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