Temple Week!!!

Here's my week! So this week I was able to go to a wedding of a recent convert we had. She was baptized on Valentine's Day, so just a few days before I got here! It was awesome to see how happy she was! There was a time during the wedding where she was talking to someone and I wasn't trying to listen in, but she was telling her how happy she was that the missionary's found her, converted her and brought her to the Gospel. She also said how happy she was to be able to find her husband and how he's LDS, and is also a huge impact on her life! So that was pretty awesome to see! That was on Tuesday, but on Monday after p-day ended, we had an hour of time to just go outside and do something. So we went street contacting and after an hour of ZERO success, we only ended up talking to one girl. She's 16, nothing special about it, we haven't set up an appointment with her yet. But after having no one to talk to, we decided we would take Elder Braithwate's helmet back to his apartment and we ran into a girl struggling with a TV, so we asked to help. Long story short, we helped her move in and now she is a new investigator! We have already taught her once and we are teaching her again this week! So that's been pretty awesome! We have also been teaching Mary a lot these past few weeks! We have to double up on lessons each week so she can get everything in before her baptism! She is super excited and loves the church and loves having us over to teach her! So, we teach her every Thursday and Sunday, which has been nice! Her baptism is on the 28th at 7:30pm! On Friday we had exchanges! Which was awesome! I was paired up with another missionary from Arizona! He's from Mesa! He's into mechanics and loves cars as well as engineering. So that's what he wants to do in life! He's currently building a sand rail back home and has a bunch of other fun toys! His name is Elder Mikelson, in case you happen to know anyone with that last name! He comes from a family of 12, including him, so I'm sure you can find some of his relatives! So we had a really good exchange, lots of things to talk about and never a dull moment! During exchanges we were cussed at and told we were liars from someone. So we had to deal with both of those situations. haha. Then on Saturday it rained on us again, so we didn't go outside much. We were inside making phone calls, which I hate doing by the way. I just prefer to be outside talking to people, not inside talking to people over the phone. Sunday was like any other Sunday here in Norfolk.. weird, interesting, and pretty cool, i guess? haha but Wednesday. Wednesday was the day! WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!!!!! It was amazing!!!!! My 4th time going and I couldn't complain, except for one thing.. The drive was quite a bit longer than the drive to the Gilbert Temple. Oh well! haha But the temple was awesome! We did one session then we had zone conference in the stake center right next to it. I took lots of pics and such, but my companion is being very rude right now.. So you will just see them when I send the SD card home in a few days! I have been trying to take at least one picture a day for this month and it has been working out pretty well, so the memory card is filling up a lot faster than usual haha! I have been enjoying my time out here a lot! It has been fun! I have been praying lately for some personal things and I can definitely say they have been answered and have helped me a lot! I have been an awesome missionary the past few days and I can only hope that it gets better! One thing that stood out to me the most this week was something that Elder Mikelson said on exchanges. I asked if he was excited to be going home soon (he's been out for 19 months) and he said he was. And that kinda struck me, I was in awe of why he said he was excited to be heading home. Most all missionary's say they don't want to leave because they are doing the Lord's work and how amazing it is! But his explanation made me completely understand why he said that and it completely changed how I wanted to feel at the end of the mission. He said most missionary's feel that way because they have had their rent paid, they don't work, and have just been missionaries. He said people are scared to be heading back to the real world, where there is greater temptation and how they will have to start working and they will have to pay rent and have to do all these things compared to what it was like in the field, where things were super easy. And that got me thinking. He continued on to say, 'I was called for two years, if I have not finished the work and have not done my best in those two years then I have failed and would need an extension. But if I have done 100% of what the Lord has asked and I have done everything I can to devote myself for two years, then I have done the Lord's work, and I have no reason to stay longer.' After hearing him explain this, I was like thrown in my chair, I was like 'Wow! That's powerful!' So, because of that, it has changed my whole mission perspective! Anyway, I hope to hear from you soon! :) I love you all and miss you all a lot! Love, Elder Johnsen