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!!!
Monday, May 21, 2012
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 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
Thursday, May 3, 2012
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
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
Monday, April 2, 2012
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
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.
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
Saturday, March 17, 2012
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
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)