Vaquero

So how does a cowboy (vaquero) call to his little girl? ¡Hija! Those without spanish experience, ask for assistance. :)

So for the past six months I have been not a cowboy, but rather a chicken, hog, dog, and log boy. Country boy! And I have loved it to death here! The people here are totally different than any other area I've served in. And I am going to miss them a lot. That's right, I'm getting transferred next week probably to Raleigh where I will be the district leader. I do not know how I am going to get along in the city again! Traffic here is called log-trucks! 

Things have been going really well though here in Wallace. We have been proselyting a lot in the southern part of the area, but we are now realizing that with a decrease in the missionary force we might not have the Sister Missionaries here in Wallace for that long. So we are adjusting our game plan for the future. 

Yuni is doing really well. She seems to have opened up to us quite a bit more these past two weeks and is working really hard. She still has not been able to move out, nor has Elvis gotten his passport. We are working hard to keep her working faithfully forward.

Bill Buckley! Man I am going to miss him! But he continues to love us, listen to us, and work his hardest to understand us. If the computer will allow me, I will put up a great picture of him.

Elder Swinney and I have had a great week this week as we have brought a strong message of faith and of hope to the members we have visited. We have both learned a lot about those principles as we have served in this area. We have learned that without faith and hope we never learn to climb the mountain and to reach the top, but instead we continue to go through the tunnels without light, and only holding onto the hope of the light at the end of the tunnel. We grow with faith and hope. We get through the tunnels through time. 

I challenge y'all to not let time bring the light to you, but to climb the mountain and grow from the experiences that the Lord provides for you!

I love y'all a ton! And it is the most incredible feeling how that love grows each week, and even more after 20 months!

Love,

Élder Johnson

p.s. If I really do go to Raleigh, I will be soooooo happy. It is the dream land! A Spanish Ward!! I'll have to ask the Assistants for sure when we go on exchanges this Friday. :D

Bill Buckley

Soul Food :)

Bautismo!!!

The biggest miracle of all is coming to pass here in Wallace!!!!!!!!!!!! A couple who's investigated for 10 years is finally getting married March 28th!!!!!!!!! Happy Birthday me!!!!! Well I won't actually be there to be part of it, but it's still a huge huge deal!! They are faithful members already, just not baptized or married. Their daughter has already served a mission! So we are super duper excited for them! This is the Verdín Family.

Yuni as well is doing really well. She is pushing forward to let the Gospel change who she is. Right now she is running into the struggle of her boyfriend Elvis who is a less active member. Please pray that we can receive the guidance on how to continue forward with her to help her make it to the temple!

Bill Buckley is as old and crazy as ever. :) We have really reached a point where he knows what it is that we teach about the restoration and the plan of salvation, and is nervous to pray. He's afraid to find out that what he has learned all his life isn't right and that he'd have to change, now. We love him so much!

Brandon is working like a horse! We are doing our best to maintain contact and spiritually uplift him in a super difficult time of his life. It's all to get Sunday's off! We're praying hard for him!

One of the highlights of my week was being able to play a part in the answering of someone's prayers and fasting. This week we decided to do an extended exchange to accommodate for a meeting we would have. So I went to Hampstead on Monday night until Wednesday morning. I was with Elder Garn. On Monday night we went to Bishop Smith's family home evening. It was a blast! When we got there a spanish member was leaving their home, and Sister Smith found out I spoke Spanish. Well she had been asking all of her native friends for help on a college spanish class, and wasn't getting anywhere. Without any questions asked about dinner or fhe or anything, we were at their table doing homework for the next 20 minutes! :D Things she had been stressing over for the past week I was able to help her with that night, and to finish the homework she had.

What really made me smile though was that she told us later that she had been fasting and praying the day before for help to be able to get help with her class, and boom, there I was able to be! It was a great feeling!

I love you all a ton! I hope that y'all have a great week!

Love,

Élder Johnson

Yonder Place

This week we had some crazy long drives! And we can literally say that we went to Yonder Place and back! There is a store in a little place called Ivanhoe that is called Yonder Place, and we drove for about an hour there, and then an hour back! :D We drove around our area, and it took about two and a half hours. Holy Cow! But we had a really good time with our Branch President and we were able to get to know all the places we've never been before.

I also had CMLC this last week which went super well! But it included 7 hours of driving in the space of 24 hours. And then 6 hours of sitting in a meeting. Holy smokes. And I thought driving to six mile was too long!

Brandon is super duper busy. We still didn't get to meet with him. :( But we are praying hard and doing all we can to maintain connection and pull through it all.

Yuni came to church!!! :D It has been a while because of work, and she was able to make it this time! That was a big tender mercy for us. That put a huge smile on my face. :)

Well Elvis is supposed to be going to get his passport on the 9th, so pray for him. They've decided to marry rather than separate again. She's sooo close!

This week we had a really neat miracle. We completely lost track of an investigator. Alex. Well, he moved. We found out though by knocking on his door and someone else answering. As we talked to him for a second we realized that we knew someone in the background, and they saw us too!
We have been serving at probably the best thrift store/food bank ever. Kippie and Jayson, the main people there, were at the house! No way! They immediately brought us inside to meet the people! We didn't get to teach, but it was a huge trust building experience with both of them. Awesome!

BUT! it doesn't stop there. They told us that Alex had moved to another trailer park, but didn't know which one. So we went looking for his car! And lo and behold, we go and find it the first trailer that we knock on. And we had a great first lesson with the family about the book of mormon! Woop!

Life is wonderful. And miracles are all around us.

I love y'all a ton! Happy February!

Élder Johnson

Invitation Sunday

This was one of the most amazing weeks here in Wallace!!! This last week we had what we called Invitation Super Sunday. It was a mission-wide event where the meeting was geared towards inviting anyone to come see what our services are like, and what we're all about. The focus of everything was on Jesus Christ. The spirit was soooooo strong the whole time! And the feeling during Sacrament meeting was even more strong. So we normally use two trays of water for the sacrament, and we don't use it all. Well we used it all. And then we had to fill about 15 more cups after that! After the sacrament, what was supposed to be a trio ended up being a solo because Elder Swinney and Sister Sonksen were both sick. So I sang a solo. :) I sang Savior Redeemer of my Soul, by Rob Garner. I have never seen the song go before the talks, but it started out the meeting with such a stong spirit.

After church we had a linger longer! So all these people that came got to stay and visit as we ate tacos! I am so excited to keep going with this spirit of missionary work in the branch. Our numbers have been dropping slowly, and to go from about 30 people in attendance to about 70 was a huge difference!

Investigators!

Brandon needs your prayers! We have been doing our best to stay in contact and to send him supporting scriptures, but he has gotten really really busy recently. And he is still getting anti/conflicting material/scriptures from a family member.

He's busy because he is getting set up for a job that he doesn't have to work Sundays. So that is good. We are going to be meeting with him on Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. before district meeting. We're going to be shooting to move his baptismal date for february 21st!

Yuni needs your prayers!! She has decided to be baptized on February 14th! I don't know if she realizes that that is Valentine's day... but what better day to have separated from your boyfriend to get baptized??..... Ouch. But, that is what Yuni has come to the realization of. She needs to separate from Elvis until they can get married, and be baptized without delay. We are so proud of her decision to do so. Elvis doesn't understand as well as she the need for it, but she needs to be out of the house by february 1st do make the 14th like she wants. So pray that she finds the way to live elsewhere. We had a great lesson with her where we reviewed D&C 20:37 and the baptismal interview. It finally sunk in that she needs to be worthy and ready to make it all happen. And it finally started to sink into Elvis that he isn't living the commandments either, and that he needs to change. Especially since he's already been baptized.

Felicia! Wow what a lesson this week! It was going sooo well, and finished off dry of the Spirit. We boldly testified of Jesus Christ and of the Restoration of the Priesthood and of the Church of Jesus Christ. We boldly testified of Joseph Smith as a prophet, and the need to know that for yourself. Sadly there were too many people in the room for the questions they were asking. Any question they would ask us, someone else would answer as if from us. Everyone got confused, and ended off with a lack of understanding what we really believe.

It was a lesson that was needed though. One thing did come clear. That the Priesthood is only found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They didn't like that...

With the relationship that we've been able to build with them, we are hoping to keep inviting them to pray and know for themselves.

I love missionary work! The Spirit is the master at it! Without him, we're pretty weak with what we can do.

I love y'all a ton! Have a fantabulous week!

Elder Brian Johnson

Hey Y'all!

Hey! Life is good! Don't you love the rain? Especially in the winter, because it warms the air up so much, and then there's usually a gorgeous day after with a beautiful sun!

Well, that's how it was yesterday for us on a great holiday, which also means that we couldn't email yesterday very easily. So we are scurrying trying to do it before our zone conference this morning! :D

So, this may be brief. But I'm so glad that I can email y'all!

This week we have been trying to get down into Burgaw. It's 15 miles away, but there are so many people there. I've hardly ever proselyted it. But, we have already seen miracles as we have gone down there!

So there's this place called the Durham Village Apartments. They are super ghetto. Now Wallace is nice. Small town and there really is never any sort of problems in town. It's great! But we were going to go contact a referral and when we got out of the car immediately we were hit with the smell of weed. Boom! I haven't smelt that for a long time. Not really since Henderson! So all of the sudden we just really didn't feel very comfortable. In Henderson I got sooo used to being in the ghetto and talking to gangsters and scary people. But all of the sudden I was really scared again. It was soooo awkward because there were so many people outside in the cold. Well, we went and knocked on the door, and no one answered. So we knocked the next door. It was Felicia's sister!!!! No way!!! And she totally wants us to come back! Cast aside all fear, and the Lord will take you to who he needs you to see.

Everyone we are seeing is doing well. No huge progress though. Brandon however is doing great! We will be moving his date, but he's going solid! He may have even gotten a job to come on sundays already!

Well anyway, I love y'all a ton!!!!!!!!

Elder Johnson

#Fivetransfers!!!

Breaking news! Elder Swinney and I are both staying here in Wallace another transfer together! This means that we'll have spent over 1/4 of our missions together! Holy cow! But we have been talking a whole lot about it and how awesome this next transfer will be. We are both really trying to make a difference here in Wallace and we are both really trying to make a difference in ourselves. We are super excited! (We were definitely not expecting it though :D)

This week has been a fantastic week. We have been able to get out of the house and do a lot of work this week. We have been building up our investigator pool, and that has been making a huge difference. Yesterday we once again needed to find two investigators to meet our goals for the week, and we went where Elder Swinney thought would be a good place, and we found practically three! One isn't quite an investigator yet, but will be! Probably the nicest testigo de jehova (jehova witness) that we've ever met.

This week we had a really great lesson with Brandon. The best part about it all was that he went to church!! He went with his friend Rachel in Albertson (outside the mission) but he said that it was awesome! He is really ambitious and really wants to do this! He says he still hasn't received his answer, but he's working on it. Pray that he'll recognize the answers that the Lord has been giving him! Even still he's set on being baptized, so he knows the answer will come. Woot!

Yuni hasn't been able to come to church so much lately because of work, but she is still thinking of being baptized by the end of January! So pray pray pray that she and Elvis can work things out to get married this month!! 

We finally taught Felicia this week!!! She was sick though, so we did it over facebook and by phone! :D It was a lesson that we have been needing for a long time. We were finally able to really get across our purpose and the restoration. She wants to learn more specifically about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon before she'll pray to know if it's true. So we're trying to help her to learn what she needs to know. She believes the Book of Mormon is true because of the witness it is of Christ, but she still doesn't understand how involved it is with the fact that Joseph Smith was a prophet.

Bill Buckley!! We love him to death! We have been working hard this week to prepare a good lesson on the Plan of Salvation so that he could understand it, and so we could leave a good drawing of it to be able to contemplate it after discussing it. The lesson went super duper well!! We have invited him to pray about things before, but we've never had any luck really getting him to understand why, or what to pray for. But this settled in well enough that he said he'd think about it this week and possibly pray once he feels he understands. His desire to know has changed so much since I first met him. But just as promised, once we finished the lesson, we had to go eat icecream and talk. :) Can't complain pops :)

This week I learned one of the most important things yet on my mission. We live the gospel not because we love ourselves or because we love someone else. Rather we live the Gospel, we preach the Gospel, and we keep the commandments because we love God. "No more me. Just the Lord. I love Him."

This work is the Lord's work, and it is such a great blessing to be a part of it, not only these two years, but our whole lives. To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of all men.

I wrote a haiku yesterday. 

To serve a mission

The greatest reward ever

Never regret it 

I love y'all a ton! I miss you and hope that you have an amazing week filled with love for the Lord!

Élder Johnson

This is the district that I love like crazy! All minus Elder Cantwell in front... He's in Wilmington. But I love him too!

Me, Elder Swinney, Elder Boekweg, Elder Evans, Elder Stockton, Elder Garn, Hermana Cardenas, Hermana Sonksen, Sister Hanson, and Sister East.

Faringitis estreptocócica

Well this last week has been a blast! And it has blasted us with a lot too! So you know how Elder Swinney and I were both sick the last few weeks? Well we thought that we were better. Or at least I thought that I was better... But, alas. The little bugger arose once again. On Wednesday during district meeting things were going really well. It was a great meeting! But as we got to the last 20 minutes of the meeting I started to feel really week and getting feverish. I was leaning on the podium just holding myself up as I listened to the elders and sisters role-play. Well turns out that I got Strep Throat! What in the world! I'm the third one in the district! So I don't doubt that others will get it sadly.

But here's the part that I really wanted to share with you. The tender mercies of the Lord are soooo great. I was coming down with a fever and felt super bad. But I knew that there were things that Elder Garn and I (on exchanges) had to get done that day.

Before the Elders left from district meeting I asked for a blessing. I didn't really expect to feel better necessarily. Really I asked for the blessing because I knew that we were going to have to help the Coffey's move and I didn't want them to get sick. They had to be out that night at midnight, and we were about their only help being new years eve.

We got home and I went to sleep. I needed it. And right as I woke up the phone started to ring and buzz, and everything was canceling on us! Tender mercies! And I was able to keep resting before we went at 4:00 to help the Coffey's move. Well being New Years eve we aren't supposed to be out after dark. But nonetheless we were at the Coffey's until 9:15 helping them move. FIVE full hours of moving!! But we got it done! And even though sometimes I really couldn't lift the boxes, we still got it done. And I have made such a quick recovery since then.

I could go on and on with all of the Tender Mercies that I saw that night and the following days, but I'll spare you the unorganized list of thoughts that are spilling out of my brain. :)

So in short, I've been sick once again. And I still am not 100%. But the work has continued on. 

Last time we got sick, we mentally shut down. And I did not want to do that again! I have been praying and working hard to make sure that we kept getting the work done. And we have been blessed for it. Four new investigators and a baptismal date!!!!!!!! WOOT!! 

Brandon!!!! HE IS AMAZING!! We had a great lesson this week on the Plan of Salvation, and he got it so well! He gets it all so well. And then the best thing about it is that whenever we talk to him he asks us if there's anything we'd like him to read to prepare for the next time. Ah it feels good to be teaching him :) We set a baptismal date with him for the 31st of January. And he readily accepted. Though what we are working hard to do now is help him to come to church. Please pray for him to find the way to do so!

Elvis and Yuni have been having a hard time getting to church as well which is worrying us. It makes it hard to help them see the importance of all the things they need to be doing.

We are making headway with some great people! We've got an appointment with Felicia again! We're really excited!

If we are willing to work hard and be truly loyal to the Lord in all things then we will be granted so much confidence and success in the things that matter most!

I love yall so much! Have an absolutely fantastic 2015 focused on our Savior Jesus Christ!!!!

Élder Johnson