June 25th-Still in Fresno :)

Hey family,

I'm excited to hear that you sent me a package, I can't wait to get it and see whats inside! Thank you for the pictures of the gilbert temple and stuff too, I can't believe grandma gave you guys another kitten, but he's definitely cute. Is mom gonna let you keep him? hahaha. Thats also really good to hear about Elise, I hope they got it all and I will make sure to keep her in my prayers still. Thats really good to hear about brother gould too. any word on how jake is doing? Awesome job on your diet mom! I have bad news from this side of the diet, I am now up to 160 lbs.... I don't know what to do! I can't deny people of their food, I'm drinking a gallon of water daily, and we're required to run 20 minutes a day, yet I just keep getting fatter and fatter. The Johnson genes are kicking in :( haha. But I guess the best thing to do with fat is turn it into muscle right? So I guess next time you see me I'm just going to be super muscular. I know I already was before I left, but it's going to be even better when you see me again. And dad, if I can stop drinking soda, then I know you can too! I mean, mine is a little easier cuz its a rule and I feel guilty if I even think about dr. pepper but I still know you can do it. So some bad news before the good news. My trainer, Elder Carrasco, his mom passed away last friday, so he ended up going home to be with his family for the funeral since he only had 1 month left. President said this would be a good opportunity for him to bring the gospel into his families lives. Because right now he is the only member, his mom and dad are both passed away, and he has 2 older brothers. It was really hard to see him go because he doesn't have a place to stay, and he is going to have a hard time finding a job because his mom brought him across the border when he was 5 years old, so he doesn't have a citizenship either. So as of right now we don't know whats going on, but president is going to update us. So we are two gringos with little spanish knowledge rigth now. transfers are on wednesday so we get our new fully hispanic companion, elder rodriguez on wednesday. So that will be helpful. Just remember to keep elder carrasco in your prayers please.

So yesterday, we were taking a member around with us, and he just got back from his mission in fresno about 6 months ago, then moved back to the ward. The lady in the car next to us had a mountain dew, and I said, "oh what I would do for that right now." Then Hermano Perez said, "yeah, me too." Then he proceeds to roll down his window and say, "Hey I want your mountain dew." Then she rolled down her window and gave it to him hahaha. It was super funny and he said he felt bad because he forgot that he was in the missionaries car, but I guess he made it inspirational when he said, "you know what made me a good missionary? When I said I wanted to do something I did it. Like right now, I said I wanted that mountain dew, so I got it. If you want to baptize someone do all it takes to baptize them! So are we going to baptize Karina right now?" then we had a super awesome lesson with karina, she still needs to either move out or get married before she can get baptized but it was still an awesome lesson and she has been having meetings with our bishop about helping her find a job so she can move out.

So other than that we had another miracle yesterday. One of our investigators Maribel, she already knows a ton of stuff about the church and she comes to church willingly every week. We had invited her to baptism but she just wasnt really sure if and when she wanted to be baptized. So yesterday in our gospel principles class, which is for investigators and recent converts, we talked about the Holy Ghost, me and my companion had arrived to the class late, so the other elders in our ward had sat next to her, but after the class we went up and talked to her and she said, "Elderes, recibi mi respuesta, necesito bautizarme. Me encanta cuando siento el espiritu en la iglesia y tambien cuand me visitan. Si podria tener este sentimiento conmigo siempre, estara muy bonita." (dad can translate that for you I think it sounds so much nicer in spanish) But yeah, we were hoping she would say this next saturday, because when you invite someone to be baptized you tell them that there will be a service on the date you are inviting them too. in order to have them thinking about that date, but if they say no, then obviously there isnt going to be a baptism on that date. But she asked if she could go to the services on the 30th to watch a baptism and see what its like. We're going to try really hard though to get her to want to be baptized this weekend cuz we know she is ready, she just needs to do it, the more time she waits the more opportunities satan has to get into her life. One of the members that we told about this story said, just to tell her to look up and she can watch her own baptism in the mirror hahaha, it was really funny.

So other than that, right now there isn't to much going on. Me and my companion are having to listen very carefully these few days without a mexican companion haha, but I feel like it has already helped us a lot. Im really hoping that this week something big will happen, becuase we have quite a bit of people who are really close, they just are lacking one small thing. so maybe this week will bring forth some miracles. Anyway, I love you all lots, thanks so much for sending me a package and emails. I can't wait to get it and talk to you next week. Have fun on your trip mom, and also don't give dad too much trouble kids :) Love you all!

Love,
Elder Johnson

For those of you who didn't hear Justin called me on Saturday to let me know he was going to be able to call on Father's day.  I didn't tell Devin he was calling.  So Sunday we had to stall Devin from leaving for church so that he would be there when Justin called.  Justin finally called and when Devin realized who was calling his phone he was very excited.  Since we talked for 45 min. on Sunday he didn't have a whole lot to say in his e-mail on Monday.  Here it is:

 

 

Family,

 

It was so good to hear from you yesterday, and I don't have a lot of time at all today, we a short on time, so my letter is going to have to be short also. But it was good to hear that you all had a good week. It was good to hear that spencer also had a good time at day camp! I can't believe that Braden is an 11 year old scout too! Also Natalie is lucky that she gets to go to California. She's only going to be about 4 hours away from me.And McKenna is lucky that she gets to go to EFY. I bet its going to be suct experience. Also im happy to hear that Mom and Dad are going to work on their diets! I think the whole family needs too. Dad, good luck with the no soda, Its so hard when people are always offering me coke or dr pepper and I have to say no. AHHHH. Sometimes I want to cry, but I remember 1 Corinthians 13:11, when I became a man I put away childish things. haha. That is actually a really awesome scripture,  I was in the MTC our president made us change it from man, to missionary. It was a really cool way to think about it. So like I told you, on saturday we got to listen to Elder M. Russel We all got to shake his hand and it was really awesome to just be able to stand next to an Apostle and be able to shake his hand and look him in the eyes. It was such a cool experience, to be 1 in a group of 250 people that an Apostle came to give counsel too. He spoke to us for about 2 hours (believe it or not, its not hard to stay awake when an Apostle of God is speaking to you.) Right now, I can't remember anything huge that he told us, but I took 4 pages of notes and its in the apartment so I'll share some of it next week. The one thig that our president shared with us ysterday though that I loved was he shared a quote by Bruce R Mconkey (I think) on is definition of an apostle. I can't remeber everything from it so you should look it up, but there were 4 things that define an apostle. As missionaries,all 4 of those things also describe us. So our president challenged us, that when we leave this building, we will think of ourselves as apostles with a lowercase "a" because we do some of the same work as an Apostle. It was really cool to hear him say that, and then I remembered a time in the MTC when D. Todd Christoffersen said that the Quorum of the 12 look at us as companions, because of the work that we do fr the church. Oh yeah, also Elder Ballard said, even though most of us are in our 80's or higher, we're still pretty cool. haha, its always funny to see them give a pieceof their "real human side"/

 

Anyway, thank you for emailing me and thanks for stalling dad so i coulall him. I love you all lots, and McKenna, if you could tell Kendra that Ian't email so she needs to se me her address if she wants me to reply that would be awesome, thank you :) I love you all lots, can't wait to hear from you next week, hopefully It can be sooner and I'll be on my way to Argentina, but who knows. Oh, could you get me a calling card too so when I go to the airport I can call? Okay I love you! I need to go email my presidentebfore I run out of time!

 

Love,

Elder Johnson

June 11, 2012-Still in Fresno

Just an update before I post Justin's e-mail...this Wednesday will mark 3 months since he left on his mission.  It seems like now that we are a little more used to Justin being gone the time is moving more quickly.  He is still in Fresno and does not have any idea when his Visa will come.  He could leave at any time within a day or two of getting it.  In the meantime he is enjoying the experiences he is having in Fresno.

Here is the latest e-mail...I did edit out some of the personal stuff:

So this week was just a lot of the same stuff. One of my companions had the flu so we had to change a lot of our morning routines, and had to make a lot of emergency stops by the church to use the restroom. Also we had a Trainer/Trainee meeting and they gave us enchiladas and that made me and my other companion have to use the restroom quite a bit. A lot of the food here is good, but every now and then someone gives us some fish or something really gross and its super hard to eat it. I think I have a good technique down though. They usually give us some sort of juice, or they do this thing were they crush up fruit and mix it with water, its super weird but its super delicious and so I just get a glass, eat the thing real fast and then drink the glass haha. It's hard, but it works. The worst was yesterday we had salmon AND carrot cake. Blech. That was a toughy for me. But its awesome cuz everyone here feeds the missionaries. Every now and then someone will call us and say, "Hey do you wanna come over and have lunch with my family and just share a little message with us?" Or they'll give us a second dinner at 7. It's great.

So news on investigators, we have been finding a TON! in the 3 full weeks I have been here we have found 22 new investigators. As of right now we have 3 with a date, and one is pretty solid. We have a FHE tonight with her and a member couple and we hope that she will confirm the 23rd as her date for baptism. She also has a daughter who leaves for Japan in the Navy in 55 days so we are working really hard with her. Then at church we had 4 investigators this week. We met this girl who we called on saturday as a referral and she said she wasn't him, which was lame because we went to her appartment complex and we couldn't get in the gate, and there was people standing right tehre and we waved to them, then a lady said "We can't let you in, if you are here for someone make them come down and let you in." Then this guy went in with his dog and I went to hold the gate for him and he turned around and slammed it really quickly. It was super annoying. But anyway we called her and she said, I'm not home right now, but what time does church start tomorrow, I really want to go. So she showed up to church yesterday at 9:15 and it starts at 9:30(well its supposed to but Mormons are always late, and Mexicans are always late so sacrament doesn't usually start til about 9:50ish haha). But other than that we don't really have a lot. We have a lot of people that we'll contact, teach a lesson then have trouble getting in contact with them again. We are trying really hard to go back with members, but the members get discouraged when we go and no one lets us in. they feel like its a waste of there time. oh and then last night we had a fireside and there were more adults than kids. our ward is a little pathetic at times, they don't do ward council right and missionary work is just not very big in their eyes. But that was a little bit of the point of the fireside was get kids excited so we had to change it a little to make the adults like it. But it was great anyway we worked it out well.

I don't know how but anyway... This saturday we're having an all mission conference and President M. Russel Ballard is coming to speak to us! :D I can't wait its going to be so awesome, the only thing that stinks is that the building it is in is 2.5 hrs away so we have to wake up and leave super early in the morning.


Love,
Elder Johnson

Week of May22

So my first full week... It's been pretty rough. Our mission has a goal of baptizing 1200 people by the end of the year. So thats 100 baptism a month. We had a training conference and our president was talking to us, tol us that January we made the goal of 100. then february was 97 march 87 april 83 and may only 33. so we had a big long talk on what we need to do in order to meet our goals. The good news is. It got everyone fired up and June is already starting to look good. So far me and my companions have 2 investigators with a set date... but both of them are strong achohaulics(sp?) and one of them has a medical marijuana card..... yeah, I'm in california. But we're working really hard with them. so the other good news is that we have been doing some great contacing and just this week we went from 4 investigators to 11! We found 7 new investigators this week. 2 of them are sisters who are super excited about reading and praying, they sadly cancelled on us our second lesson but we are calling themt oday to set up another appointment. then this other family is all girls, Carmen Wendy and Zephaniah. They are all so excited too. Carmen is from Honduras and Wendy is 21 and in the Navy, and Zephaniah is 7 and she is more spiritual than all of them haha. She reads her bible every night and she is truly going to be the hardest out of their familyto teach because of her such strong faith. But she is super excited about reading the book of mormon and I kinda marked 2 Nephi 31 which talks about the baptism of Christ in her book so that she will hopefully hint something to her mom and spark something more :). But then with Wendy its super awesome too because she was telling us the first time that she doesn't really care about religion but she will listen to us just because she doesnt wanna be rude....which now is a total lie, cuz she came home from the mall with her friends yesterday to listen to us. I have a ton of faith in this family. Then our other really close investigator is name Carina and we showed her the Joseph Smith movie lastnight and she started crying. It was awesome. The only bad thing is that she has to get married or move out.the good news on that is her boyfriend is now a little interested. He's just pentacostal and has a lot of doubts in us.

 

So other than that, the food here is awesome! The only thing that stinks about it is that there is a lot ofpeople who give us fish... but other than that the mexican food is great. The other great thing about my area is that its a spanish ward and the hispanics are always willing to feed us. We have dinner appointments set up for every day in june already and may isnt even over. Then on sunday night our appointment forgot so a sister came up and said that she would feed us. She lives alone so we had to have a male there. so she invited a member and his son and another member of the ward. and there is 5 missionaries in my ward. So she fed 8 of us on a 5 hour notice. They are so nice here. The only hard thing is that our bishop has very little faitht that if he does the things he's called to do then his family will be blessed. We have very little help with the actual work from our ward which makes things quite difficult.