July 11, 2016
Everyone thinks that I am training next transfer so I will have to set up a temple trip with my Greenie. In Kalamazoo we are close enough to the Chicago Temple that we can go there, so I would love to go to that one! I will have to figure it all out. Transfer calls are this friday so I am excited to see what will happen around here! It's gonna be a pretty new District I think! I am pumped for it.
Well, once again this was a stellar week here in the MLM! Kalamazoo is apretty sweet area I must say. Just to start off, I want to once again bear my testimony of fasting! As I think I mentioned in my last email, Elder Quintana and I have been losing a lot of our investigators! For some reason, they just drop off the face of the Earth and we can't seem to get a hold of them anymore. And we were not finding many people that were interested for some reason despite our best finding efforts. So about a week and a half ago, we decided to go to The Lord in fasting and prayer to ask for a blessing of more investigators. The Lord does provide! This week we got more lessons and more solid potential investigators than any other week this transfer. The average for potentials is about 1 out of every 12 people that you talk to in this area, and this week we got 1 out of every 6. Blessings, blessings, blessings. The power fasting has is more than we realize sometimes, and it should not be taken for granted. If you go to the Lord with a purpose, tell Him what that purpose is, ask for help, and start a fast, He will provide! I absolutely know that He will, I have seen it time and time again on my mission. Heck we had an Elder break his foot last week, and we fasted and prayed for him, and his foot is no longer broken. I know the power in these acts is there, we just need to use them and be worthy of the help of heaven. It's sweet.
Along with those miracles, we had the baptism of our investigator Maria Lino. It was one of the sweetest things that I have ever seen. She has one of the strongest testimonies of anyone that I have ever met. There are only a select few that are as humble and faithful as she is. She has gone through a lot to get to this point, and now her goal is to take her mothers name to the Temple to be baptized for her. I wish that you could meet Maria, because she just makes your day. When she was baptized, the Spirit that was there was so strong, and as she bore her testimony to everyone there afterwards, I was touched by the Spirit. She absolutely loves the Gospel. The day after her baptism, I got the opportunity to confirm her a member of the Church and give her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. That was a really cool experience as well. You know how much I love giving blessings, because I talk about them all the time, and this was an especially sweet blessing knowing how great of a gift The Holy Ghost is to me. Man, I just love her!!!! I will put the picture of us at her baptism, and just a warning I look super awkward in it. But oh well, what's new right?;)
We also had a Zone Conference this week! Those are always super cool too. I got to see my dad Elder Tindall! It was good to see him after a while, and see how he is doing. He is currently with my MTC companion Elder Stephens so that was kind of funny to see! They are both great Elders too. Zone Conference was another testimony builder for me, because I had been praying about a few specific things that I want to improve as a missionary, but I wasn't sure how to improve them! It had been frustrating me because I felt like I had been trying super hard. Then at zone conference, the exact things that I had been praying for help with got discussed in depth. I know that as I apply these things that I learned from the Assistants and the Spirit, I will continue to become the missionary and the person That my Father in Heaven wants me to be! I love serving my mission. Sometimes I wish that time would slow down because before I know it It's going to be December again. That is not good!!! I have too much to do still!!!! I want to get one more Baptism before that time of year comes again, so pray for me! I need help to reach that goal,but it's something I feel like I can do with the help of Heavenly Father.
That's all I got for ya this week. It was a good one that's for sure! I hope that you have a great week as well!! My challenge to you this week is to prayerfully seek out one thing that you can work on to feel the Spirit more in your day to day life. Elder Bednar spoke at this last Conference about "Always Retaining a Remission of our Sins." That is something that I have thought a lot about since then, and the only way to retain that remission is to constantly have the cleansing of the Holy Ghost. I am so grateful for the guidance it gives me, for the way it makes me feel each and every day. What a blessing it is to us. Seek it out, do all that you can to feel it every day. That is how we know that what we are doing ispleasing to God. Will you do that? Good.
The Gospel is awesome. Who wouldn't want to be a part of it?
Love,
Elder Tyler Johnson
July 5, 2016
never can decide where to start when writing about my week. There is always so much that goes on, and I can never fit it all in. But anyhow, at the beginning of the week, Elder Quintana and I were getting pretty frustrated with the work here in Kalamazoo. We had to drop a lot of investigators this last week, and we just couldn't seem to be finding anyone who was willing to have us back and see what the Gospel has in store for them!!!! so on Thursday night we decided to begin a fast to find some new investigators. THE LORD DOES PROVIDE ANSWERS!!!! The days following that fast began to be filled with potential investigators, lessons out of the blue beginning to fill this coming week, and we became the answer to many peoples prayers last week. It was an awesome thing to be a part of. There really is so much power in faithful fasting and prayer. I am way excited to go back and meet with these individuals now.
Along with finally finding success in door knocking, I had the opportunity to conduct a baptismal interview with a young man named Bryan Bradshaw as well. Bryan is such an awesome guy, and the Spirit that came as he bore his testimony to me during the interview was so powerful. It was truly something that I was blessed to be a part of, and I pray that my District gets more baptisms soon so I get to do more of those! His Baptism was on Saturday and our investigator Maria came to see how it goes. After the service, we got to talk to Maria for a few minutes about her baptism this coming Saturday! We are in the process of making a program for hers, and man we are pumped for her. She honestly is like no other investigator that I have ever met. She is an awesome lady. I am sure there will pictures from it next week.
There was a little bit of a lack of lessons this week, so honestly there isn't much else that was super cool to report on. I am starting to get another one of my best friends here in Michigan though. He is an Elder in my District named Elder Banham. He and I got to go on exchanges this week, and we had such a great time. We stayed up a little too late talking about life and getting to know each other, and he is such a great guy. We got tight super fast. But yesterday for the Fourth Elder Banham Elder Fluckiger Elder Quintana and I drove down to South Haven with a few other missionaries. South Haven is so sweet. It is a little beach town right on the edge of Lake Michigan (which looks like a freaking ocean). We met up with a less active member there, and he brought us all to a park where we played football, rugby, cornhole, and he did a huge bbq for us all. It was so much fun. And seeing the Great Lakes made me love Michigan so much more hahahaha. On the way back from South Haven, I was driving and Elder Banham was riding shotgun with the other two in the back seat. Elder Banham was DJ-ing on my MP3 player, and he started playing "I'll make a Man out of You" from Mulan, and me and him JAMMED. It was super funny, and me and him bonded a little more over that. I think the other two think we are weirdos but I don't give a care it was one of my favorite memories so far.
But really that is my week! I know that fasting and prayer can bring about miracles. Those two things teach us to look past the temporal and rely on the Spiritual, which is what we should all be doing anyways right? I love the Gospel. I can't even explain how many blessings I have because of it, and I love sharing it with those who haven't seen the blessings yet. Happy 4th!
Love Elder Johnson
June 26,2016
This week had some pretty fun stuff I must say! It started off with one of the most Spiritual meetings that I have ever been able to be a part of. On Tuesday, there was a meeting called MLC (mission leadership conference) where all the Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders meet together in Lansing with President Jacobsen and get specialized training to help our areas become better missionaries. The Spirit there was amazing, and the topics that were discussed were truly what we all as leaders needed to hear. I have gained such a strong testimony of Mission Presidents being inspired in the last few weeks. It's pretty dang sweet. That meeting really helped me to help my District, and the blessings from what we talked about are already flowing in. Man it was cool.
After that Spiritual boost, I came back to Kalamazoo to go back to work. We had a service opportunity that we worked hand in hand with some younger guys, and while we were working one of them asked us a lot about what we do as missionaries and also told us about some other service activities that we can get involved in in the community. By the time we had to go, we exchanged information and invited him to learn more about our church. He said that he hasn't been to church in a long time and he was thinking about getting back into it a lot lately! So if all goes well, we will do some more service with him in the next few weeks and begin to teach him. The Lord provides ways to teach and find in many ways my friends!
Along with these meetings, and finding, and serving, and a few lessons with Maria and some other people, we had one day of literally 8 hours of knocking on doors. I must say that was the hardest day on my mission! Just keeping the motivation to do that all day was rough. It was super hot, nobody was having it, and it just seemed miserable at first! But some great things happened along the way. We met some very prepared people in the last hour of that day, so that was a great testimony to me about the importance of having diligence. Not giving up when we get tired, only stopping when the work is done. I also knocked into some Jehovah's Witnesses and was able to get their version of the bible! Now I have a bible with the Apocrypha and the New World Translation! Now I need to get a Torah and a Q'ran! At the end of this long day, I got some really great news though that also made me feel better. A companionship of Sisters in my District is having a Baptism this weekend, so as the District Leader, it is my responsibility to interview Bryan for his Baptism. I am so excited to do this. One of my favorite things to do with investigators is go over the interview questions with them and hear their testimony, so to be able to do it for the actual interview will be amazing I am sure. One of the blessings of this calling!
That is all that I can think of for this week. It was overall a really good week, and my testimony continued to grow throughout it. I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet inspired of God to Translate the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it will bring the Spirit into our lives if we just study it for whatever amount of time we can whether that is 2 hours that missionaries have set aside, or 5 minutes that you can squeeze into your lunch break, the peace and love that the Spirit brings will come if you study the Book of Mormon. Howard W. Hunter said that the Scriptural field is "White already to harvest." That is the truth. There is so much for us to learn and so much we need to know to become converted that is found in the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Don't take these blessings for granted.
Love Elder Tyler Johnson
June 20, 2016
So here is the skinny: Elder Quintana is a great guy. A little high strung and jumpy, but he is a good Elder. He know how to teach, he knows how to work, and he knows how to make me laugh. So I can work with him. He is from Washington, and he likes to solve Rubiks Cubes! In fact today we are going on a hunt for a 9x9 that he can get. That would be sweet.
That's about all I got on him, for myself, this was another good week. There was the usual tough spots of door after door being shut in our faces before we could even tell them the good news that we have, but That is part of life. 2 Nephi 2. All these trials help us see how good the good in life really is, so it's whatever. I was pretty dang stressed about being a District Leader too. I felt like I had no idea what to do in that calling, and I am the youngest Elder in this district besides Elder Quintana. So I felt very overwhelmed by that last week. Luckily, I survived my first District Meeting! I did a training on recognizing the Spirit more, and how we can use that to Discern investigators needs. It went much better than I thought it was going to (especially since you know how much I love talking in front of people) and I think that everyone learned at least one thing from it. That small success makes me way excited to do District Meeting this week about Developing Christlike Attributes. I'll let you know how that goes next time hahahaha.
After that Meeting, I had another cool teaching opportunity this week as a DL. Every Sunday, I do "Call Ins" where I call all the companionships in the District, gather their numbers for the week, and see what goals they want to work on for the coming week. Some of the Sisters in my District had a question about finding people to teach, but due to time and more call ins that I had to do, I couldn't answer it right then. Once I finished all the other calls, I called those sisters back and set up to meet them outside their apartment and we could do some practice finding and help them improve it. We drove over and just talked to the Sisters a little about why they were stressed and what they wanted to work on, and from there we practiced over and over again until they felt more confident in finding people to teach, and how to get them interested. Elder Quintana and I said bye, and went to do some home teaching. After home teaching, we went back to the apartment to have our dinner, and we got a phone call from these Sisters. They told us a pretty awesome miracle. So the whole reason they asked me about how to improve their finding, is because the were not getting any new investigators, nobody would accept or set up return appointments. But in this phone call, they told me that they had just gone finding and they had talked to only 7 people. Of those 7 people, 4 accepted to learn more of the Gospel and set up return times right then. That was so awesome to hear! I was so so so happy for them. It was a really cool teaching moment, and allowed all of us to grow, then thank Heavenly Father for the help that he gave us.
Now to a whole different subject, I haven't talked to much about Maria, but she is so awesome. She is one of our investigators here who is going to be baptized on July 9th. She has one of the strongest testimonies of anyone that I have ever met! She loves church, she has finally found the peace that she has always searched for in the Gospel. She even hands out copies of the Book of Mormon to her family and friends, and now some of them are reading from the BOM with her! None of them are super interested now, but the seed has been planted. This week we had a lesson with her about the 10 commandments. Usually that lesson is just kinda rote and a lesson that we have to do to check it off since everyone here knows the big 10, but this lesson was different. I don't remember what exactly we said or what we were even talking about, but as we bore testimony to her of God's love for us, and the importance of keeping the commandments, and she told us some of her experience with the commandments, The Spirit really touched us all. It was a really awesome lesson that I got to be a part of, and I am so thankful for each lesson that I have my tongue loosed and I get to teach the Gospel. It is like nothing else!
One last update before I wrap this up, we are also working with a Part Member family. In the Mazza family, the husband is a less active, and the wife is a super solid investigator. She is also going to be baptized here in July! But for this lesson, we could only meet with the husband, Tiffany was out of town for work (they both work for the National Guard). As we met with Derrin we set goals for him and his wife to do baptisms for the dead when she has been baptized, and he was pretty excited about that. He has never had the chance to do that before! Also, we invited him to prepare himself to baptize Tiffany. We felt like that was something that would really bring them together in this process. Usually Derrin is a super sarcastic, laid back, joking kinda guy, but as we brought up these serious goals, and invited him to repent and be ready for her baptism, he humbly accepted, and I believe that he will do it. He is a great guy and we are very excited for him and his wife! What a blessing for them to do this, and eventually be sealed.
I love the Gospel, being able to have this calling is amazing. The way that Heavenly Father can work through us to help those around us blows my mind every day. There are miracles all around us each and every day, no coincidences. Watch for them, pray for them, and give thanks for them. I can promise you that if you do that, You will be more happy in your day to day routines. You will find opportunities to share your testimony, and you will be blessed just for recognizing God's hand in your life. He is always there, He always loves you. God never loses sight of our eternal potential, even when we do.
Love,
Elder Johnson
P.S My camera is still busted so IDK what to do for that... and I love you :)
This email will probably be all over the place. I am still kinda overwhelmed being in a new area with a greenie comp and trying to lead a district. So here it is! I finally got out of Midland, and it is kinda weird to be honest. Kalamazoo is so much different than Midland. Definitely not as safe as Midland was lol. Kalamazoo is great though. It reminds me a lot of a mini Seattle! The downtown area here has a lot of cool old buildings, a ton of brewery's, a really nice library, a few gang shootings, and a grip of Range Rovers. What else can you ask for?! And the best part, every one in Kzoo has awesome sounds systems. So I hear a lot of people bumpin.
The District here is sweet too. We have 4 Elders and 4 Sisters, plus the Zone Leaders. I love all these missionaries too. There is going to be some sweet work getting done in the next few weeks just you wait and see. There are a lot of very prepared investigators and part member families that are becoming full member families here very soon. Like the beginning of July soon! One of the investigators that we are working with right now is named Maria. She has such a strong testimony already it is awesome. She already calls her self Mormon, and she asked us for some Spanish Book of Mormon's that she can hand out to her family! What a stud amirite? She is getting baptized here on June 25th! The other person that is getting baptized in July is Tiffany Mazza. Her husband is a member, and she has been investigating the church the last few weeks. She is pretty much just as solid as Maria is! Tiffany has some of the best scripture studies that I have ever seen! And her understanding of the scriptures blows my mind. It has been really cool to meet with her and watch her as the takes notes during lessons so she can study it all later!
Among these great, solid, prepared investigators, are a lot of crazy people. In the last week, just while door knocking I got threatened with a gun, and twice that I was going to have pitbulls sicked on me. It is ridiculous. I am just trying to make your life better people don't get your Panties in a bunch!!!!!!! Some people.
One last thing that happened this week that was really cool. I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders this week, and I went to WMU Campus with Elder Dunn. Serving on a campus is so sweet. Him and I taught 6 lessons that day. 6 LESSONS! That is hard to do! hhahahahah at least around here it is. And teaching students I can connect with them so so so well. It is awesome how well it goes with students! But yea.. Sorry this letter is so short but I don't even know what else to say! This week was a blurrrrrr! I am sure I will get a better letter in next week.
Never forget that the Church is true! The promptings of the Holy Ghost that we are entitled to as we live worthily truly keep us safe, and give us exactly what we need to say in the very moment that we need it. Study hard, Teach hard, Play hard.
Holy Smokes this was a killer week here in the Zoo. Just all around! We got a ton done this week, and as we worked hard, we were blessed. A lot. hahaha :) We taught the most lessons in this week than I ever have before, and still got the most finding time and service time as well. That alone was awesome just to work that hard, but the end of the week was what made it the best. So, a few weeks ago we set a date with our recent convert, Maria Lino, to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. the date that we set was September 17. So this week we spent a few hours with her in the family history center, and helped her prepare just a few names. She was so excited though to find those ancestors, it was awesome to see. I feel like a lot of us in the Church take that for granted. Especially when we think that our family history is already being done by random Aunt Sue. There is still so much for us to do, and the joy that we get from bringing those names to the temple and performing these ordinances for them is like nothing else. GET THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH! It is dope.
But anyways, I don't have a ton of time, cuz I have to do a survey from the AP's... but I wanted to share how amazing the temple was this weekend. Maria was so grateful that we could help her ancestors with that. The coolest part was Elder Graves and I got to baptize each other for her grandfathers. She told us that she felt them accept that ordinance, all accept one of her grandmas, but she still was so happy that she could give her grandma that opportunity! I have not felt the Spirit in such abundance in a long long time. The Temple really is the House of The Lord. I absolutely love it, and it is the reason that Heavenly Father's plan of salvation is possible. How crazy is that? GO TO THE TEMPLE MY FRIENDS!!
Love Elder Tyler Johnson
