Monday, January 23, 2012
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
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
Monday, January 16, 2012
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
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
Monday, January 9, 2012
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
Monday, January 2, 2012
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
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
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
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