard for scum that we play a couple of times every night before we hit the sac.

its really funny the way i have been welcomed. people here are really wierd when it comes to talking about ghetto places cause apparently they have never been to brooklyn and have seen the tom foolary that happens there. also they all are shocked (once again) that i can speak creole and they act shocked that im out here but there are about 10+ french speakers plus 5+ haitian members??? most of the branch speaks english and about a fourth speaks spanish as well.

the spiritual problems are still here too. i have witnessed drug deals and people are still fornicating the same rate here as the rest of the world. glad to know that satan has yet to stop. but yeah i had a very interesting experience this last sunday...

we got called into the branch presidents office and he told us to go visit a member whose son was not a member and wanted to meet with the missionaries. we were excited and went over and talked to them. the son then proceeded to tell us the horrible things that he had done in his life. he is suffering alot from the aftereffects of drug abuse and a serious problem of being unable to control his anger which has gotten him jail time. he called us cause one of his friends just got a sentence of 26 years to life and when he was in jail himself he saw right in front of him one inmate stab and kill another. he said he can now see that what he was doing was bad and that he wants to turn his life completely around. im very surprised how well I took all of it and im very happy that i got another witness of the atonement that day. its going to be very hard to work with him but i have never seen a more humbled and repentant man IN MY LIFE. gosh im going to cry sitting in this library thinking about him and the gall of bitterness that he has gone through but i really hope that i can help this man change his life and show him what heavenly father has in store for him.

well thats all for this week and please send back my card cause i have another one for you :) thanks everyone for the mail and KEEP IT COMING!!!!
ps grats tyler for making it into BYU and getting his eagle scout

-elder Johnson

Feb. 13, 2012

 well we finally had a baptism here in midwood. it only took 4 transfers but it happened. elder storey and i baptized carolina rosario and you can look at the pics below for all that. but yeah it was such a good service and i was so glad that i had a part to play in her conversion as well.

i also have some exciting news..... im getting transfered. i never thought it would happen but im finaly leaving my first area. i have no idea where im going cause usually some other elder has heard one thing or another but i have no idea. so yeah im packing up all my things which really isnt that hard cause i have been living out of a suitcase for the last transfer so it should be pretty easy.

elder storey is going to be training and hes REALLY nervous about that but i have full confidence in him that he will be great with the new haitian speaker in midwood. this last sunday i was asked again to bear my testimony as a last minute move by the bishop and they gave me about 25 minutes. i actually talked for 20 min without having anything prepared and i think that was a miricle in itself that i was able to do that. cause before my mission it was hard getting it up to 10 minutes.

so yeah a lot of the members here are sad to see me leave and our teaching pool is finally looking good so im sad to leave that but i guess the lord has a purpose for me elsewhere. this next transfer im going to start learning french so i can speak better to people and not just limiting myself to just a pure creole. its going to be interesting but with a 5000 page dictionary anything is possible.

i really dont know what else to talk about other than the fact that im kinda sad to leave here but im glad that i left the area in a much better condition than when i found it. things were hard here and im sure they will be hard where ever i go. im hoping that i will get elder jean as my companion cause i think we could do some real work together. idk but ill tell you all about it next week. have a great week everyone and keep up the good work with emails!!! :) :)

-elder johnson

Feb 6, 2012

well in case you didnt know the giants won cause let me tell you everyone in NYC knows and likes to talk about it. this week in my life of being a missionary was pretty normal but really goooooood. first off we had 5 investigators at church yesterday and 2 of them are getting baptized this sunday as well as 2 the following week and the last one said that she would get baptized next month BUT i think we can change that

so yeah right now we are really focusing on Carolina and Lamartine who are planning on being baptized this next week. Carolina is AWESOME. im not going to lie i didnt want to talk to her about 3 weeks ago at that fateful bus stop because A) shes a beautiful Dominican girl B) shes a beautiful Dominican girl and C) shes a beautiful Dominican girl. that sounds really bad but like i said im not going to lie i was kinda intimidated and i told myself i came on a mission to talk to people about the gospel and not to look for a wife. but that problem was shortly solved when elder storey walked up and said hi. haha lame i know but i learned a lesson that day and we shortly found out that she was totally prepared for the gospel and she was already living gospel standards (which is really rare in ny) and it was a done deal when she came to church and the ward just gobbled her up and she was instantly accepted.

lamartine is the man. he came straight here from haiti and has been really sad and really sick for the past month. he was really on the fence about baptism but he said every time that we come over he feels so strong and then he came to church and said that he feels so good. it especially helped when one of the strong haitian members (se cadimice who is like a second mother to me) came up to him and really got him involved and helped him alot with understanding everything in sacrament.

so yeah those are the people that we are working with so far. sry that this email is kinda short and has not pictures but im waiting for elder sterling who has my birthday pictures so ill send them today when i get them copied. so yeah it was great to hear from everyone and for the letters that i have gotten. have a great week everyone!!!

-elder johnson

ps having a car is soooooo much better than NYC MTA buses

Pics from NY

Jan 23, 2012

Hey everyone this week is sponsored by the Sparticus workout from Men;s Health magazine. this morning elder storey and i put it to the test and now i feel like a spartan... more like a dead spartan but it made the day have a good fresh start. lots of exciting things happened this week and i am hoping even though i have not have a lot of numbers here in midwood that i could maybe stay here for my 5 transfer.

ill hold off on all the exciting stuff so you are forced to read all the boring stuff. HA! its ok cause some of it is funny. so i hope you all figured out who was my companion from my last email that was apparently confusing but just ask kayla for some pictures cause she got some good ones of him. speaking about elder storey i have been really grateful to have him as a companion cause he has experience in the hood of brooklyn and is just the funniest guy ever. all the other elders say that im super lucky to have him as a comp but it just hit me this week on 3 separate occasions that i would totally be lost if he wasnt there to teach about a principle or how to react to a question.

yesterday the bishopric was scattered cause i think one of the speakers called last minute and said that they wouldnt be coming to sacrament meeting so they asked 3 elders (including me) to bear their testimony. good thing it only had to be about 8 or so minutes cause i was really nervous for some reason. but yea i just boldly testified of the church and of what i have learned on my mission. i talked a lot about the BOM because of the next exciting thing...

2 INVESTIGATORS CAME TO CHURCH!!!! WOO!!!!!!! oh man that was a miracle that this ward has been needing for a while. one was a creole guy that the sisters gave to us and that i have been teaching for about 2 weeks now and he finally came to church!!! he said it was his dream to become a member of the real church of jesus christ and he was familiar with the church back in haiti so he is looking pretty solid. he said that he had a question about jesus chirst visiting the americas but i think that it will go nicely with the next lesson we have planned for him.

the next investigator that came to church was named carolina who is from the Dominican republic and she is penticostal so she has a lot of beliefs that are really ingrained in her head but she said she was open to posibilities and i got a strong feeling to show her lds.org and mormon.org and lo and behold as soon as she went home her cousins told her a bunch of anti material (from what it sounds like they are getting multiple beliefs mixed up and just a bunch of nonsense) but we are going to meet with her and tell her that if she continues to read about the book of mormon and find out if its true she will come to know that all those other things are not true and dont matter.

the last great thing that happened is that we visited a member named shaniel and she has a twin sister named shanelle. anyway they just turned 16 and they have NO support from their parents, in their lives, church, and hardly financially cause they dont have a phone, computer or anyother form of communication. anyway we visited them on their birthday which was kinda sad cause they didnt have ANY plans for their sweet 16 so we cheered them up and we (elder storey) made em a brownie. we also helped them over come some trials in their life and talked about how the atonement can heal anything that comes from the burdens of life.

anyway this week was super good and im so glad that im a missionary and have the opportunity to serve here in midwood and help people come closer to chirst. oh one last thing we visited the muir family who are going through some rough times as well and shared with them a mormon message from elder holland which i feel like really inspired them. they are such a good family and i hope everything works out for them.

anyway thats all for this week and ill end with some pictures:

pic 1: elder sterling one of the spanish elders we are curently living with
pic 2:me at a subway station
pic 3: shaniel with the brownie

have a great week everyone and ill write to ya next week!!!!

-elder johnson

1/16/2012

so yeah i just realized that its mlk day cause it doesn't really affect us but still its good to know that one guy had his head on straight. 

anyway so sorry that im emailing a lot latter than usual cause we came to park slope in the stake center and all the staton island elders where already here and all the comps but it was good to see some new faces. this week our pad fell apart and the decaying rat inside our fridge was BAD like really BAD and so elder storey called the senior couple the brownells and they got us out at 7:00 in the morning so that day we were kinda mad that we had to start out our day like that and then drag all of our stuff up 5 flights of stairs but other than that its great to live in a pad that doesn't smell like dead rat.

our new pad mates speak spanish and are super funny about the way they do their work which is the total opposite of how we do it in english and creole. this week none of our investigators came to church which was super sad cause two of them said they would but alas maybe another week. so we visited the couple from st. lucia again and they are SOOOOO SUPER NICE!!!! they welcome us in and just have a loving spirit to them that i can just see the potential in them. we shared the book of mormon with them and this week we will invite them to come to church.

the pictures are my new hair cut, elder storey with his face mask on, and then elder frandson and chan. ok so funny story about elder chan. last thursday we had zone conferance and we got the share our testimonies at the end. elder chan got up and bore his testimony in broken english and said "i love fearlessing. but i have question for you. do you fearless the jew? i fearless the jew. one time i fearless this guy, SO JEW. he study a lot and asked us what is love?" it was so funny but it showed to me that elder chan really came on his mission to preach about christ and he even got a reaction from a JEW and even started teaching a JEW!!! i never thought that was possible cause they usually just scowl at us and ignore us.

anyway other than that edward is still coming to church but has yet to accept our baptismal invite so we will probably drop him cause he is becoming a problem for some of the members and is probably in the church for the wrong reasons.

good news though we found another family to help with in the ward. the muir family is trying to change their lives and start coming back to church. it was great to see them and even better to see that after trucking it through the FREEZING cold weather that they opened the door to us, gave us hot chocolate and cornbread, offered to drive us home, and said we want you to come back. WHAT A MIRACLE. we were truly blessed that day that some one let us in. we are going to help them become closer as a family and over come some relationship problems that they are having as well.

that's pretty much it other than we are playing soccer today and that its freezing here (under 30 degrees) and has yet to snow which is apparently very unusual which is good cause my face froze off last night.

thanks everyone for all the mail that i got and for all the prayers and stuff. have a great week!!

-elder johnson

New transfer, new beginnings

well here we are another week has gone by but i feel like things are going to turn around. we have new zone leaders and a new pair of english elders and a new sister. lots of things changed at transfer meetings and my new companion is fresh from brownsville which is the ghetto of brooklyn. hes heard some gunshots over there and there was just a shooting where this lady was killed from protecting her kids... and that was down the block from where the elders where at.

cool story about elder storey (haha what a pun) the first day he was moving in our pad this crazy lady who always asks us for money but we are told not to give them any so we just always tell her sorry BUT this time she started cussing us out and elder storey started yelling at her too and eventually told her to go away and she just ran off mad. it was a good first day in our companionship and i automatically nkew that i was going to like elder storey haha.

weve been real blessed this week. at first we had to give away a bunch of names of people that we contacted but then just last night we decided to stop by one more house and we met this really nice family from st lucia (in the caribian). it was pretty cool to see that miricle happen and then we had this awesome district meeting where elder carnahan the new zone leader (he was assistant to the president last transfer) told us that we are going to change our zone from the least baptizing one to the most. that its self is going to be a miricle cause we havent had a baptism in 4 months (since i got here) but we are really trying hard to have 1 person for each companionship get baptized this transfer.

we are trying to work on the dad of jamarie brewster whos named marlin and hes this tall guy with dreads down to the floor and has shown interest in the church after a long time of not. so we are going to start working with him as well as the family we found yesterday. we are also going to institute a meal calandar for the ward because for some reason the other one never was passed around and never got started.

those pics from the hockey game look sweet and you know you cant win em all but i know that if you have faith and a belief in something true (like the stars winning) anything is possible. that was scripture in case you couldnt tell. in my attachments i sent a bad one of me at the transfer meeting with everyone that was in the district at the begining and then also a couple of elder storey.

we are going to be playing soccer today so i hoep i dont kill myself but it should be really fun. some new activity in our pad is that it stinks like dead animal cause a rat ate some poison then crawled up in our fridge and died. so now it smells like death in our food preperation area and the scent will make you loose your lunch/appitite. also the tenant above us had a bad leaking problem so its making our walls all bloated and water logged and the person incharge of our appartment is dumb and is trying to not fix it but brother brownel who pays the bills for our housing is not taking crap from them so hes yelling at them at a daily basis and telling them to get on it or we are moving out. im interested in seeing who will win this one.

anyway so pray for the dead rat in our fridge that it can go away and for marlin that he can accept the gospel and our baptism invite as well. hes a super cool guy and i think elder storey and i will make his conversion process the best it can be.

-elder johnson

Dec. 19, 2011

hey everyone this week was amazing because we found some new people to work with and they speak creol!!!! this is super awesome cause its been a while since we have taught a lesson in creole and yester we had a member named charles makison who is preparing himself to go on a mission. we spent the whole day with him and taught a guy named alex prophet who we had found earlier this week.

sorry but this email might be kinda short cause ill be talking with everyone next week also can some one tell me what we are doing for my call home?? just email me details or ill just call on christmas to the house. its w/e.

anyway but yeah we found this other man by the name of duguy and he is da guy cause he has a real desire to find the real church of christ and it felt really amazing to promise him blessings and knowledge if he took moronis promise. i think he will continue to meet with us. he has met with other faiths and done alot of researching but i hope he will see us thourgh.

this week at church edward who the sisters taught but now we are teaching came to church. it was good to see that the ward welcomed him and everyone was friendly to him. also we went to a baptism of an 8year old haitian. a ton of people came and there was a big response from the ward. if only we could get a response like that for a convert  baptism.

today for pday we are going to ihop and i kinda left my pday clothes at another pad of some elders when i was going on exchanges. so im wearing some of elder jones' pants, shoes and a huge ghetto coat that i found in the pad. the pictures i sent are some delicioiuds food items that i made this week including the worlds most perfect steak and a hotdog wrapped in ham and then wrapped in bacon. yes it was pure genius if i say so my self.

anyway i have to go but thanks everyone for the chrismas gifts and ill call next week some time around 3-5 ny time. sorry if thats really vague and i cant remember when church is for you guys so yeah have your cell on if you are....

so yeah thanks everyone and have a great week and i cant wait to call on sunday around 3-5!!!!

-elder johnson

Grand Central Station

Jan. 1, 2012

hey everyone its your favorite elder again. this week was very interesting. first off transfers are tomorrow and so elder jones my trainer and my companion for about 4 months now will finally leave me. im getting a companion by the name of elder stori and apparently hes a thug but a gentle giant. he sounds super cool and i think he'll fit right into midwood. so a lot of time this last week was put towards preparing for elder jones leaving. not only that but elder jones has been sick so our schedule has been a little different to accomidate for that. im glad he actually recognizes that he needs to rest cause other elders (and sisters) dont see that they need to stop so they keep going and eventually it all comes crashing down on them. when i was in the mission home for the first day here there was a sister there who was resting cause she did that exact same thing. sister moreno diez in our district as well was almost sedated cause she refused to not go out and work.

this week for church a lot of people came that usually didnt. edward came and is still proparing to be baptized but his baptisimal date will probably be pushed back because the bishop is really concerned about his mental state. as far as the zone leaders saw he understands all the docterines and principles about the gospel but we are all having second thoughts. we all noticced that there just is somthing that isnt right about him. dont get me wrong he is super nice and understands the gospel to its fullest but he may be interested in the gospel for one wrong reason or another.

another haitian investigator also came and his nam ei s deu duguy. we have been meeting with him for about 3 weeks now and im glad that finally someone came to church. we couldnt meet with our other haitian investigator alex prophet because of the holidays so hopefully we can get in this next week. good news too we FINALLY got into this one building that we have been trying to contact a referral and we were finally let in and we left our number with lamartine's room mate and he called us!!! so now we have an appointment this next week with him yay!!

hopefully elder stori will have some patience with the creole program cause i know it will rock his world to be in a lesson where you understand nothing. its ok though cuase the language of the spirit is still present and that is all that we need to be there. so today we took a little detour to manhattan to see the statue of liberty. usually we are not allowed to go to manhattan but we are allowed to see the statue. so we took a ferry that went by it but the line to go on the island was SUPER long so we will go another time.

thanks for the pictures mom, your quilts look awesome. all the elders that see the one you made me are jealous that thier blanket doenst glow in the dark haha. also sophie and emma look just like new yorkers with those ridiculous hats on and i hope they keep you warm :).

well so yeah besides that ill put some pictures of manhattan on this email and a REAL new york pizza that we had at our new years eve party with the very generous sister terry ann williams.

every one have a great week and try to stay warm (i bet its like 60 there... google just confirmed its 50 there.... not as warm as the balming 30 degrees it was this morning, dont worry though im plentty warm)

-elder johnson-

p.s. they say the snow is comming :(

Dec. 26, 2011

hey everyone i know i just talked to you guys but i thought ide talk more about the last week in my life. so yeah yesterday and the day before where just awesome cause of all the christmas festivaties. yesterday the whole mission went to the mission office in queens and we had a christmas devotional and everyone and thier zones sang for the whole mission. our zone leader and the spanish district leader both had really great solos that ended the night in a very special spirit that i will never forget. during the conference we went and ate lunch provided by the mission in the gym and then we all got to see the christmas slide show and all got to sit on santas lap (photo attached) also we went to grand central station which is another picture and the last is elder jones with his new hair cut that makes him look like will smith.

this last week was really shot cause friday we did weekly planning, saturday was the conferance, and yesterday was christmas. i did go on exchanges with elder meyers who i this awsome elder from st. george utah and is going home in like 2 months which is scary. alot of the elders in my zone that i have worked with are going home soon which is scary cause they are really great leaders to us and have been a really greay help to us in this work.

like i said in my phone call home we are getting ready for edward to be baptized on the first of january and we are all hoping that he sticks with it. he siad one of his reasons for joining the church was to get married and he asked if this was a good reason to be pursuing baptism. we then went through the baptisimal questions and found that he understood what it really ment to be baptized and that he was ready to take upon him the name of christ. this is pretty exciting cause the sisters have been working with him for a good 3 transfers now and finally he is ready.

other than that we are working hard with jean mosias but he still says that he doesnt feel ready to become baptized and we found out that he really dosnt remember alot about what we have been talking about which im sure is due to the fact that he juked us for about 2 weeks. i called his dad and asked him about being baptized and it seemed like his father really didnt care or just was not very concerned for the salvation of his son. either way i think thier lives would be very different if they had a parental figure in thier lives. once again when we visited there was a thug looking guy sitting on the couch (there is a different one every time) and he was introduced as brad's friend which is jeans brother.

so yeah this week ive been able to see how much these peoples lives differ than mine and how blessed i am to be raised in a stable home with a stable family and where everything dosnt revolve around money.

christmas here was very different as i saw some people just treat the day as a normal day. people also used the term happy holidays which kinda bugged me cause i felt like it just made the special occasion seem less as important as it really is. and it really didnt help with all the grumpy jewish people that get surprisingly REALLY offended if you say merry christmas to them. so yeah also all the missionaries in our ward sang in sacrament and elder jones and i were treated to a traditional christmas breakfast called "pepper pot and bread" which is ox tail that is really seasoned well and cooked with burt sugar and served with bread. it was a very different christmas for me but ended really good with a call home and then visiting tery williams' house for dinner.

thanks to everyone for the gifts and ill try to get some thankyous sent in the mail... but idk if i can promise anything.

have a great week everyone and a a happy new year!!!!!!!!

-elder johnson