La vida!

Missionary work is la vida! It is sooo great! So for all yall that know me, I love to do service. So this is just about one of my favorite times of the year. We have been doing sooo much service! One day this week we had a service project lined up with a less active which fell through. We had an exchange with one of the priests and we had already gotten together to go to the project. So, we started thinking of who we could visit or who we could go serve. We scanned the branch roster and called some people. It was a blast! We went around town serving our branch! I cannot tell you how happy the two sisters that we served were to have us show up to offer our services. It was such a great feeling! We are planning on doing what we call Service Tracting this week. We're going to go out in our service clothes and knock doors offering service for any project that they are working on! The people here in Wallace are super religious, and there are about 20 churches in a 5 square mile area. I wouldn't doubt it if there are more! So they are all comfortable with where they are at for the most part. This is our brilliant plan to overcome it! Serve!

 

This week we were not able to teach many of our investigators. Things are going well, but slow. We are working to do better at meeting more often with them. Our miles make it difficult, but we make ends meet. :) We were able to go do service for Bill Buckley again this week, and set up an appointment to teach him the plan of salvation! We actually taught him a lesson! It was great! This 92 year old likes to talk, so we only talked about one principle, but I have so much more faith and hope that we can actually teach him and get him to actually want to learn about what we teach!

 

This week as a district leader I have been learning a lot! I am so grateful for the opportunities that I have to study, pray, meditate, and counsel with the Lord about our district. I would have to say that is what I have learned the most about. We can counsel so much more with the lord if we truly include him in our trials and circumstances. I had a great experience this week where there was a slightly disobedient thing happening that needed to be corrected, and I was praying about how to correct it. As I prayed I realized that I needed to study it out in my mind, using the examples that the Lord has given me (president Bernhisel) and come up with how I feel it should be done. I felt so guided about what to do, and the Spirit confirmed the action through prayer and reporting to the Lord on what I had decided. The Lord trusts us so much! Holy Cow! 

Doctrine and Covenants 11:12-14

 

"And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy;
And then shall ye know, or by this shall you know, all things whatsoever you desire of me, which are pertaining unto things of righteousness, in faith believing in me that you shall receive."

I love y'all a lot! Thank you so much for your prayers and support! You are a vital part of who I am! :)

Élder Johnson

Elder Pie (Foot)!

Well the new transfer has come and Elder Foote and I will be here in Wallace for another! It has been a great companionship and I super excited for this next transfer. 

This last week has been a great week. We've had some great opportunities to teach people and to work with the less actives here.

We had a great lesson with Stevie again, this time on the plan of salvation. Specifically the story of Adam and Eve. He's so much fun! He is really accepting the message and understanding it. We are getting ready to invite him to be baptized and to set a specific date with him. We haven't yet just to make sure he can actually comprehend what we are teaching him. 

We taught Bill Buckley again this week! Well more like we ate ice cream again with him haha. But we had somewhat of a breakthrough with him! We asked him about how much of our message does he actually know. He gave us about 30%. He loves asking us how we are doing and what's new, so we had to say that if you don't actually know what we are teaching everybody each day, then you don't actually understand what we do! So we asked if we could share the rest of what we teach, and he accepted! We hope to see some progress from it! Otherwise we will have to let him know finally that an occasional service project is alright, but we can't come by as often. He loves us so much though and considers us as his grandchildren! It's so hard to stop going by someone who loves you so much!

One of our eternigators that we have is Michael. We have been going by to support him through tough trials recently, but the past week and a half we could not find him or get in touch with him. Well as we were going to a dinner appointment, late..., we saw someone on the side of the road in the ditch getting out of the window of his truck. It was Michael!! He had driven a company truck of the road into the ditch and had finally found his way out! What a huge miracle it was that we were the first on the scene! And what a huge miracle it was that we came only a 30 seconds later! If we had not have paused to figure exactly how we were going to get to our next appointment, we would have been the victims of the accident. We were able to help him out to call his boss and they ended up calling the wrecker. Michael was a bit banged up, but okay. What a miracle!

Other than that not much happened :)

My thought for the day, that I have been sharing with people all week because I love it so much and it has changed my vision, is Jeremiah 1:5-8.

"Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child." 

It is so easy to feel that way when it comes to the work of the Lord. It is such a huge work! But the Lord calls us to do his work and tells us, 

"Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak."

"Say not, I am a child:" I love it! We are all children. No doubt about it. Compared to God, we have the understanding of a child. But the Lord still tells us, "Say not, I am a child." His view of us is so great! He sees us as we can become! If we see ourselves in that way, then we can help others to do the same thing. Realize their potential.

I love yall so much! Thank you for your prayers! :D Have a fantastic week!

Elder Johnson

Faith!

This week was a fantastic week! We got to go to the Temple!!!! :D It is such an amazing feeling to go to the temple with other missionaries. The covenants are such a vital part of our calling! We talk a lot about becoming consecrated missionaries and giving our all to the Lord in the missionary field, but it isn't simply the formula for success as a missionary. It is what we promised the Lord that we would do! There is no greater place to learn to do that and to pattern your thoughts and behavior according to the will of the Lord! Am I the perfectly consecrated missionary? I know that I have improvements. :) My motivation to become one grows stronger each week. The scripture that defines the pattern of being a consecrated missionary is one of my favorites.

"Nevertheless they did fast‍ and pray‍ oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying‍ and the sanctification‍ of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding‍ their hearts unto God." Helaman 3:35

I am so grateful that we have the chance each day to do this through prayer.

We were able to have a great lesson with Yuni about prayer. We have been trying to teach her through the scriptures about authority and then focusing on prayer and that prayer is the way that she can know for sure that Joseph Smith received the authority of the Priesthood. We had a great lesson planned out for it, and then didn't share but five minutes of it. We had just had a great lesson from our leaders about asking questions to discern peoples feelings and doubts so we began to focus on asking her questions. Man we drilled her! But it was such a spiritual experience where she was testifying to us and sharing personal experiences and we were doing the same! And then she told us that she has been praying about baptism again. :D She hasn't been praying about it for a while because she has gotten caught up in learning about the appendages to it. It made us so excited! We are praying for the guidance to know how to keep moving forward with her to be able to receive that answer and to know how to act on it. She needs to get married first and she knows that. But they just quite haven't had the motivation to do so without her decision to be baptized.

Our most promising investigator right now is Stevie. He is awesome! Stevie has some mental issues that affect his processing, but he loves meeting with us! We are helping him to understand the material and most importantly to feel the spirit. The latter isn't very hard. Stevie is so close to the spirit when we are teaching him! It is amazing at how easily he recognizes it and will describe it right to us. We had a great lesson on the Restoration this last week and were able to read with him in the Book of Mormon. His progression will be slower, and he needs to get sundays off of work, but we are so excited to keep working with him.

We found 3 new investigators this week! We met them last week and then followed up with them this week. Their names are Felisha, Dacquan (dayquan), and Raheim (raheem). Felisha is their mom, and is a Minister! The first time we met them was pretty intimidating! But we were able to boldly share our message and leave with them the invitation to read the Book of Mormon to increase their faith in Jesus Christ. She did it! And she loves it! They have said they aren't becoming Mormons though... But they have taken the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and to ask if it is a true book and if is the Word of God. They accepted! And Raheim who wouldn't accept a copy of the Book of Mormon the first visit said, "well, before I didn't want one, but yeah I'll take one now!"

Elder Foote and I discussed whether or not we were going to go back and try and share more since they had told us bluntly they weren't going to join. But we knew that if we had faith, we could share our message and bless their lives! We still have not been able to share with them the message of the Restoration, and that is what we have been called to share with them. We must press on in Faith! Invite them to come even closer to Jesus Christ! We are so excited to teach them now!

I know that this is the true Gosple of Jesus Christ in it's fullness! As we study and search for a witness that Jesus truly is the Christ, we will find it in the pages of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. And with faith in Christ, and hope in the promised blessings of his Atonement, and we do what He invites us to do, we can receive the greatest blessing of Eternal life!

I love yall so much! Have a marvelous week!

Elder Johnson

Marisol

Now that conference is over we are going to use it to teach people so much better! It's amazing how each Conference it applies perfectly to people we teach. We taught a great lesson on currents right after sunday second session, and it went great! It helped our investigator Yuni to understand what our purpose as missionaries is, and how the true and lasting source of the current that will bring her towards the Gospel is the spirit and the scriptures.

Lately we have been talking a lot about how to become more effective teachers through following the example of Christ in our teaching. That includes asking good questions that help people to apply what they learn to their own lives. It invites them to act on their own resolve. One of my favorites is the question that Christ asks to the apostles. "Will ye also go away?" Such a simple question! And when used by someone in our days I can imagine it being used quite manipulatively. But what the Lord did at that moment with his apostles was ask them where there conversion stood. Bold, and loving. 

We also have talked a lot about letting the spirit teach. Boy did conference let the Spirit teach! My favorite talks from conference were those who spoke in their native language. Especially in Spanish! There is a different feel to words being spoken in one's native tongue.

As far as the work is going here we have still not been working very consistently with any specific person. We did have a great lesson with Stevie, a former investigator, and he came to the priesthood session! We look forward to continue teaching him. We have some great potential here, we just need to unleash it and progress forward with it.

The best news from this week though is that Marisol got Baptized!!!!! And Jorge will be getting baptized this next week!!! I will send you pictures that Elder Rose sent me.

My time is out and I've got to run, so here are the pictures and I hope that yall have a fantastic week! :D I love yall!

Elder Johnson

And a couple more...