November 23, 2015

Well this week we have finally been seeing the success coming from long weeks of just visiting less actives. I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THIS AREA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have picked up a NIMR each week now and we have started setting people for baptism. We have started to have people at church! This area is starting to take off! We have been loaded with referrals from active, less active, and recent converts! It has been a great past few weeks! We have visited every less active and part member family in our area! And so many of them have told us to come back and we have set up so many appointments this week! We are going to be doing lots of teaching this week! I'm very excited and we, as a companionship, are very happy about all the success we have been having!


We taught one of our new investigators, Kim, this week and she is doing soo well!!!! She is married to a less active and the father is an extremely active member. So we had a really great first lesson with them and then we came back on Sunday to teach her again and she told us that out of all the missionary's that have taught her, we were the only ones that have the Spirit so strong in our lessons! It was crazy! I have never loved an investigator sooo much!! Usually I just know they probably won't progress, but with her I know that this time she will be baptized! She was previously taught by a few sets of missionaries, but when we went over the first time we taught her the new way we are teaching and they just felt the spirit so strong! They were both crying and it was just a good lesson! I just can't contain how excited I am for her! We then extended a baptismal date for her. We set her for January 2nd! And she said that she feels very prepared for this date! And I know she will be! She was very excited to hear about a date for her! Next lesson I'm going to tell her that if she gets baptized on that date, than in a year I will come back out and go to the temple when they are sealed! And the best part about us meeting with them is she then invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner with her whole family, who are non members! So we are super excited to hopefully teach them a lesson about what we believe!


We also had an investigator at church! She was also a member referral from a recent convert! She has a lot to do before she can get baptized, but we are hoping we can set her with a date as well! haha So as you may know, this has been an exciting week! I am so happy right now!!! haha Anyway! I love being out here and I'm having so much fun in this area! haha Well I love you and I miss you a bunch! 

Love,
Elder Johnsen

More fun pictures I found on his photo storage.  I have no idea what they are doing or where they are.  But, he and his companion seem to get along very well.  :) 

 

November 16, 2015

So this week nothing really happened. Nothing as impressive as last week, but we did finally go out to the far ends of our ward boundaries. It's a place called Howbucken. It's an hour+ drive from our apartment. And there is one member that lives out there.. and she is so nice! She had some bad experiences with people in the church in previous areas. But the best part is, she still knows the church is true! She said that without a doubt she knows its true! But, since she lives so far and has two autistic kids, she doesn't come out very often.. Which is sad, but she has legitimate reasons. We told her that if we were ever out that way again we would make a special visit to see her out there!

Otherwise, we did have a little miracle happen to us! Our recent convert, Leamon, gave us a referral to a lady he knows and we went out to see her.  Man! She is super prepared! She has a few things to work on, like most people we meet, but she should be able to over come it! So we were super excited about that! We did have exchanges this week! It was awesome! I got to go with one of the Elders I came out with! So, Elder Alexander and I got to be companions for a day! It was fun! We talked a lot about the MTC and a lot about companions we have had! It was just an overall good time! haha It was actually my first time packing for an exchange in over 6 months! So it was a little different! But I enjoyed it! haha! Anyway that's it for my week! I love you and miss you guys a bunch!

Love, 

Elder Johnsen

November 9, 2015

Well this week was an interesting one.. I almost got shot, we didn't baptize anyone, and we still don't have a car. haha We have been having pretty good success with trying to find people that don't come to church! Except for last night.. that's when we almost got shot. So it starts getting dark around here at about 6, so we went out to find people like usual. We brought one of the kids from the ward who is leaving for his mission in a week, and we get to a house and the garage is open so we're happy because we're thinking 'Man we will be able to talk to them!' So we're all excited. We're walking up to the front door and the guy comes in from the backyard and I'm like 'Hey! How's it going!' And he goes 'Woah! You guys kinda scared me!' And I was like 'Oh I'm sorry man! I didn't mean to.' And he was like 'Well it's all right, we can't do it tonight!' And we're like 'OK, well does Jessica (I'll change her name for protection) live here?'  He then turns to us and starts walking towards us and he just starts yelling! 'Get the F*** off my driveway!' And we're like 'Yes sir! We are going!' He then said 'You know what, actually I'm just going to kill you guys because you keep coming over!!!!!!' So we're like 'Umm we want no part of this!' So he starts running inside! And while he's running inside he's yelling 'Jessica! I'm going to kill the F***in Mormons!' So as we're walking fast back to the car, I look back and see him running through his house to his room, so I'm like 'Oh snap he was serious!' So I start bookin it to the car! And Josh (the youth) had the car locked and was looking for the keys, so I'm freaking out because there's a guy with a 12 gauge running through the house trying to get me! So I'm yelling at Josh and finally we get in the car and we start that car so fast and we got out of there sooo fast!!!!! Needless to say we will not be going back to try and see Jessica... haha So that was a great experience.. I have decided that I'm going to now turn my gopro on when we do less active contacts at night... Just in case it's the last video of me.. haha Because if I could have gotten that on film, it would have been sweet to show people!! Maybe we'll go back just so we can film it... No, I'm kidding mom. We won't be doing that! haha Otherwise contacting the less actives has been good! They usually just say 'Umm yeah I don't want to talk to ya!' So we just verify that they are the person that the records say lives there and then we just tell Bishop that they would prefer not to be contacted at that time.

We actually stopped by an old lady's house who can't come to church because she has health problems. She's 82.. I mean, that's old. And she was an unknown less active. And we were the first people to visit her in probably over a year and she was so happy to see us! And to see people from the church! She couldn't stop saying how much she loved us! We had a great lesson with her! :) It was a bittersweet moment! :) So there's a success story and a funny/bad story! haha! Besides that, we have gotten back in contact with Jamilah and have a lesson with her today and a lesson with Tony. We have gotten a little more support from the ward so we are able to hopefully bring these people to Baptism! We'll see how the lesson goes. We did stop by Landon's last night and his dad informed us he will probably be wearing the brace for the next 3 months... So we can cross him off our list.. So we told him when he feels like he is ready, to give us a call. So we dropped him, but we'll continue to pop in every now and then. But that was pretty much our week! I love you all and miss you a bunch!

Love, 

Elder Johnsen

 

I have no idea what these pictures are of or who is in them.  I just found them in his My Cloud account and thought I would post them.  His current companion is in the picture with him at the Dr. Office and the bottom picture.  I do recognize some of the other missionaries in some of the pics, but not all of them.

 

November 2, 2015

Well this week people think I'm either too skinny or that it must be Halloween time... I'm going to go with that they think I'm too skinny.. Man we have gotten so much food and candy this week!!! A lady in the ward found out I really love smarties, so when we went over to her house (funny story actually) looking for someone else, she said 'oh I have something for you!' I was like huh? And she was like 'I'll be right back!' So she left and we were talking with her family and she comes back with a gallon size zip lock bag full of Smarties!! I was like no way! haha So I now have that, plus all the candy and Oreo's you sent me in my package.. haha So its been fun!

But this week we have been doing a lot less investigator work.. and doing more less actives and un-knowns in the ward! So we have had great success with that! We have actually contacted almost half the ward (the ward has 600+ records) trying to find out who is who, what addresses are right or wrong, who wants to come back, who hates us, and so forth! So we have spent tons of our time making a new ward roster with notes on how each of our visits went and what we talked about and details about the person. Including, if there house was hard to find, what dirt road you have to turn on and so forth. So we have been cleaning up a bunch of the records which has made Bishop very happy! So we keep pressing forward. The reason behind us doing this instead of investigator work is because with investigators you need daily contact, and you need to see them a lot!!!! And we just don't have a car to be doing that right now.. We do have some investigators, but it's slim that we see them and they arn't really progressing currently.. Now you may ask how are we seeing all these less actives then? Well we have a member, Brother Rose, which I think I told you about earlier.  He is a returning INACTIVE member and he loves missionary work so he would rather go out with us than just sit at home, so he is always willing! So we go out with him a bunch! We have lots of fun! So that's been nice to have him in this time of need! haha But a little update on the investigators, Landon will not be baptized until at least the 24th. His dad is going in for back surgery this week and will be in a brace for 3 weeks. So we probably won't be seeing him baptized until next year.. We really wanted him to be baptized before the surgery but his dad skipped a bunch of appointments and they haven't been to church in like 4 weeks.  So we are really trying to stress that this is Landon's baptism and not his, so that kinda stinks.. Tony seems set in his ways so we don't see him changing, but we do meet with him whenever he is not committing crime.. So hopefully we can see a change in him. We're staying positive. Otherwise that's all the investigators that have any promise at being baptized at this point...  Love you all.

Elder Johnsen

October 26, 2015

Well I wasn't transferred! So I'm going to finally have a companion longer than one transfer! haha This is exciting! haha But we get along so well, so it's been a fast and great past 6 weeks! I'm excited for the next 6 weeks! We still don't have a car.. which sucks, but we're working hard. I did go to the doctor and he said it's just chronic muscle pain from the car accidents. He basically said any time it hurts just take a bunch of pain pills... So I guess I'm just going to go with it umtil something worse happens, or I'm not sure. Just until something happens haha! They did x-rays and said the bones are spaced out where they need to be and everything looks fine, so he said it's probably just muscle. So we press on! haha This week was a pretty cool week! So, since we split the areas we have had problems with the other missionary's poaching our area for investigators and less actives. Since they have a car they can cover more area/people.. It makes us mad... So on Friday night we were out with Brother Rose, who usually takes us to visit lots of people! So we were out with him visiting people that Bishop gave us to go see and while we were out, we came to the Weidmans (pronounced weed-mans) and they were like 'Whoa! Hey more missionaries!' and we were like crap... So they told us that the other set had scheduled an appointment on Saturday at 7:30 so I had the great idea of saying 'Well hey, we will teach you a much more powerful lesson at 7:15 the same night.' And they were like 'Sure, we would love that!' So my intent was for them to show up and see us teaching a family in their area.. so that maybe they could learn their lesson about poaching! Well it went better than planned!! We took a very powerful member that was previously excommunicated, and went over to their house! And we made sure we were on time! (of course we were because this guy has some very fast cars... we went in his Audi s8)  We show up and we start having our lesson and 7:30 comes and no knock... then 7:35.. no knock yet... then 7:40 comes and still no knock.. So I'm thinking they must have told them that we were coming.. And I mean we prepared a short lesson so I'm trying to drag out this short lesson with this family, and to say the least, it's not quite working out... So 7:45 comes and still no knock... I'm like man we're about to say a prayer and leave! But at few minutes later there's a knock, and the dad gets it and the look on their faces was so priceless!! We were dying laughing once we saw their faces!! hahahahaha I was tickled quite a bit by it! :) haha  Needless to say, the next day at church they were very upset! So I hope they got the point about coming to our area and stealing our less actives and our investigators!! haha

Another funny thing that happened was while we were out finding people on the DO NOT CONTACT list, less active list, and part member family list, we ran into this old guy. We knocked on his screen door (everyone here has screen rooms.. no idea why...) and he yells 'I'm coming.'  So we wait and he gets to the door and opens it and doesn't see anyone, and hes like 'Are ya there?'  And we yell 'Yes, were at the screen door.' And he peeks out and yells 'MORMONS! Are you Mormons?' And we say 'Yes we are!' and he was like 'Well goodbye!' haha And so we yell and ask if he is Brother Nelson (that's not his name) and he quickly opens the door and yells 'Yes!' and then slams it! hahah We were cracking up just laughing! haha So it's been fun and scary trying to contact these people... haha

But otherwise, we didn't teach any of our investigators this week and Landon's dad keeps prolonging his baptism so we are being patient with that.. Hopefully something happens... Hopefully someone will be baptized in this area before I leave.. I want one really bad... so I'm determined to get one!! haha But that was pretty much our week! :)

Elder Johnsen 

 

 

So happy to have received these pics of these two handsome missionaries in my email yesterday!

I love these little surprises.