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