October 14, 2013

Family, this week was pretty boring. Not to much happened, and I don´t have a lot to say, but I will share the best part with you :) This sunday was fast and testimony meeting. our convert asked us if she could go up there and share her testimony, so she went up and did it, it was super graet, and made me feel real nice haha. Then anothr recent convert from one of the sisters shared her testimony, so that just started the subject real quick, of giving testimonies on missionary work :) The best thing ever! Then a girl that we have been working with got up to give her testimony, she talkd about how her life had been going real bad, that things weren´t going the way she really wanted, and that she wanted to change her life. She shared about the day we showed up to her house and started to help her with this process. She has been going to church for 4 weeks now without missing a sunday, she has read her scripturse every single day, and now has desires to serve a mission. This really helped me to learn, that we nver know what anyone is going through, we never know when someone is going to need our help. We always need to be supportive and loving and always inviting and offering, because maybe they will say no 40 times in a row, but we never know what has happened between the 40th and the 41st time. I love being able to help people receive the gospel. There is NO greater blessing. I hope you all will pray and think of somone you can help to receive it. It´s not easy, but its worth every minute of it. Don´t forget to read and pray every day either. Thats how we prepare to share it. I hope you guys can all acheive your goals and do the things necessary to get where you want to be. Alma 37:6 I Love you so much! Thanks for all your prayers! Elder Johnson

October 7, 2013

Hi family, It´s going to be short this week, sorry. This week has been a massive overload of meetings. From trainings, to district meetings and general conference! But a short little recap. The 3 girls we found last week, Melina, Yamalie, and Neda, are doing great! We had a little bit of trouble finding them this past week, but when we did, they took the things we taught them and applied it super well! 2 of them went to conference with us on sunday, and really enjoyed it. The best thing was that a member who was baptized 7 months ago who is the same age as them became super good friends with them and helped thema lot. Their goal is to get baptized this weekend, but we still have a l,ot to do before that happens, and its still a little bit of a pain to try to find them and teach them because they are fixing a house up in a nother part of the city so they can move in 5 or 6 months. Also, conference was great! I learned so much! I´m pretty sure the best talk was by the 70 on saturday night who talked about the exclamation points! I loved his excitement! It was great to hear all the excitement about the missionary work. It was crazy, because we´re right next to the area offices of the church.. we were sitting in the room waiting for the sunday morning session to start and in walks Elder Gonzalez of the 70 and sits down to watch conference with us. It was pretty dang cool! I´m also excited to hear the good news about the football game, its about time haha. I´m pretty bummed that I couldn´t be there, but I´m glad you guys could experience it for me! Go wolves! and ASU too! Man, I just get so excited to watch sports again that it sometimes drives me insane that I have no one to talk to about it, seeing as all my companion knows is soccer haha. It´s okay though, just be ready to hear me talk your ears off with questions and excitement when I get back! Oh no! What´s happening to me... I´m already starting to talk about "when I get back" hahah. I´m still focused though, don´t worry :p. Anyway... to finish off, one of my favorite lines from conference was... "Never look back, look at what we have left to do." That´s a great way to look at things in life. We have gone through a lot, some good things, and some bad things. It´s okay to have those memories, but we should never dwell on things, we need to use them to get back to work, and do what needs to be done. When we do this I know the Lord will bless us. We just pray and ask His help, and HIS will, shall be done. I love you so much! Thanks for all the great emails! READ AND PRAY EVERY DAY! Love, Elder Johnson!

September 30, 2013

Family, This week was a nice week in our area, and in our district. We divided palermo and things started going super fast. We saw so many miracles this week and blessings of the Lord in our work. One that surprised us a lot, was a lesson we had with our recent convert Teresa. When we got to her house we invited her husband to church on sunday. He´s always said that he had work and that he would some day but didnñt know when. This time was different, he told us that he had been talking to one of his co workers to be able to take his shift during church so that he could go and see what its like. So we commited him to do that and get it all settled before sunday. Then comes sunday morning and he was in church. He doesn´t want to accept a baptismal date still, but he´s starting to participate a lot more. The second one was when we were walking down the street, and we hear someone yell, Elders! So we turn around and see a girl that neither of us recognized. She lead us to her mom and her mom told us that she was a less active member of more than 20 years and wanted her daughters to get to know the church. We taught them, they accepted baptismal invitations, but due to some other things they had commited too they didn´t go to church on sunday... but we are going to keep going with them and help them prepare for their baptisms. So a couple of months ago we had zone conferences, and our mission president bought mcdonalds for every zone. then the day that we had our conference, something happened and we didn´t get mcdonalds. Him and his wife felt bad for me, because I had been helping with something in all the other conferences and so I knew that they were getting mcdonalds. So they promised me that one day they would take my companion and I to McDonalds... So today I received a call from president, and he said "hey, we´re going to your zone today to eat at a wendys... you´re invited and your entire zone too!" So because he is filthy rich he took us all to wendys. then, we broke the record of the mission in the month of september, and so he decided that he is going to take the entire mission to the zoo! The zoo is 100 pesos per person. There are 239 missionaries in the mission... so you that would be 24,000 pesos, Im pretty sure he´s paying for the majority of it....it´s insane. So the other thing that happened today, I was in the offices, and I met Elder and Sister Lines. I asked where they were from, and he said safford, arizona... Then it clicked! This is the family grandpa was telling me about! haha. So I met the lines family today :) It´s been a pretty fun week. I hope everything is going well at home. Time is passing by so quick here. I dont like it. haha, its gotta happent hough. I hope everything is going well with reading and praying. Try especially hard to do it this week so that you can be prepared to listen to the prophet and apostles and receive personal revelation :). I love you lots. Elder Johnson