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
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
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
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
Monday, February 13, 2012
Feb. 13, 2012
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
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