June 4, 2016
Hello again! I know that this is so close to the last email, but to be honest, the best experience of my entire mission happened in these last few days. I will get to that in a minute. Before all that though, let me tell you the big news. I am being transferred to the one and only....... KALAMAZOO!!! woohoo!! I am really excited to go serve there. Everyone is super jealous, apparently that is one of the best areas in our whole mission to serve. It will be way fun. And I am greenie busting Elder Quintana so it will be even more of a blast! But wait; THERE'S MORE!!!!! In that area, I will also be serving as the District Leader. That stresses me out quite a lot! hahahaha I will be in charge of making sure 8 missionaries are working hard, learning, and baptizing in Kalamazoo. That is a lot of responsibility!!!!! Pray for Me!!!!! I will need those prayers, you know how much I just Love talking in front of people, and now I will need to do an hour and a half district meeting each week. oy. But like I said, I am still really excited. I won't be able to send my address until my next P Day so that will come!
The other scary thing about going to this new area is since Elder Quintana has been in Kalamazoo for 3 months now, I will probably only spend 1 transfer with him and then train in Kalamazoo when the big group in July comes out! So yea, pray for me hahahahahaha. So that is the biggest news of the week! Now for some other cool things:
This week (in the beginning) was a lot of service. We helped two families move over Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That was some of the most frustrating moves that I have ever had to help with. That's how I can learn patience though right? One guy is moving here soon, so we moved all his stuff next door to his daughters house who is also getting ready to move... So if any body can find the logic in that move please, feel free to let me know where it is! Luckily I had one of the best stress relievers of my whole life this week too! I will send a picture of it, but at Brother Millwards house, I got to hold 7 baby bunnies at once. Heck yes.
Along with that tender mercy of stress relief, Heavenly Father was watching out for us a lot this week! We had tender mercies every single day. One of them was on Tuesday. We were out and about knocking on doors, and it had been a really long day. We had knocked all day, had no car, and were about 45 minutes from our apartment. We had just finished the street that we had been knocking, and we were about to make the long walk home. All of a sudden, this car rolls up and yells at us saying, "Elders! Have you had dinner yet?" We told him that we had not, so he told us to jump in. Without hesitating, we got in. We found out that he was a member that was from Ohio named Chris that was just here for a class reunion! He took us out to dinner at the best chicken place that I have ever had, and in the course of the meal we found out that he was friends with Carol and Jessie! He was actually on the way to go see them before he picked us up! That was pretty cool I thought. We thanked him when he dropped us off, and he went and saw Carol. Pretty neat how that all worked out.
My favorite tender mercy that happened this week was just last night. This was the best experience (of finding someone who was prepared) on my mission. Elder Harris and I were out walking down the street that Chris had picked us up on to get to where we were going to knock that day. On the way though, we saw this lady out mowing her lawn. We stopped her and asked if we could mow it for her! She accepted, which that in and of itself is very rare! Elder Harris grabbed the lawn mower from her and began to cut the grass. While he was mowing, I got to start talking to Barb, I just introduced ourselves and told her what we do, and then we just started talking about life. Where she is from, what she does, all those good things. She and I meandered over to the front porch and sat down together to continue talking while Elder Harris finished mowing. As the conversation went on, somehow her church came up. She made it very clear that she went to the Methodist church, but that she was not a member there. That was kind of interesting to me. I personally don't know much about the Methodist church, so I asked her what most of the sermons were like. She said, "well, I can tell you what I don't like!" That answer took me a little off guard! hahahahah but I said all right, and she began to explain to me that she was confused how they could teach that God is a loving God, but anyone that hears of and believes in Christ can be saved, but those who never have the opportunity to hear the message are condemned to Hell. She didn't see how He could be loving yet some people get screwed over without ever having the option to hear it. I had a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with me, so I was able to share with her what the Spirit World was, what role it played in that situation, and how because God loves us, He has given us this Plan of Happiness that allows everyone to hear the message of our Savior. She loved that! I wasn't planning on trying to teach her a lot more, but after we had finished discussing that, we just sat there in a moment of silence, then she said something that nobody has ever asked me before. She said, "so... what else do you have for me?" That was an amazing moment for me. I didn't know where to start, so I told her "Well, that depends on what you want to know!" Then came her amazing response (yes it was all amazing), She asked "do you believe that the Bible is the only word of God?" I promptly told her that we did not believe that. Once again, her response blew my mind, she said, "Good, because I don't either. There has to be more!" That was when I pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon, showed her it, then taught her the entire Restoration lesson, all while Elder Harris finished mowing the lawn. Barb loved this message, and I could see her questions being answered. That was the best I have ever been able to teach the Restoration to anyone! The Spirit was definitely helping me through it. Right as the lesson ended, Elder Harris finished the lawn, and she asked me one more question. "Do you have anything that you can leave with me to read?" Well as a matter of fact we do 
We left her a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. And we got her phone number so Elder Harris and Elder Boyak can go back and teach her more next week. It was cool to have someone ask me to learn more about what we share instead of me having to ask them! I took a picture with her too so I will attach that too lol. And a picture I took with Carol and Jessie!
I Think that is all I got this week! And I need to go email President Jacobsen to figure out what the heck I need to be a District Leader! Have a great week! :)
Oh and here is a random picture from when I let Elder Blazzard make a lizard bite my ear! hahahahahahahah
Love,
Elder Johnson
May 30, 2016
What a long week this one was!! But, there were still many great (or at least cool/funny) experiences. I don't even know where to start. What I want to start off with, is a personal realization of a promise given to us by Elder Richard G. Scott. A while ago, he gave a talk called The Power of Scripture. I don't remember talks very well, but this one I remember. One thing that has always stuck with me from his talk was this, he said "Great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change." At first I didn't think much of it, but in this past week, so many scriptures have come to my mind as I have questioned something, or felt down, or just as I have been talking to someone about the Gospel. Having these verses come to mind has been a tender mercy for me. I never realized how wonderful these could be to me! But with the help of the Holy Ghost, all these verses are brought to my remembrance in the very moment that I needed them. It was very comforting, and it is always great to see the promises of a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ come to pass!
Most of the time, these verses come while we are out and about door knocking. Because that is always the hardest part of the day. Especially with 70% humidity and it being 84-92 degrees. It has been crazy hot. Anyways! back to door knocking. We went up one night to door knock this super rich part of town that was on the way home from our lesson with Jefferson (who is still beasting out by the way, he is starting to save up to go on a mission next year). We had just started knocking when we came to a house with a suuuuuuper long drive way. We walked clear back there, and as we came to the side of the house and saw the back yard our jaws about hit the pavement. These people had my dream back yard. They had a freakin LAKE in their backyard. Just a massive pond, and not only that, but in the middle of this pond you know what they had? They had a diving platform and a rope swing. How much more perfect of a house can you have than that? I would just live in a boat on the lake! Sadly, the people at this house weren't interested in hearing a message about a prophet on the earth today, but they did let us build their kids a swingset! hahahah while we were putting it all together for them, their 5 year old son came and talked with us and helped us, and we taught him I am a Child of God while we worked. It was pretty fun. Except right before we left he punched me in the face... Guess I shouldn't try to teach 5 year olds how to box... lol
Church on Sunday was very good though, a little bit of a different Sacrament meeting, but the rest was awesome. In Sacrament, we had a member of the Bishopric give his entire life story... He taught literally 0 doctrine until the very end.. Then he shared one verse and a short testimony of the verse... After a 50 minute talk.. But that's okay! Sunday School was better. The focus in Gospel Principles class was on missionary work! And we had 6 missionaries total in there that day. All of us got to share our testimony and why we were serving a mission to those in the class, and I love doing that. Then for the Third hour, we had a combined lesson on Family councils. It was awesome to be a part of, and I honestly learned a lot that I wrote in my "Notebook of Goals" that I will apply to my own family one day! My favorite part of Church however, was after my ward had finished their block. My friend Elder Blazzard serves in the other ward, and he was speaking today! So we snuck into their sacrament and got to hear his talk. It was honestly one of the best talks that I have heard since I have been here! It was all about service, and what that is, how to do it, and what comes about from service. I will have to get a copy of it and attach it to this. It was awesome. And I just love that guy.
Speaking of Elder Blazzard, we had a lot more blessings given within the District this week! on Wednesday, all of us had a pretty garbage day! I was fed up with knocking, pretty mad, and had just bashed with a grip of Ganders. So on the way home from knocking, I called him and Elder Tapusoa up and asked them to meet us at our apartment to give me a blessing of comfort and counsel. It was (again) such a perfect experience. The blessings that Elder Blazzard pronounced upon me had to have been directly from our Heavenly Father. He told me things that I had never told anyone, that I needed to know about and recognize right at that time. It blew my mind and truly strengthened that bond that I have with him even more! Following my blessing, I got to give Elder Harris a blessing which was also awesome, as well as Elder Tapusoa! I have never given two blessings in a row, but dang I would not mind being asked to do it again! I truly love my brothers here. Sadly I will most likely be leaving them next Monday! We get those transfer calls this Friday! AHHHH! So if you haven't sent mail at this point, don't send it until I get my new address. :) We have a weird new policy that on the 6th week of each transfer, we will have a P-Day on Monday and Saturday! So I will be sending a brief report of what I have been able to do in the next 5 days on Saturday, then not again until the 5th of June... So that sucks... but oh well! It will only be every 6 weeks!
Never forget these simple things: YOU are a Child of God, The Gospel is True, and I know that without a shadow of I doubt. I love being in Michigan!
Love,
Elder Tyler Scott Johnson :)
May 23, 2016
This may be a short report, but there was a lot of good that happened this week. I may as well start with the most exciting news of the week! Yesterday was Stake conference (and there was tons of cool stuff that happened there, that once again, I will get to later) and Carol came. She had an interview with Bishop Savage right after the meeting got done. Following the meeting, I was outside just talking to the other missionaries, President Jacobsen, and some other members. Then I saw Carol walking out to her car! I got really excited to go see what the result of the meeting was, because that was the meeting that would determine baptismal dates!!!!!! I ran over to her, and asked her how it went!! She went on to tell me how all things were in place that needed to be, and that she and Jessie could be baptized on June 11. I was sooooooo happy to hear that!!! Carol is ecstatic to be baptized again, and I am happy that she took the steps necessary to do so! So June 11, there will be another baptism here in the Midland Area! Of course that will be like right after I leave!!! Hopefully I can get permission to come back for that day!
Also at Stake Conference, We had a very special speaker. Elder Joseph W. Sitati! He came and spoke to us in the Saturday adult session, and in the Sunday general session. He is a convert of about 30 years, but his testimony and his conviction are powerful. He gave some great talks calling the members here in the Midland Stake to "arms." He focused on how they need to get involved to help convert baptisms return to the level that they have been in years past. Members truly are critical to getting baptisms! Missionaries cannot do it by themselves! We have such limited time and resources that the members can provide these investigators, resulting in more spiritual experiences and a deeper personal conversion for all that are involved in this process.
Along with these amazing experiences at conference, we had some amazing experiences within my companionship, and as Elders in my District. These experiences were (once again) in the form of giving Priesthood blessings. Oh my goodness I have not found many things better in this world than being able to exercise Priesthood Power for my brothers and sisters here. The first blessing that we gave this week was on Friday. Myself and Elder Blazzard were on exchanges when we got a call about a member who suffered a heart attack this week and was in the hospital. We drove up there with Brother Jones to visit this member and gave him a blessing of healing before we left. I did the anointing, and Brother Jones sealed the anointing. The blessings that The Lord had in store for Brother Sovia were some of the most beautiful promises I have ever heard given to anyone. It was humbling to be a part of. The other two blessings that I was able to be a part of were just last night! Sunday evening, we got a text from our friend Jefferson Glenn asking us to come over and give his dad another blessing before Chemo starts back up tomorrow. Upon our arrival, Gary Glenn asked me to give the blessing this time. I got nervous as I always seem to right before giving a blessing, but as I began the Spirit came, and I felt at peace, directed, and inspired as I gave this blessing. It was another testimony builder for me. The last blessing that I got to give this week was to my best friend on the mission, Elder Blazzard. He had called us right before we gave Gary the blessing and asked if we could give him one as well. He just needed some comfort and counsel from the Lord. When we got there, he asked if he could talk to just me for a minute. Of course I said yes, and we went into the back room. He asked me at that time to give the blessing, and only say what I felt prompted to say. Don't add any of my own thoughts or words, make sure that everything I say is straight from the Lord. That is kind of a lot of pressure!!! hahahahahah. I said I could do that though, and we went back to the living room to give the blessing. Elder Harris joined me for the blessing, and I know without a doubt that what was given to me during that blessing was inspiration. Elder Blazzard had not told me what he needed help with or what was bothering him, but as I acted under the authority of the Priesthood, I know that all his needs and concerns were addressed. When the blessing ended, The Spirit was there. All of us felt it. Elder Blazzard stood and with tears in his eyes gave me a huge hug, and did that for everyone else as well. I asked if I could talk to him privately again, and we talked about what I had said and how inspired it really was. I told Elder Blazzard how much I love him, and he told me the same, and we truly became best friends in those moments. I absolutely love that man. He is going to do great things here and when he returns home!
This week was filled with some of my favorite memories to this day, that final blessing is definitely one I will never forget. The Lord knows us all, and has great things in store for each of us. All that he asks in return is that we follow the example of His Son Jesus Christ. How simple is that? I love the Gospel. I know that it is true, and that it can change lives!!!!! Being able to be a representative of Jesus Christ is amazing. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I hope all is well back in the motherland. :)
Love Elder Johnson!
we painted the shed, worked out, and then met a guy with 400 feet of braided grocery bags, and that is my ghetto bench set up! hahahahah
May 16, 2016
Oh man this was a crazy week! Not a lot going on, just some crazy weird and funny things that happened. Early on in the week, we were knocking this long street, and nobody was answering! But as we were going, we saw this old lady across the street that was doing some work in her garage. We went over and began to talk to her and offered to help clean her garage or whatever else she might need, and we ended up setting up a whole garage sale with her. She is a funny little old lady named Josie and her husband Jorge. They are most definitely Ganders. But Jorge has a SICK old Jaguar that he bought. I think he said it is a 1950 something. I took some pictures in it so I will have to add those at the end of this email :) While helping them, we even set up a time to paint their shed for them, help during the garage sale, and do some yard work for them. Being able to provide these small acts of service has made a huge impact on them about our church! And now she tells everyone she sees (at least when we are around) how awesome we are. It cracks me up. When we go over to paint the shed we are going to bring a speaker over and listen to some conference talks... See if we can slip a lesson on prophets in there or something And the best part about all this, is Jorge makes the best salsa I have ever had. And he always gives me some when we go over!!!! It will burn your mouth all day, but dang it is bomb. I think he is making us a Mexican Feast while we paint the shed too. I can't wait for that!!
When we left from that service, we had a "less active" member that we were going to visit. We had gone through the Ward directory and marked everyone that we knew and didn't know so we could go visit those that were less active. It was really awkward when we showed up at this members home and realized that he was active... But we still got to know him a little better while we were there. He showed us some of his wood working projects that he does, and he is amazing. It blew my mind that anyone could do what he does from a solid block of wood. I got some pictures of a nativity scene that he carved that I will have to send too. It will blow your mind!
A few days later, we went back to help Josie and Jorge with a few little projects and then finished knocking their street. We were not looking forward to knocking that day, but it ended up being awesome. We knocked for 7 straight hours that day. But in the midst of the long day, some funny stuff happened. Before anything funny though, on the 3rd door that we knocked, something rare and precious happened. A lady named Lisa invited us in to teach her about the Restoration right off the door step! So we came in and taught her most of it, but didn't have time to finish it all. We were able to set up a return appointment! We were really happy about that. As we went down the street door to door, there was a guy that had a box on the edge of his porch with a sign that read "Shhhhhh.... Baby birds are sleeping in the nest on the door." So we walked up to his door, and saw the nest with 4 little eggs in it, and knocked softly on the door. He came and slowly opened the door, and in whispers I began to talk to him. I didn't realize that by "Shhhhhhhh" he meant "don't come to my dang door!" He was not very happy with us at that point! hahahahahah so he chewed us out, still in whispers. It was just a funny little thing that happened while knocking.
Along with those few little things this week, we had some lessons with Bob again! That guy is so amazing to me. He has such a strong testimony!!! On Tuesday when we saw him, we taught him the Law of Chastity which was pretty funny. But at the end, I felt like I should go over the Baptismal Interview questions with him. I have been a part of a mock interview only one other time, and this time I got to perform the interview. It was a very Spiritual moment for me when he would answer the questions that I posed, then bear his testimony to me. I know that Bob has been prepared for this Gospel. He wants to be baptized, and then he is going to the Temple to be baptized for his son that passed away a year ago. Bob is so excited to give these blessings to his son. But, Bob was on date to be baptized on May 28, sadly we had to move the date to June 25 because of his work schedule. He will be gone for the next 3 weeks! Hopefully I stay in Midland one more transfer so I can be here for his baptism! I absolutely love Bob!
But that is the gist of the week here in Michigan. We only got rained on like twice this week, so now my shoes are mostly dry. The weather is like Winter again, but I still love this place. There are crazy people, rude people, and a whole lot of Ganders, but in the end there are people here that need me and what I have to share with them. I know that is true. The Gospel can help anyone and Everyone if they take the time to learn about it, pray about it, then live it. There are blessings inseparably connected to living Christ's principles, and all the principles are only found in this church! Therefor, we have the most blessings available to us!!! So let's get out and share it with everyone!!!!! I love the Gospel. I know it changes lives. I know it is true.
Love
Elder Tyler Johnson
May 9, 2016
I don't know what to say in this email! I feel like we just talked! ;) hmmmm... from this week there were a few things that I didn't talk about in the call yesterday. So instead this week I am going to keep it short and simple. This week I found the importance of preparing for Sacrament meeting. It isn't just something that we should go into just to do for the week. To prepare for this Sacred meeting, we should come with a repentant heart, a question in mind, and happiness in our soul. I found that if we do that, we can receive personal revelation in that meeting just as if we were in the temple. We will have thoughts come to us, scripture mean more, and most of all we will be sanctified by The Holy Ghost. Being sanctified is critical to retaining a remission of our sins as Elder Bednar taught this last conference. The things he taught should be something that we all strive to do! As we retain a remission of our sins, we will be able to confidently kneel in prayer before our Heavenly Father to ask for personal blessings (or blessings for others). We will have a sense of deeper peace than we can gain through any other means. And we will be able to teach those that we meet with power and authority because we have the Spirit and are worthy of its guidance. I know that is true! I know that the feelings of The Spirit are what everyone in the world wants, they just don't know it yet. I love the Peace that it brings to my soul. I love seeing the peace that it brings to investigators lives as well. It is an awe inspiring process. I know that Heavenly Father truly knows each of us personally! I know that He wants us to be happy, and has given us a plan to be happy. It's only simple things that He requires of us and we receive and infinite increase as we cheerfully obey!! Man I love the Gospel. I miss you, and I love you. Keep strengthening your testimony, keep preparing, and keep smiling! Life is Good :)
Love Elder Johnson
May 2, 2016
my friend, Kiki is a beast! She came to church this Sunday and she loved it. She is definitely coming back she said, and now we are helping her get her husband involved. Their family is so great, and I can see how adding the blessings of the Gospel would just make them even greater. It's crazy how Heavenly Father can give us glimpses of our Brother and Sisters potential as we serve them and help them have Spiritual experiences. I can't even explain it.
Besides teaching Kiki, and teaching Bob (which was awesome as usual) , we just had a lot of door knocking this week. I finally have practiced, studied, prayed, and applied enough things, that door knocking isn't scary anymore. hahaha only took 5 freaking months. I rely more on the Spirit on doorsteps, or when talking to someone on the street now, and it has made finding so much better. More enjoyable, greater success, and I never don't know what to say anymore. I am so grateful for that. I never thought I would be able to talk to someone and actually know what to say, but it happens!
Just to close, I want to bear testimony again of the Power of the Priesthood, especially in giving blessings of any sort. This week was really hard on my friend Elder Blazzard. He has been having a rough time lately, and he asked us for a blessing. Elder Harris gave the blessing, but I got to participate as well. The Spirit was so strong as we blessed him with the things that Heavenly Father had in store for him. After the blessing, Elder Tapusoa asked if we could just talk with him, and give him counsel on some things that he had been struggling with as well. None of us knew what he wanted to talk about, but I wanted to be able to help him so much. I snuck off into a different room, knelt down, and asked for the Spirit to help me help Elder Tapusoa, and continue to help Elder Blazzard. The feeling of love and reassurance that I felt during that prayer was overwhelming. I knew that I would be able to help both of them, and as the night went on, I know that what I was able to counsel them both to do came from the Spirit. We all grew in strength, testimony, and brotherhood. I know that without the guidance of the Spirit and Priesthood Authority, we are nothing. NOTHING. Having that direction and constant help in our lives is wonderful. That is what I am here to share with people. I know I need it, and I know that they need it, so I am here to help them find it. I love being able to serve for two years with all my heart, might, mind and strength.
Sorry that I don't have more to share... but!
Always remember: The Church is True!!!!!! I know it is. Shout it from the mountain tops :)
Elder Tyler Johnson
Also, I love my new companion. We are working so much harder than I ever thought about working. I love how hard we are working, and it isn't going to stop for 19 months. And more. I love getting home at night with just enough strength left to plan, write in my journal, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed. It is awesome.
April 25, 2016
Time is flying! Oh man I have quite a bit to report on this week!!! First things first. TRANSFERS BOI!!!!! I am so happy to report: That I am still here in Midland!!!!! WOOHOO! Got to finish some work here before they get rid of me. Elder TIndall is GONZO. He got moved over to the Grand Rapid's Zone, and I got a sick new comp. His name is Elder Harris from none other than the infamous Preston ID!!! That's what I am talking about! I am so excited for this transfer. We are gonna DO WORK! Oh man I can't even explain how pumped I am for this. We are gonna tear this place up with the Spirit.
Other than that, the local district is pretty much the same. It's going to be goooooood. Earlier in the week, we had a pretty cool experience with one of our investigators. Her name is Kiki and we have been working with her for a little while now. She is from China, so the whole concept of Jesus Christ is a foreign one. However, as we have met with her, the truth of the Gospel is being manifest to her through the Spirit. Each time we meet with her, she will say the prayer, and each time she thanks Heavenly Father for sending us to "bring her more happiness and peace in [her] life." It is amazing to be a piece in her journey down this path. We are a little apprehensive about a few things though because her husband is very staunch Chinese Athiest... So I hope that she doesn't get swayed because he says something to her. She is great. We brought a member to the last lesson with her, and it couldn't have gone better. He does a lot of business with China for his job so he could relate to her so much better than we could. He helped her understand a lot about the Gospel and our purpose in life. She loved it. She committed to come to church on Sunday, but sadly she didn't show up. But! She did something that has never before happened to me. She called us just a couple hours aho, APOLOGIZED for not coming to church, then set up another appointment for this week, and said she will bring her whole family to church next Sunday. How awesome is that?! She is great :)
I had another awesome blessing this week as well. We have been working with a guy named Bob the last few weeks as well, and he is just as amazing as Kiki. He is on date to be baptized in the end of May, and I have no doubt that he will. He loves the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. It is sick. He has a lot of chronic pain in his hip, so last week we gave him a blessing to help him stop smoking, and to feel better. This week when we had a lesson with him, he stopped us mid-lesson and said "can I tell you something? Last week when you gave me that blessing, at least half of the pain in my hip left me." That was super random in the lesson, and super Spiritual. I have had so many testimony builders from blessings in the last few weeks it is insane. Priesthood Power is amazing. Life is good.
We had Bob at church as well as Carol and Jessie! It has been a while since Jessie has been to church because of her schedule living with split parents, so it was really good to see her there. Carol met with the Bishop to get her re-baptism process rolling, and it sounds like that will be able to happen this transfer or beginning of next!! So her and Jessie are doing great again, and we have really grown to love them (and their rats) too. Carol has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever felt. It is crazy. So I am really happy that she and Jessie are going into this together and are just so awesome. All my investigators are awesome. Mostly.
Anyways, that is all I have to report on this week! I left my notes at home so I probably forgot a ton of stuff, but that's all good. I will send home transfer numbers next week :) Have a good week!!!! Build your testimony, serve, and grow. The Church is true!!!!! :)
Love Elder Johnson
April 18, 2016
Have you ever seen a "missionary tan line?" They are super funny, and I am rocking a dang good one. All of a sudden the weather here is sunny, humid, and 75+ It's been super nice. But I am terribad at wearing sunscreen so I looked like a lobster for a few days. Those darn Canadian genes I have were showing ;) Sunburns are the least of my worries though. We have been finding huge spiders all over the apartment all of a sudden, and mosquitoes are all over the place. Ayuadame. Luckily, we had zone conference this week to get me out of the heat an bugs for a while. This zone conference was so awesome. At the beginning, one of the AP's promised that all of the questions we had, would be answered during this conference. He told the truth. I had questions about how to have more faith while finding and how to make it more effective. Door knocking feels like a waste of time after a while. As we went through the conference, They actually talked about that question specifically. It was exactly what I needed, and since then my door knocking experience has completely changed. It is so much more fun now, and I am way happier while doing it. The Lord is aware of all of us and knows what we need!! That I know to be true.
Another thing that our district has been working on is having more charity to everyone. So Elder Tindall and I had a pretty cool experience a few days after Zone Conference involving door knocking and Charity. I will just summarize it real quick. We had reached the point in the day where door knocking was a drag, and going no where. we had been out for hours, and I was ready to go take a shower and go to bed. We had one more house to knock on, so we went over and did it. This older man answered and he was not having it. He instantly started arguing with us and trying to bash with us (which is fun, but super pointless). I was not in the mood for that and I wanted to slap the guy. Not much charity in that! So I started praying sooooooo hard in my heart for charity and to just have a decent conversation with him. After I started doing that, I felt a wave of charity come over me. I was happy all of a sudden, and we were able to steer the conversation away from the topic (which was getting contentious) and just talked to him about chocolate muffins, basketball, and his family. At this point we found out that he was the Senior Pastor of some Baptist congregation in town. Good thing I didn't slap him!! The cool part about this, was as we were walking away, Elder TIndall asked me if I felt that wave of the Spirit come over us. It was awesome that we felt it at the same time and we knew it was an answer to my prayer. Pretty neat.
Our investigator Carol had a meeting with the Bishop this week so we can get things moving for her Baptism and her daughter's. That was really exciting to me! That should be happening in the coming months. No exact date yet, but it is in the works. Our other investigator Bob also is on track to be baptized at the end of May. We have only met with him 3 times, but this week he came to the Addiction recovery program with us, and we were able to give him a blessing!!! HECK YEA! He has a very good friend that is a member, so that friend gave the blessing, but I was able to anoint. It once again, strengthened my testimony of the Priesthood. There is only one other feeling like giving a blessing, and that is found in the Holy Temple. I can't describe it, but I love it.
I am running out of time so to finish up, I want to just bear testimony again. I know that this Gospel is true. Through the Ordinances found in it, and made possible through the Priesthood, we can access so many more blessings than anything else. The Atonement is real!!! It's power can forgive us, cleanse us, and change everyone's life if they allow it to. I know it is true and was for me and you. I love the gospel!!!! Have a great week :)
Love
Elder Johnson
We went to Brother Coleman's house and he showed us how to use some deadly warrior type weapons!! Super fun!
April 11, 2016
I don't even know what happened this week to be honest. It was crazy how fast this week went! It started off with the usual days of knocking, but on Tuesday hardly anybody was answering!!! That was really rough. made for a long few hours. Luckily, we got a call to go with a member to teach a less active lady, so we had a short lesson in between to break up the monotony. Tuesday night, we had a dinner with the Cannady family. As missionaries, it is our purpose to help others come closer to Christ at every opportunity; that means we share short messages after each dinner appointment. I had the honor of leaving the thought with them on this particular night and decided to talk about General Conference with them. As we discussed our favorite talks, and what stuck out to us etc. I was able to bear testimony of prophets and their divine calling. I didn't expect the overwhelming feelings of The Spirit that came to me as I did this. I focused my testimony on what Elder Holland said about the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve loving us so much, and as I shared that testimony I knew that it was true. Without a shadow of a doubt they love us and are here to help lead us to our heavenly home through direct revelation from God. They are true, living breathing PROPHETS. How lucky are we to have them. I hope that even though these are just words on a screen, that you can feel the Spirit of my testimony come with those words.
Later this week, I got to go serve on CMU campus again with one of the Zone Leaders! Being on campus is so weird compared to anything else. Makes me feel like I am back in the Burg! We taught a couple of lessons that day, and I can safely say they were two of the weirdest lessons I have ever been a part of. Just because the investigators were either 1) Super Awkward or 2) 99% sure that he was a Satanist. It was super sketch, but a good ol' time that's for sure.
OH! I got pulled over this week while driving too :) hahahahahah that was stressful. So we get up at 5:30 every morning to go play basketball with some of the young men before their early morning Seminary each day. We had just gotten a new car that I had not driven yet, so on the way to the church we were driving in a pretty well lit area, and I figured that the headlights were automatic like our other car. That was not the case. All of a sudden, I saw red and blue lights in my mirror and had way too many flashbacks :'D He just checked our insurance and registration then made sure my headlights and taillights worked before letting us go on our way. Now I always double check before leaving!
Saturday night, we got to go watch the "youth roadshow" They put on a few short plays that teach morals and Gospel related topics. It was super funny! We had a good time helping set up for that and take down. I will send some pictures of it in a minute.
To end the week, there was more drama with Jeremy and Danyelle. I'm not even going to go there. It is really frustrating sometimes, but CHARITY is the word of the... lifetime... So we may or may not keep working with them. We are going to have a DTR in the next day or so. Luckily, my week ended on a better note than that! Our recent convert Jefferson Glenn invited all of the Elders in our district over to his house last night for dinner. We made eggs and pancakes with him, played chess, I played the piano, and before we left we gave both of his parents a blessing. His dad is not a member, but asked for a blessing because he is starting Chemo today. I don't know his dad very well, I just know that he grew up in Boise and has some sort of connections with Poky. Since he didn't know any of us, but had a slight connection with me, he asked me to perform the blessing. OH MAN WAS I NERVOUS. I was so stressed right when he asked me to give the blessing. I didn't know this man, how was I supposed to bless him?! But as I placed my hands on his head and stated that I was acting under the authority of the Melchezidek Priesthood, I remembered that I was not blessing him. The Spirit calmed me down instantly, and I received the words that needed to be said to him at that time. I absolutely love blessings! They strengthen my testimony every time I see one, and more so when I get to participate. Priesthood Power is amazing. What a blessing that is as well. The Gospel is too good to be true. But it is true. That is the beauty of it all!
Love Your Boy,
Elder Johnson
This is me and Han Solo. He played the harp at a youth activity like a boss.
And this is my rat! hahahahah
April 4, 2016
This week was not very exciting really, the highlight of my week was most definitely hearing from the Prophets of God. I went into this conference with many questions that I have been searching for answers for, with no luck. I was really starting to get frustrated about my lack of answers too. As I was reaching the point of giving up, I heard a talk called "The Fourth Watch" By Michael Wilcox. If you haven't heard that talk go look it up and read/listen to it. It gave me the motivation to not give up on these questions yet, but to keep searching. Heavenly Father comes in His own time and in His own ways, and usually later than we expect or hope. I decided that in order to get my answers, I needed to ponder on them as I watched conference. I was sorely disappointed as one session passed with no answer to my question... Then a second... And a third... And fourth and fifth. However, once again right as I was about to lose hope in getting an answer during conference, Elder Holland stepped up to the pulpit. The very last speaker of this General Conference. He still did not speak on the topic of my concern, but during his talk, the Spirit answered all my questions. I was receiving the personal revelation that I had been seraching for. For myself, and those that we are teaching. It was one of the most humbling experiences on my mission and was a profound testimony builder. Heavenly Father truly is a Fourth Watch God. (Look up that talk and that will make a lot more sense ;)) Conference was So awesome. I could go on for hours about what I learned from it, but due to my limited time tonight, I will leave it to that one experience for now. I got literally 20 pages of notes from this conference. Prophets are too legit.
Another highlight that I just remembered (and another instance of personal revelation for the week) was teaching a lesson to a lady named Cherish. She has some of the strongest faith in our Savior that I have ever seen, member or not. She invited us back a few weeks ago, but due to sickness and other circumstances we couldn't meet until this week. As we talked with her, the Spirit was so strong. We were able to share the Book of Mormon and it's origins with her, and she was so excited to read in it and learn of it. It was so cool to witness. The most amazing part of the lesson came after we left. As missionaries, we always talk about finding those "elect" or the ones that are prepared to hear this message, and are ready to receive it. That night when I got back to my apartment, I knelt down to offer my nightly prayers. I began to ask for blessings for those that we are teaching just out of habit (which is really bad) but when I began to pray for Cherish and her family, I got a prompting from the Spirit telling me that she was one of those elect. It was powerful. I can't explain how powerful it was by typing it, because it can only be felt. I cannot wait to go back and see her again. Even though she is one of these elect, Satan is a tricky dude. I just wanna smack him. So I pray that she will progress and continues to feel of the Spirit. Missionary work is awesome.
I hope that you go over this latest conference again, and that talk I mentioned earlier. The more we go over these words, the easier the Holy Ghost can bring them to our remembrance in times of need. They can change our lives as we act on them! Do Work!!!!!
Love,
Elder Johnson
Zone P-day was also today! These are a couple pictures before we left. I had a rap battle against the two poly elders in this picture, and I got ROASTED. But that's okay I am an aspiring white Christian rapper. I will get there!
March 28, 2016
So..... I am not sure what happened with you all this week due to lack of emails... but, As for my week, This one was better than the last one that is for dang sure! Throughout the week, we continued to check up on Jeremy and Danyelle and see if they could use any help or just were ready to talk about what had happened. Every time that we went, Jeremy would talk to us for a few minutes, but Danyelle would just go hide in the back room. It was really sad for me because I had truly come to love this family, and I had seen the blessings of the Gospel change their lives so much!!! We had mostly given up on them after being ignored and/or shooed away the last couple of times that we had checked up on them, but Saturday we felt like we should try one more time to see them. We pulled up and offered a prayer, then went to go talk to them. To my surprise, Danyelle answered and came outside to talk with us! We ended up staying and talking for over an hour with her, and found out that they are moving a few streets over because they were being kicked out by their roommate. The stress from that and a bunch of other crazy things that were going on in her life were what had made her snap last week and tell us to leave them alone, but she apologized and told us when they get settled in the new house, we can come over and resume the lessons. That was such a relief and a truly Spiritual moment as I and Elder Tindall bore testimony of how this will continue to change their lives, and told her that we loved her and her family. She was crying and told us that she knows it will. After that, we were all crying, so we gave her a hug and went on our way. I am so happy that they still want to try. Their time is coming!
Besides that, our lesson count for the week was pretty dang low. That means that we got to spend a majority of our time out on the streets talking to people and knocking on doors. One of the days that we were out doing that, I found out what the term "Freezing Rain" Truly means. That stuff is straight out of HELL. Oh man it was miserable to be out in that, but on that day I had something happen that I had not experienced before. My motivation levels were pretty dang low because of the weather, but right before I got out of the car I offered a quick prayer in my heart asking for help to do the work. Immediately as I closed that prayer, I felt like there was someone on that street that needed this message. Never before had I had a feeling as strong as that one came to me, and that motivated me to go out and work as hard as I could. On that street, we met 3 people that invited us back. I am not sure which one of them needed to hear what we said, or if they will use their agency to act on this message, but I know that somebody that day needed us. It was wonderful.
Finally, I got to do something pretty fun this week. A man in my ward named Valiant Jones had us over for dinner one night, and after dinner he asked if we wanted to see his latest "project." He is freshly retired, and does all sorts of random things, so I was so pumped to see what he had in store. He took us out to the park behind his house where there were huge maple trees that he had been tapping for sap, and boiling it down to syrup! We got to help him gather it and while we were gathering, he was telling us how Joseph Smith did this exact same thing just before the First Vision. It was a cool thought to think about. We were working just as Joseph would have nearly 200 years ago, and now we are out spreading the word that he played a key role in restoring. Just interesting to me!
That is the summary of what happened here in Michigan! I hope you had a happy Easter and were able to think deeper about what this Holiday truly means. There is so much that we need to be thankful for because of what Christ did for us. I can't even begin to explain how much more I appreciate His sacrifice after this week and studying it each day. His and Heavenly Father's love for us trumps anything in this world. How blessed are we to know that? The Gospel is true. Live it, Love it.
Love,
Elder Johnson
P.S That picture with 3 of us was when We took a guy that just submitted his papers on Saturday door knocking with us. It was awesome! While knocking that day, We heard a lady pray "in tongues" and I got a Catholic bible from a guy. It was a party!
March 14, 2016
This week, I want to start my email by saying HAVING ELDERS IN MY DISTRICT IS LEGIT. It has been so much fun this week doing things with Elder Blazzard and Elder Tapasoa. We get up at like 5:30 and all meet at the church to play basketball in the mornings and we have a blast. Ball is life. And the two of them also have guitars so we are doing a sweet guitar trio! Ah I love it. But that is just a side note, the rest of this week was insane. with a big fat capital i.
Sadly, we only had 3 lessons last week. One was with just Jeremy, one was with just Danyelle, and one was with Carol and Jessie. With Jeremy and Danyelle, we introduced them to a stop smoking program that turns of the craving for cigarettes by purging your body of nicotine in just 7 days! We went over the 15 steps of the program and committed them to follow the steps in order to quit smoking and be baptized on March 26. They instantly agreed, gave Elder Tindall and me all of their lighters, Cigarettes, ashtrays, and have now been smoke free for 5 days. It's amazing the transformation people go through when they know that the gospel is true. Danyelle is turning into a missionary machine too! She invites her family weekly to come to church with us. How amazing is she?! Also this week was their daughter Alayna's birthday! Alayna is a cutie, I will have to send some pictures of her in a little bit.
After teaching those two the 15 step program, we went over and saw Jessie and Carol. We just talked with them about what their thoughts were about being baptized before Collin. Collin has been slowing down a little because we haven't met with him for a little while and he has some doctrinal questions that he wants answered. Carol and Jessie are both hesitant to be baptized without him, even though they both have testimonies! It's a rough situation, but I believe that it will just improve as we get to meet with Collin more often. He was at church this week and that was a huge step for him, so like I said there is only room for progression now.
Now we get to the crazy part of my week >:) So, on Saturday Elder Tindall had a Mission Leadership Conference in Lansing, so I got to go serve for a day in Saginaw. Everyone wants to serve in Saginaw! It's the gang headquarters in our mission, so I was so pumped!!! I don't want to get into details of what all went down there, or I would be emailing all day long and that's not allowed. So long story short, I got to spend the day with Elder Laaksonen. He came out the same day as me and we get along so well. I absolutely love being around him. After our studies we headed out to a lesson that he had planned for the day. When we got there, the lesson shined us so we began knocking this neighborhood. As we knocked we came across one of the gangs in town, but they were super nice to us and just said to talk to them some other time. We headed down the road and met a ton of really open people on the road. One guy even invited us in and we taught him the Restoration and set up a time to go back and bring him a Book of Mormon! I loved that. Anyways, after we left his house and finished the rest of the street then started heading back to the car. On the way back, we saw some guys unloading a new engine and saw a sick classic car parked where they were. Elder Laaksonen is a car fanatic so we booked it over to them to ask about the engine and the car. When we got there we realized it was the gang that we had talked to earlier that day! When we talked about the car they got even nicer to us, let us take pictures with the car, hugged us, fist bumped, laughed with us, and we just had a good ol time with this gang!! While we were talking to them we noticed there was obviously one guy that was more in charge so we figure he was the leader. During our conversation with them, a car rolled up across the street and a bunch of thugs got out. Right them The Spirit was telling us to get out of there, and the "leader" said "yo, they ain't from our hood." Then skipping the less important, and more scary details, "Leader" looked at Elder Laaksonen and I and told us to get out of there and avoid those guys that rolled up. He told us they wouldn't "do or say anything positive to us." We hauled out of there and behind us, we heard a gang fight commence. I was so grateful that we got out of there when we did and that we were protected in that situation. It could have been way worse. One cool thing was before we left, the nice gangsters that we had been with told us to "say wassup to the Latter Day Saints" for him. That was pretty sweet I thought.
Being in Saginaw was a great day. With all the people we talked with and taught that day I could feel the promptings of the Spirit guiding us in the work. I know that this work is inspired and carried out only through revelation and the Spirit. I love being here. Nothing better than serving my brothers and sisters that are out here waiting for this message. I know it changes lives, it has changed mine, and I am watching it change many others. The Gospel is true. Live it and you will know it!
Love Always
Elder Johnson
Danyelle and Jeremy's daughter Alayna!
I love This girl!
When your companion is from Florida and wears
earmuffs in 66 degree weather! Sweater vests for days!
Numbers For this Transfer:
Invited To Learn: 523
Potential Investigators: 43
Hours spent Knocking: 90
Lessons Taught: 28
Baptized: 1
Total:
955
66
168 hours 45 Min
52
1
March 7, 2016
It is so crazy how fast time flies out here! I am not even being trained anymore like what the heck? I can't even believe it. There is some exciting stuff happening in my area, that you will hear about in a little bit! I love you guys! And thank you so much for that CD! All these Elders are jealous of my family now hahahahaha :) You are the best! Sorry this email is so late today, but this was an awesome week! It ended transfer #2, and I will still be in Midland with Elder Tindall! We still have a lot going on in this ward so we need to work hard in case one of us does get transfered next time! It was a crazy 6 weeks, with lots of ups and downs and crazy people, but in the end we still have people that are changing their lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I love being a part of this change.
As you know, we have been teaching Jeremy and Danyelle for some time now. They are so great to work with, and to see the changes in their life is astounding. From the time we met them to now I can hardly recognize them! This week, Jeremy was given even more job opportunities so he can better provide for his family financially, and he recognizes that it is because of the blessings Heavenly Father is giving him. Along with having all these blessings, Jeremy and Danyelle made a big decision this week that will continue to bring about more blessings. They were planning on being baptized together in July because that is the earliest that Jeremy can be, but after discussing it between themselves, Danyelle has decided to move her date to March 19! She still has a few things that she needs to fine tune before she can enter into this covenant, but I am positive that she can do it if she continues acting on her faith. Holy smokes I am so excited for her and her family. They don't even know all the joy that is coming there way, especially once they make it into the sealing room. Being sealed by proper priesthood authority is something that means so much to them, and to me as well. I can't wait to see them continue working towards these eternal goals and progressing. I love these two!!!! Throughout the week, we ended up teaching them 3 lessons and in one of them, we were teaching about Sabbath Day Observance and how important that is. In the course of the lesson I shared a scripture found in Exodus 31:13. We talked about what the verse is saying (which I will let you look it up yourself to see what it says ;)) and what it means to them. As we talked about the meaning of the verse, and the importance of Sundays, The Spirit was there. It testified to all of us and Danyelle with teary eyes said "That puts the Sabbath in a whole new perspective." Being able to see the Spirit work so strongly in an individual and bring about a "mighty change of heart" is beautiful. I can't even describe how it makes me feel.
We did not get to meet with Carol and Jessie this week due to scheduling conflicts, snow storms, and sickness, so there is not much update on them. On another note however, Elder Tindall and I got to help out with something that doesn't happen very often! In Midland, the work has been going very well and the two wards here are growing so much that we got to help set up a new apartment for a second pair of Elder's to join our area!! We are so excited, we are getting Elder Blazzard and Elder Tapasoa. I love these two Elders, I've been playing basketball with them all day and they are great guys. So yea a little bit of a change in Midland right now! It will be fun.
Since this is the end of a transfer, I usually would send the numerical side of what is going on here, but I forgot my journal at home so I will send the numbers next week cuz they are kinda fun to see the stats :)
Elder Johnson
PS The picture is when we were helping prep the new Elders apartment!
February 29, 2016
This week was a week! hahaha It started off with every house we knocked on warning us about the "Noreasters" that were heading our way! apparently that is what the call The winds that come across the lake from Canada and always bring a big Lake Effect snow storm, with ice wind. I didn't really believe them because it was sunny and 50+ degrees! so we brushed off what they were saying and just continued to work. That day stayed sunny and warm which made us think that everyone here was just crazy! Wednesday morning (when the storm was supposed to be raging) we woke up to more sunny blue skies! IT was slightly colder, so we actually wore jackets that day and began tracting as usual. A few hours into it, we finally discovered what the terms "ice wind" and "whiteout" really mean. Shortly after this storm rolled in, we got a text from President Jacobsen telling us all to go inside for the day and wait it out. It was the craziest snow storm I have ever seen. We got 10-15 inches in no time flat. That made walking for miles the next day an adventure let me tell ya! The snow is all gone now, but forecast for 11" again tommorw.. and Wednesday... and Thursday...
The night before this big storm, we had a lesson with Jessie and Carol again (Collin was at work for this lesson) and to our pleasant surprise, Jessie had invited a friend to the lesson! Having investigators that are comfortable enough to share what they have learned and then invite others to learn as well are so awesome. For this lesson, we got to teach these two fifteen year old girls the law of chastity! hahahahahah so much fun. Now we are trying to help Jessie bring her friend to church and young women as well.
Speaking of Investigators that bring their friends along, this story will show a glimpse into how important inviting people to learn about the gospel from the missionaries can be. There is a family called the Larsen's in the 1st ward that had a friend named Joey. Joey is not a member, so the Larsen's invited him to have the missionaries teach him about the gospel. He accepted, and is now planning on being baptized. Joey lives with a couple named Jeremy and Danyelle. Joey referred Jeremy and Danyelle to the missionaries, and now they are planning to be baptized. Then this week when we went to teach Jeremy and Danyelle, they brought their friend Marietta along who now is planning on learning about the Gospel and quitting smoking with Danyelle. And thus we see, that the work of the Lord is one eternal round! The way that the Gospel has influenced these families and individuals is a blessing just to watch happen. For example, Jeremy and Danyelle are probably the poorest people that I have ever met. Jeremy can never get a job either for a few reasons, and that is really hard on him. As we have taught them, the Word of Wisdom has been a tough thing for them. We promised Jeremy that if he quit smoking, he would find a job to support his family. Shortly thereafter, he got a job at the local car wash, but it still wasn't enough hours (only like 10 a week) to pay all his bills and other fines. He stayed faithful though, and when all the other workers would go out and smoke, he would stay behind and clean off the floor of the car wash. It wasn't easy for him, but he was acting on his faith. Now after having this job for only about a month, he is looking at a management position that will support his family. The blessings of keeping the commandments always come. I know it.
Keep the commandments, in this there is safety, in this there is peace. Not just any peace either, but the peace of the Spirit of God. There is no greater peace than this, I know it. The Church is True, and Heavenly Father loves (and wants to bless) each of His Children. Being a missionary is the greatest!
Elder Johnson
February 22, 2016
I had quite the week again this week! It started off with interviews with the mission president and district meeting. This district meeting was awesome, we learned all about involving The Father and The Son more in the work. We all learned so much from the Spirit that day, and I know that applying what was taught will give even more of a boost than there already is! I will keep you updated on that as we go. One sad thing happened in that meeting though, mid way through it we got a phone call from our investigator Chris who said he didn't want to meet anymore. It was rough, and he won't talk to us now so we don't know what changed his mind. His time will come eventually.
Later on in the week we had a lesson with Jessie and Carol and Collin once again. I don't remember how much I talked about them in last weeks email, but to summarize, Jessie (15) has been meeting with us and wanted to be baptized on March 5. We also have been teaching Carol and Collin (Mom and Step Dad), but didn't know if they were just supporting Jessie or what. Eventually Carol came out and told us that she wanted to be baptized, but wanted to do it with Collin so she was waiting for him. She didn't know if it was something he was even considering either. When we met with them, we asked Collin if he would be baptized. He told us that he had been thinking about it, so we discussed it with them, and now they all three are planning to be baptized. They aren't sure on a date yet because of a few small complications with Carol. But that family is going to be baptized! I am so humbled to be a part of helping a family become eternal. Such a great opportunity.
A few days after we had the lesson with those three, we were out without a car about to start knocking when we got a call. The call was from Jessie telling us that her mother had a terrible migraine. Carol gets really bad migraines every couple months and ends up in the hospital sometimes because of them. We were pretty concerned about her so we offered a blessing and Carol said she would like that. We made the trek over there through all the mud and puddles to give her the blessing and taught a short lesson while we were there. That blessing made all the difference in the world though. She fell asleep shortly after we left and woke up completely headache-free. It was worth every step of the 15 mile walk that day.
Along with that family, we taught Jeremy and Danyelle again this week. The lesson was a little bit long because Danyelle can talk a LOT, but it was good. They are learning and progressing quite well together, and I can't wait to see where this gospel will take them. I Love those two!
Lesson-wise, this was a rather slow week. That gave us the chance to do a lot of knocking though! Gotta love that hahahaha. One thing that stuck out to me from the people we met this week, was how many people deny the divinity of the Book of Mormon without having read it. Then they refuse to read it or learn about it! It is so frustrating, and that logic just makes no sense to me. How the heck are you supposed to know if it is true of not if you don't read and apply it?!?! JUST LET ME TEACH YOU ABOUT HOW IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!! hahahaha oh man I got so frustrated about that this week. But Saturday totally made up for it!
This Saturday, Elder Tindall and I got to go to the Detroit temple to do a session with a sister that was getting her endowments. There were so many ward members there to support her, it was really awesome. The best part about it (besides what I learned of course) was waiting with everyone in the celestial room for her to come in. It was the sweetest moment that I have ever been a part of. The Spirit there was intense, and we could all feel Heavenly Father's love for her and each of us. Man I can't even describe it. Being there for that made my whole week though, and really helped me appreciate being able to go to a temple so often in Idaho. I can only go once every 6 months here and that is the worst! The temple is the greatest, and I can't wait until I can go back.
This work is inspired! I love being a part of it and know that it will change lives, especially our own, as we act and serve. Look to share your testimony of Christ, Look to be kind, and Look to the Temple.
Love,
Elder Tyler Johnson
February 15, 2016
This week for me had quite a lot going on! It started off warm and sunny with a car, but on Wednesday we had to give the car to the Sisters for a week. Since we gave up the car you will never guess what happened that night. IT SNOWED. Go figure am i right? So ever since that night we have gotten snow almost daily, and if it isn't snowing it is around 0 degrees (not exaggerating) but that builds character I hear.
After that, came the fun part of my week. On Thursday night the zone leaders Elder Mafile'o and Elder Tubagus, serving on CMU campus, came and we did a "trade off." Elder Tubagus and Tindall stayed here in Midland, and I went to CMU campus with Elder Mafile'o. Holy that was a great time. Elder Mafile'o and I talked about rugby, and cliff diving, and surfing, and all the stuff that nobody else can talk about with me! We got close super fast, and it really showed the next day as we talked with students on campus. The next day we had a lesson with one of the football players there named Jabari Dean. That went quite well, as we taught him about the restoration and baptism. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized, and he told us he has already been baptized... So he will take a little work but he seemed pretty dang interested. Following that lesson we just roamed campus and talked to 20 different students, 15 of which we set up lessons with throughout the week! So now I know that the Zone Leaders will be busy hahahahaha.
That night the trade off ended and Elder Mafile'o and I drove back to Midland to trade back. The zone leaders stayed at our apartment for a little and we played the guitar and rapped before they had to head out, it was a blast.
The next day was my boy Jefferson's baptism!! It was one of the sweetest things that I have ever seen. He asked me to be a witness for it, and his best friend Justin Savage baptized him. As I watched them take part in this ordinance, I could feel the Spirit so strong. I could see the joy on Jefferson's face as he went under the water and came back up. It was just awesome and I love being around the young men here. We bring them teaching with us as much as possible!
Once the baptism was over, we were back on the streets of Midland! This place is awesome, and it just felt good to be out there again. Anyways, we started knocking this street at 5, and had a potential investigator that we were going to meet close by at 6. It was also really close to where we have had the cops on us previously hahahahah. While knocking we had one guy who flipped out at us when we knocked on his door because he had a no peddlers sign on the door, and we were scared we were going to get the cops called on us again in the same area and get in trouble, so we began a giant loop to evade any po po and still make it to the lesson we had planned at 6. This is when the Spirit totally guided us. We came to the street that the potential lived on, and we both knew it was the street, but we just kept walking. and walking. and walking. Then all of a sudden we saw this guy outside his house smoking a cigarette just staring at us, so of course we had to go talk to him. We approached him and as we began a conversation, we found out that his name is Ben Guffy, and he had met with missionaries two years ago and wanted to be baptized, but he was having a hard time quitting smoking and hasn't been to church in like 7 months. Only by the Spirit could we have been lead to his home for the 5 minutes he was outside smoking. It was so perfect, and now we are going to meet with him again and help him move towards baptism. We left from there and booked it back to our lesson, which sadly fell through because she was not home, but once again it all worked out. There was another lady near by that we have been trying to meet with since I got here but she kept having things come up that got in the way, and we were considering dropping her. We decided that since we were close we should check on her one more time, and if we couldn't set anything up we would leave her be. What do you know, she answered and we were able to set up a time to finally go see her this week!! It was amazing to see how Heavenly Father had helped all this come about in just a short period of time.
Finally (and my favorite part of the week) we had 4 investigators at church. We had Jeremy and Danyelle, and Carol and Jessie. Now, the two that I want to focus on are Carol and Jessie. I don't remember if I have talked much about Jessie the last few emails, but she was a referral from part of the mission presidency to us. Carol (Jessie's mom) was a member years ago, but after some bad advice, asked to have her name removed from the records of the church. However, in our gospel principles class, Carol shared a testimony of the Book of Mormon unlike any I have ever heard before. It was so so so so so powerful, and left me in awe. Long story short, after church she texted President Hoover (who referred Jessie to us) and said that being at church was like coming home. She then invited Pres Hoover to Jessie's Baptism that we have scheduled for March 5. To this invitation, Pres Hoover replied, "I would rather come to her baptism and yours." Carol then responded "I think that date is still a ways out, but it is something I am working towards. This time I want to do it right though and have Collin (her Husband) be baptized with me. I want an Eternal Family. I want the Priesthood in my home."
*BOOM MIND BLOWN* I was so freaking happy when Pres Hoover told us about that, even though she had never told us about that desire. So we are going to work with her in helping Collin become converted through reading, praying, and applying! I am so excited for this family!
Overall, I must say that this was the best week of my mission. The Spirit was strong with us and in the work undeniably. I absolutely loved it. But yea, that was my week!
The Church Is TRUE!!! LIVE IT, LOVE IT!
Elder Johnson
Jefferson & I after his baptism
My cold, red face with ice on my eyelashes after walking to fill the font for the baptism at 8 am
Justin, Elder Tindall & I holding Jefferson after his baptism
I forgot to tell you one thing that happened this morning! So our toilet broke last night. The little plug thing that lifts to make the toilet flush? yea the part that connects the handle to the plug broke... and we didn't want to call our landlord cuz he doesn't like us, so I totally macgyvered the toilet back together using some fishing line, a box cutter, and a thumb tack. But now it totally flushes just like it should! I was really proud to have rewired its interface ;)
Love ya!
February 8, 2016
I will send you a picture of my updated motivation board, I absolutly love seeing it every morning. I think this is good, but I didn't even know that the superbowl was yesterday hahahahah. Or who was in it! Oh well I am not too worried about it. Been to busy walking through blizzards and converting felons this week to think about it. This week was way better than last week! This is some of what happened!
Sister Glenn in my ward bore her testimony yesterday and it was a great reminder for all of us I think. Her husband just was diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread all over his body, but she bore testimony yesterday about how all of our trials are custom designed for each of us. Heavenly Father knows us so well, that he knows when and how to try us to make us the best we can be. I was thinking of a hymn while she was talking, "thy dross to consume." That is exactly what our trials do for us and I love it. The other day I was pondering life and the choices that I have made and thinking how dumb they were, but I am grateful for how it all worked out. He knew how to make it all work for the best in the end, no matter how hard it seemed in the moment. I love it!
I don't even know what happened lol all the days just start to blur cuz it goes so dang fast. So I can't remember if I told you about a new couple that we picked up, Jeremy and Danyelle, but there is so much great news about them that you are gonna hear a lot about them! So, these two are a very very poor couple with a little 11 month old baby. They met with the sister missionaries in the other ward, but live in our ward. Since they live in our boundaries, they have recently been meeting with us. They are so so so awesome. Like so awesome that they heard about the word of wisdom before we even have taught it, and now they dropped coffee and tea cold turkey! And they went from half a pack of cigarettes each per day, to only 1 each per day! It is such a testimony strengthener to see them progressing and acting with so much faith. Another thing that was so cool to me, was we had a baptismal date set for February 27, and without us saying anything about this, they calculated how many pages they needed to read together to finish the Book of Mormon by that date. So amazing. Sadly, Jeremy is on probation right now for theft until July so we moved their date to July 5. Despite that they still are trying to finish the Book of Mormon by the original date. They have changed their lives so much to prepare for baptism, and they always tell us how badly they want to be baptized. I am so glad that the Sisters found them and that they were so prepared to receive the Gospel. Investigators are the greatest people, I love them!
We also taught our friend Jefferson this week, and he is being baptized this Saturday! I will make sure to send lots of pictures from his baptism. We are so so so so so excited for him, and he is even preparing to serve a mission next year! He is an all star. Oh he also gave me a guitar that I have been playing in my free time so maybe I will be a pro musician when I get home, that'd be cool.
AH! something that I almost forgot! We spent a lot of time country knocking this week (knocking in the country if you needed more explaining lol) and met some great people out where no missionaries had knocked before. One thing that we found that stuck out to me, were the two pictures that I am going to attatch at the end of this email. Some guy just built those! HAhahahahahahah rednecks are legit. JK the pictures are too big to attatch to this, so I will send them separate hah sorry
Anyways That is all for this week. I hope that your week is perfect, and that you learn something new from the Spirit this week. I live the Gospel, I love it, and I cannot wait to Find more of those, my brothers and sisters, that are prepared to hear and benefit from this message. The Gospel is true! Stay Faithful my friends. I will see you soon.
Love
Elder Johnson
February 1, 2016
There is no better anything that being here! I decided that two years is too short. I am already a 12th of the way done like what in the world?! I better get working harder I guess!!! Gotta baptize everyone!! hahahah But I did take a few more pictures this week! I will send them soon!
Guess where I am going today? Frankenmuth. That is almost as cool as kalimazoo!!!!! hahahahaha I am really excited to go there, we are going to an ice sculpture exhibit! Hopefully that will be pretty fun.
Well anyways here is the week of unfortunate events:
There were a few sad things that happened this week, but there is still so much good that is outweighing the bad. The first thing that was pretty hard is this: We texted Dillon to see when we could come over to visit them again, and got no response which never happens from him. So we waited a while and gave him a call. Still no answer or reply. Finally we decided just to drop by and see what was up. We walked over and knocked on the door, and Cathrine answered and talked to us for a little bit about how some of their family had shared some anti websites and information with them... But we were able to smooth some of it out right there and set a time to come see both of them the next day. When we arrived we just sat and began to talk with them, praying for help from Heavenly Father, looking for what they needed to hear. As we talked we found out that they felt they had found the right church for them... It was super sad to hear that, but when I heard it a question popped into my head. The question was something that we have gone over so many times, but I asked it anyways. I asked them if they knew why the Book of Mormon is so important. They just looked at me with blank stares!!! It was so frustrating because all they need to do to know the truth, is read that book. Then pray about it. That is it. NOBODY DOES THAT!!!! It is super hard, but it gave me a good opportunity to bear testimony of the Book and to tell what it can do for them. Hopefully they still have a desire somewhere to read and pray, but for now they dropped us. That doesn't mean a thing though, this is a battle for souls! You don't just roll over in a battle! So I will keep praying and working for them.
The other sad thing was Chris still did not meet with us this week. He said he was gonna be at church, but never showed. He still has not returned our calls either so we are gonna swing by there and raid the place hahahah just kidding. But for real, he can run but he cant hide.
In the end though, We still have lessons to teach and people to serve. We also got a new couple to teach who is on date to be baptized for Feb 27! now we have 3 people getting ready for baptism this transfer. So sick. The church is true! I love the work, Build your testimonies, and keep the commandments. That is what will keep us strong and endure to the end.
Also, if you see missionaries, be nice to them. When we get members that come up to us and talk and encourage us it makes such a big difference in our day. One guy even bought us a pizza so that was awesome. Anyways that's all for now!
Miss Ya!!!
Love You!
Elder Johnson
Also we took a few pictures by a river
January 25, 2016
I cannot even comprehend how fast all this time is flying past. I already finished my first transfer like what?! I feel like I just got here!! So much happened this week. It was quite an amazing one actually.
I always feel like I forget things when I email so hopefully today I get it all! Well, to start the week off we had quite an interesting referral. Usually we only get those from members or LDS.org, but this time President Hoover from our Mission Presidency called us personally with a referral to go see! He had taught this girl's (Jesse) mother years and years ago, but since she (The mom; Carol) has fallen away from the church. Apparently Jesse has become interested and wanted to know about our church. So he gave us her information and we set up a time to go meet with her. We ended up going to see her the next night! She lives with her mom and step dad, and is a minor (15) so they have to allow us to teach her and be present in the lessons. We were a little nervous about the step dad because he is a minister at another local denomination, but he is very kind to us and supportive of Jesse in finding her own path. They are great people. Anyways, we taught them about the restoration of the gospel, which is always a powerful lesson. The Spirit that accompanies the account of the first vision testifies to me each time we share it. LOVE IT. Joseph Smith is a stud. We taught of the Book of Mormon, and bore testimony of that as well, and at the end of the lesson she committed to be baptized on March 5, 2016. We are so excited for her and her progression! ahhhhh so sick.
Sadly, Chris was out of town this week so we didn't get to see him, but we did go see Dillon and Cathrine again. They are still progressing, but very slowly and surely. They keep all our commitments that we leave them, but for some reason they just won't pray about these things!!!! I have decided that if everyone we met simply prayed each day sincerely, for any amount of time, The Lord could change the world. It is such a simple thing, yet so powerful. I think it is almost too easy so people tend to overlook it. So for now I am going to just keep praying for them and hopefully they will experience a mighty change of heart that only the Spirit can bring. They are so awesome too.
I also had a great and humbling experience this week. I got the chance to give my first blessing of comfort and counsel. I know now more than ever that the priesthood truly is the power of God given to man. Once again the Spirit that was there was amazing to feel, and the things that were said were really words from Heavenly Father. I didn't know why I was saying these things, but the Spirit directed, and was for that sister I know it. The Church is true, and Christ is at its helm.
Side note, these are the totals for how many people I have talked to etc thus far in my mission:
People invited to learn: 432
Potential investigators: 27
Lessons taught: 24
Baptisms: 0
Love,
Elder Johnson!
This is the sun, Something that I have only seen once since being here.
Since the sun is out and it is 32 degrees outside, we all are in our short sleeve shirts dying of heat! hahahah crazy how that works.
And this is elder Tindall in an apron and Aviators outside our apartment.....
January 18, 2016
I always love getting real letters. We haven't gotten any mail in a while so that has been sad hahahahah. But whatever works! I don't have a lot of time to write letters in the week to respond to those, we have been teaching a lot more than we were before lately so thats exciting! getting into lot more homes and just talking to a lot more people. It is so awesome. We finally have an investigator on date too!! I feel like i learn so much so fast here, and I am already at the end of my first transfer!! Time flies when you work your butt off.
So here is the state of the union here in Midland MI!
I gave my very first blessing for the sick this week. That was a very very humbling experience for me. It was just so sweet and guided by the Spirit most definitely. So that was a cool little side note for what happened this week.
This week was a pretty dang awesome week. Just like every other week it seems. We had a record high number of lessons for us and have an investigator who is going to be baptized on February 13! It is really fun to be teaching him. He has been coming to church for 10 years, but his dad is a baptist and wouldn't let any of his children be baptized until they are 18 so Jefferson comes of age next week and has the desire to be baptized, then prepare himself for a mission in a year! So he already knows all about the church and everything, but it is still fun to meet with him and learn and grow with him. He is a great young man!
We also had a lesson with Dillon and Cathrine and this was a fun one. So... They still aren't married, they have a child, and they are progressing really well towards baptism. The only problem is the not married part hahah... So we had been praying and asking what to teach or share with them, and we received the answer to teach them the law of chastity. Oh boy. That was the answer that was received, so we went forward in faith and taught them how living a chaste life, and reserving sexual activities was reserved for after marriage. That in order to be baptized that (or moving out) was what must be done. It was definitely not an easy lesson, but they understood. The Spirit testified to them how important it was to follow this law and we could tell that it had been something they needed to hear. It was so great. As we were leaving, we committed them to pray to know what they should do moving forward, and a few days later when we saw them again we were informed that they are going ring shopping soon!!!! AHHHH!!! I am so happy for them and this act of faith. So I will keep you posted on them as we continue to meet with them.
This week we also had a lesson with Chris and Sharon, they also are progressing quite well. They have been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it to find out for themselves the truthfulness of it. As they read they write down questions that they have so we can talk about it as we teach. They are learning and gaining their own testimonies and it is an awesome process to watch. One cool thing from that lesson was, at the very end I answered one of Sharon's gospel questions, and she just started bawling. She said that was exactly what she had been needing to hear. I testified to her that as missionaries we are sent to be messengers of God, and Jesus Christ. To share with all children of God what He would have them hear, and that I knew what we had said was from Him. The Spirit that accompanied that testimony was the most intense that I have experienced on my mission and I know that they felt it. It was perfect.
I think that was all the exciting stuff from this week, so never forget these two things: I know that God Loves and knows all of us, and that The Book of Mormon is true. That is my simple testimony from this week, but I know it, I live it, I love it. Hope you have a perfect week.
Elder Johnson
P.S Tell mom that I said thanks so much for the planner covers, but I lied to her hahah I measured wrong and they are really 3 3/8 inch by 6! Don't ask how I was so far off but Somehow I was! So send more!! I loved those! Love Ya!
January 11, 2016
I have felt more of my Heavenly Father's love than I ever have before while I have been here. I love Him so much. It brings such peace and happiness to my life!! makes being a missionary so awesome. SO AWESOME.
ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE??!! Okay good, here is my week in review:
This week, we once again had a lesson with Chris! That man is so awesome. We went over planning on teaching him about The Plan of Salvation, and brought a member with us. It ended up not having to do anything with the lesson that we had planned, but I know that it was what Chris needed to hear. Not only was it the lesson he needed at that time, it was a perfect way for him to become friends with Leon (the member we brought). They became so close so fast, through similar experiences and things like that, that Chris has invited Leon back for every lesson. Having members be involved in teaching is so vital too, it creates friends and missionaries for after the Elders or Sisters have left the area. So that lesson not a lot got taught, but a strong friendship with a ward member was formed, and that may be more valuable in the long run anyways.
That brings us to Dillon and Cathrine: we had a great lesson with them in their home, and reviewed the restoration with them. Cathrine really is becoming converted to the gospel and is so open and ready for it, as is Dillon. He just doesn't know it yet. They are progressing slowly but surely and as a result, they came to church with us this Sunday!! Dillon even came in a suit! It was sweet! So we sat with them during sacrament and helped them to understand all that we could, and invited them to stay for Sunday School as well. They accepted and joined us for gospel principles, which I happened to be teaching this week. The subject was prayer, and as we taught each other and discussed the topic Dillon answered so many questions and added his insights as often as he could. That alone is a huge step for him, when we first met him he hardly would answer yes/no questions to only Elder Tindall and me.
It snowed a lot this week, so we shoveled many a drive way and shared the gospel while doing so. I would be willing to bet that we are the fastest driveway shovelers out there. We have a great system hahahahah. People are so grateful for that small act of service, and plants the seed of our message within their hearts I know it.
That is all for my week that I can fit in my time frame!! I hope you have the best week of all this week, and look for miracles in your life. I have started keeping a tally of all the miracles that come about and there are so many if we just look for them, and they are in all different shapes and sizes. Heavenly Father loves us. His Son's Gospel is restored to this earth today for the safety, and benefit of all of us. I know this message is true, live it, and love it.
Much Love,
Elder Johnson
here are some really cool pictures from an old book of mormon printed in 1879 that was given from Orson Pratt to his son.
Also a letter from David Whitmer with his testimony of the Book of Mormon on it. Super Cool!
January 4, 2015
We had our first meeting with Chris this week! It was in the words of Elder Tindall "Best. Lesson. Ever." and I would have to agree with him. We went to his home and brought him a Book of Mormon. He invited us in for the lesson, and we taught him about the Restoration. Right after we got to Joseph Smith, his mom (who lives there because she got hurt) walked in with hot coco for all of us, and sat in for the rest of the lesson! Since she came in we quickly brushed over the topics leading up to Joseph and his vision, but continued almost immediately into the account of the vision. I began to recite it for them, and as I did we felt the Spirit enter undeniably. Once I finished telling it, we asked Chris how he felt about that. He told us that as I had said it, he felt like it was true. It was mind blowing how the Spirit testifies so much of truth when we state it clearly. So we taught that after that vision Joseph was called as a prophet, restored the priesthood authority, and because of that we have prophets on the earth today. Once again, Chris and his mother (Sharon) were so excited to hear that we had prophets that lead and guide us in this time. ah he is such an awesome investigator. So we talked after the lesson was over, and his mom told us how excited he had been all week to see us again and to read the Book of Mormon. She also expressed a desire to read it as well, so right now the two of them are sharing the one copy that we brought, but we are bringing a second copy this week when we meet with them again. So following all that we invited them to be baptized, read, and come to church all at once but for some reason we forgot to ask him to pray, but this was his response "yea that sounds good, but I will have to pray as I read and come to church to know if I should get baptized." in my head I was like YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! So he has been doing everything that we have asked, and he must have gotten a good answer to his prayers, because they were both at church on sunday. ah man!!!! The work is real my friends, the field really is white.
A few days after this lesson, we had another lesson with Dillon and his family.we taught about temples, baptisms for the dead, and family history. they loved learning about that, and I think the Spirit really testified to them about that. not much super exciting happened in that lesson, but we finally commited them to come to church with us, so we will have them there on sunday as well as Chris and Sharon. They are all so great, and you really do feel the love of our Father in Heaven has for us as we teach and love His children.
I also met a super drunk dude that wants us to come teach him, and got cussed off this lady's porch (she had a no soliciting sign that i really want to go take now hahahah). but thats it!
I think that was my week in a nutshell! hope all is going splendid! I will see you soon :)
Love you mom!!
Elder Johnson
This is a huge super church that teaches more anti than anything else!!! All their members are super nice, but all they do to us is try to prove us wrong ( so far none of them have though hahahaha)
December 28, 2015
This week was so awesome. well really just the day after I talked to you I guess hahhahaha. We called to go to Grace's ( the girl who speaks in tongues and had the devil book) but she didnt answer and didnt call back so we are dropping her so no worries there. but this is what happened on Saturday:
God works in such mysterious ways but He accomplishes such amazing things through those ways. That is one of the biggest lessons that I have learned while being here. Half the time I don't Even know why I am knocking on this persons door, especially after the whole street has told us no, it is freezing cold out, and I am tired from walking all the time. But always, without fail, The Lord places us on the right street at the right house to, if nothing else, plant the seed that one day will hopefully grow into faith and a desire to follow Jesus Christ's example. This week we had a major example of being placed at a persons house who needed us. It came in answer to a fast that we were doing. Not a regular fast, but a car fast. hahahahahah Like what the heck is a car fast? Like a Ferrari or something? WRONG! It is basically like a regular fast but instead of giving up food for the day, we give up our car and open a fast for whatever we feel that we need or our investigators need as we do that fast. So on Saturday, we had a car fast. Before we left the Apartment we had a prayer like any other day, but in it we asked that as we begin this fast, that we would be placed in the lives of those who are prepared and want to learn more about Christ. With that, we left the room and headed to where we had decided to knock (Dartmouth Street). We walked from one end down to the other just to see how far it was and what side roads we wanted to take.
Once we hit the end of the street and had a route in mind, we began the many hours of knocking that were ahead. Just like I described earlier, door after door was being closed on us, the bitter wind was taking a toll as my hands were turning purple, and I was not seeing our fast being fulfilled. However, as it usually is, right when I was sick of it and honestly begining to doubt this was gonna be any good, we knocked on another door. The man that answered was probably 25 or around there, had a big tattoo of a king smoking a fat joint on his forearm, big diamond stud earrings, and the gnarliest long hair/long beard combo I have ever seen. Immediately I thought "may as well just leave this guys house now." Which had to have been satan in my head because that was just terrible. I introduced us as the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and that our purpose is to help others grow their faith in Christ. He then expressed to us how much he(Chris) loved Jesus, and His teachings and we began a short discussion with him just about our church and what we do. Elder Tindall, right before we left, brought out a Book of Mormon and introduced it to Chris. We told him where it came from, what it teaches about, and That it is another Testament of Jesus Christ. As we brought it up Chris just was overjoyed to hear about it. There even was a single tear that rolled down his cheek. after we introduced and testified of it, he asked us how he could get one. If he could buy that one from us even. We told him that we could bring him back a free one we just didn't have a good (not beat up from carrying around in our pockets) one with us. So he gave us his number and even asked us where church was so he could come with us! Unfortunately he had family coming into town yesterday so he didn't come but before we left he expressed a desire to come next week for sure.
It blew my mind how the Lord had lead us to Chris's house when he wanted so much to hear about Jesus Christ. If we ask to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord, He will make us one if we are ready, worthy, and willing to do all that He asks, even if we don't know why when we start. David A Bednar explains taking a step into the fog in his Patterns of Light videos (Y'all need to watch those they are legit) and I know that what he talks about in those videos is true.
The Lord has people prepared for all of us, and all around us. Don't wait to be a missionary til you are a missionary. Every member a missionary. That is my biggest regret is not understanding that and acting on that before I came out here. I know that I would have been so much better prepared if I had began sharing just in small ways with those around me what I know to be true. Heck that is all missionary work is is small things. We work line upon line, precept upon precept, and it all leads to amazing things. Don't wait. Start looking for opporunities now! The Lord will show you that he has ways prepared. I love this Gospel, I love Jesus Christ, and I love being a missionary. Miss you but know that this is all for the best! See you soon!
I Love you mom!!! quit crying that is not allowed ;) I am gonna send you pictures so you have to share with everyone else!
Elder Johnson
We got caught in a fat rain storm so we use our bench for drying our coats hahahaha but the rain lead to a pretty artsy fartsy picture of my name badge that i like!!!! ADIOS!
December 21, 2015 - First P-day in Midland!
I am in the Midland 2nd Ward Right now!! that is so crazy that it worked out that way. My trainer is Elder Tindall, he is super awesome, and writes his own piano music! so whenever we stop by the church he sits down and just makes up a new version of some hymn as he sight reads it, blows my mind. The only thing i need to get used to about him is he walks soooooo fast. Like the second morning my legs were so sore from walking so far and so fast the day before! hahahaha and then that second night we had a dinner appointment we were late to and we dont have a car until wednesday so we ran two miles to get there and that just made my legs even more sore. But its all good.
The weather here really is bone chilling. It doesnt sound to bad, like usually about 20 so far, but just with the humidity it cuts straight through your clothes and freezes you. but i absolutely love it here. Except i miss the mountains so much, i keep expecting them to be around the next building, or behind the trees, but they never are!! It will be so weird coming home to them.
It is so crazy how if you let the Lord work with you in His own ways, how he can and will change you. This week on my first day i was sooooo soooo sooo scared to knock on that first door, but as the day passed I became more and more comfortable just telling people about the truth. The Lord has started to fill my mouth as we go and it has been amazing to see. One thing about knocking door to door though is you really see how many people are just closed to your message, especially in this area. It seems like every door that we knock, we meet the founder of some church in town, the FOUNDER! it is just so different than good ol poky, but I truly do love it.
I am not going to tell you about my awesome first two days story though, I want to tell you that on FaceTime!!!! Which by the way we will be face timing either your phone or dad's at noon your time so be ready!!!
Miss you all lots, but not enough to come home ;)
Love Elder Johnson
December 14, 2015
Holllaaaaaaaa! Whatcha know it's monday again already! It is so crazy how time flies here. I feel like just yesterday I was getting dropped off, but I look at what I have learned, experienced, and changed, and I feel like it has been forever. It is such a strange phenomenon. The MTC is an amazing place. Anyways! Let me think... what happened this week.... well! Me and Elder Stephens got a new investigator to go teach and we were nervous/excited for that. His name is Aaron. So we went and taught him 3 times this week, but unfortunately we can't go meet with him again because we are leaving tomorrow night (how crazy is that!) But back to the point, we met with him the first time and that meeting was alright. We kinda got to know him, shared a short lesson, and left him with a challenge to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was a strange lesson though because for some reason we just did not feel the Spirit in it so we were kinda confused and frustrated, but we moved past it and began to prepare for the next lesson. This lesson, was just awful hahahahahaha. We went in and asked him if he had any questions which was the worst thing we could have done. A lot of his friends are LDS so he knows quite a lot about us, so he all of a sudden dove into how temple sealings work, why can a man be sealed to multiple women, isnt that polygamy? why cant women recieve the priesthood? just all sorts of stuff like that which was so hard for us. So once again, we felt like there was not much Spirit in that lesson it was just terrible. So after that "lesson" we just had no idea what to do for him or with him. So we prayed and prayed and prayed about it, and right before our last lesson with him we found what we should do. In class, we learned about the value of reading the Book of Mormon with our investigators, not just challenging them to and committing them to. So for the final lesson we dedicated the whole time with him to just reading the Book of Mormon. We went through the introduction and the promises found in it and bore testimony of it, and finally, the Spirit came into our lessons with him. It was so nice to have that guidance and direction, and feeling there with us. It was a great way to end with him.
That was really the highlight of this week, the rest of what happened was just class and class and class and learning hahahahahaha but that was all good too. I really have learned so much from the Spirit in class.
One other thing that happened this week was I had the scariest sacrament meeting I have ever been to. It was so stressful. So idk if the whole MTC does this or just my branch, but they give a topic for a talk, and everybody writes a short 5 minute talk on that subject. Then when Sunday rolls around, they call random individuals to the pulpit to speak. That is like my biggest nightmare. Luckily, i did not have to speak so that was a blessing for my blood pressure hahahahahahah. I did however, participate in the musical number this week in sacrament which was so fun. After all our Sunday meetings,( which we only have 2 hours of church here muahahaha) we had some personal study time. During personal study I have come to love scripture tabs. I now have immediate access to so many scriptures on so many different doctrines beacause of scripture tabs. sorry that was not where i was going though, after personal study we had Sunday night Devotional. this sunday devo was so awesome. We had a performance by the BYU mens chorus. It was the most amazing performance ever. Ahhh i loved it!!!
last but not least, one blessing that I am coming to realize, is that I have a great ability to speak boldly. It is so sad to see how many missionaries come here with so little respect, they come here and think its a joke. Like I literally asked one if he thought this work was a joke last night because he was being so immature, and he shrugged his shoulders and smirked at me. It was heartbreaking. But to those elders, I have found that I tell them to shape up, and they do it. I am not scared to say to people to change what they are doing anymore. So, this is what i want to end with. Always stand up for what you know is right. It is scary, but people will take heed to your words. Dont be scared to speak up. I know I used to be scared, but as I have come to be bold with them, I have found many of them changing how they act, what they say, and their entire attitude, so I know that can happen for all of us as we stand up for what is right. I love this work, I love my investigators, and I love you all. I cant wait to hear from you soon. 
Also, I am leaving the MTC early Wednesday, Like 430 kinda early. So at some point between then and 930 when my flight is i will be calling you! So be ready!!! hahahahah
with love
Elder Johnson
December 7, 2015 - MTC P-day
My companions name is Elder Stephens, he grew up in a very small town in Utah and loves ranching, he is super quiet, but as we have grown closer he has opened up and he is a spiritual giant. I love him!!!! My district has four companionships in it, two going to Lansing, and two going to Las Vegas. The Elders going to Las Vegas are Elder Leckie (Minnesota) and Elder Rosskelley (Mississippi), Elder Alvarez (Ohio) and Elder Dematropolus (Hawaii). Then The elders going to Lansing are Myself and Elder Stephens, and Elder Gibby (Hawaii) and Elder Goodall (Arizona). these Elders are all so amazing, i just cant believe that i have only known them for less than a week, I feel like we are all best friends because we have grown so much together with the Spirit. Our favorite part of The MTC as a district is the time we have for doctrinal study. We all study together as a group and I get the honor of leading the discussion because I was called as the district leader. Each time we study like this together, there are always tears shed and testimonies being turned to conversion. I truly think that I am in the best district here, we all are quick to heed counsel and lift each other up. We Call ourselves, Keki 'o Ka Hekili, or sons of thunder. We have helped pull each other through the struggles of this week, Elder Gibby Fainted and got very sick on thursday, and because of that he got very nervous and wanted to go home, but our zone leaders gave him a blessing and we all prayed for him and he found the strength and love he needed to stay. now he has been one of the biggest contributing factors to our districts growth, and i am sure that is why satan tried to make him feel like he wanted to leave that day. i know that he knows it too and he is so strong for us now. I love IT hahahah. i love the food here, its not too bad but it makes Elder Gibby gassy so that's rough. one of My favorite spiritual experiences from this week happened on friday. We were told to prepare a 35 minute lesson to teach to a member that morning, and so far the only lesson we had gone over and were getting good at teaching was the Restoration, So that is what most companionships started preparing. Elder Stephens and i got together and prayed about what we should teach, and we felt that we should teach about the Plan of Salvation even though we had not gone over it in class and become well versed in it yet. So we prepared the lesson and prayed throughout the short time leading up to the lesson. We went in to a room to teach this brother, his name was braydan, and had a great lesson with the spirit, and testimony, and scripture, and power, but that was not the amazing part. The amazing part was that at the end of the lesson that brother shared with us that the plan of salvation is his favorite lesson to be taught by the Elders, and not only that, he had prayed that morning that as he met with the Elders he would be taught about the Plan of Salvation. How amazing is the Lord and His Ways. He brought me and my companion to a lesson we did not know about and were not 100% ready to teach, but because we did it we were able to be an answer to another one of His children's prayers. I know the Lord lives, and I know that He loves us, knows us, and will answer our prayers. I absolutely love it here everyone. i hope all is well and you got the Christmas lights up without me ;) Love you all so much. Remember that.
3 Nephi 5:13
Elder Johnson
June 4, 2016
Hello again! I know that this is so close to the last email, but to be honest, the best experience of my entire mission happened in these last few days. I will get to that in a minute. Before all that though, let me tell you the big news. I am being transferred to the one and only....... KALAMAZOO!!! woohoo!! I am really excited to go serve there. Everyone is super jealous, apparently that is one of the best areas in our whole mission to serve. It will be way fun. And I am greenie busting Elder Quintana so it will be even more of a blast! But wait; THERE'S MORE!!!!! In that area, I will also be serving as the District Leader. That stresses me out quite a lot! hahahaha I will be in charge of making sure 8 missionaries are working hard, learning, and baptizing in Kalamazoo. That is a lot of responsibility!!!!! Pray for Me!!!!! I will need those prayers, you know how much I just Love talking in front of people, and now I will need to do an hour and a half district meeting each week. oy. But like I said, I am still really excited. I won't be able to send my address until my next P Day so that will come!
The other scary thing about going to this new area is since Elder Quintana has been in Kalamazoo for 3 months now, I will probably only spend 1 transfer with him and then train in Kalamazoo when the big group in July comes out! So yea, pray for me hahahahahaha. So that is the biggest news of the week! Now for some other cool things:
This week (in the beginning) was a lot of service. We helped two families move over Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That was some of the most frustrating moves that I have ever had to help with. That's how I can learn patience though right? One guy is moving here soon, so we moved all his stuff next door to his daughters house who is also getting ready to move... So if any body can find the logic in that move please, feel free to let me know where it is! Luckily I had one of the best stress relievers of my whole life this week too! I will send a picture of it, but at Brother Millwards house, I got to hold 7 baby bunnies at once. Heck yes.
Along with that tender mercy of stress relief, Heavenly Father was watching out for us a lot this week! We had tender mercies every single day. One of them was on Tuesday. We were out and about knocking on doors, and it had been a really long day. We had knocked all day, had no car, and were about 45 minutes from our apartment. We had just finished the street that we had been knocking, and we were about to make the long walk home. All of a sudden, this car rolls up and yells at us saying, "Elders! Have you had dinner yet?" We told him that we had not, so he told us to jump in. Without hesitating, we got in. We found out that he was a member that was from Ohio named Chris that was just here for a class reunion! He took us out to dinner at the best chicken place that I have ever had, and in the course of the meal we found out that he was friends with Carol and Jessie! He was actually on the way to go see them before he picked us up! That was pretty cool I thought. We thanked him when he dropped us off, and he went and saw Carol. Pretty neat how that all worked out.
My favorite tender mercy that happened this week was just last night. This was the best experience (of finding someone who was prepared) on my mission. Elder Harris and I were out walking down the street that Chris had picked us up on to get to where we were going to knock that day. On the way though, we saw this lady out mowing her lawn. We stopped her and asked if we could mow it for her! She accepted, which that in and of itself is very rare! Elder Harris grabbed the lawn mower from her and began to cut the grass. While he was mowing, I got to start talking to Barb, I just introduced ourselves and told her what we do, and then we just started talking about life. Where she is from, what she does, all those good things. She and I meandered over to the front porch and sat down together to continue talking while Elder Harris finished mowing. As the conversation went on, somehow her church came up. She made it very clear that she went to the Methodist church, but that she was not a member there. That was kind of interesting to me. I personally don't know much about the Methodist church, so I asked her what most of the sermons were like. She said, "well, I can tell you what I don't like!" That answer took me a little off guard! hahahahah but I said all right, and she began to explain to me that she was confused how they could teach that God is a loving God, but anyone that hears of and believes in Christ can be saved, but those who never have the opportunity to hear the message are condemned to Hell. She didn't see how He could be loving yet some people get screwed over without ever having the option to hear it. I had a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with me, so I was able to share with her what the Spirit World was, what role it played in that situation, and how because God loves us, He has given us this Plan of Happiness that allows everyone to hear the message of our Savior. She loved that! I wasn't planning on trying to teach her a lot more, but after we had finished discussing that, we just sat there in a moment of silence, then she said something that nobody has ever asked me before. She said, "so... what else do you have for me?" That was an amazing moment for me. I didn't know where to start, so I told her "Well, that depends on what you want to know!" Then came her amazing response (yes it was all amazing), She asked "do you believe that the Bible is the only word of God?" I promptly told her that we did not believe that. Once again, her response blew my mind, she said, "Good, because I don't either. There has to be more!" That was when I pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon, showed her it, then taught her the entire Restoration lesson, all while Elder Harris finished mowing the lawn. Barb loved this message, and I could see her questions being answered. That was the best I have ever been able to teach the Restoration to anyone! The Spirit was definitely helping me through it. Right as the lesson ended, Elder Harris finished the lawn, and she asked me one more question. "Do you have anything that you can leave with me to read?" Well as a matter of fact we do We left her a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. And we got her phone number so Elder Harris and Elder Boyak can go back and teach her more next week. It was cool to have someone ask me to learn more about what we share instead of me having to ask them! I took a picture with her too so I will attach that too lol. And a picture I took with Carol and Jessie!
I Think that is all I got this week! And I need to go email President Jacobsen to figure out what the heck I need to be a District Leader! Have a great week! :)
Oh and here is a random picture from when I let Elder Blazzard make a lizard bite my ear! hahahahahahahah
Love,
Elder Johnson
May 30, 2016
What a long week this one was!! But, there were still many great (or at least cool/funny) experiences. I don't even know where to start. What I want to start off with, is a personal realization of a promise given to us by Elder Richard G. Scott. A while ago, he gave a talk called The Power of Scripture. I don't remember talks very well, but this one I remember. One thing that has always stuck with me from his talk was this, he said "Great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change." At first I didn't think much of it, but in this past week, so many scriptures have come to my mind as I have questioned something, or felt down, or just as I have been talking to someone about the Gospel. Having these verses come to mind has been a tender mercy for me. I never realized how wonderful these could be to me! But with the help of the Holy Ghost, all these verses are brought to my remembrance in the very moment that I needed them. It was very comforting, and it is always great to see the promises of a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ come to pass!
Most of the time, these verses come while we are out and about door knocking. Because that is always the hardest part of the day. Especially with 70% humidity and it being 84-92 degrees. It has been crazy hot. Anyways! back to door knocking. We went up one night to door knock this super rich part of town that was on the way home from our lesson with Jefferson (who is still beasting out by the way, he is starting to save up to go on a mission next year). We had just started knocking when we came to a house with a suuuuuuper long drive way. We walked clear back there, and as we came to the side of the house and saw the back yard our jaws about hit the pavement. These people had my dream back yard. They had a freakin LAKE in their backyard. Just a massive pond, and not only that, but in the middle of this pond you know what they had? They had a diving platform and a rope swing. How much more perfect of a house can you have than that? I would just live in a boat on the lake! Sadly, the people at this house weren't interested in hearing a message about a prophet on the earth today, but they did let us build their kids a swingset! hahahah while we were putting it all together for them, their 5 year old son came and talked with us and helped us, and we taught him I am a Child of God while we worked. It was pretty fun. Except right before we left he punched me in the face... Guess I shouldn't try to teach 5 year olds how to box... lol
Church on Sunday was very good though, a little bit of a different Sacrament meeting, but the rest was awesome. In Sacrament, we had a member of the Bishopric give his entire life story... He taught literally 0 doctrine until the very end.. Then he shared one verse and a short testimony of the verse... After a 50 minute talk.. But that's okay! Sunday School was better. The focus in Gospel Principles class was on missionary work! And we had 6 missionaries total in there that day. All of us got to share our testimony and why we were serving a mission to those in the class, and I love doing that. Then for the Third hour, we had a combined lesson on Family councils. It was awesome to be a part of, and I honestly learned a lot that I wrote in my "Notebook of Goals" that I will apply to my own family one day! My favorite part of Church however, was after my ward had finished their block. My friend Elder Blazzard serves in the other ward, and he was speaking today! So we snuck into their sacrament and got to hear his talk. It was honestly one of the best talks that I have heard since I have been here! It was all about service, and what that is, how to do it, and what comes about from service. I will have to get a copy of it and attach it to this. It was awesome. And I just love that guy.
Speaking of Elder Blazzard, we had a lot more blessings given within the District this week! on Wednesday, all of us had a pretty garbage day! I was fed up with knocking, pretty mad, and had just bashed with a grip of Ganders. So on the way home from knocking, I called him and Elder Tapusoa up and asked them to meet us at our apartment to give me a blessing of comfort and counsel. It was (again) such a perfect experience. The blessings that Elder Blazzard pronounced upon me had to have been directly from our Heavenly Father. He told me things that I had never told anyone, that I needed to know about and recognize right at that time. It blew my mind and truly strengthened that bond that I have with him even more! Following my blessing, I got to give Elder Harris a blessing which was also awesome, as well as Elder Tapusoa! I have never given two blessings in a row, but dang I would not mind being asked to do it again! I truly love my brothers here. Sadly I will most likely be leaving them next Monday! We get those transfer calls this Friday! AHHHH! So if you haven't sent mail at this point, don't send it until I get my new address. :) We have a weird new policy that on the 6th week of each transfer, we will have a P-Day on Monday and Saturday! So I will be sending a brief report of what I have been able to do in the next 5 days on Saturday, then not again until the 5th of June... So that sucks... but oh well! It will only be every 6 weeks!
Never forget these simple things: YOU are a Child of God, The Gospel is True, and I know that without a shadow of I doubt. I love being in Michigan!
Love,
Elder Tyler Scott Johnson :)
May 23, 2016
This may be a short report, but there was a lot of good that happened this week. I may as well start with the most exciting news of the week! Yesterday was Stake conference (and there was tons of cool stuff that happened there, that once again, I will get to later) and Carol came. She had an interview with Bishop Savage right after the meeting got done. Following the meeting, I was outside just talking to the other missionaries, President Jacobsen, and some other members. Then I saw Carol walking out to her car! I got really excited to go see what the result of the meeting was, because that was the meeting that would determine baptismal dates!!!!!! I ran over to her, and asked her how it went!! She went on to tell me how all things were in place that needed to be, and that she and Jessie could be baptized on June 11. I was sooooooo happy to hear that!!! Carol is ecstatic to be baptized again, and I am happy that she took the steps necessary to do so! So June 11, there will be another baptism here in the Midland Area! Of course that will be like right after I leave!!! Hopefully I can get permission to come back for that day!
Also at Stake Conference, We had a very special speaker. Elder Joseph W. Sitati! He came and spoke to us in the Saturday adult session, and in the Sunday general session. He is a convert of about 30 years, but his testimony and his conviction are powerful. He gave some great talks calling the members here in the Midland Stake to "arms." He focused on how they need to get involved to help convert baptisms return to the level that they have been in years past. Members truly are critical to getting baptisms! Missionaries cannot do it by themselves! We have such limited time and resources that the members can provide these investigators, resulting in more spiritual experiences and a deeper personal conversion for all that are involved in this process.
Along with these amazing experiences at conference, we had some amazing experiences within my companionship, and as Elders in my District. These experiences were (once again) in the form of giving Priesthood blessings. Oh my goodness I have not found many things better in this world than being able to exercise Priesthood Power for my brothers and sisters here. The first blessing that we gave this week was on Friday. Myself and Elder Blazzard were on exchanges when we got a call about a member who suffered a heart attack this week and was in the hospital. We drove up there with Brother Jones to visit this member and gave him a blessing of healing before we left. I did the anointing, and Brother Jones sealed the anointing. The blessings that The Lord had in store for Brother Sovia were some of the most beautiful promises I have ever heard given to anyone. It was humbling to be a part of. The other two blessings that I was able to be a part of were just last night! Sunday evening, we got a text from our friend Jefferson Glenn asking us to come over and give his dad another blessing before Chemo starts back up tomorrow. Upon our arrival, Gary Glenn asked me to give the blessing this time. I got nervous as I always seem to right before giving a blessing, but as I began the Spirit came, and I felt at peace, directed, and inspired as I gave this blessing. It was another testimony builder for me. The last blessing that I got to give this week was to my best friend on the mission, Elder Blazzard. He had called us right before we gave Gary the blessing and asked if we could give him one as well. He just needed some comfort and counsel from the Lord. When we got there, he asked if he could talk to just me for a minute. Of course I said yes, and we went into the back room. He asked me at that time to give the blessing, and only say what I felt prompted to say. Don't add any of my own thoughts or words, make sure that everything I say is straight from the Lord. That is kind of a lot of pressure!!! hahahahahah. I said I could do that though, and we went back to the living room to give the blessing. Elder Harris joined me for the blessing, and I know without a doubt that what was given to me during that blessing was inspiration. Elder Blazzard had not told me what he needed help with or what was bothering him, but as I acted under the authority of the Priesthood, I know that all his needs and concerns were addressed. When the blessing ended, The Spirit was there. All of us felt it. Elder Blazzard stood and with tears in his eyes gave me a huge hug, and did that for everyone else as well. I asked if I could talk to him privately again, and we talked about what I had said and how inspired it really was. I told Elder Blazzard how much I love him, and he told me the same, and we truly became best friends in those moments. I absolutely love that man. He is going to do great things here and when he returns home!
This week was filled with some of my favorite memories to this day, that final blessing is definitely one I will never forget. The Lord knows us all, and has great things in store for each of us. All that he asks in return is that we follow the example of His Son Jesus Christ. How simple is that? I love the Gospel. I know that it is true, and that it can change lives!!!!! Being able to be a representative of Jesus Christ is amazing. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I hope all is well back in the motherland. :)
Love Elder Johnson!
we painted the shed, worked out, and then met a guy with 400 feet of braided grocery bags, and that is my ghetto bench set up! hahahahah
May 16, 2016
Oh man this was a crazy week! Not a lot going on, just some crazy weird and funny things that happened. Early on in the week, we were knocking this long street, and nobody was answering! But as we were going, we saw this old lady across the street that was doing some work in her garage. We went over and began to talk to her and offered to help clean her garage or whatever else she might need, and we ended up setting up a whole garage sale with her. She is a funny little old lady named Josie and her husband Jorge. They are most definitely Ganders. But Jorge has a SICK old Jaguar that he bought. I think he said it is a 1950 something. I took some pictures in it so I will have to add those at the end of this email :) While helping them, we even set up a time to paint their shed for them, help during the garage sale, and do some yard work for them. Being able to provide these small acts of service has made a huge impact on them about our church! And now she tells everyone she sees (at least when we are around) how awesome we are. It cracks me up. When we go over to paint the shed we are going to bring a speaker over and listen to some conference talks... See if we can slip a lesson on prophets in there or something And the best part about all this, is Jorge makes the best salsa I have ever had. And he always gives me some when we go over!!!! It will burn your mouth all day, but dang it is bomb. I think he is making us a Mexican Feast while we paint the shed too. I can't wait for that!!
When we left from that service, we had a "less active" member that we were going to visit. We had gone through the Ward directory and marked everyone that we knew and didn't know so we could go visit those that were less active. It was really awkward when we showed up at this members home and realized that he was active... But we still got to know him a little better while we were there. He showed us some of his wood working projects that he does, and he is amazing. It blew my mind that anyone could do what he does from a solid block of wood. I got some pictures of a nativity scene that he carved that I will have to send too. It will blow your mind!
A few days later, we went back to help Josie and Jorge with a few little projects and then finished knocking their street. We were not looking forward to knocking that day, but it ended up being awesome. We knocked for 7 straight hours that day. But in the midst of the long day, some funny stuff happened. Before anything funny though, on the 3rd door that we knocked, something rare and precious happened. A lady named Lisa invited us in to teach her about the Restoration right off the door step! So we came in and taught her most of it, but didn't have time to finish it all. We were able to set up a return appointment! We were really happy about that. As we went down the street door to door, there was a guy that had a box on the edge of his porch with a sign that read "Shhhhhh.... Baby birds are sleeping in the nest on the door." So we walked up to his door, and saw the nest with 4 little eggs in it, and knocked softly on the door. He came and slowly opened the door, and in whispers I began to talk to him. I didn't realize that by "Shhhhhhhh" he meant "don't come to my dang door!" He was not very happy with us at that point! hahahahahah so he chewed us out, still in whispers. It was just a funny little thing that happened while knocking.
Along with those few little things this week, we had some lessons with Bob again! That guy is so amazing to me. He has such a strong testimony!!! On Tuesday when we saw him, we taught him the Law of Chastity which was pretty funny. But at the end, I felt like I should go over the Baptismal Interview questions with him. I have been a part of a mock interview only one other time, and this time I got to perform the interview. It was a very Spiritual moment for me when he would answer the questions that I posed, then bear his testimony to me. I know that Bob has been prepared for this Gospel. He wants to be baptized, and then he is going to the Temple to be baptized for his son that passed away a year ago. Bob is so excited to give these blessings to his son. But, Bob was on date to be baptized on May 28, sadly we had to move the date to June 25 because of his work schedule. He will be gone for the next 3 weeks! Hopefully I stay in Midland one more transfer so I can be here for his baptism! I absolutely love Bob!
But that is the gist of the week here in Michigan. We only got rained on like twice this week, so now my shoes are mostly dry. The weather is like Winter again, but I still love this place. There are crazy people, rude people, and a whole lot of Ganders, but in the end there are people here that need me and what I have to share with them. I know that is true. The Gospel can help anyone and Everyone if they take the time to learn about it, pray about it, then live it. There are blessings inseparably connected to living Christ's principles, and all the principles are only found in this church! Therefor, we have the most blessings available to us!!! So let's get out and share it with everyone!!!!! I love the Gospel. I know it changes lives. I know it is true.
Love
Elder Tyler Johnson
May 9, 2016
I don't know what to say in this email! I feel like we just talked! ;) hmmmm... from this week there were a few things that I didn't talk about in the call yesterday. So instead this week I am going to keep it short and simple. This week I found the importance of preparing for Sacrament meeting. It isn't just something that we should go into just to do for the week. To prepare for this Sacred meeting, we should come with a repentant heart, a question in mind, and happiness in our soul. I found that if we do that, we can receive personal revelation in that meeting just as if we were in the temple. We will have thoughts come to us, scripture mean more, and most of all we will be sanctified by The Holy Ghost. Being sanctified is critical to retaining a remission of our sins as Elder Bednar taught this last conference. The things he taught should be something that we all strive to do! As we retain a remission of our sins, we will be able to confidently kneel in prayer before our Heavenly Father to ask for personal blessings (or blessings for others). We will have a sense of deeper peace than we can gain through any other means. And we will be able to teach those that we meet with power and authority because we have the Spirit and are worthy of its guidance. I know that is true! I know that the feelings of The Spirit are what everyone in the world wants, they just don't know it yet. I love the Peace that it brings to my soul. I love seeing the peace that it brings to investigators lives as well. It is an awe inspiring process. I know that Heavenly Father truly knows each of us personally! I know that He wants us to be happy, and has given us a plan to be happy. It's only simple things that He requires of us and we receive and infinite increase as we cheerfully obey!! Man I love the Gospel. I miss you, and I love you. Keep strengthening your testimony, keep preparing, and keep smiling! Life is Good :)
Love Elder Johnson
May 2, 2016
my friend, Kiki is a beast! She came to church this Sunday and she loved it. She is definitely coming back she said, and now we are helping her get her husband involved. Their family is so great, and I can see how adding the blessings of the Gospel would just make them even greater. It's crazy how Heavenly Father can give us glimpses of our Brother and Sisters potential as we serve them and help them have Spiritual experiences. I can't even explain it.
Besides teaching Kiki, and teaching Bob (which was awesome as usual) , we just had a lot of door knocking this week. I finally have practiced, studied, prayed, and applied enough things, that door knocking isn't scary anymore. hahaha only took 5 freaking months. I rely more on the Spirit on doorsteps, or when talking to someone on the street now, and it has made finding so much better. More enjoyable, greater success, and I never don't know what to say anymore. I am so grateful for that. I never thought I would be able to talk to someone and actually know what to say, but it happens!
Just to close, I want to bear testimony again of the Power of the Priesthood, especially in giving blessings of any sort. This week was really hard on my friend Elder Blazzard. He has been having a rough time lately, and he asked us for a blessing. Elder Harris gave the blessing, but I got to participate as well. The Spirit was so strong as we blessed him with the things that Heavenly Father had in store for him. After the blessing, Elder Tapusoa asked if we could just talk with him, and give him counsel on some things that he had been struggling with as well. None of us knew what he wanted to talk about, but I wanted to be able to help him so much. I snuck off into a different room, knelt down, and asked for the Spirit to help me help Elder Tapusoa, and continue to help Elder Blazzard. The feeling of love and reassurance that I felt during that prayer was overwhelming. I knew that I would be able to help both of them, and as the night went on, I know that what I was able to counsel them both to do came from the Spirit. We all grew in strength, testimony, and brotherhood. I know that without the guidance of the Spirit and Priesthood Authority, we are nothing. NOTHING. Having that direction and constant help in our lives is wonderful. That is what I am here to share with people. I know I need it, and I know that they need it, so I am here to help them find it. I love being able to serve for two years with all my heart, might, mind and strength.
Sorry that I don't have more to share... but!
Always remember: The Church is True!!!!!! I know it is. Shout it from the mountain tops :)
Elder Tyler Johnson
Also, I love my new companion. We are working so much harder than I ever thought about working. I love how hard we are working, and it isn't going to stop for 19 months. And more. I love getting home at night with just enough strength left to plan, write in my journal, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed. It is awesome.
April 25, 2016
Time is flying! Oh man I have quite a bit to report on this week!!! First things first. TRANSFERS BOI!!!!! I am so happy to report: That I am still here in Midland!!!!! WOOHOO! Got to finish some work here before they get rid of me. Elder TIndall is GONZO. He got moved over to the Grand Rapid's Zone, and I got a sick new comp. His name is Elder Harris from none other than the infamous Preston ID!!! That's what I am talking about! I am so excited for this transfer. We are gonna DO WORK! Oh man I can't even explain how pumped I am for this. We are gonna tear this place up with the Spirit.
Other than that, the local district is pretty much the same. It's going to be goooooood. Earlier in the week, we had a pretty cool experience with one of our investigators. Her name is Kiki and we have been working with her for a little while now. She is from China, so the whole concept of Jesus Christ is a foreign one. However, as we have met with her, the truth of the Gospel is being manifest to her through the Spirit. Each time we meet with her, she will say the prayer, and each time she thanks Heavenly Father for sending us to "bring her more happiness and peace in [her] life." It is amazing to be a piece in her journey down this path. We are a little apprehensive about a few things though because her husband is very staunch Chinese Athiest... So I hope that she doesn't get swayed because he says something to her. She is great. We brought a member to the last lesson with her, and it couldn't have gone better. He does a lot of business with China for his job so he could relate to her so much better than we could. He helped her understand a lot about the Gospel and our purpose in life. She loved it. She committed to come to church on Sunday, but sadly she didn't show up. But! She did something that has never before happened to me. She called us just a couple hours aho, APOLOGIZED for not coming to church, then set up another appointment for this week, and said she will bring her whole family to church next Sunday. How awesome is that?! She is great :)
I had another awesome blessing this week as well. We have been working with a guy named Bob the last few weeks as well, and he is just as amazing as Kiki. He is on date to be baptized in the end of May, and I have no doubt that he will. He loves the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. It is sick. He has a lot of chronic pain in his hip, so last week we gave him a blessing to help him stop smoking, and to feel better. This week when we had a lesson with him, he stopped us mid-lesson and said "can I tell you something? Last week when you gave me that blessing, at least half of the pain in my hip left me." That was super random in the lesson, and super Spiritual. I have had so many testimony builders from blessings in the last few weeks it is insane. Priesthood Power is amazing. Life is good.
We had Bob at church as well as Carol and Jessie! It has been a while since Jessie has been to church because of her schedule living with split parents, so it was really good to see her there. Carol met with the Bishop to get her re-baptism process rolling, and it sounds like that will be able to happen this transfer or beginning of next!! So her and Jessie are doing great again, and we have really grown to love them (and their rats) too. Carol has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever felt. It is crazy. So I am really happy that she and Jessie are going into this together and are just so awesome. All my investigators are awesome. Mostly.
Anyways, that is all I have to report on this week! I left my notes at home so I probably forgot a ton of stuff, but that's all good. I will send home transfer numbers next week :) Have a good week!!!! Build your testimony, serve, and grow. The Church is true!!!!! :)
Love Elder Johnson
April 18, 2016
Have you ever seen a "missionary tan line?" They are super funny, and I am rocking a dang good one. All of a sudden the weather here is sunny, humid, and 75+ It's been super nice. But I am terribad at wearing sunscreen so I looked like a lobster for a few days. Those darn Canadian genes I have were showing ;) Sunburns are the least of my worries though. We have been finding huge spiders all over the apartment all of a sudden, and mosquitoes are all over the place. Ayuadame. Luckily, we had zone conference this week to get me out of the heat an bugs for a while. This zone conference was so awesome. At the beginning, one of the AP's promised that all of the questions we had, would be answered during this conference. He told the truth. I had questions about how to have more faith while finding and how to make it more effective. Door knocking feels like a waste of time after a while. As we went through the conference, They actually talked about that question specifically. It was exactly what I needed, and since then my door knocking experience has completely changed. It is so much more fun now, and I am way happier while doing it. The Lord is aware of all of us and knows what we need!! That I know to be true.
Another thing that our district has been working on is having more charity to everyone. So Elder Tindall and I had a pretty cool experience a few days after Zone Conference involving door knocking and Charity. I will just summarize it real quick. We had reached the point in the day where door knocking was a drag, and going no where. we had been out for hours, and I was ready to go take a shower and go to bed. We had one more house to knock on, so we went over and did it. This older man answered and he was not having it. He instantly started arguing with us and trying to bash with us (which is fun, but super pointless). I was not in the mood for that and I wanted to slap the guy. Not much charity in that! So I started praying sooooooo hard in my heart for charity and to just have a decent conversation with him. After I started doing that, I felt a wave of charity come over me. I was happy all of a sudden, and we were able to steer the conversation away from the topic (which was getting contentious) and just talked to him about chocolate muffins, basketball, and his family. At this point we found out that he was the Senior Pastor of some Baptist congregation in town. Good thing I didn't slap him!! The cool part about this, was as we were walking away, Elder TIndall asked me if I felt that wave of the Spirit come over us. It was awesome that we felt it at the same time and we knew it was an answer to my prayer. Pretty neat.
Our investigator Carol had a meeting with the Bishop this week so we can get things moving for her Baptism and her daughter's. That was really exciting to me! That should be happening in the coming months. No exact date yet, but it is in the works. Our other investigator Bob also is on track to be baptized at the end of May. We have only met with him 3 times, but this week he came to the Addiction recovery program with us, and we were able to give him a blessing!!! HECK YEA! He has a very good friend that is a member, so that friend gave the blessing, but I was able to anoint. It once again, strengthened my testimony of the Priesthood. There is only one other feeling like giving a blessing, and that is found in the Holy Temple. I can't describe it, but I love it.
I am running out of time so to finish up, I want to just bear testimony again. I know that this Gospel is true. Through the Ordinances found in it, and made possible through the Priesthood, we can access so many more blessings than anything else. The Atonement is real!!! It's power can forgive us, cleanse us, and change everyone's life if they allow it to. I know it is true and was for me and you. I love the gospel!!!! Have a great week :)
Love
Elder Johnson
We went to Brother Coleman's house and he showed us how to use some deadly warrior type weapons!! Super fun!
April 11, 2016
I don't even know what happened this week to be honest. It was crazy how fast this week went! It started off with the usual days of knocking, but on Tuesday hardly anybody was answering!!! That was really rough. made for a long few hours. Luckily, we got a call to go with a member to teach a less active lady, so we had a short lesson in between to break up the monotony. Tuesday night, we had a dinner with the Cannady family. As missionaries, it is our purpose to help others come closer to Christ at every opportunity; that means we share short messages after each dinner appointment. I had the honor of leaving the thought with them on this particular night and decided to talk about General Conference with them. As we discussed our favorite talks, and what stuck out to us etc. I was able to bear testimony of prophets and their divine calling. I didn't expect the overwhelming feelings of The Spirit that came to me as I did this. I focused my testimony on what Elder Holland said about the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve loving us so much, and as I shared that testimony I knew that it was true. Without a shadow of a doubt they love us and are here to help lead us to our heavenly home through direct revelation from God. They are true, living breathing PROPHETS. How lucky are we to have them. I hope that even though these are just words on a screen, that you can feel the Spirit of my testimony come with those words.
Later this week, I got to go serve on CMU campus again with one of the Zone Leaders! Being on campus is so weird compared to anything else. Makes me feel like I am back in the Burg! We taught a couple of lessons that day, and I can safely say they were two of the weirdest lessons I have ever been a part of. Just because the investigators were either 1) Super Awkward or 2) 99% sure that he was a Satanist. It was super sketch, but a good ol' time that's for sure.
OH! I got pulled over this week while driving too :) hahahahahah that was stressful. So we get up at 5:30 every morning to go play basketball with some of the young men before their early morning Seminary each day. We had just gotten a new car that I had not driven yet, so on the way to the church we were driving in a pretty well lit area, and I figured that the headlights were automatic like our other car. That was not the case. All of a sudden, I saw red and blue lights in my mirror and had way too many flashbacks :'D He just checked our insurance and registration then made sure my headlights and taillights worked before letting us go on our way. Now I always double check before leaving!
Saturday night, we got to go watch the "youth roadshow" They put on a few short plays that teach morals and Gospel related topics. It was super funny! We had a good time helping set up for that and take down. I will send some pictures of it in a minute.
To end the week, there was more drama with Jeremy and Danyelle. I'm not even going to go there. It is really frustrating sometimes, but CHARITY is the word of the... lifetime... So we may or may not keep working with them. We are going to have a DTR in the next day or so. Luckily, my week ended on a better note than that! Our recent convert Jefferson Glenn invited all of the Elders in our district over to his house last night for dinner. We made eggs and pancakes with him, played chess, I played the piano, and before we left we gave both of his parents a blessing. His dad is not a member, but asked for a blessing because he is starting Chemo today. I don't know his dad very well, I just know that he grew up in Boise and has some sort of connections with Poky. Since he didn't know any of us, but had a slight connection with me, he asked me to perform the blessing. OH MAN WAS I NERVOUS. I was so stressed right when he asked me to give the blessing. I didn't know this man, how was I supposed to bless him?! But as I placed my hands on his head and stated that I was acting under the authority of the Melchezidek Priesthood, I remembered that I was not blessing him. The Spirit calmed me down instantly, and I received the words that needed to be said to him at that time. I absolutely love blessings! They strengthen my testimony every time I see one, and more so when I get to participate. Priesthood Power is amazing. What a blessing that is as well. The Gospel is too good to be true. But it is true. That is the beauty of it all!
Love Your Boy,
Elder Johnson
This is me and Han Solo. He played the harp at a youth activity like a boss.
And this is my rat! hahahahah
April 4, 2016
This week was not very exciting really, the highlight of my week was most definitely hearing from the Prophets of God. I went into this conference with many questions that I have been searching for answers for, with no luck. I was really starting to get frustrated about my lack of answers too. As I was reaching the point of giving up, I heard a talk called "The Fourth Watch" By Michael Wilcox. If you haven't heard that talk go look it up and read/listen to it. It gave me the motivation to not give up on these questions yet, but to keep searching. Heavenly Father comes in His own time and in His own ways, and usually later than we expect or hope. I decided that in order to get my answers, I needed to ponder on them as I watched conference. I was sorely disappointed as one session passed with no answer to my question... Then a second... And a third... And fourth and fifth. However, once again right as I was about to lose hope in getting an answer during conference, Elder Holland stepped up to the pulpit. The very last speaker of this General Conference. He still did not speak on the topic of my concern, but during his talk, the Spirit answered all my questions. I was receiving the personal revelation that I had been seraching for. For myself, and those that we are teaching. It was one of the most humbling experiences on my mission and was a profound testimony builder. Heavenly Father truly is a Fourth Watch God. (Look up that talk and that will make a lot more sense ;)) Conference was So awesome. I could go on for hours about what I learned from it, but due to my limited time tonight, I will leave it to that one experience for now. I got literally 20 pages of notes from this conference. Prophets are too legit.
Another highlight that I just remembered (and another instance of personal revelation for the week) was teaching a lesson to a lady named Cherish. She has some of the strongest faith in our Savior that I have ever seen, member or not. She invited us back a few weeks ago, but due to sickness and other circumstances we couldn't meet until this week. As we talked with her, the Spirit was so strong. We were able to share the Book of Mormon and it's origins with her, and she was so excited to read in it and learn of it. It was so cool to witness. The most amazing part of the lesson came after we left. As missionaries, we always talk about finding those "elect" or the ones that are prepared to hear this message, and are ready to receive it. That night when I got back to my apartment, I knelt down to offer my nightly prayers. I began to ask for blessings for those that we are teaching just out of habit (which is really bad) but when I began to pray for Cherish and her family, I got a prompting from the Spirit telling me that she was one of those elect. It was powerful. I can't explain how powerful it was by typing it, because it can only be felt. I cannot wait to go back and see her again. Even though she is one of these elect, Satan is a tricky dude. I just wanna smack him. So I pray that she will progress and continues to feel of the Spirit. Missionary work is awesome.
I hope that you go over this latest conference again, and that talk I mentioned earlier. The more we go over these words, the easier the Holy Ghost can bring them to our remembrance in times of need. They can change our lives as we act on them! Do Work!!!!!
Love,
Elder Johnson
Zone P-day was also today! These are a couple pictures before we left. I had a rap battle against the two poly elders in this picture, and I got ROASTED. But that's okay I am an aspiring white Christian rapper. I will get there!
March 28, 2016
So..... I am not sure what happened with you all this week due to lack of emails... but, As for my week, This one was better than the last one that is for dang sure! Throughout the week, we continued to check up on Jeremy and Danyelle and see if they could use any help or just were ready to talk about what had happened. Every time that we went, Jeremy would talk to us for a few minutes, but Danyelle would just go hide in the back room. It was really sad for me because I had truly come to love this family, and I had seen the blessings of the Gospel change their lives so much!!! We had mostly given up on them after being ignored and/or shooed away the last couple of times that we had checked up on them, but Saturday we felt like we should try one more time to see them. We pulled up and offered a prayer, then went to go talk to them. To my surprise, Danyelle answered and came outside to talk with us! We ended up staying and talking for over an hour with her, and found out that they are moving a few streets over because they were being kicked out by their roommate. The stress from that and a bunch of other crazy things that were going on in her life were what had made her snap last week and tell us to leave them alone, but she apologized and told us when they get settled in the new house, we can come over and resume the lessons. That was such a relief and a truly Spiritual moment as I and Elder Tindall bore testimony of how this will continue to change their lives, and told her that we loved her and her family. She was crying and told us that she knows it will. After that, we were all crying, so we gave her a hug and went on our way. I am so happy that they still want to try. Their time is coming!
Besides that, our lesson count for the week was pretty dang low. That means that we got to spend a majority of our time out on the streets talking to people and knocking on doors. One of the days that we were out doing that, I found out what the term "Freezing Rain" Truly means. That stuff is straight out of HELL. Oh man it was miserable to be out in that, but on that day I had something happen that I had not experienced before. My motivation levels were pretty dang low because of the weather, but right before I got out of the car I offered a quick prayer in my heart asking for help to do the work. Immediately as I closed that prayer, I felt like there was someone on that street that needed this message. Never before had I had a feeling as strong as that one came to me, and that motivated me to go out and work as hard as I could. On that street, we met 3 people that invited us back. I am not sure which one of them needed to hear what we said, or if they will use their agency to act on this message, but I know that somebody that day needed us. It was wonderful.
Finally, I got to do something pretty fun this week. A man in my ward named Valiant Jones had us over for dinner one night, and after dinner he asked if we wanted to see his latest "project." He is freshly retired, and does all sorts of random things, so I was so pumped to see what he had in store. He took us out to the park behind his house where there were huge maple trees that he had been tapping for sap, and boiling it down to syrup! We got to help him gather it and while we were gathering, he was telling us how Joseph Smith did this exact same thing just before the First Vision. It was a cool thought to think about. We were working just as Joseph would have nearly 200 years ago, and now we are out spreading the word that he played a key role in restoring. Just interesting to me!
That is the summary of what happened here in Michigan! I hope you had a happy Easter and were able to think deeper about what this Holiday truly means. There is so much that we need to be thankful for because of what Christ did for us. I can't even begin to explain how much more I appreciate His sacrifice after this week and studying it each day. His and Heavenly Father's love for us trumps anything in this world. How blessed are we to know that? The Gospel is true. Live it, Love it.
Love,
Elder Johnson
P.S That picture with 3 of us was when We took a guy that just submitted his papers on Saturday door knocking with us. It was awesome! While knocking that day, We heard a lady pray "in tongues" and I got a Catholic bible from a guy. It was a party!
March 14, 2016
This week, I want to start my email by saying HAVING ELDERS IN MY DISTRICT IS LEGIT. It has been so much fun this week doing things with Elder Blazzard and Elder Tapasoa. We get up at like 5:30 and all meet at the church to play basketball in the mornings and we have a blast. Ball is life. And the two of them also have guitars so we are doing a sweet guitar trio! Ah I love it. But that is just a side note, the rest of this week was insane. with a big fat capital i.
Sadly, we only had 3 lessons last week. One was with just Jeremy, one was with just Danyelle, and one was with Carol and Jessie. With Jeremy and Danyelle, we introduced them to a stop smoking program that turns of the craving for cigarettes by purging your body of nicotine in just 7 days! We went over the 15 steps of the program and committed them to follow the steps in order to quit smoking and be baptized on March 26. They instantly agreed, gave Elder Tindall and me all of their lighters, Cigarettes, ashtrays, and have now been smoke free for 5 days. It's amazing the transformation people go through when they know that the gospel is true. Danyelle is turning into a missionary machine too! She invites her family weekly to come to church with us. How amazing is she?! Also this week was their daughter Alayna's birthday! Alayna is a cutie, I will have to send some pictures of her in a little bit.
After teaching those two the 15 step program, we went over and saw Jessie and Carol. We just talked with them about what their thoughts were about being baptized before Collin. Collin has been slowing down a little because we haven't met with him for a little while and he has some doctrinal questions that he wants answered. Carol and Jessie are both hesitant to be baptized without him, even though they both have testimonies! It's a rough situation, but I believe that it will just improve as we get to meet with Collin more often. He was at church this week and that was a huge step for him, so like I said there is only room for progression now.
Now we get to the crazy part of my week >:) So, on Saturday Elder Tindall had a Mission Leadership Conference in Lansing, so I got to go serve for a day in Saginaw. Everyone wants to serve in Saginaw! It's the gang headquarters in our mission, so I was so pumped!!! I don't want to get into details of what all went down there, or I would be emailing all day long and that's not allowed. So long story short, I got to spend the day with Elder Laaksonen. He came out the same day as me and we get along so well. I absolutely love being around him. After our studies we headed out to a lesson that he had planned for the day. When we got there, the lesson shined us so we began knocking this neighborhood. As we knocked we came across one of the gangs in town, but they were super nice to us and just said to talk to them some other time. We headed down the road and met a ton of really open people on the road. One guy even invited us in and we taught him the Restoration and set up a time to go back and bring him a Book of Mormon! I loved that. Anyways, after we left his house and finished the rest of the street then started heading back to the car. On the way back, we saw some guys unloading a new engine and saw a sick classic car parked where they were. Elder Laaksonen is a car fanatic so we booked it over to them to ask about the engine and the car. When we got there we realized it was the gang that we had talked to earlier that day! When we talked about the car they got even nicer to us, let us take pictures with the car, hugged us, fist bumped, laughed with us, and we just had a good ol time with this gang!! While we were talking to them we noticed there was obviously one guy that was more in charge so we figure he was the leader. During our conversation with them, a car rolled up across the street and a bunch of thugs got out. Right them The Spirit was telling us to get out of there, and the "leader" said "yo, they ain't from our hood." Then skipping the less important, and more scary details, "Leader" looked at Elder Laaksonen and I and told us to get out of there and avoid those guys that rolled up. He told us they wouldn't "do or say anything positive to us." We hauled out of there and behind us, we heard a gang fight commence. I was so grateful that we got out of there when we did and that we were protected in that situation. It could have been way worse. One cool thing was before we left, the nice gangsters that we had been with told us to "say wassup to the Latter Day Saints" for him. That was pretty sweet I thought.
Being in Saginaw was a great day. With all the people we talked with and taught that day I could feel the promptings of the Spirit guiding us in the work. I know that this work is inspired and carried out only through revelation and the Spirit. I love being here. Nothing better than serving my brothers and sisters that are out here waiting for this message. I know it changes lives, it has changed mine, and I am watching it change many others. The Gospel is true. Live it and you will know it!
Love Always
Elder Johnson
Danyelle and Jeremy's daughter Alayna!
I love This girl!
When your companion is from Florida and wears
earmuffs in 66 degree weather! Sweater vests for days!
Numbers For this Transfer:
Invited To Learn: 523
Potential Investigators: 43
Hours spent Knocking: 90
Lessons Taught: 28
Baptized: 1
Total:
955
66
168 hours 45 Min
52
1
March 7, 2016
It is so crazy how fast time flies out here! I am not even being trained anymore like what the heck? I can't even believe it. There is some exciting stuff happening in my area, that you will hear about in a little bit! I love you guys! And thank you so much for that CD! All these Elders are jealous of my family now hahahahaha :) You are the best! Sorry this email is so late today, but this was an awesome week! It ended transfer #2, and I will still be in Midland with Elder Tindall! We still have a lot going on in this ward so we need to work hard in case one of us does get transfered next time! It was a crazy 6 weeks, with lots of ups and downs and crazy people, but in the end we still have people that are changing their lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I love being a part of this change.
As you know, we have been teaching Jeremy and Danyelle for some time now. They are so great to work with, and to see the changes in their life is astounding. From the time we met them to now I can hardly recognize them! This week, Jeremy was given even more job opportunities so he can better provide for his family financially, and he recognizes that it is because of the blessings Heavenly Father is giving him. Along with having all these blessings, Jeremy and Danyelle made a big decision this week that will continue to bring about more blessings. They were planning on being baptized together in July because that is the earliest that Jeremy can be, but after discussing it between themselves, Danyelle has decided to move her date to March 19! She still has a few things that she needs to fine tune before she can enter into this covenant, but I am positive that she can do it if she continues acting on her faith. Holy smokes I am so excited for her and her family. They don't even know all the joy that is coming there way, especially once they make it into the sealing room. Being sealed by proper priesthood authority is something that means so much to them, and to me as well. I can't wait to see them continue working towards these eternal goals and progressing. I love these two!!!! Throughout the week, we ended up teaching them 3 lessons and in one of them, we were teaching about Sabbath Day Observance and how important that is. In the course of the lesson I shared a scripture found in Exodus 31:13. We talked about what the verse is saying (which I will let you look it up yourself to see what it says ;)) and what it means to them. As we talked about the meaning of the verse, and the importance of Sundays, The Spirit was there. It testified to all of us and Danyelle with teary eyes said "That puts the Sabbath in a whole new perspective." Being able to see the Spirit work so strongly in an individual and bring about a "mighty change of heart" is beautiful. I can't even describe how it makes me feel.
We did not get to meet with Carol and Jessie this week due to scheduling conflicts, snow storms, and sickness, so there is not much update on them. On another note however, Elder Tindall and I got to help out with something that doesn't happen very often! In Midland, the work has been going very well and the two wards here are growing so much that we got to help set up a new apartment for a second pair of Elder's to join our area!! We are so excited, we are getting Elder Blazzard and Elder Tapasoa. I love these two Elders, I've been playing basketball with them all day and they are great guys. So yea a little bit of a change in Midland right now! It will be fun.
Since this is the end of a transfer, I usually would send the numerical side of what is going on here, but I forgot my journal at home so I will send the numbers next week cuz they are kinda fun to see the stats :)
Elder Johnson
PS The picture is when we were helping prep the new Elders apartment!
February 29, 2016
This week was a week! hahaha It started off with every house we knocked on warning us about the "Noreasters" that were heading our way! apparently that is what the call The winds that come across the lake from Canada and always bring a big Lake Effect snow storm, with ice wind. I didn't really believe them because it was sunny and 50+ degrees! so we brushed off what they were saying and just continued to work. That day stayed sunny and warm which made us think that everyone here was just crazy! Wednesday morning (when the storm was supposed to be raging) we woke up to more sunny blue skies! IT was slightly colder, so we actually wore jackets that day and began tracting as usual. A few hours into it, we finally discovered what the terms "ice wind" and "whiteout" really mean. Shortly after this storm rolled in, we got a text from President Jacobsen telling us all to go inside for the day and wait it out. It was the craziest snow storm I have ever seen. We got 10-15 inches in no time flat. That made walking for miles the next day an adventure let me tell ya! The snow is all gone now, but forecast for 11" again tommorw.. and Wednesday... and Thursday...
The night before this big storm, we had a lesson with Jessie and Carol again (Collin was at work for this lesson) and to our pleasant surprise, Jessie had invited a friend to the lesson! Having investigators that are comfortable enough to share what they have learned and then invite others to learn as well are so awesome. For this lesson, we got to teach these two fifteen year old girls the law of chastity! hahahahahah so much fun. Now we are trying to help Jessie bring her friend to church and young women as well.
Speaking of Investigators that bring their friends along, this story will show a glimpse into how important inviting people to learn about the gospel from the missionaries can be. There is a family called the Larsen's in the 1st ward that had a friend named Joey. Joey is not a member, so the Larsen's invited him to have the missionaries teach him about the gospel. He accepted, and is now planning on being baptized. Joey lives with a couple named Jeremy and Danyelle. Joey referred Jeremy and Danyelle to the missionaries, and now they are planning to be baptized. Then this week when we went to teach Jeremy and Danyelle, they brought their friend Marietta along who now is planning on learning about the Gospel and quitting smoking with Danyelle. And thus we see, that the work of the Lord is one eternal round! The way that the Gospel has influenced these families and individuals is a blessing just to watch happen. For example, Jeremy and Danyelle are probably the poorest people that I have ever met. Jeremy can never get a job either for a few reasons, and that is really hard on him. As we have taught them, the Word of Wisdom has been a tough thing for them. We promised Jeremy that if he quit smoking, he would find a job to support his family. Shortly thereafter, he got a job at the local car wash, but it still wasn't enough hours (only like 10 a week) to pay all his bills and other fines. He stayed faithful though, and when all the other workers would go out and smoke, he would stay behind and clean off the floor of the car wash. It wasn't easy for him, but he was acting on his faith. Now after having this job for only about a month, he is looking at a management position that will support his family. The blessings of keeping the commandments always come. I know it.
Keep the commandments, in this there is safety, in this there is peace. Not just any peace either, but the peace of the Spirit of God. There is no greater peace than this, I know it. The Church is True, and Heavenly Father loves (and wants to bless) each of His Children. Being a missionary is the greatest!
Elder Johnson
February 22, 2016
I had quite the week again this week! It started off with interviews with the mission president and district meeting. This district meeting was awesome, we learned all about involving The Father and The Son more in the work. We all learned so much from the Spirit that day, and I know that applying what was taught will give even more of a boost than there already is! I will keep you updated on that as we go. One sad thing happened in that meeting though, mid way through it we got a phone call from our investigator Chris who said he didn't want to meet anymore. It was rough, and he won't talk to us now so we don't know what changed his mind. His time will come eventually.
Later on in the week we had a lesson with Jessie and Carol and Collin once again. I don't remember how much I talked about them in last weeks email, but to summarize, Jessie (15) has been meeting with us and wanted to be baptized on March 5. We also have been teaching Carol and Collin (Mom and Step Dad), but didn't know if they were just supporting Jessie or what. Eventually Carol came out and told us that she wanted to be baptized, but wanted to do it with Collin so she was waiting for him. She didn't know if it was something he was even considering either. When we met with them, we asked Collin if he would be baptized. He told us that he had been thinking about it, so we discussed it with them, and now they all three are planning to be baptized. They aren't sure on a date yet because of a few small complications with Carol. But that family is going to be baptized! I am so humbled to be a part of helping a family become eternal. Such a great opportunity.
A few days after we had the lesson with those three, we were out without a car about to start knocking when we got a call. The call was from Jessie telling us that her mother had a terrible migraine. Carol gets really bad migraines every couple months and ends up in the hospital sometimes because of them. We were pretty concerned about her so we offered a blessing and Carol said she would like that. We made the trek over there through all the mud and puddles to give her the blessing and taught a short lesson while we were there. That blessing made all the difference in the world though. She fell asleep shortly after we left and woke up completely headache-free. It was worth every step of the 15 mile walk that day.
Along with that family, we taught Jeremy and Danyelle again this week. The lesson was a little bit long because Danyelle can talk a LOT, but it was good. They are learning and progressing quite well together, and I can't wait to see where this gospel will take them. I Love those two!
Lesson-wise, this was a rather slow week. That gave us the chance to do a lot of knocking though! Gotta love that hahahaha. One thing that stuck out to me from the people we met this week, was how many people deny the divinity of the Book of Mormon without having read it. Then they refuse to read it or learn about it! It is so frustrating, and that logic just makes no sense to me. How the heck are you supposed to know if it is true of not if you don't read and apply it?!?! JUST LET ME TEACH YOU ABOUT HOW IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!! hahahaha oh man I got so frustrated about that this week. But Saturday totally made up for it!
This Saturday, Elder Tindall and I got to go to the Detroit temple to do a session with a sister that was getting her endowments. There were so many ward members there to support her, it was really awesome. The best part about it (besides what I learned of course) was waiting with everyone in the celestial room for her to come in. It was the sweetest moment that I have ever been a part of. The Spirit there was intense, and we could all feel Heavenly Father's love for her and each of us. Man I can't even describe it. Being there for that made my whole week though, and really helped me appreciate being able to go to a temple so often in Idaho. I can only go once every 6 months here and that is the worst! The temple is the greatest, and I can't wait until I can go back.
This work is inspired! I love being a part of it and know that it will change lives, especially our own, as we act and serve. Look to share your testimony of Christ, Look to be kind, and Look to the Temple.
Love,
Elder Tyler Johnson
February 15, 2016
This week for me had quite a lot going on! It started off warm and sunny with a car, but on Wednesday we had to give the car to the Sisters for a week. Since we gave up the car you will never guess what happened that night. IT SNOWED. Go figure am i right? So ever since that night we have gotten snow almost daily, and if it isn't snowing it is around 0 degrees (not exaggerating) but that builds character I hear.
After that, came the fun part of my week. On Thursday night the zone leaders Elder Mafile'o and Elder Tubagus, serving on CMU campus, came and we did a "trade off." Elder Tubagus and Tindall stayed here in Midland, and I went to CMU campus with Elder Mafile'o. Holy that was a great time. Elder Mafile'o and I talked about rugby, and cliff diving, and surfing, and all the stuff that nobody else can talk about with me! We got close super fast, and it really showed the next day as we talked with students on campus. The next day we had a lesson with one of the football players there named Jabari Dean. That went quite well, as we taught him about the restoration and baptism. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized, and he told us he has already been baptized... So he will take a little work but he seemed pretty dang interested. Following that lesson we just roamed campus and talked to 20 different students, 15 of which we set up lessons with throughout the week! So now I know that the Zone Leaders will be busy hahahahaha.
That night the trade off ended and Elder Mafile'o and I drove back to Midland to trade back. The zone leaders stayed at our apartment for a little and we played the guitar and rapped before they had to head out, it was a blast.
The next day was my boy Jefferson's baptism!! It was one of the sweetest things that I have ever seen. He asked me to be a witness for it, and his best friend Justin Savage baptized him. As I watched them take part in this ordinance, I could feel the Spirit so strong. I could see the joy on Jefferson's face as he went under the water and came back up. It was just awesome and I love being around the young men here. We bring them teaching with us as much as possible!
Once the baptism was over, we were back on the streets of Midland! This place is awesome, and it just felt good to be out there again. Anyways, we started knocking this street at 5, and had a potential investigator that we were going to meet close by at 6. It was also really close to where we have had the cops on us previously hahahahah. While knocking we had one guy who flipped out at us when we knocked on his door because he had a no peddlers sign on the door, and we were scared we were going to get the cops called on us again in the same area and get in trouble, so we began a giant loop to evade any po po and still make it to the lesson we had planned at 6. This is when the Spirit totally guided us. We came to the street that the potential lived on, and we both knew it was the street, but we just kept walking. and walking. and walking. Then all of a sudden we saw this guy outside his house smoking a cigarette just staring at us, so of course we had to go talk to him. We approached him and as we began a conversation, we found out that his name is Ben Guffy, and he had met with missionaries two years ago and wanted to be baptized, but he was having a hard time quitting smoking and hasn't been to church in like 7 months. Only by the Spirit could we have been lead to his home for the 5 minutes he was outside smoking. It was so perfect, and now we are going to meet with him again and help him move towards baptism. We left from there and booked it back to our lesson, which sadly fell through because she was not home, but once again it all worked out. There was another lady near by that we have been trying to meet with since I got here but she kept having things come up that got in the way, and we were considering dropping her. We decided that since we were close we should check on her one more time, and if we couldn't set anything up we would leave her be. What do you know, she answered and we were able to set up a time to finally go see her this week!! It was amazing to see how Heavenly Father had helped all this come about in just a short period of time.
Finally (and my favorite part of the week) we had 4 investigators at church. We had Jeremy and Danyelle, and Carol and Jessie. Now, the two that I want to focus on are Carol and Jessie. I don't remember if I have talked much about Jessie the last few emails, but she was a referral from part of the mission presidency to us. Carol (Jessie's mom) was a member years ago, but after some bad advice, asked to have her name removed from the records of the church. However, in our gospel principles class, Carol shared a testimony of the Book of Mormon unlike any I have ever heard before. It was so so so so so powerful, and left me in awe. Long story short, after church she texted President Hoover (who referred Jessie to us) and said that being at church was like coming home. She then invited Pres Hoover to Jessie's Baptism that we have scheduled for March 5. To this invitation, Pres Hoover replied, "I would rather come to her baptism and yours." Carol then responded "I think that date is still a ways out, but it is something I am working towards. This time I want to do it right though and have Collin (her Husband) be baptized with me. I want an Eternal Family. I want the Priesthood in my home."
*BOOM MIND BLOWN* I was so freaking happy when Pres Hoover told us about that, even though she had never told us about that desire. So we are going to work with her in helping Collin become converted through reading, praying, and applying! I am so excited for this family!
Overall, I must say that this was the best week of my mission. The Spirit was strong with us and in the work undeniably. I absolutely loved it. But yea, that was my week!
The Church Is TRUE!!! LIVE IT, LOVE IT!
Elder Johnson
Jefferson & I after his baptism
My cold, red face with ice on my eyelashes after walking to fill the font for the baptism at 8 am
Justin, Elder Tindall & I holding Jefferson after his baptism
I forgot to tell you one thing that happened this morning! So our toilet broke last night. The little plug thing that lifts to make the toilet flush? yea the part that connects the handle to the plug broke... and we didn't want to call our landlord cuz he doesn't like us, so I totally macgyvered the toilet back together using some fishing line, a box cutter, and a thumb tack. But now it totally flushes just like it should! I was really proud to have rewired its interface ;)
Love ya!
February 8, 2016
I will send you a picture of my updated motivation board, I absolutly love seeing it every morning. I think this is good, but I didn't even know that the superbowl was yesterday hahahahah. Or who was in it! Oh well I am not too worried about it. Been to busy walking through blizzards and converting felons this week to think about it. This week was way better than last week! This is some of what happened!
Sister Glenn in my ward bore her testimony yesterday and it was a great reminder for all of us I think. Her husband just was diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread all over his body, but she bore testimony yesterday about how all of our trials are custom designed for each of us. Heavenly Father knows us so well, that he knows when and how to try us to make us the best we can be. I was thinking of a hymn while she was talking, "thy dross to consume." That is exactly what our trials do for us and I love it. The other day I was pondering life and the choices that I have made and thinking how dumb they were, but I am grateful for how it all worked out. He knew how to make it all work for the best in the end, no matter how hard it seemed in the moment. I love it!
I don't even know what happened lol all the days just start to blur cuz it goes so dang fast. So I can't remember if I told you about a new couple that we picked up, Jeremy and Danyelle, but there is so much great news about them that you are gonna hear a lot about them! So, these two are a very very poor couple with a little 11 month old baby. They met with the sister missionaries in the other ward, but live in our ward. Since they live in our boundaries, they have recently been meeting with us. They are so so so awesome. Like so awesome that they heard about the word of wisdom before we even have taught it, and now they dropped coffee and tea cold turkey! And they went from half a pack of cigarettes each per day, to only 1 each per day! It is such a testimony strengthener to see them progressing and acting with so much faith. Another thing that was so cool to me, was we had a baptismal date set for February 27, and without us saying anything about this, they calculated how many pages they needed to read together to finish the Book of Mormon by that date. So amazing. Sadly, Jeremy is on probation right now for theft until July so we moved their date to July 5. Despite that they still are trying to finish the Book of Mormon by the original date. They have changed their lives so much to prepare for baptism, and they always tell us how badly they want to be baptized. I am so glad that the Sisters found them and that they were so prepared to receive the Gospel. Investigators are the greatest people, I love them!
We also taught our friend Jefferson this week, and he is being baptized this Saturday! I will make sure to send lots of pictures from his baptism. We are so so so so so excited for him, and he is even preparing to serve a mission next year! He is an all star. Oh he also gave me a guitar that I have been playing in my free time so maybe I will be a pro musician when I get home, that'd be cool.
AH! something that I almost forgot! We spent a lot of time country knocking this week (knocking in the country if you needed more explaining lol) and met some great people out where no missionaries had knocked before. One thing that we found that stuck out to me, were the two pictures that I am going to attatch at the end of this email. Some guy just built those! HAhahahahahahah rednecks are legit. JK the pictures are too big to attatch to this, so I will send them separate hah sorry
Anyways That is all for this week. I hope that your week is perfect, and that you learn something new from the Spirit this week. I live the Gospel, I love it, and I cannot wait to Find more of those, my brothers and sisters, that are prepared to hear and benefit from this message. The Gospel is true! Stay Faithful my friends. I will see you soon.
Love
Elder Johnson
February 1, 2016
There is no better anything that being here! I decided that two years is too short. I am already a 12th of the way done like what in the world?! I better get working harder I guess!!! Gotta baptize everyone!! hahahah But I did take a few more pictures this week! I will send them soon!
Guess where I am going today? Frankenmuth. That is almost as cool as kalimazoo!!!!! hahahahaha I am really excited to go there, we are going to an ice sculpture exhibit! Hopefully that will be pretty fun.
Well anyways here is the week of unfortunate events:
There were a few sad things that happened this week, but there is still so much good that is outweighing the bad. The first thing that was pretty hard is this: We texted Dillon to see when we could come over to visit them again, and got no response which never happens from him. So we waited a while and gave him a call. Still no answer or reply. Finally we decided just to drop by and see what was up. We walked over and knocked on the door, and Cathrine answered and talked to us for a little bit about how some of their family had shared some anti websites and information with them... But we were able to smooth some of it out right there and set a time to come see both of them the next day. When we arrived we just sat and began to talk with them, praying for help from Heavenly Father, looking for what they needed to hear. As we talked we found out that they felt they had found the right church for them... It was super sad to hear that, but when I heard it a question popped into my head. The question was something that we have gone over so many times, but I asked it anyways. I asked them if they knew why the Book of Mormon is so important. They just looked at me with blank stares!!! It was so frustrating because all they need to do to know the truth, is read that book. Then pray about it. That is it. NOBODY DOES THAT!!!! It is super hard, but it gave me a good opportunity to bear testimony of the Book and to tell what it can do for them. Hopefully they still have a desire somewhere to read and pray, but for now they dropped us. That doesn't mean a thing though, this is a battle for souls! You don't just roll over in a battle! So I will keep praying and working for them.
The other sad thing was Chris still did not meet with us this week. He said he was gonna be at church, but never showed. He still has not returned our calls either so we are gonna swing by there and raid the place hahahah just kidding. But for real, he can run but he cant hide.
In the end though, We still have lessons to teach and people to serve. We also got a new couple to teach who is on date to be baptized for Feb 27! now we have 3 people getting ready for baptism this transfer. So sick. The church is true! I love the work, Build your testimonies, and keep the commandments. That is what will keep us strong and endure to the end.
Also, if you see missionaries, be nice to them. When we get members that come up to us and talk and encourage us it makes such a big difference in our day. One guy even bought us a pizza so that was awesome. Anyways that's all for now!
Miss Ya!!!
Love You!
Elder Johnson
Also we took a few pictures by a river
January 25, 2016
I cannot even comprehend how fast all this time is flying past. I already finished my first transfer like what?! I feel like I just got here!! So much happened this week. It was quite an amazing one actually.
I always feel like I forget things when I email so hopefully today I get it all! Well, to start the week off we had quite an interesting referral. Usually we only get those from members or LDS.org, but this time President Hoover from our Mission Presidency called us personally with a referral to go see! He had taught this girl's (Jesse) mother years and years ago, but since she (The mom; Carol) has fallen away from the church. Apparently Jesse has become interested and wanted to know about our church. So he gave us her information and we set up a time to go meet with her. We ended up going to see her the next night! She lives with her mom and step dad, and is a minor (15) so they have to allow us to teach her and be present in the lessons. We were a little nervous about the step dad because he is a minister at another local denomination, but he is very kind to us and supportive of Jesse in finding her own path. They are great people. Anyways, we taught them about the restoration of the gospel, which is always a powerful lesson. The Spirit that accompanies the account of the first vision testifies to me each time we share it. LOVE IT. Joseph Smith is a stud. We taught of the Book of Mormon, and bore testimony of that as well, and at the end of the lesson she committed to be baptized on March 5, 2016. We are so excited for her and her progression! ahhhhh so sick.
Sadly, Chris was out of town this week so we didn't get to see him, but we did go see Dillon and Cathrine again. They are still progressing, but very slowly and surely. They keep all our commitments that we leave them, but for some reason they just won't pray about these things!!!! I have decided that if everyone we met simply prayed each day sincerely, for any amount of time, The Lord could change the world. It is such a simple thing, yet so powerful. I think it is almost too easy so people tend to overlook it. So for now I am going to just keep praying for them and hopefully they will experience a mighty change of heart that only the Spirit can bring. They are so awesome too.
I also had a great and humbling experience this week. I got the chance to give my first blessing of comfort and counsel. I know now more than ever that the priesthood truly is the power of God given to man. Once again the Spirit that was there was amazing to feel, and the things that were said were really words from Heavenly Father. I didn't know why I was saying these things, but the Spirit directed, and was for that sister I know it. The Church is true, and Christ is at its helm.
Side note, these are the totals for how many people I have talked to etc thus far in my mission:
People invited to learn: 432
Potential investigators: 27
Lessons taught: 24
Baptisms: 0
Love,
Elder Johnson!
June 4, 2016
Hello again! I know that this is so close to the last email, but to be honest, the best experience of my entire mission happened in these last few days. I will get to that in a minute. Before all that though, let me tell you the big news. I am being transferred to the one and only....... KALAMAZOO!!! woohoo!! I am really excited to go serve there. Everyone is super jealous, apparently that is one of the best areas in our whole mission to serve. It will be way fun. And I am greenie busting Elder Quintana so it will be even more of a blast! But wait; THERE'S MORE!!!!! In that area, I will also be serving as the District Leader. That stresses me out quite a lot! hahahaha I will be in charge of making sure 8 missionaries are working hard, learning, and baptizing in Kalamazoo. That is a lot of responsibility!!!!! Pray for Me!!!!! I will need those prayers, you know how much I just Love talking in front of people, and now I will need to do an hour and a half district meeting each week. oy. But like I said, I am still really excited. I won't be able to send my address until my next P Day so that will come!
This week (in the beginning) was a lot of service. We helped two families move over Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That was some of the most frustrating moves that I have ever had to help with. That's how I can learn patience though right? One guy is moving here soon, so we moved all his stuff next door to his daughters house who is also getting ready to move... So if any body can find the logic in that move please, feel free to let me know where it is! Luckily I had one of the best stress relievers of my whole life this week too! I will send a picture of it, but at Brother Millwards house, I got to hold 7 baby bunnies at once. Heck yes.
Along with that tender mercy of stress relief, Heavenly Father was watching out for us a lot this week! We had tender mercies every single day. One of them was on Tuesday. We were out and about knocking on doors, and it had been a really long day. We had knocked all day, had no car, and were about 45 minutes from our apartment. We had just finished the street that we had been knocking, and we were about to make the long walk home. All of a sudden, this car rolls up and yells at us saying, "Elders! Have you had dinner yet?" We told him that we had not, so he told us to jump in. Without hesitating, we got in. We found out that he was a member that was from Ohio named Chris that was just here for a class reunion! He took us out to dinner at the best chicken place that I have ever had, and in the course of the meal we found out that he was friends with Carol and Jessie! He was actually on the way to go see them before he picked us up! That was pretty cool I thought. We thanked him when he dropped us off, and he went and saw Carol. Pretty neat how that all worked out.
My favorite tender mercy that happened this week was just last night. This was the best experience (of finding someone who was prepared) on my mission. Elder Harris and I were out walking down the street that Chris had picked us up on to get to where we were going to knock that day. On the way though, we saw this lady out mowing her lawn. We stopped her and asked if we could mow it for her! She accepted, which that in and of itself is very rare! Elder Harris grabbed the lawn mower from her and began to cut the grass. While he was mowing, I got to start talking to Barb, I just introduced ourselves and told her what we do, and then we just started talking about life. Where she is from, what she does, all those good things. She and I meandered over to the front porch and sat down together to continue talking while Elder Harris finished mowing. As the conversation went on, somehow her church came up. She made it very clear that she went to the Methodist church, but that she was not a member there. That was kind of interesting to me. I personally don't know much about the Methodist church, so I asked her what most of the sermons were like. She said, "well, I can tell you what I don't like!" That answer took me a little off guard! hahahahah but I said all right, and she began to explain to me that she was confused how they could teach that God is a loving God, but anyone that hears of and believes in Christ can be saved, but those who never have the opportunity to hear the message are condemned to Hell. She didn't see how He could be loving yet some people get screwed over without ever having the option to hear it. I had a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with me, so I was able to share with her what the Spirit World was, what role it played in that situation, and how because God loves us, He has given us this Plan of Happiness that allows everyone to hear the message of our Savior. She loved that! I wasn't planning on trying to teach her a lot more, but after we had finished discussing that, we just sat there in a moment of silence, then she said something that nobody has ever asked me before. She said, "so... what else do you have for me?" That was an amazing moment for me. I didn't know where to start, so I told her "Well, that depends on what you want to know!" Then came her amazing response (yes it was all amazing), She asked "do you believe that the Bible is the only word of God?" I promptly told her that we did not believe that. Once again, her response blew my mind, she said, "Good, because I don't either. There has to be more!" That was when I pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon, showed her it, then taught her the entire Restoration lesson, all while Elder Harris finished mowing the lawn. Barb loved this message, and I could see her questions being answered. That was the best I have ever been able to teach the Restoration to anyone! The Spirit was definitely helping me through it. Right as the lesson ended, Elder Harris finished the lawn, and she asked me one more question. "Do you have anything that you can leave with me to read?" Well as a matter of fact we do We left her a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. And we got her phone number so Elder Harris and Elder Boyak can go back and teach her more next week. It was cool to have someone ask me to learn more about what we share instead of me having to ask them! I took a picture with her too so I will attach that too lol. And a picture I took with Carol and Jessie!
Oh and here is a random picture from when I let Elder Blazzard make a lizard bite my ear! hahahahahahahah
The other scary thing about going to this new area is since Elder Quintana has been in Kalamazoo for 3 months now, I will probably only spend 1 transfer with him and then train in Kalamazoo when the big group in July comes out! So yea, pray for me hahahahahaha. So that is the biggest news of the week! Now for some other cool things:
This week (in the beginning) was a lot of service. We helped two families move over Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That was some of the most frustrating moves that I have ever had to help with. That's how I can learn patience though right? One guy is moving here soon, so we moved all his stuff next door to his daughters house who is also getting ready to move... So if any body can find the logic in that move please, feel free to let me know where it is! Luckily I had one of the best stress relievers of my whole life this week too! I will send a picture of it, but at Brother Millwards house, I got to hold 7 baby bunnies at once. Heck yes. 
Along with that tender mercy of stress relief, Heavenly Father was watching out for us a lot this week! We had tender mercies every single day. One of them was on Tuesday. We were out and about knocking on doors, and it had been a really long day. We had knocked all day, had no car, and were about 45 minutes from our apartment. We had just finished the street that we had been knocking, and we were about to make the long walk home. All of a sudden, this car rolls up and yells at us saying, "Elders! Have you had dinner yet?" We told him that we had not, so he told us to jump in. Without hesitating, we got in. We found out that he was a member that was from Ohio named Chris that was just here for a class reunion! He took us out to dinner at the best chicken place that I have ever had, and in the course of the meal we found out that he was friends with Carol and Jessie! He was actually on the way to go see them before he picked us up! That was pretty cool I thought. We thanked him when he dropped us off, and he went and saw Carol. Pretty neat how that all worked out.
My favorite tender mercy that happened this week was just last night. This was the best experience (of finding someone who was prepared) on my mission. Elder Harris and I were out walking down the street that Chris had picked us up on to get to where we were going to knock that day. On the way though, we saw this lady out mowing her lawn. We stopped her and asked if we could mow it for her! She accepted, which that in and of itself is very rare! Elder Harris grabbed the lawn mower from her and began to cut the grass. While he was mowing, I got to start talking to Barb, I just introduced ourselves and told her what we do, and then we just started talking about life. Where she is from, what she does, all those good things. She and I meandered over to the front porch and sat down together to continue talking while Elder Harris finished mowing. As the conversation went on, somehow her church came up. She made it very clear that she went to the Methodist church, but that she was not a member there. That was kind of interesting to me. I personally don't know much about the Methodist church, so I asked her what most of the sermons were like. She said, "well, I can tell you what I don't like!" That answer took me a little off guard! hahahahah but I said all right, and she began to explain to me that she was confused how they could teach that God is a loving God, but anyone that hears of and believes in Christ can be saved, but those who never have the opportunity to hear the message are condemned to Hell. She didn't see how He could be loving yet some people get screwed over without ever having the option to hear it. I had a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with me, so I was able to share with her what the Spirit World was, what role it played in that situation, and how because God loves us, He has given us this Plan of Happiness that allows everyone to hear the message of our Savior. She loved that! I wasn't planning on trying to teach her a lot more, but after we had finished discussing that, we just sat there in a moment of silence, then she said something that nobody has ever asked me before. She said, "so... what else do you have for me?" That was an amazing moment for me. I didn't know where to start, so I told her "Well, that depends on what you want to know!" Then came her amazing response (yes it was all amazing), She asked "do you believe that the Bible is the only word of God?" I promptly told her that we did not believe that. Once again, her response blew my mind, she said, "Good, because I don't either. There has to be more!" That was when I pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon, showed her it, then taught her the entire Restoration lesson, all while Elder Harris finished mowing the lawn. Barb loved this message, and I could see her questions being answered. That was the best I have ever been able to teach the Restoration to anyone! The Spirit was definitely helping me through it. Right as the lesson ended, Elder Harris finished the lawn, and she asked me one more question. "Do you have anything that you can leave with me to read?" Well as a matter of fact we do We left her a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. And we got her phone number so Elder Harris and Elder Boyak can go back and teach her more next week. It was cool to have someone ask me to learn more about what we share instead of me having to ask them! I took a picture with her too so I will attach that too lol. And a picture I took with Carol and Jessie!
I Think that is all I got this week! And I need to go email President Jacobsen to figure out what the heck I need to be a District Leader! Have a great week! :)
Oh and here is a random picture from when I let Elder Blazzard make a lizard bite my ear! hahahahahahahah
Love,
Elder Johnson
May 30, 2016
What a long week this one was!! But, there were still many great (or at least cool/funny) experiences. I don't even know where to start. What I want to start off with, is a personal realization of a promise given to us by Elder Richard G. Scott. A while ago, he gave a talk called The Power of Scripture. I don't remember talks very well, but this one I remember. One thing that has always stuck with me from his talk was this, he said "Great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change." At first I didn't think much of it, but in this past week, so many scriptures have come to my mind as I have questioned something, or felt down, or just as I have been talking to someone about the Gospel. Having these verses come to mind has been a tender mercy for me. I never realized how wonderful these could be to me! But with the help of the Holy Ghost, all these verses are brought to my remembrance in the very moment that I needed them. It was very comforting, and it is always great to see the promises of a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ come to pass!
Most of the time, these verses come while we are out and about door knocking. Because that is always the hardest part of the day. Especially with 70% humidity and it being 84-92 degrees. It has been crazy hot. Anyways! back to door knocking. We went up one night to door knock this super rich part of town that was on the way home from our lesson with Jefferson (who is still beasting out by the way, he is starting to save up to go on a mission next year). We had just started knocking when we came to a house with a suuuuuuper long drive way. We walked clear back there, and as we came to the side of the house and saw the back yard our jaws about hit the pavement. These people had my dream back yard. They had a freakin LAKE in their backyard. Just a massive pond, and not only that, but in the middle of this pond you know what they had? They had a diving platform and a rope swing. How much more perfect of a house can you have than that? I would just live in a boat on the lake! Sadly, the people at this house weren't interested in hearing a message about a prophet on the earth today, but they did let us build their kids a swingset! hahahah while we were putting it all together for them, their 5 year old son came and talked with us and helped us, and we taught him I am a Child of God while we worked. It was pretty fun. Except right before we left he punched me in the face... Guess I shouldn't try to teach 5 year olds how to box... lol
Church on Sunday was very good though, a little bit of a different Sacrament meeting, but the rest was awesome. In Sacrament, we had a member of the Bishopric give his entire life story... He taught literally 0 doctrine until the very end.. Then he shared one verse and a short testimony of the verse... After a 50 minute talk.. But that's okay! Sunday School was better. The focus in Gospel Principles class was on missionary work! And we had 6 missionaries total in there that day. All of us got to share our testimony and why we were serving a mission to those in the class, and I love doing that. Then for the Third hour, we had a combined lesson on Family councils. It was awesome to be a part of, and I honestly learned a lot that I wrote in my "Notebook of Goals" that I will apply to my own family one day! My favorite part of Church however, was after my ward had finished their block. My friend Elder Blazzard serves in the other ward, and he was speaking today! So we snuck into their sacrament and got to hear his talk. It was honestly one of the best talks that I have heard since I have been here! It was all about service, and what that is, how to do it, and what comes about from service. I will have to get a copy of it and attach it to this. It was awesome. And I just love that guy.
Speaking of Elder Blazzard, we had a lot more blessings given within the District this week! on Wednesday, all of us had a pretty garbage day! I was fed up with knocking, pretty mad, and had just bashed with a grip of Ganders. So on the way home from knocking, I called him and Elder Tapusoa up and asked them to meet us at our apartment to give me a blessing of comfort and counsel. It was (again) such a perfect experience. The blessings that Elder Blazzard pronounced upon me had to have been directly from our Heavenly Father. He told me things that I had never told anyone, that I needed to know about and recognize right at that time. It blew my mind and truly strengthened that bond that I have with him even more! Following my blessing, I got to give Elder Harris a blessing which was also awesome, as well as Elder Tapusoa! I have never given two blessings in a row, but dang I would not mind being asked to do it again! I truly love my brothers here. Sadly I will most likely be leaving them next Monday! We get those transfer calls this Friday! AHHHH! So if you haven't sent mail at this point, don't send it until I get my new address. :) We have a weird new policy that on the 6th week of each transfer, we will have a P-Day on Monday and Saturday! So I will be sending a brief report of what I have been able to do in the next 5 days on Saturday, then not again until the 5th of June... So that sucks... but oh well! It will only be every 6 weeks!
Most of the time, these verses come while we are out and about door knocking. Because that is always the hardest part of the day. Especially with 70% humidity and it being 84-92 degrees. It has been crazy hot. Anyways! back to door knocking. We went up one night to door knock this super rich part of town that was on the way home from our lesson with Jefferson (who is still beasting out by the way, he is starting to save up to go on a mission next year). We had just started knocking when we came to a house with a suuuuuuper long drive way. We walked clear back there, and as we came to the side of the house and saw the back yard our jaws about hit the pavement. These people had my dream back yard. They had a freakin LAKE in their backyard. Just a massive pond, and not only that, but in the middle of this pond you know what they had? They had a diving platform and a rope swing. How much more perfect of a house can you have than that? I would just live in a boat on the lake! Sadly, the people at this house weren't interested in hearing a message about a prophet on the earth today, but they did let us build their kids a swingset! hahahah while we were putting it all together for them, their 5 year old son came and talked with us and helped us, and we taught him I am a Child of God while we worked. It was pretty fun. Except right before we left he punched me in the face... Guess I shouldn't try to teach 5 year olds how to box... lol
Church on Sunday was very good though, a little bit of a different Sacrament meeting, but the rest was awesome. In Sacrament, we had a member of the Bishopric give his entire life story... He taught literally 0 doctrine until the very end.. Then he shared one verse and a short testimony of the verse... After a 50 minute talk.. But that's okay! Sunday School was better. The focus in Gospel Principles class was on missionary work! And we had 6 missionaries total in there that day. All of us got to share our testimony and why we were serving a mission to those in the class, and I love doing that. Then for the Third hour, we had a combined lesson on Family councils. It was awesome to be a part of, and I honestly learned a lot that I wrote in my "Notebook of Goals" that I will apply to my own family one day! My favorite part of Church however, was after my ward had finished their block. My friend Elder Blazzard serves in the other ward, and he was speaking today! So we snuck into their sacrament and got to hear his talk. It was honestly one of the best talks that I have heard since I have been here! It was all about service, and what that is, how to do it, and what comes about from service. I will have to get a copy of it and attach it to this. It was awesome. And I just love that guy.
Speaking of Elder Blazzard, we had a lot more blessings given within the District this week! on Wednesday, all of us had a pretty garbage day! I was fed up with knocking, pretty mad, and had just bashed with a grip of Ganders. So on the way home from knocking, I called him and Elder Tapusoa up and asked them to meet us at our apartment to give me a blessing of comfort and counsel. It was (again) such a perfect experience. The blessings that Elder Blazzard pronounced upon me had to have been directly from our Heavenly Father. He told me things that I had never told anyone, that I needed to know about and recognize right at that time. It blew my mind and truly strengthened that bond that I have with him even more! Following my blessing, I got to give Elder Harris a blessing which was also awesome, as well as Elder Tapusoa! I have never given two blessings in a row, but dang I would not mind being asked to do it again! I truly love my brothers here. Sadly I will most likely be leaving them next Monday! We get those transfer calls this Friday! AHHHH! So if you haven't sent mail at this point, don't send it until I get my new address. :) We have a weird new policy that on the 6th week of each transfer, we will have a P-Day on Monday and Saturday! So I will be sending a brief report of what I have been able to do in the next 5 days on Saturday, then not again until the 5th of June... So that sucks... but oh well! It will only be every 6 weeks!
Never forget these simple things: YOU are a Child of God, The Gospel is True, and I know that without a shadow of I doubt. I love being in Michigan!
Love,
Elder Tyler Scott Johnson :)
May 23, 2016
This may be a short report, but there was a lot of good that happened this week. I may as well start with the most exciting news of the week! Yesterday was Stake conference (and there was tons of cool stuff that happened there, that once again, I will get to later) and Carol came. She had an interview with Bishop Savage right after the meeting got done. Following the meeting, I was outside just talking to the other missionaries, President Jacobsen, and some other members. Then I saw Carol walking out to her car! I got really excited to go see what the result of the meeting was, because that was the meeting that would determine baptismal dates!!!!!! I ran over to her, and asked her how it went!! She went on to tell me how all things were in place that needed to be, and that she and Jessie could be baptized on June 11. I was sooooooo happy to hear that!!! Carol is ecstatic to be baptized again, and I am happy that she took the steps necessary to do so! So June 11, there will be another baptism here in the Midland Area! Of course that will be like right after I leave!!! Hopefully I can get permission to come back for that day!
Also at Stake Conference, We had a very special speaker. Elder Joseph W. Sitati! He came and spoke to us in the Saturday adult session, and in the Sunday general session. He is a convert of about 30 years, but his testimony and his conviction are powerful. He gave some great talks calling the members here in the Midland Stake to "arms." He focused on how they need to get involved to help convert baptisms return to the level that they have been in years past. Members truly are critical to getting baptisms! Missionaries cannot do it by themselves! We have such limited time and resources that the members can provide these investigators, resulting in more spiritual experiences and a deeper personal conversion for all that are involved in this process.
Along with these amazing experiences at conference, we had some amazing experiences within my companionship, and as Elders in my District. These experiences were (once again) in the form of giving Priesthood blessings. Oh my goodness I have not found many things better in this world than being able to exercise Priesthood Power for my brothers and sisters here. The first blessing that we gave this week was on Friday. Myself and Elder Blazzard were on exchanges when we got a call about a member who suffered a heart attack this week and was in the hospital. We drove up there with Brother Jones to visit this member and gave him a blessing of healing before we left. I did the anointing, and Brother Jones sealed the anointing. The blessings that The Lord had in store for Brother Sovia were some of the most beautiful promises I have ever heard given to anyone. It was humbling to be a part of. The other two blessings that I was able to be a part of were just last night! Sunday evening, we got a text from our friend Jefferson Glenn asking us to come over and give his dad another blessing before Chemo starts back up tomorrow. Upon our arrival, Gary Glenn asked me to give the blessing this time. I got nervous as I always seem to right before giving a blessing, but as I began the Spirit came, and I felt at peace, directed, and inspired as I gave this blessing. It was another testimony builder for me. The last blessing that I got to give this week was to my best friend on the mission, Elder Blazzard. He had called us right before we gave Gary the blessing and asked if we could give him one as well. He just needed some comfort and counsel from the Lord. When we got there, he asked if he could talk to just me for a minute. Of course I said yes, and we went into the back room. He asked me at that time to give the blessing, and only say what I felt prompted to say. Don't add any of my own thoughts or words, make sure that everything I say is straight from the Lord. That is kind of a lot of pressure!!! hahahahahah. I said I could do that though, and we went back to the living room to give the blessing. Elder Harris joined me for the blessing, and I know without a doubt that what was given to me during that blessing was inspiration. Elder Blazzard had not told me what he needed help with or what was bothering him, but as I acted under the authority of the Priesthood, I know that all his needs and concerns were addressed. When the blessing ended, The Spirit was there. All of us felt it. Elder Blazzard stood and with tears in his eyes gave me a huge hug, and did that for everyone else as well. I asked if I could talk to him privately again, and we talked about what I had said and how inspired it really was. I told Elder Blazzard how much I love him, and he told me the same, and we truly became best friends in those moments. I absolutely love that man. He is going to do great things here and when he returns home!
This week was filled with some of my favorite memories to this day, that final blessing is definitely one I will never forget. The Lord knows us all, and has great things in store for each of us. All that he asks in return is that we follow the example of His Son Jesus Christ. How simple is that? I love the Gospel. I know that it is true, and that it can change lives!!!!! Being able to be a representative of Jesus Christ is amazing. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I hope all is well back in the motherland. :)
Love Elder Johnson!
we painted the shed, worked out, and then met a guy with 400 feet of braided grocery bags, and that is my ghetto bench set up! hahahahah
May 16, 2016
Oh man this was a crazy week! Not a lot going on, just some crazy weird and funny things that happened. Early on in the week, we were knocking this long street, and nobody was answering! But as we were going, we saw this old lady across the street that was doing some work in her garage. We went over and began to talk to her and offered to help clean her garage or whatever else she might need, and we ended up setting up a whole garage sale with her. She is a funny little old lady named Josie and her husband Jorge. They are most definitely Ganders. But Jorge has a SICK old Jaguar that he bought. I think he said it is a 1950 something. I took some pictures in it so I will have to add those at the end of this email :) While helping them, we even set up a time to paint their shed for them, help during the garage sale, and do some yard work for them. Being able to provide these small acts of service has made a huge impact on them about our church! And now she tells everyone she sees (at least when we are around) how awesome we are. It cracks me up. When we go over to paint the shed we are going to bring a speaker over and listen to some conference talks... See if we can slip a lesson on prophets in there or something And the best part about all this, is Jorge makes the best salsa I have ever had. And he always gives me some when we go over!!!! It will burn your mouth all day, but dang it is bomb. I think he is making us a Mexican Feast while we paint the shed too. I can't wait for that!!
And the best part about all this, is Jorge makes the best salsa I have ever had. And he always gives me some when we go over!!!! It will burn your mouth all day, but dang it is bomb. I think he is making us a Mexican Feast while we paint the shed too. I can't wait for that!!
When we left from that service, we had a "less active" member that we were going to visit. We had gone through the Ward directory and marked everyone that we knew and didn't know so we could go visit those that were less active. It was really awkward when we showed up at this members home and realized that he was active... But we still got to know him a little better while we were there. He showed us some of his wood working projects that he does, and he is amazing. It blew my mind that anyone could do what he does from a solid block of wood. I got some pictures of a nativity scene that he carved that I will have to send too. It will blow your mind!
A few days later, we went back to help Josie and Jorge with a few little projects and then finished knocking their street. We were not looking forward to knocking that day, but it ended up being awesome. We knocked for 7 straight hours that day. But in the midst of the long day, some funny stuff happened. Before anything funny though, on the 3rd door that we knocked, something rare and precious happened. A lady named Lisa invited us in to teach her about the Restoration right off the door step! So we came in and taught her most of it, but didn't have time to finish it all. We were able to set up a return appointment! We were really happy about that. As we went down the street door to door, there was a guy that had a box on the edge of his porch with a sign that read "Shhhhhh.... Baby birds are sleeping in the nest on the door." So we walked up to his door, and saw the nest with 4 little eggs in it, and knocked softly on the door. He came and slowly opened the door, and in whispers I began to talk to him. I didn't realize that by "Shhhhhhhh" he meant "don't come to my dang door!" He was not very happy with us at that point! hahahahahah so he chewed us out, still in whispers. It was just a funny little thing that happened while knocking.
Along with those few little things this week, we had some lessons with Bob again! That guy is so amazing to me. He has such a strong testimony!!! On Tuesday when we saw him, we taught him the Law of Chastity which was pretty funny. But at the end, I felt like I should go over the Baptismal Interview questions with him. I have been a part of a mock interview only one other time, and this time I got to perform the interview. It was a very Spiritual moment for me when he would answer the questions that I posed, then bear his testimony to me. I know that Bob has been prepared for this Gospel. He wants to be baptized, and then he is going to the Temple to be baptized for his son that passed away a year ago. Bob is so excited to give these blessings to his son. But, Bob was on date to be baptized on May 28, sadly we had to move the date to June 25 because of his work schedule. He will be gone for the next 3 weeks! Hopefully I stay in Midland one more transfer so I can be here for his baptism! I absolutely love Bob!
But that is the gist of the week here in Michigan. We only got rained on like twice this week, so now my shoes are mostly dry. The weather is like Winter again, but I still love this place. There are crazy people, rude people, and a whole lot of Ganders, but in the end there are people here that need me and what I have to share with them. I know that is true. The Gospel can help anyone and Everyone if they take the time to learn about it, pray about it, then live it. There are blessings inseparably connected to living Christ's principles, and all the principles are only found in this church! Therefor, we have the most blessings available to us!!! So let's get out and share it with everyone!!!!! I love the Gospel. I know it changes lives. I know it is true.
Love
Elder Tyler Johnson
May 9, 2016
I don't know what to say in this email! I feel like we just talked! ;) hmmmm... from this week there were a few things that I didn't talk about in the call yesterday. So instead this week I am going to keep it short and simple. This week I found the importance of preparing for Sacrament meeting. It isn't just something that we should go into just to do for the week. To prepare for this Sacred meeting, we should come with a repentant heart, a question in mind, and happiness in our soul. I found that if we do that, we can receive personal revelation in that meeting just as if we were in the temple. We will have thoughts come to us, scripture mean more, and most of all we will be sanctified by The Holy Ghost. Being sanctified is critical to retaining a remission of our sins as Elder Bednar taught this last conference. The things he taught should be something that we all strive to do! As we retain a remission of our sins, we will be able to confidently kneel in prayer before our Heavenly Father to ask for personal blessings (or blessings for others). We will have a sense of deeper peace than we can gain through any other means. And we will be able to teach those that we meet with power and authority because we have the Spirit and are worthy of its guidance. I know that is true! I know that the feelings of The Spirit are what everyone in the world wants, they just don't know it yet. I love the Peace that it brings to my soul. I love seeing the peace that it brings to investigators lives as well. It is an awe inspiring process. I know that Heavenly Father truly knows each of us personally! I know that He wants us to be happy, and has given us a plan to be happy. It's only simple things that He requires of us and we receive and infinite increase as we cheerfully obey!! Man I love the Gospel. I miss you, and I love you. Keep strengthening your testimony, keep preparing, and keep smiling! Life is Good :)
Love Elder Johnson
May 2, 2016
my friend, Kiki is a beast! She came to church this Sunday and she loved it. She is definitely coming back she said, and now we are helping her get her husband involved. Their family is so great, and I can see how adding the blessings of the Gospel would just make them even greater. It's crazy how Heavenly Father can give us glimpses of our Brother and Sisters potential as we serve them and help them have Spiritual experiences. I can't even explain it.
Besides teaching Kiki, and teaching Bob (which was awesome as usual) , we just had a lot of door knocking this week. I finally have practiced, studied, prayed, and applied enough things, that door knocking isn't scary anymore. hahaha only took 5 freaking months. I rely more on the Spirit on doorsteps, or when talking to someone on the street now, and it has made finding so much better. More enjoyable, greater success, and I never don't know what to say anymore. I am so grateful for that. I never thought I would be able to talk to someone and actually know what to say, but it happens!
Just to close, I want to bear testimony again of the Power of the Priesthood, especially in giving blessings of any sort. This week was really hard on my friend Elder Blazzard. He has been having a rough time lately, and he asked us for a blessing. Elder Harris gave the blessing, but I got to participate as well. The Spirit was so strong as we blessed him with the things that Heavenly Father had in store for him. After the blessing, Elder Tapusoa asked if we could just talk with him, and give him counsel on some things that he had been struggling with as well. None of us knew what he wanted to talk about, but I wanted to be able to help him so much. I snuck off into a different room, knelt down, and asked for the Spirit to help me help Elder Tapusoa, and continue to help Elder Blazzard. The feeling of love and reassurance that I felt during that prayer was overwhelming. I knew that I would be able to help both of them, and as the night went on, I know that what I was able to counsel them both to do came from the Spirit. We all grew in strength, testimony, and brotherhood. I know that without the guidance of the Spirit and Priesthood Authority, we are nothing. NOTHING. Having that direction and constant help in our lives is wonderful. That is what I am here to share with people. I know I need it, and I know that they need it, so I am here to help them find it. I love being able to serve for two years with all my heart, might, mind and strength.
Sorry that I don't have more to share... but!
Always remember: The Church is True!!!!!! I know it is. Shout it from the mountain tops :)
Elder Tyler Johnson
Also, I love my new companion. We are working so much harder than I ever thought about working. I love how hard we are working, and it isn't going to stop for 19 months. And more. I love getting home at night with just enough strength left to plan, write in my journal, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed. It is awesome.
April 25, 2016
Time is flying! Oh man I have quite a bit to report on this week!!! First things first. TRANSFERS BOI!!!!! I am so happy to report: That I am still here in Midland!!!!! WOOHOO! Got to finish some work here before they get rid of me. Elder TIndall is GONZO. He got moved over to the Grand Rapid's Zone, and I got a sick new comp. His name is Elder Harris from none other than the infamous Preston ID!!! That's what I am talking about! I am so excited for this transfer. We are gonna DO WORK! Oh man I can't even explain how pumped I am for this. We are gonna tear this place up with the Spirit.
Other than that, the local district is pretty much the same. It's going to be goooooood. Earlier in the week, we had a pretty cool experience with one of our investigators. Her name is Kiki and we have been working with her for a little while now. She is from China, so the whole concept of Jesus Christ is a foreign one. However, as we have met with her, the truth of the Gospel is being manifest to her through the Spirit. Each time we meet with her, she will say the prayer, and each time she thanks Heavenly Father for sending us to "bring her more happiness and peace in [her] life." It is amazing to be a piece in her journey down this path. We are a little apprehensive about a few things though because her husband is very staunch Chinese Athiest... So I hope that she doesn't get swayed because he says something to her. She is great. We brought a member to the last lesson with her, and it couldn't have gone better. He does a lot of business with China for his job so he could relate to her so much better than we could. He helped her understand a lot about the Gospel and our purpose in life. She loved it. She committed to come to church on Sunday, but sadly she didn't show up. But! She did something that has never before happened to me. She called us just a couple hours aho, APOLOGIZED for not coming to church, then set up another appointment for this week, and said she will bring her whole family to church next Sunday. How awesome is that?! She is great :)
I had another awesome blessing this week as well. We have been working with a guy named Bob the last few weeks as well, and he is just as amazing as Kiki. He is on date to be baptized in the end of May, and I have no doubt that he will. He loves the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. It is sick. He has a lot of chronic pain in his hip, so last week we gave him a blessing to help him stop smoking, and to feel better. This week when we had a lesson with him, he stopped us mid-lesson and said "can I tell you something? Last week when you gave me that blessing, at least half of the pain in my hip left me." That was super random in the lesson, and super Spiritual. I have had so many testimony builders from blessings in the last few weeks it is insane. Priesthood Power is amazing. Life is good.
We had Bob at church as well as Carol and Jessie! It has been a while since Jessie has been to church because of her schedule living with split parents, so it was really good to see her there. Carol met with the Bishop to get her re-baptism process rolling, and it sounds like that will be able to happen this transfer or beginning of next!! So her and Jessie are doing great again, and we have really grown to love them (and their rats) too. Carol has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever felt. It is crazy. So I am really happy that she and Jessie are going into this together and are just so awesome. All my investigators are awesome. Mostly.
Anyways, that is all I have to report on this week! I left my notes at home so I probably forgot a ton of stuff, but that's all good. I will send home transfer numbers next week :) Have a good week!!!! Build your testimony, serve, and grow. The Church is true!!!!! :)
Love Elder Johnson
April 18, 2016
Have you ever seen a "missionary tan line?" They are super funny, and I am rocking a dang good one. All of a sudden the weather here is sunny, humid, and 75+ It's been super nice. But I am terribad at wearing sunscreen so I looked like a lobster for a few days. Those darn Canadian genes I have were showing ;) Sunburns are the least of my worries though. We have been finding huge spiders all over the apartment all of a sudden, and mosquitoes are all over the place. Ayuadame. Luckily, we had zone conference this week to get me out of the heat an bugs for a while. This zone conference was so awesome. At the beginning, one of the AP's promised that all of the questions we had, would be answered during this conference. He told the truth. I had questions about how to have more faith while finding and how to make it more effective. Door knocking feels like a waste of time after a while. As we went through the conference, They actually talked about that question specifically. It was exactly what I needed, and since then my door knocking experience has completely changed. It is so much more fun now, and I am way happier while doing it. The Lord is aware of all of us and knows what we need!! That I know to be true.
Another thing that our district has been working on is having more charity to everyone. So Elder Tindall and I had a pretty cool experience a few days after Zone Conference involving door knocking and Charity. I will just summarize it real quick. We had reached the point in the day where door knocking was a drag, and going no where. we had been out for hours, and I was ready to go take a shower and go to bed. We had one more house to knock on, so we went over and did it. This older man answered and he was not having it. He instantly started arguing with us and trying to bash with us (which is fun, but super pointless). I was not in the mood for that and I wanted to slap the guy. Not much charity in that! So I started praying sooooooo hard in my heart for charity and to just have a decent conversation with him. After I started doing that, I felt a wave of charity come over me. I was happy all of a sudden, and we were able to steer the conversation away from the topic (which was getting contentious) and just talked to him about chocolate muffins, basketball, and his family. At this point we found out that he was the Senior Pastor of some Baptist congregation in town. Good thing I didn't slap him!! The cool part about this, was as we were walking away, Elder TIndall asked me if I felt that wave of the Spirit come over us. It was awesome that we felt it at the same time and we knew it was an answer to my prayer. Pretty neat.
Our investigator Carol had a meeting with the Bishop this week so we can get things moving for her Baptism and her daughter's. That was really exciting to me! That should be happening in the coming months. No exact date yet, but it is in the works. Our other investigator Bob also is on track to be baptized at the end of May. We have only met with him 3 times, but this week he came to the Addiction recovery program with us, and we were able to give him a blessing!!! HECK YEA! He has a very good friend that is a member, so that friend gave the blessing, but I was able to anoint. It once again, strengthened my testimony of the Priesthood. There is only one other feeling like giving a blessing, and that is found in the Holy Temple. I can't describe it, but I love it.
I am running out of time so to finish up, I want to just bear testimony again. I know that this Gospel is true. Through the Ordinances found in it, and made possible through the Priesthood, we can access so many more blessings than anything else. The Atonement is real!!! It's power can forgive us, cleanse us, and change everyone's life if they allow it to. I know it is true and was for me and you. I love the gospel!!!! Have a great week :)
Love
Elder Johnson
We went to Brother Coleman's house and he showed us how to use some deadly warrior type weapons!! Super fun!
April 11, 2016
I don't even know what happened this week to be honest. It was crazy how fast this week went! It started off with the usual days of knocking, but on Tuesday hardly anybody was answering!!! That was really rough. made for a long few hours. Luckily, we got a call to go with a member to teach a less active lady, so we had a short lesson in between to break up the monotony. Tuesday night, we had a dinner with the Cannady family. As missionaries, it is our purpose to help others come closer to Christ at every opportunity; that means we share short messages after each dinner appointment. I had the honor of leaving the thought with them on this particular night and decided to talk about General Conference with them. As we discussed our favorite talks, and what stuck out to us etc. I was able to bear testimony of prophets and their divine calling. I didn't expect the overwhelming feelings of The Spirit that came to me as I did this. I focused my testimony on what Elder Holland said about the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve loving us so much, and as I shared that testimony I knew that it was true. Without a shadow of a doubt they love us and are here to help lead us to our heavenly home through direct revelation from God. They are true, living breathing PROPHETS. How lucky are we to have them. I hope that even though these are just words on a screen, that you can feel the Spirit of my testimony come with those words.
Later this week, I got to go serve on CMU campus again with one of the Zone Leaders! Being on campus is so weird compared to anything else. Makes me feel like I am back in the Burg! We taught a couple of lessons that day, and I can safely say they were two of the weirdest lessons I have ever been a part of. Just because the investigators were either 1) Super Awkward or 2) 99% sure that he was a Satanist. It was super sketch, but a good ol' time that's for sure.
OH! I got pulled over this week while driving too :) hahahahahah that was stressful. So we get up at 5:30 every morning to go play basketball with some of the young men before their early morning Seminary each day. We had just gotten a new car that I had not driven yet, so on the way to the church we were driving in a pretty well lit area, and I figured that the headlights were automatic like our other car. That was not the case. All of a sudden, I saw red and blue lights in my mirror and had way too many flashbacks :'D He just checked our insurance and registration then made sure my headlights and taillights worked before letting us go on our way. Now I always double check before leaving!
Saturday night, we got to go watch the "youth roadshow" They put on a few short plays that teach morals and Gospel related topics. It was super funny! We had a good time helping set up for that and take down. I will send some pictures of it in a minute.
To end the week, there was more drama with Jeremy and Danyelle. I'm not even going to go there. It is really frustrating sometimes, but CHARITY is the word of the... lifetime... So we may or may not keep working with them. We are going to have a DTR in the next day or so. Luckily, my week ended on a better note than that! Our recent convert Jefferson Glenn invited all of the Elders in our district over to his house last night for dinner. We made eggs and pancakes with him, played chess, I played the piano, and before we left we gave both of his parents a blessing. His dad is not a member, but asked for a blessing because he is starting Chemo today. I don't know his dad very well, I just know that he grew up in Boise and has some sort of connections with Poky. Since he didn't know any of us, but had a slight connection with me, he asked me to perform the blessing. OH MAN WAS I NERVOUS. I was so stressed right when he asked me to give the blessing. I didn't know this man, how was I supposed to bless him?! But as I placed my hands on his head and stated that I was acting under the authority of the Melchezidek Priesthood, I remembered that I was not blessing him. The Spirit calmed me down instantly, and I received the words that needed to be said to him at that time. I absolutely love blessings! They strengthen my testimony every time I see one, and more so when I get to participate. Priesthood Power is amazing. What a blessing that is as well. The Gospel is too good to be true. But it is true. That is the beauty of it all!
Love Your Boy,
Elder Johnson
This is me and Han Solo. He played the harp at a youth activity like a boss.
And this is my rat! hahahahah
April 4, 2016
This week was not very exciting really, the highlight of my week was most definitely hearing from the Prophets of God. I went into this conference with many questions that I have been searching for answers for, with no luck. I was really starting to get frustrated about my lack of answers too. As I was reaching the point of giving up, I heard a talk called "The Fourth Watch" By Michael Wilcox. If you haven't heard that talk go look it up and read/listen to it. It gave me the motivation to not give up on these questions yet, but to keep searching. Heavenly Father comes in His own time and in His own ways, and usually later than we expect or hope. I decided that in order to get my answers, I needed to ponder on them as I watched conference. I was sorely disappointed as one session passed with no answer to my question... Then a second... And a third... And fourth and fifth. However, once again right as I was about to lose hope in getting an answer during conference, Elder Holland stepped up to the pulpit. The very last speaker of this General Conference. He still did not speak on the topic of my concern, but during his talk, the Spirit answered all my questions. I was receiving the personal revelation that I had been seraching for. For myself, and those that we are teaching. It was one of the most humbling experiences on my mission and was a profound testimony builder. Heavenly Father truly is a Fourth Watch God. (Look up that talk and that will make a lot more sense ;)) Conference was So awesome. I could go on for hours about what I learned from it, but due to my limited time tonight, I will leave it to that one experience for now. I got literally 20 pages of notes from this conference. Prophets are too legit.
Another highlight that I just remembered (and another instance of personal revelation for the week) was teaching a lesson to a lady named Cherish. She has some of the strongest faith in our Savior that I have ever seen, member or not. She invited us back a few weeks ago, but due to sickness and other circumstances we couldn't meet until this week. As we talked with her, the Spirit was so strong. We were able to share the Book of Mormon and it's origins with her, and she was so excited to read in it and learn of it. It was so cool to witness. The most amazing part of the lesson came after we left. As missionaries, we always talk about finding those "elect" or the ones that are prepared to hear this message, and are ready to receive it. That night when I got back to my apartment, I knelt down to offer my nightly prayers. I began to ask for blessings for those that we are teaching just out of habit (which is really bad) but when I began to pray for Cherish and her family, I got a prompting from the Spirit telling me that she was one of those elect. It was powerful. I can't explain how powerful it was by typing it, because it can only be felt. I cannot wait to go back and see her again. Even though she is one of these elect, Satan is a tricky dude. I just wanna smack him. So I pray that she will progress and continues to feel of the Spirit. Missionary work is awesome.
I hope that you go over this latest conference again, and that talk I mentioned earlier. The more we go over these words, the easier the Holy Ghost can bring them to our remembrance in times of need. They can change our lives as we act on them! Do Work!!!!!
Love,
Elder Johnson
Zone P-day was also today! These are a couple pictures before we left. I had a rap battle against the two poly elders in this picture, and I got ROASTED. But that's okay I am an aspiring white Christian rapper. I will get there!
March 28, 2016
So..... I am not sure what happened with you all this week due to lack of emails... but, As for my week, This one was better than the last one that is for dang sure! Throughout the week, we continued to check up on Jeremy and Danyelle and see if they could use any help or just were ready to talk about what had happened. Every time that we went, Jeremy would talk to us for a few minutes, but Danyelle would just go hide in the back room. It was really sad for me because I had truly come to love this family, and I had seen the blessings of the Gospel change their lives so much!!! We had mostly given up on them after being ignored and/or shooed away the last couple of times that we had checked up on them, but Saturday we felt like we should try one more time to see them. We pulled up and offered a prayer, then went to go talk to them. To my surprise, Danyelle answered and came outside to talk with us! We ended up staying and talking for over an hour with her, and found out that they are moving a few streets over because they were being kicked out by their roommate. The stress from that and a bunch of other crazy things that were going on in her life were what had made her snap last week and tell us to leave them alone, but she apologized and told us when they get settled in the new house, we can come over and resume the lessons. That was such a relief and a truly Spiritual moment as I and Elder Tindall bore testimony of how this will continue to change their lives, and told her that we loved her and her family. She was crying and told us that she knows it will. After that, we were all crying, so we gave her a hug and went on our way. I am so happy that they still want to try. Their time is coming!
Besides that, our lesson count for the week was pretty dang low. That means that we got to spend a majority of our time out on the streets talking to people and knocking on doors. One of the days that we were out doing that, I found out what the term "Freezing Rain" Truly means. That stuff is straight out of HELL. Oh man it was miserable to be out in that, but on that day I had something happen that I had not experienced before. My motivation levels were pretty dang low because of the weather, but right before I got out of the car I offered a quick prayer in my heart asking for help to do the work. Immediately as I closed that prayer, I felt like there was someone on that street that needed this message. Never before had I had a feeling as strong as that one came to me, and that motivated me to go out and work as hard as I could. On that street, we met 3 people that invited us back. I am not sure which one of them needed to hear what we said, or if they will use their agency to act on this message, but I know that somebody that day needed us. It was wonderful.
Finally, I got to do something pretty fun this week. A man in my ward named Valiant Jones had us over for dinner one night, and after dinner he asked if we wanted to see his latest "project." He is freshly retired, and does all sorts of random things, so I was so pumped to see what he had in store. He took us out to the park behind his house where there were huge maple trees that he had been tapping for sap, and boiling it down to syrup! We got to help him gather it and while we were gathering, he was telling us how Joseph Smith did this exact same thing just before the First Vision. It was a cool thought to think about. We were working just as Joseph would have nearly 200 years ago, and now we are out spreading the word that he played a key role in restoring. Just interesting to me!
That is the summary of what happened here in Michigan! I hope you had a happy Easter and were able to think deeper about what this Holiday truly means. There is so much that we need to be thankful for because of what Christ did for us. I can't even begin to explain how much more I appreciate His sacrifice after this week and studying it each day. His and Heavenly Father's love for us trumps anything in this world. How blessed are we to know that? The Gospel is true. Live it, Love it.
Love,
Elder Johnson
P.S That picture with 3 of us was when We took a guy that just submitted his papers on Saturday door knocking with us. It was awesome! While knocking that day, We heard a lady pray "in tongues" and I got a Catholic bible from a guy. It was a party!
March 14, 2016
This week, I want to start my email by saying HAVING ELDERS IN MY DISTRICT IS LEGIT. It has been so much fun this week doing things with Elder Blazzard and Elder Tapasoa. We get up at like 5:30 and all meet at the church to play basketball in the mornings and we have a blast. Ball is life. And the two of them also have guitars so we are doing a sweet guitar trio! Ah I love it. But that is just a side note, the rest of this week was insane. with a big fat capital i.
Sadly, we only had 3 lessons last week. One was with just Jeremy, one was with just Danyelle, and one was with Carol and Jessie. With Jeremy and Danyelle, we introduced them to a stop smoking program that turns of the craving for cigarettes by purging your body of nicotine in just 7 days! We went over the 15 steps of the program and committed them to follow the steps in order to quit smoking and be baptized on March 26. They instantly agreed, gave Elder Tindall and me all of their lighters, Cigarettes, ashtrays, and have now been smoke free for 5 days. It's amazing the transformation people go through when they know that the gospel is true. Danyelle is turning into a missionary machine too! She invites her family weekly to come to church with us. How amazing is she?! Also this week was their daughter Alayna's birthday! Alayna is a cutie, I will have to send some pictures of her in a little bit.
After teaching those two the 15 step program, we went over and saw Jessie and Carol. We just talked with them about what their thoughts were about being baptized before Collin. Collin has been slowing down a little because we haven't met with him for a little while and he has some doctrinal questions that he wants answered. Carol and Jessie are both hesitant to be baptized without him, even though they both have testimonies! It's a rough situation, but I believe that it will just improve as we get to meet with Collin more often. He was at church this week and that was a huge step for him, so like I said there is only room for progression now.
Now we get to the crazy part of my week >:) So, on Saturday Elder Tindall had a Mission Leadership Conference in Lansing, so I got to go serve for a day in Saginaw. Everyone wants to serve in Saginaw! It's the gang headquarters in our mission, so I was so pumped!!! I don't want to get into details of what all went down there, or I would be emailing all day long and that's not allowed. So long story short, I got to spend the day with Elder Laaksonen. He came out the same day as me and we get along so well. I absolutely love being around him. After our studies we headed out to a lesson that he had planned for the day. When we got there, the lesson shined us so we began knocking this neighborhood. As we knocked we came across one of the gangs in town, but they were super nice to us and just said to talk to them some other time. We headed down the road and met a ton of really open people on the road. One guy even invited us in and we taught him the Restoration and set up a time to go back and bring him a Book of Mormon! I loved that. Anyways, after we left his house and finished the rest of the street then started heading back to the car. On the way back, we saw some guys unloading a new engine and saw a sick classic car parked where they were. Elder Laaksonen is a car fanatic so we booked it over to them to ask about the engine and the car. When we got there we realized it was the gang that we had talked to earlier that day! When we talked about the car they got even nicer to us, let us take pictures with the car, hugged us, fist bumped, laughed with us, and we just had a good ol time with this gang!! While we were talking to them we noticed there was obviously one guy that was more in charge so we figure he was the leader. During our conversation with them, a car rolled up across the street and a bunch of thugs got out. Right them The Spirit was telling us to get out of there, and the "leader" said "yo, they ain't from our hood." Then skipping the less important, and more scary details, "Leader" looked at Elder Laaksonen and I and told us to get out of there and avoid those guys that rolled up. He told us they wouldn't "do or say anything positive to us." We hauled out of there and behind us, we heard a gang fight commence. I was so grateful that we got out of there when we did and that we were protected in that situation. It could have been way worse. One cool thing was before we left, the nice gangsters that we had been with told us to "say wassup to the Latter Day Saints" for him. That was pretty sweet I thought.
Being in Saginaw was a great day. With all the people we talked with and taught that day I could feel the promptings of the Spirit guiding us in the work. I know that this work is inspired and carried out only through revelation and the Spirit. I love being here. Nothing better than serving my brothers and sisters that are out here waiting for this message. I know it changes lives, it has changed mine, and I am watching it change many others. The Gospel is true. Live it and you will know it!
Love Always
Elder Johnson
Danyelle and Jeremy's daughter Alayna!
I love This girl!
When your companion is from Florida and wears
earmuffs in 66 degree weather! Sweater vests for days!
Numbers For this Transfer:
Invited To Learn: 523
Potential Investigators: 43
Hours spent Knocking: 90
Lessons Taught: 28
Baptized: 1
Total:
955
66
168 hours 45 Min
52
1
March 7, 2016
It is so crazy how fast time flies out here! I am not even being trained anymore like what the heck? I can't even believe it. There is some exciting stuff happening in my area, that you will hear about in a little bit! I love you guys! And thank you so much for that CD! All these Elders are jealous of my family now hahahahaha :) You are the best! Sorry this email is so late today, but this was an awesome week! It ended transfer #2, and I will still be in Midland with Elder Tindall! We still have a lot going on in this ward so we need to work hard in case one of us does get transfered next time! It was a crazy 6 weeks, with lots of ups and downs and crazy people, but in the end we still have people that are changing their lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I love being a part of this change.
As you know, we have been teaching Jeremy and Danyelle for some time now. They are so great to work with, and to see the changes in their life is astounding. From the time we met them to now I can hardly recognize them! This week, Jeremy was given even more job opportunities so he can better provide for his family financially, and he recognizes that it is because of the blessings Heavenly Father is giving him. Along with having all these blessings, Jeremy and Danyelle made a big decision this week that will continue to bring about more blessings. They were planning on being baptized together in July because that is the earliest that Jeremy can be, but after discussing it between themselves, Danyelle has decided to move her date to March 19! She still has a few things that she needs to fine tune before she can enter into this covenant, but I am positive that she can do it if she continues acting on her faith. Holy smokes I am so excited for her and her family. They don't even know all the joy that is coming there way, especially once they make it into the sealing room. Being sealed by proper priesthood authority is something that means so much to them, and to me as well. I can't wait to see them continue working towards these eternal goals and progressing. I love these two!!!! Throughout the week, we ended up teaching them 3 lessons and in one of them, we were teaching about Sabbath Day Observance and how important that is. In the course of the lesson I shared a scripture found in Exodus 31:13. We talked about what the verse is saying (which I will let you look it up yourself to see what it says ;)) and what it means to them. As we talked about the meaning of the verse, and the importance of Sundays, The Spirit was there. It testified to all of us and Danyelle with teary eyes said "That puts the Sabbath in a whole new perspective." Being able to see the Spirit work so strongly in an individual and bring about a "mighty change of heart" is beautiful. I can't even describe how it makes me feel.
We did not get to meet with Carol and Jessie this week due to scheduling conflicts, snow storms, and sickness, so there is not much update on them. On another note however, Elder Tindall and I got to help out with something that doesn't happen very often! In Midland, the work has been going very well and the two wards here are growing so much that we got to help set up a new apartment for a second pair of Elder's to join our area!! We are so excited, we are getting Elder Blazzard and Elder Tapasoa. I love these two Elders, I've been playing basketball with them all day and they are great guys. So yea a little bit of a change in Midland right now! It will be fun.
Since this is the end of a transfer, I usually would send the numerical side of what is going on here, but I forgot my journal at home so I will send the numbers next week cuz they are kinda fun to see the stats :)
Elder Johnson
PS The picture is when we were helping prep the new Elders apartment!
February 29, 2016
This week was a week! hahaha It started off with every house we knocked on warning us about the "Noreasters" that were heading our way! apparently that is what the call The winds that come across the lake from Canada and always bring a big Lake Effect snow storm, with ice wind. I didn't really believe them because it was sunny and 50+ degrees! so we brushed off what they were saying and just continued to work. That day stayed sunny and warm which made us think that everyone here was just crazy! Wednesday morning (when the storm was supposed to be raging) we woke up to more sunny blue skies! IT was slightly colder, so we actually wore jackets that day and began tracting as usual. A few hours into it, we finally discovered what the terms "ice wind" and "whiteout" really mean. Shortly after this storm rolled in, we got a text from President Jacobsen telling us all to go inside for the day and wait it out. It was the craziest snow storm I have ever seen. We got 10-15 inches in no time flat. That made walking for miles the next day an adventure let me tell ya! The snow is all gone now, but forecast for 11" again tommorw.. and Wednesday... and Thursday...
The night before this big storm, we had a lesson with Jessie and Carol again (Collin was at work for this lesson) and to our pleasant surprise, Jessie had invited a friend to the lesson! Having investigators that are comfortable enough to share what they have learned and then invite others to learn as well are so awesome. For this lesson, we got to teach these two fifteen year old girls the law of chastity! hahahahahah so much fun. Now we are trying to help Jessie bring her friend to church and young women as well.
Speaking of Investigators that bring their friends along, this story will show a glimpse into how important inviting people to learn about the gospel from the missionaries can be. There is a family called the Larsen's in the 1st ward that had a friend named Joey. Joey is not a member, so the Larsen's invited him to have the missionaries teach him about the gospel. He accepted, and is now planning on being baptized. Joey lives with a couple named Jeremy and Danyelle. Joey referred Jeremy and Danyelle to the missionaries, and now they are planning to be baptized. Then this week when we went to teach Jeremy and Danyelle, they brought their friend Marietta along who now is planning on learning about the Gospel and quitting smoking with Danyelle. And thus we see, that the work of the Lord is one eternal round! The way that the Gospel has influenced these families and individuals is a blessing just to watch happen. For example, Jeremy and Danyelle are probably the poorest people that I have ever met. Jeremy can never get a job either for a few reasons, and that is really hard on him. As we have taught them, the Word of Wisdom has been a tough thing for them. We promised Jeremy that if he quit smoking, he would find a job to support his family. Shortly thereafter, he got a job at the local car wash, but it still wasn't enough hours (only like 10 a week) to pay all his bills and other fines. He stayed faithful though, and when all the other workers would go out and smoke, he would stay behind and clean off the floor of the car wash. It wasn't easy for him, but he was acting on his faith. Now after having this job for only about a month, he is looking at a management position that will support his family. The blessings of keeping the commandments always come. I know it.
Keep the commandments, in this there is safety, in this there is peace. Not just any peace either, but the peace of the Spirit of God. There is no greater peace than this, I know it. The Church is True, and Heavenly Father loves (and wants to bless) each of His Children. Being a missionary is the greatest!
Elder Johnson
February 22, 2016
I had quite the week again this week! It started off with interviews with the mission president and district meeting. This district meeting was awesome, we learned all about involving The Father and The Son more in the work. We all learned so much from the Spirit that day, and I know that applying what was taught will give even more of a boost than there already is! I will keep you updated on that as we go. One sad thing happened in that meeting though, mid way through it we got a phone call from our investigator Chris who said he didn't want to meet anymore. It was rough, and he won't talk to us now so we don't know what changed his mind. His time will come eventually.
Later on in the week we had a lesson with Jessie and Carol and Collin once again. I don't remember how much I talked about them in last weeks email, but to summarize, Jessie (15) has been meeting with us and wanted to be baptized on March 5. We also have been teaching Carol and Collin (Mom and Step Dad), but didn't know if they were just supporting Jessie or what. Eventually Carol came out and told us that she wanted to be baptized, but wanted to do it with Collin so she was waiting for him. She didn't know if it was something he was even considering either. When we met with them, we asked Collin if he would be baptized. He told us that he had been thinking about it, so we discussed it with them, and now they all three are planning to be baptized. They aren't sure on a date yet because of a few small complications with Carol. But that family is going to be baptized! I am so humbled to be a part of helping a family become eternal. Such a great opportunity.
A few days after we had the lesson with those three, we were out without a car about to start knocking when we got a call. The call was from Jessie telling us that her mother had a terrible migraine. Carol gets really bad migraines every couple months and ends up in the hospital sometimes because of them. We were pretty concerned about her so we offered a blessing and Carol said she would like that. We made the trek over there through all the mud and puddles to give her the blessing and taught a short lesson while we were there. That blessing made all the difference in the world though. She fell asleep shortly after we left and woke up completely headache-free. It was worth every step of the 15 mile walk that day.
Along with that family, we taught Jeremy and Danyelle again this week. The lesson was a little bit long because Danyelle can talk a LOT, but it was good. They are learning and progressing quite well together, and I can't wait to see where this gospel will take them. I Love those two!
Lesson-wise, this was a rather slow week. That gave us the chance to do a lot of knocking though! Gotta love that hahahaha. One thing that stuck out to me from the people we met this week, was how many people deny the divinity of the Book of Mormon without having read it. Then they refuse to read it or learn about it! It is so frustrating, and that logic just makes no sense to me. How the heck are you supposed to know if it is true of not if you don't read and apply it?!?! JUST LET ME TEACH YOU ABOUT HOW IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!! hahahaha oh man I got so frustrated about that this week. But Saturday totally made up for it!
This Saturday, Elder Tindall and I got to go to the Detroit temple to do a session with a sister that was getting her endowments. There were so many ward members there to support her, it was really awesome. The best part about it (besides what I learned of course) was waiting with everyone in the celestial room for her to come in. It was the sweetest moment that I have ever been a part of. The Spirit there was intense, and we could all feel Heavenly Father's love for her and each of us. Man I can't even describe it. Being there for that made my whole week though, and really helped me appreciate being able to go to a temple so often in Idaho. I can only go once every 6 months here and that is the worst! The temple is the greatest, and I can't wait until I can go back.
This work is inspired! I love being a part of it and know that it will change lives, especially our own, as we act and serve. Look to share your testimony of Christ, Look to be kind, and Look to the Temple.
Love,
Elder Tyler Johnson
February 15, 2016
This week for me had quite a lot going on! It started off warm and sunny with a car, but on Wednesday we had to give the car to the Sisters for a week. Since we gave up the car you will never guess what happened that night. IT SNOWED. Go figure am i right? So ever since that night we have gotten snow almost daily, and if it isn't snowing it is around 0 degrees (not exaggerating) but that builds character I hear.
After that, came the fun part of my week. On Thursday night the zone leaders Elder Mafile'o and Elder Tubagus, serving on CMU campus, came and we did a "trade off." Elder Tubagus and Tindall stayed here in Midland, and I went to CMU campus with Elder Mafile'o. Holy that was a great time. Elder Mafile'o and I talked about rugby, and cliff diving, and surfing, and all the stuff that nobody else can talk about with me! We got close super fast, and it really showed the next day as we talked with students on campus. The next day we had a lesson with one of the football players there named Jabari Dean. That went quite well, as we taught him about the restoration and baptism. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized, and he told us he has already been baptized... So he will take a little work but he seemed pretty dang interested. Following that lesson we just roamed campus and talked to 20 different students, 15 of which we set up lessons with throughout the week! So now I know that the Zone Leaders will be busy hahahahaha.
That night the trade off ended and Elder Mafile'o and I drove back to Midland to trade back. The zone leaders stayed at our apartment for a little and we played the guitar and rapped before they had to head out, it was a blast.
The next day was my boy Jefferson's baptism!! It was one of the sweetest things that I have ever seen. He asked me to be a witness for it, and his best friend Justin Savage baptized him. As I watched them take part in this ordinance, I could feel the Spirit so strong. I could see the joy on Jefferson's face as he went under the water and came back up. It was just awesome and I love being around the young men here. We bring them teaching with us as much as possible!
Once the baptism was over, we were back on the streets of Midland! This place is awesome, and it just felt good to be out there again. Anyways, we started knocking this street at 5, and had a potential investigator that we were going to meet close by at 6. It was also really close to where we have had the cops on us previously hahahahah. While knocking we had one guy who flipped out at us when we knocked on his door because he had a no peddlers sign on the door, and we were scared we were going to get the cops called on us again in the same area and get in trouble, so we began a giant loop to evade any po po and still make it to the lesson we had planned at 6. This is when the Spirit totally guided us. We came to the street that the potential lived on, and we both knew it was the street, but we just kept walking. and walking. and walking. Then all of a sudden we saw this guy outside his house smoking a cigarette just staring at us, so of course we had to go talk to him. We approached him and as we began a conversation, we found out that his name is Ben Guffy, and he had met with missionaries two years ago and wanted to be baptized, but he was having a hard time quitting smoking and hasn't been to church in like 7 months. Only by the Spirit could we have been lead to his home for the 5 minutes he was outside smoking. It was so perfect, and now we are going to meet with him again and help him move towards baptism. We left from there and booked it back to our lesson, which sadly fell through because she was not home, but once again it all worked out. There was another lady near by that we have been trying to meet with since I got here but she kept having things come up that got in the way, and we were considering dropping her. We decided that since we were close we should check on her one more time, and if we couldn't set anything up we would leave her be. What do you know, she answered and we were able to set up a time to finally go see her this week!! It was amazing to see how Heavenly Father had helped all this come about in just a short period of time.
Finally (and my favorite part of the week) we had 4 investigators at church. We had Jeremy and Danyelle, and Carol and Jessie. Now, the two that I want to focus on are Carol and Jessie. I don't remember if I have talked much about Jessie the last few emails, but she was a referral from part of the mission presidency to us. Carol (Jessie's mom) was a member years ago, but after some bad advice, asked to have her name removed from the records of the church. However, in our gospel principles class, Carol shared a testimony of the Book of Mormon unlike any I have ever heard before. It was so so so so so powerful, and left me in awe. Long story short, after church she texted President Hoover (who referred Jessie to us) and said that being at church was like coming home. She then invited Pres Hoover to Jessie's Baptism that we have scheduled for March 5. To this invitation, Pres Hoover replied, "I would rather come to her baptism and yours." Carol then responded "I think that date is still a ways out, but it is something I am working towards. This time I want to do it right though and have Collin (her Husband) be baptized with me. I want an Eternal Family. I want the Priesthood in my home."
*BOOM MIND BLOWN* I was so freaking happy when Pres Hoover told us about that, even though she had never told us about that desire. So we are going to work with her in helping Collin become converted through reading, praying, and applying! I am so excited for this family!
Overall, I must say that this was the best week of my mission. The Spirit was strong with us and in the work undeniably. I absolutely loved it. But yea, that was my week!
The Church Is TRUE!!! LIVE IT, LOVE IT!
Elder Johnson
Jefferson & I after his baptism
My cold, red face with ice on my eyelashes after walking to fill the font for the baptism at 8 am
Justin, Elder Tindall & I holding Jefferson after his baptism
I forgot to tell you one thing that happened this morning! So our toilet broke last night. The little plug thing that lifts to make the toilet flush? yea the part that connects the handle to the plug broke... and we didn't want to call our landlord cuz he doesn't like us, so I totally macgyvered the toilet back together using some fishing line, a box cutter, and a thumb tack. But now it totally flushes just like it should! I was really proud to have rewired its interface ;)
Love ya!
February 8, 2016
I will send you a picture of my updated motivation board, I absolutly love seeing it every morning. I think this is good, but I didn't even know that the superbowl was yesterday hahahahah. Or who was in it! Oh well I am not too worried about it. Been to busy walking through blizzards and converting felons this week to think about it. This week was way better than last week! This is some of what happened!
Sister Glenn in my ward bore her testimony yesterday and it was a great reminder for all of us I think. Her husband just was diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread all over his body, but she bore testimony yesterday about how all of our trials are custom designed for each of us. Heavenly Father knows us so well, that he knows when and how to try us to make us the best we can be. I was thinking of a hymn while she was talking, "thy dross to consume." That is exactly what our trials do for us and I love it. The other day I was pondering life and the choices that I have made and thinking how dumb they were, but I am grateful for how it all worked out. He knew how to make it all work for the best in the end, no matter how hard it seemed in the moment. I love it!
I don't even know what happened lol all the days just start to blur cuz it goes so dang fast. So I can't remember if I told you about a new couple that we picked up, Jeremy and Danyelle, but there is so much great news about them that you are gonna hear a lot about them! So, these two are a very very poor couple with a little 11 month old baby. They met with the sister missionaries in the other ward, but live in our ward. Since they live in our boundaries, they have recently been meeting with us. They are so so so awesome. Like so awesome that they heard about the word of wisdom before we even have taught it, and now they dropped coffee and tea cold turkey! And they went from half a pack of cigarettes each per day, to only 1 each per day! It is such a testimony strengthener to see them progressing and acting with so much faith. Another thing that was so cool to me, was we had a baptismal date set for February 27, and without us saying anything about this, they calculated how many pages they needed to read together to finish the Book of Mormon by that date. So amazing. Sadly, Jeremy is on probation right now for theft until July so we moved their date to July 5. Despite that they still are trying to finish the Book of Mormon by the original date. They have changed their lives so much to prepare for baptism, and they always tell us how badly they want to be baptized. I am so glad that the Sisters found them and that they were so prepared to receive the Gospel. Investigators are the greatest people, I love them!
We also taught our friend Jefferson this week, and he is being baptized this Saturday! I will make sure to send lots of pictures from his baptism. We are so so so so so excited for him, and he is even preparing to serve a mission next year! He is an all star. Oh he also gave me a guitar that I have been playing in my free time so maybe I will be a pro musician when I get home, that'd be cool.
AH! something that I almost forgot! We spent a lot of time country knocking this week (knocking in the country if you needed more explaining lol) and met some great people out where no missionaries had knocked before. One thing that we found that stuck out to me, were the two pictures that I am going to attatch at the end of this email. Some guy just built those! HAhahahahahahah rednecks are legit. JK the pictures are too big to attatch to this, so I will send them separate hah sorry
Anyways That is all for this week. I hope that your week is perfect, and that you learn something new from the Spirit this week. I live the Gospel, I love it, and I cannot wait to Find more of those, my brothers and sisters, that are prepared to hear and benefit from this message. The Gospel is true! Stay Faithful my friends. I will see you soon.
Love
Elder Johnson
February 1, 2016
There is no better anything that being here! I decided that two years is too short. I am already a 12th of the way done like what in the world?! I better get working harder I guess!!! Gotta baptize everyone!! hahahah But I did take a few more pictures this week! I will send them soon!
Guess where I am going today? Frankenmuth. That is almost as cool as kalimazoo!!!!! hahahahaha I am really excited to go there, we are going to an ice sculpture exhibit! Hopefully that will be pretty fun.
Well anyways here is the week of unfortunate events:
There were a few sad things that happened this week, but there is still so much good that is outweighing the bad. The first thing that was pretty hard is this: We texted Dillon to see when we could come over to visit them again, and got no response which never happens from him. So we waited a while and gave him a call. Still no answer or reply. Finally we decided just to drop by and see what was up. We walked over and knocked on the door, and Cathrine answered and talked to us for a little bit about how some of their family had shared some anti websites and information with them... But we were able to smooth some of it out right there and set a time to come see both of them the next day. When we arrived we just sat and began to talk with them, praying for help from Heavenly Father, looking for what they needed to hear. As we talked we found out that they felt they had found the right church for them... It was super sad to hear that, but when I heard it a question popped into my head. The question was something that we have gone over so many times, but I asked it anyways. I asked them if they knew why the Book of Mormon is so important. They just looked at me with blank stares!!! It was so frustrating because all they need to do to know the truth, is read that book. Then pray about it. That is it. NOBODY DOES THAT!!!! It is super hard, but it gave me a good opportunity to bear testimony of the Book and to tell what it can do for them. Hopefully they still have a desire somewhere to read and pray, but for now they dropped us. That doesn't mean a thing though, this is a battle for souls! You don't just roll over in a battle! So I will keep praying and working for them.
The other sad thing was Chris still did not meet with us this week. He said he was gonna be at church, but never showed. He still has not returned our calls either so we are gonna swing by there and raid the place hahahah just kidding. But for real, he can run but he cant hide.
In the end though, We still have lessons to teach and people to serve. We also got a new couple to teach who is on date to be baptized for Feb 27! now we have 3 people getting ready for baptism this transfer. So sick. The church is true! I love the work, Build your testimonies, and keep the commandments. That is what will keep us strong and endure to the end.
Also, if you see missionaries, be nice to them. When we get members that come up to us and talk and encourage us it makes such a big difference in our day. One guy even bought us a pizza so that was awesome. Anyways that's all for now!
Miss Ya!!!
Love You!
Elder Johnson
Also we took a few pictures by a river
I always feel like I forget things when I email so hopefully today I get it all! Well, to start the week off we had quite an interesting referral. Usually we only get those from members or LDS.org, but this time President Hoover from our Mission Presidency called us personally with a referral to go see! He had taught this girl's (Jesse) mother years and years ago, but since she (The mom; Carol) has fallen away from the church. Apparently Jesse has become interested and wanted to know about our church. So he gave us her information and we set up a time to go meet with her. We ended up going to see her the next night! She lives with her mom and step dad, and is a minor (15) so they have to allow us to teach her and be present in the lessons. We were a little nervous about the step dad because he is a minister at another local denomination, but he is very kind to us and supportive of Jesse in finding her own path. They are great people. Anyways, we taught them about the restoration of the gospel, which is always a powerful lesson. The Spirit that accompanies the account of the first vision testifies to me each time we share it. LOVE IT. Joseph Smith is a stud. We taught of the Book of Mormon, and bore testimony of that as well, and at the end of the lesson she committed to be baptized on March 5, 2016. We are so excited for her and her progression! ahhhhh so sick.
Sadly, Chris was out of town this week so we didn't get to see him, but we did go see Dillon and Cathrine again. They are still progressing, but very slowly and surely. They keep all our commitments that we leave them, but for some reason they just won't pray about these things!!!! I have decided that if everyone we met simply prayed each day sincerely, for any amount of time, The Lord could change the world. It is such a simple thing, yet so powerful. I think it is almost too easy so people tend to overlook it. So for now I am going to just keep praying for them and hopefully they will experience a mighty change of heart that only the Spirit can bring. They are so awesome too.
I also had a great and humbling experience this week. I got the chance to give my first blessing of comfort and counsel. I know now more than ever that the priesthood truly is the power of God given to man. Once again the Spirit that was there was amazing to feel, and the things that were said were really words from Heavenly Father. I didn't know why I was saying these things, but the Spirit directed, and was for that sister I know it. The Church is true, and Christ is at its helm.
Side note, these are the totals for how many people I have talked to etc thus far in my mission:
Potential investigators: 27
Lessons taught: 24
Baptisms: 0
This is the sun, Something that I have only seen once since being here.
Since the sun is out and it is 32 degrees outside, we all are in our short sleeve shirts dying of heat! hahahah crazy how that works.
January 18, 2016
I always love getting real letters. We haven't gotten any mail in a while so that has been sad hahahahah. But whatever works! I don't have a lot of time to write letters in the week to respond to those, we have been teaching a lot more than we were before lately so thats exciting! getting into lot more homes and just talking to a lot more people. It is so awesome. We finally have an investigator on date too!! I feel like i learn so much so fast here, and I am already at the end of my first transfer!! Time flies when you work your butt off.
So here is the state of the union here in Midland MI!
I gave my very first blessing for the sick this week. That was a very very humbling experience for me. It was just so sweet and guided by the Spirit most definitely. So that was a cool little side note for what happened this week.
This week was a pretty dang awesome week. Just like every other week it seems. We had a record high number of lessons for us and have an investigator who is going to be baptized on February 13! It is really fun to be teaching him. He has been coming to church for 10 years, but his dad is a baptist and wouldn't let any of his children be baptized until they are 18 so Jefferson comes of age next week and has the desire to be baptized, then prepare himself for a mission in a year! So he already knows all about the church and everything, but it is still fun to meet with him and learn and grow with him. He is a great young man!
We also had a lesson with Dillon and Cathrine and this was a fun one. So... They still aren't married, they have a child, and they are progressing really well towards baptism. The only problem is the not married part hahah... So we had been praying and asking what to teach or share with them, and we received the answer to teach them the law of chastity. Oh boy. That was the answer that was received, so we went forward in faith and taught them how living a chaste life, and reserving sexual activities was reserved for after marriage. That in order to be baptized that (or moving out) was what must be done. It was definitely not an easy lesson, but they understood. The Spirit testified to them how important it was to follow this law and we could tell that it had been something they needed to hear. It was so great. As we were leaving, we committed them to pray to know what they should do moving forward, and a few days later when we saw them again we were informed that they are going ring shopping soon!!!! AHHHH!!! I am so happy for them and this act of faith. So I will keep you posted on them as we continue to meet with them.
This week we also had a lesson with Chris and Sharon, they also are progressing quite well. They have been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it to find out for themselves the truthfulness of it. As they read they write down questions that they have so we can talk about it as we teach. They are learning and gaining their own testimonies and it is an awesome process to watch. One cool thing from that lesson was, at the very end I answered one of Sharon's gospel questions, and she just started bawling. She said that was exactly what she had been needing to hear. I testified to her that as missionaries we are sent to be messengers of God, and Jesus Christ. To share with all children of God what He would have them hear, and that I knew what we had said was from Him. The Spirit that accompanied that testimony was the most intense that I have experienced on my mission and I know that they felt it. It was perfect.
I think that was all the exciting stuff from this week, so never forget these two things: I know that God Loves and knows all of us, and that The Book of Mormon is true. That is my simple testimony from this week, but I know it, I live it, I love it. Hope you have a perfect week.
Elder Johnson
P.S Tell mom that I said thanks so much for the planner covers, but I lied to her hahah I measured wrong and they are really 3 3/8 inch by 6! Don't ask how I was so far off but Somehow I was! So send more!! I loved those! Love Ya!
January 11, 2016
I have felt more of my Heavenly Father's love than I ever have before while I have been here. I love Him so much. It brings such peace and happiness to my life!! makes being a missionary so awesome. SO AWESOME.
ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE??!! Okay good, here is my week in review:
This week, we once again had a lesson with Chris! That man is so awesome. We went over planning on teaching him about The Plan of Salvation, and brought a member with us. It ended up not having to do anything with the lesson that we had planned, but I know that it was what Chris needed to hear. Not only was it the lesson he needed at that time, it was a perfect way for him to become friends with Leon (the member we brought). They became so close so fast, through similar experiences and things like that, that Chris has invited Leon back for every lesson. Having members be involved in teaching is so vital too, it creates friends and missionaries for after the Elders or Sisters have left the area. So that lesson not a lot got taught, but a strong friendship with a ward member was formed, and that may be more valuable in the long run anyways.
That brings us to Dillon and Cathrine: we had a great lesson with them in their home, and reviewed the restoration with them. Cathrine really is becoming converted to the gospel and is so open and ready for it, as is Dillon. He just doesn't know it yet. They are progressing slowly but surely and as a result, they came to church with us this Sunday!! Dillon even came in a suit! It was sweet! So we sat with them during sacrament and helped them to understand all that we could, and invited them to stay for Sunday School as well. They accepted and joined us for gospel principles, which I happened to be teaching this week. The subject was prayer, and as we taught each other and discussed the topic Dillon answered so many questions and added his insights as often as he could. That alone is a huge step for him, when we first met him he hardly would answer yes/no questions to only Elder Tindall and me.
It snowed a lot this week, so we shoveled many a drive way and shared the gospel while doing so. I would be willing to bet that we are the fastest driveway shovelers out there. We have a great system hahahahah. People are so grateful for that small act of service, and plants the seed of our message within their hearts I know it.
That is all for my week that I can fit in my time frame!! I hope you have the best week of all this week, and look for miracles in your life. I have started keeping a tally of all the miracles that come about and there are so many if we just look for them, and they are in all different shapes and sizes. Heavenly Father loves us. His Son's Gospel is restored to this earth today for the safety, and benefit of all of us. I know this message is true, live it, and love it.
Much Love,
Elder Johnson
here are some really cool pictures from an old book of mormon printed in 1879 that was given from Orson Pratt to his son.
Also a letter from David Whitmer with his testimony of the Book of Mormon on it. Super Cool!
I have felt more of my Heavenly Father's love than I ever have before while I have been here. I love Him so much. It brings such peace and happiness to my life!! makes being a missionary so awesome. SO AWESOME.
ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE??!! Okay good, here is my week in review:
This week, we once again had a lesson with Chris! That man is so awesome. We went over planning on teaching him about The Plan of Salvation, and brought a member with us. It ended up not having to do anything with the lesson that we had planned, but I know that it was what Chris needed to hear. Not only was it the lesson he needed at that time, it was a perfect way for him to become friends with Leon (the member we brought). They became so close so fast, through similar experiences and things like that, that Chris has invited Leon back for every lesson. Having members be involved in teaching is so vital too, it creates friends and missionaries for after the Elders or Sisters have left the area. So that lesson not a lot got taught, but a strong friendship with a ward member was formed, and that may be more valuable in the long run anyways.
That brings us to Dillon and Cathrine: we had a great lesson with them in their home, and reviewed the restoration with them. Cathrine really is becoming converted to the gospel and is so open and ready for it, as is Dillon. He just doesn't know it yet. They are progressing slowly but surely and as a result, they came to church with us this Sunday!! Dillon even came in a suit! It was sweet! So we sat with them during sacrament and helped them to understand all that we could, and invited them to stay for Sunday School as well. They accepted and joined us for gospel principles, which I happened to be teaching this week. The subject was prayer, and as we taught each other and discussed the topic Dillon answered so many questions and added his insights as often as he could. That alone is a huge step for him, when we first met him he hardly would answer yes/no questions to only Elder Tindall and me.
It snowed a lot this week, so we shoveled many a drive way and shared the gospel while doing so. I would be willing to bet that we are the fastest driveway shovelers out there. We have a great system hahahahah. People are so grateful for that small act of service, and plants the seed of our message within their hearts I know it.
That is all for my week that I can fit in my time frame!! I hope you have the best week of all this week, and look for miracles in your life. I have started keeping a tally of all the miracles that come about and there are so many if we just look for them, and they are in all different shapes and sizes. Heavenly Father loves us. His Son's Gospel is restored to this earth today for the safety, and benefit of all of us. I know this message is true, live it, and love it.
Much Love,
Elder Johnson
here are some really cool pictures from an old book of mormon printed in 1879 that was given from Orson Pratt to his son.
Also a letter from David Whitmer with his testimony of the Book of Mormon on it. Super Cool!
January 4, 2015
We had our first meeting with Chris this week! It was in the words of Elder Tindall "Best. Lesson. Ever." and I would have to agree with him. We went to his home and brought him a Book of Mormon. He invited us in for the lesson, and we taught him about the Restoration. Right after we got to Joseph Smith, his mom (who lives there because she got hurt) walked in with hot coco for all of us, and sat in for the rest of the lesson! Since she came in we quickly brushed over the topics leading up to Joseph and his vision, but continued almost immediately into the account of the vision. I began to recite it for them, and as I did we felt the Spirit enter undeniably. Once I finished telling it, we asked Chris how he felt about that. He told us that as I had said it, he felt like it was true. It was mind blowing how the Spirit testifies so much of truth when we state it clearly. So we taught that after that vision Joseph was called as a prophet, restored the priesthood authority, and because of that we have prophets on the earth today. Once again, Chris and his mother (Sharon) were so excited to hear that we had prophets that lead and guide us in this time. ah he is such an awesome investigator. So we talked after the lesson was over, and his mom told us how excited he had been all week to see us again and to read the Book of Mormon. She also expressed a desire to read it as well, so right now the two of them are sharing the one copy that we brought, but we are bringing a second copy this week when we meet with them again. So following all that we invited them to be baptized, read, and come to church all at once but for some reason we forgot to ask him to pray, but this was his response "yea that sounds good, but I will have to pray as I read and come to church to know if I should get baptized." in my head I was like YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! So he has been doing everything that we have asked, and he must have gotten a good answer to his prayers, because they were both at church on sunday. ah man!!!! The work is real my friends, the field really is white.
A few days after this lesson, we had another lesson with Dillon and his family.we taught about temples, baptisms for the dead, and family history. they loved learning about that, and I think the Spirit really testified to them about that. not much super exciting happened in that lesson, but we finally commited them to come to church with us, so we will have them there on sunday as well as Chris and Sharon. They are all so great, and you really do feel the love of our Father in Heaven has for us as we teach and love His children.
I also met a super drunk dude that wants us to come teach him, and got cussed off this lady's porch (she had a no soliciting sign that i really want to go take now hahahah). but thats it!
I think that was my week in a nutshell! hope all is going splendid! I will see you soon :)
Love you mom!!
Elder Johnson
This is a huge super church that teaches more anti than anything else!!! All their members are super nice, but all they do to us is try to prove us wrong ( so far none of them have though hahahaha)
December 28, 2015
This week was so awesome. well really just the day after I talked to you I guess hahhahaha. We called to go to Grace's ( the girl who speaks in tongues and had the devil book) but she didnt answer and didnt call back so we are dropping her so no worries there. but this is what happened on Saturday:
God works in such mysterious ways but He accomplishes such amazing things through those ways. That is one of the biggest lessons that I have learned while being here. Half the time I don't Even know why I am knocking on this persons door, especially after the whole street has told us no, it is freezing cold out, and I am tired from walking all the time. But always, without fail, The Lord places us on the right street at the right house to, if nothing else, plant the seed that one day will hopefully grow into faith and a desire to follow Jesus Christ's example. This week we had a major example of being placed at a persons house who needed us. It came in answer to a fast that we were doing. Not a regular fast, but a car fast. hahahahahah Like what the heck is a car fast? Like a Ferrari or something? WRONG! It is basically like a regular fast but instead of giving up food for the day, we give up our car and open a fast for whatever we feel that we need or our investigators need as we do that fast. So on Saturday, we had a car fast. Before we left the Apartment we had a prayer like any other day, but in it we asked that as we begin this fast, that we would be placed in the lives of those who are prepared and want to learn more about Christ. With that, we left the room and headed to where we had decided to knock (Dartmouth Street). We walked from one end down to the other just to see how far it was and what side roads we wanted to take.
Once we hit the end of the street and had a route in mind, we began the many hours of knocking that were ahead. Just like I described earlier, door after door was being closed on us, the bitter wind was taking a toll as my hands were turning purple, and I was not seeing our fast being fulfilled. However, as it usually is, right when I was sick of it and honestly begining to doubt this was gonna be any good, we knocked on another door. The man that answered was probably 25 or around there, had a big tattoo of a king smoking a fat joint on his forearm, big diamond stud earrings, and the gnarliest long hair/long beard combo I have ever seen. Immediately I thought "may as well just leave this guys house now." Which had to have been satan in my head because that was just terrible. I introduced us as the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and that our purpose is to help others grow their faith in Christ. He then expressed to us how much he(Chris) loved Jesus, and His teachings and we began a short discussion with him just about our church and what we do. Elder Tindall, right before we left, brought out a Book of Mormon and introduced it to Chris. We told him where it came from, what it teaches about, and That it is another Testament of Jesus Christ. As we brought it up Chris just was overjoyed to hear about it. There even was a single tear that rolled down his cheek. after we introduced and testified of it, he asked us how he could get one. If he could buy that one from us even. We told him that we could bring him back a free one we just didn't have a good (not beat up from carrying around in our pockets) one with us. So he gave us his number and even asked us where church was so he could come with us! Unfortunately he had family coming into town yesterday so he didn't come but before we left he expressed a desire to come next week for sure.
It blew my mind how the Lord had lead us to Chris's house when he wanted so much to hear about Jesus Christ. If we ask to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord, He will make us one if we are ready, worthy, and willing to do all that He asks, even if we don't know why when we start. David A Bednar explains taking a step into the fog in his Patterns of Light videos (Y'all need to watch those they are legit) and I know that what he talks about in those videos is true.
The Lord has people prepared for all of us, and all around us. Don't wait to be a missionary til you are a missionary. Every member a missionary. That is my biggest regret is not understanding that and acting on that before I came out here. I know that I would have been so much better prepared if I had began sharing just in small ways with those around me what I know to be true. Heck that is all missionary work is is small things. We work line upon line, precept upon precept, and it all leads to amazing things. Don't wait. Start looking for opporunities now! The Lord will show you that he has ways prepared. I love this Gospel, I love Jesus Christ, and I love being a missionary. Miss you but know that this is all for the best! See you soon!
I Love you mom!!! quit crying that is not allowed ;) I am gonna send you pictures so you have to share with everyone else!
Elder Johnson
This week was so awesome. well really just the day after I talked to you I guess hahhahaha. We called to go to Grace's ( the girl who speaks in tongues and had the devil book) but she didnt answer and didnt call back so we are dropping her so no worries there. but this is what happened on Saturday:
God works in such mysterious ways but He accomplishes such amazing things through those ways. That is one of the biggest lessons that I have learned while being here. Half the time I don't Even know why I am knocking on this persons door, especially after the whole street has told us no, it is freezing cold out, and I am tired from walking all the time. But always, without fail, The Lord places us on the right street at the right house to, if nothing else, plant the seed that one day will hopefully grow into faith and a desire to follow Jesus Christ's example. This week we had a major example of being placed at a persons house who needed us. It came in answer to a fast that we were doing. Not a regular fast, but a car fast. hahahahahah Like what the heck is a car fast? Like a Ferrari or something? WRONG! It is basically like a regular fast but instead of giving up food for the day, we give up our car and open a fast for whatever we feel that we need or our investigators need as we do that fast. So on Saturday, we had a car fast. Before we left the Apartment we had a prayer like any other day, but in it we asked that as we begin this fast, that we would be placed in the lives of those who are prepared and want to learn more about Christ. With that, we left the room and headed to where we had decided to knock (Dartmouth Street). We walked from one end down to the other just to see how far it was and what side roads we wanted to take.
Once we hit the end of the street and had a route in mind, we began the many hours of knocking that were ahead. Just like I described earlier, door after door was being closed on us, the bitter wind was taking a toll as my hands were turning purple, and I was not seeing our fast being fulfilled. However, as it usually is, right when I was sick of it and honestly begining to doubt this was gonna be any good, we knocked on another door. The man that answered was probably 25 or around there, had a big tattoo of a king smoking a fat joint on his forearm, big diamond stud earrings, and the gnarliest long hair/long beard combo I have ever seen. Immediately I thought "may as well just leave this guys house now." Which had to have been satan in my head because that was just terrible. I introduced us as the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and that our purpose is to help others grow their faith in Christ. He then expressed to us how much he(Chris) loved Jesus, and His teachings and we began a short discussion with him just about our church and what we do. Elder Tindall, right before we left, brought out a Book of Mormon and introduced it to Chris. We told him where it came from, what it teaches about, and That it is another Testament of Jesus Christ. As we brought it up Chris just was overjoyed to hear about it. There even was a single tear that rolled down his cheek. after we introduced and testified of it, he asked us how he could get one. If he could buy that one from us even. We told him that we could bring him back a free one we just didn't have a good (not beat up from carrying around in our pockets) one with us. So he gave us his number and even asked us where church was so he could come with us! Unfortunately he had family coming into town yesterday so he didn't come but before we left he expressed a desire to come next week for sure.
It blew my mind how the Lord had lead us to Chris's house when he wanted so much to hear about Jesus Christ. If we ask to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord, He will make us one if we are ready, worthy, and willing to do all that He asks, even if we don't know why when we start. David A Bednar explains taking a step into the fog in his Patterns of Light videos (Y'all need to watch those they are legit) and I know that what he talks about in those videos is true.
The Lord has people prepared for all of us, and all around us. Don't wait to be a missionary til you are a missionary. Every member a missionary. That is my biggest regret is not understanding that and acting on that before I came out here. I know that I would have been so much better prepared if I had began sharing just in small ways with those around me what I know to be true. Heck that is all missionary work is is small things. We work line upon line, precept upon precept, and it all leads to amazing things. Don't wait. Start looking for opporunities now! The Lord will show you that he has ways prepared. I love this Gospel, I love Jesus Christ, and I love being a missionary. Miss you but know that this is all for the best! See you soon!
I Love you mom!!! quit crying that is not allowed ;) I am gonna send you pictures so you have to share with everyone else!
Elder Johnson
We got caught in a fat rain storm so we use our bench for drying our coats hahahaha but the rain lead to a pretty artsy fartsy picture of my name badge that i like!!!! ADIOS!
December 21, 2015 - First P-day in Midland!
I am in the Midland 2nd Ward Right now!! that is so crazy that it worked out that way. My trainer is Elder Tindall, he is super awesome, and writes his own piano music! so whenever we stop by the church he sits down and just makes up a new version of some hymn as he sight reads it, blows my mind. The only thing i need to get used to about him is he walks soooooo fast. Like the second morning my legs were so sore from walking so far and so fast the day before! hahahaha and then that second night we had a dinner appointment we were late to and we dont have a car until wednesday so we ran two miles to get there and that just made my legs even more sore. But its all good.
The weather here really is bone chilling. It doesnt sound to bad, like usually about 20 so far, but just with the humidity it cuts straight through your clothes and freezes you. but i absolutely love it here. Except i miss the mountains so much, i keep expecting them to be around the next building, or behind the trees, but they never are!! It will be so weird coming home to them.
It is so crazy how if you let the Lord work with you in His own ways, how he can and will change you. This week on my first day i was sooooo soooo sooo scared to knock on that first door, but as the day passed I became more and more comfortable just telling people about the truth. The Lord has started to fill my mouth as we go and it has been amazing to see. One thing about knocking door to door though is you really see how many people are just closed to your message, especially in this area. It seems like every door that we knock, we meet the founder of some church in town, the FOUNDER! it is just so different than good ol poky, but I truly do love it.
I am not going to tell you about my awesome first two days story though, I want to tell you that on FaceTime!!!! Which by the way we will be face timing either your phone or dad's at noon your time so be ready!!!
Miss you all lots, but not enough to come home ;)
Love Elder Johnson
December 14, 2015
Holllaaaaaaaa! Whatcha know it's monday again already! It is so crazy how time flies here. I feel like just yesterday I was getting dropped off, but I look at what I have learned, experienced, and changed, and I feel like it has been forever. It is such a strange phenomenon. The MTC is an amazing place. Anyways! Let me think... what happened this week.... well! Me and Elder Stephens got a new investigator to go teach and we were nervous/excited for that. His name is Aaron. So we went and taught him 3 times this week, but unfortunately we can't go meet with him again because we are leaving tomorrow night (how crazy is that!) But back to the point, we met with him the first time and that meeting was alright. We kinda got to know him, shared a short lesson, and left him with a challenge to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was a strange lesson though because for some reason we just did not feel the Spirit in it so we were kinda confused and frustrated, but we moved past it and began to prepare for the next lesson. This lesson, was just awful hahahahahaha. We went in and asked him if he had any questions which was the worst thing we could have done. A lot of his friends are LDS so he knows quite a lot about us, so he all of a sudden dove into how temple sealings work, why can a man be sealed to multiple women, isnt that polygamy? why cant women recieve the priesthood? just all sorts of stuff like that which was so hard for us. So once again, we felt like there was not much Spirit in that lesson it was just terrible. So after that "lesson" we just had no idea what to do for him or with him. So we prayed and prayed and prayed about it, and right before our last lesson with him we found what we should do. In class, we learned about the value of reading the Book of Mormon with our investigators, not just challenging them to and committing them to. So for the final lesson we dedicated the whole time with him to just reading the Book of Mormon. We went through the introduction and the promises found in it and bore testimony of it, and finally, the Spirit came into our lessons with him. It was so nice to have that guidance and direction, and feeling there with us. It was a great way to end with him.That was really the highlight of this week, the rest of what happened was just class and class and class and learning hahahahahaha but that was all good too. I really have learned so much from the Spirit in class.
One other thing that happened this week was I had the scariest sacrament meeting I have ever been to. It was so stressful. So idk if the whole MTC does this or just my branch, but they give a topic for a talk, and everybody writes a short 5 minute talk on that subject. Then when Sunday rolls around, they call random individuals to the pulpit to speak. That is like my biggest nightmare. Luckily, i did not have to speak so that was a blessing for my blood pressure hahahahahahah. I did however, participate in the musical number this week in sacrament which was so fun. After all our Sunday meetings,( which we only have 2 hours of church here muahahaha) we had some personal study time. During personal study I have come to love scripture tabs. I now have immediate access to so many scriptures on so many different doctrines beacause of scripture tabs. sorry that was not where i was going though, after personal study we had Sunday night Devotional. this sunday devo was so awesome. We had a performance by the BYU mens chorus. It was the most amazing performance ever. Ahhh i loved it!!!
last but not least, one blessing that I am coming to realize, is that I have a great ability to speak boldly. It is so sad to see how many missionaries come here with so little respect, they come here and think its a joke. Like I literally asked one if he thought this work was a joke last night because he was being so immature, and he shrugged his shoulders and smirked at me. It was heartbreaking. But to those elders, I have found that I tell them to shape up, and they do it. I am not scared to say to people to change what they are doing anymore. So, this is what i want to end with. Always stand up for what you know is right. It is scary, but people will take heed to your words. Dont be scared to speak up. I know I used to be scared, but as I have come to be bold with them, I have found many of them changing how they act, what they say, and their entire attitude, so I know that can happen for all of us as we stand up for what is right. I love this work, I love my investigators, and I love you all. I cant wait to hear from you soon.
Also, I am leaving the MTC early Wednesday, Like 430 kinda early. So at some point between then and 930 when my flight is i will be calling you! So be ready!!! hahahahah
with love
Elder Johnson
December 7, 2015 - MTC P-day
My companions name is Elder Stephens, he grew up in a very small town in Utah and loves ranching, he is super quiet, but as we have grown closer he has opened up and he is a spiritual giant. I love him!!!! My district has four companionships in it, two going to Lansing, and two going to Las Vegas. The Elders going to Las Vegas are Elder Leckie (Minnesota) and Elder Rosskelley (Mississippi), Elder Alvarez (Ohio) and Elder Dematropolus (Hawaii). Then The elders going to Lansing are Myself and Elder Stephens, and Elder Gibby (Hawaii) and Elder Goodall (Arizona). these Elders are all so amazing, i just cant believe that i have only known them for less than a week, I feel like we are all best friends because we have grown so much together with the Spirit. Our favorite part of The MTC as a district is the time we have for doctrinal study. We all study together as a group and I get the honor of leading the discussion because I was called as the district leader. Each time we study like this together, there are always tears shed and testimonies being turned to conversion. I truly think that I am in the best district here, we all are quick to heed counsel and lift each other up. We Call ourselves, Keki 'o Ka Hekili, or sons of thunder. We have helped pull each other through the struggles of this week, Elder Gibby Fainted and got very sick on thursday, and because of that he got very nervous and wanted to go home, but our zone leaders gave him a blessing and we all prayed for him and he found the strength and love he needed to stay. now he has been one of the biggest contributing factors to our districts growth, and i am sure that is why satan tried to make him feel like he wanted to leave that day. i know that he knows it too and he is so strong for us now. I love IT hahahah. i love the food here, its not too bad but it makes Elder Gibby gassy so that's rough. one of My favorite spiritual experiences from this week happened on friday. We were told to prepare a 35 minute lesson to teach to a member that morning, and so far the only lesson we had gone over and were getting good at teaching was the Restoration, So that is what most companionships started preparing. Elder Stephens and i got together and prayed about what we should teach, and we felt that we should teach about the Plan of Salvation even though we had not gone over it in class and become well versed in it yet. So we prepared the lesson and prayed throughout the short time leading up to the lesson. We went in to a room to teach this brother, his name was braydan, and had a great lesson with the spirit, and testimony, and scripture, and power, but that was not the amazing part. The amazing part was that at the end of the lesson that brother shared with us that the plan of salvation is his favorite lesson to be taught by the Elders, and not only that, he had prayed that morning that as he met with the Elders he would be taught about the Plan of Salvation. How amazing is the Lord and His Ways. He brought me and my companion to a lesson we did not know about and were not 100% ready to teach, but because we did it we were able to be an answer to another one of His children's prayers. I know the Lord lives, and I know that He loves us, knows us, and will answer our prayers. I absolutely love it here everyone. i hope all is well and you got the Christmas lights up without me ;) Love you all so much. Remember that.
3 Nephi 5:13
Elder Johnson
December 2, 2015 - Entering the MTC
Pictures to come:)
