Michael's Mission: February 22, 2016

When I wrote Michael this week, I told him I was really frustrated -and had a bad attitude- about the math class I am taking. (I went back to college to finish my degree) When he wrote back, this is what he had to say about it (which I think is really funny so I thought I would put it here on the blog):

If you want help on formulas think of it like real life situations. that's what life is based on is formulas. your mortgage is a formula, your car payment, your taxes, your tax bracket, everything has a formula. A simple formula used in the automotive world is crank horsepower compared to brake horsepower (or rear wheel horse power). There's usually a 10%-15% drive train loss from the crank to the wheels. So you figure you have JUST an engine that makes 550 CRANK horse power. You want to know how much power it would make in your car. Well with 10% drive train loss you could figure having about 490-500 REAR WHEEL horse power after factoring in drive train loss. So it looks like this in formula terms. CRANK-(CRANKhp*10%)=BRAKEhp or in calculator form 550-(550*.1)=495. So if you did it with other variables by saying x is equal to crank hp, y is equal to the percent, and z is equal to the rear wheel power. So in that form it would be X-(X*Y)=Z. So now you can insert anything you want if your looking for what 10% of a certain thing would be. Or for any percent you could say 50% of something, 80% of something, anything. Just as long as you know that the percent is the variable Y, and the percent of something your trying to find is X. Remember also, that whatever is in parenthesis is done first. So for a house if you want to know how much it has depreciated over one year of owning it, and you know that in one year a house will depreciate 40%, you would factor something like this. I bought the house brand new for $1,330,980 in February of 2015, so in one year of owning it, it's now is worth $798,588. Hopefully that makes more sense. Probably not. But I guess anything helps. I sent more time writing this part of my letter than any other part. haha I had to do the house one since I don't think the car one would make sense. haha Ask dad to help you as well, he would understand the car one better if you don't get it. Anyway! haha Here was our week!

This week was great! We had lots of fun, like usual when your with Elder Johnsen! We did race car things, cooked pigs, and taught the Gospel! We taught a lot of less actives and recent converts this week. The most this transfer! We're trying to get into more less actives homes, which can be hard since we already went to all of them about 4 months ago.. So we are starting to slowly go back through all of them again and see how they're doing and trying to re visit some we thought needed just a little time before they would come around. We also started slowly going through the previous investigator list and trying to meet with those people. In fact, we had success tracking one down this past Sunday. She is the daughter of a member in the ward that I don't know. Which is surprising because I know everyone in this ward, including in-actives and excommunicated members. haha But we went to her moms house, which is a 30 minute drive from our place, and she let us in and we had a good talk with her and we brought up her daughter and she said that she was with her at church about 2 weeks ago and she had some really good questions! So we're excited to be teaching her again! The last time she was taught was back in July of 2012, so its been many years! But we're hopeful this will help expand our teaching pool. It's been pretty slim these last few weeks. We keep baptizing our investigators! haha I guess that's a good problem to have! So my favorite thing about my current area has got to be the members! I love them so much! They are great! In fact this past week while at a linger longer, or lunch after church potluck, Sister Wilson in the ward came up to me and said 'Elder Johnsen, I love seeing you here!' And I was like 'Aww, well thank you!' And she said 'We love seeing your smile and all the great things your doing here!' And I was like 'Well thank you, we try our best!' And she said 'How long have you been here?' And I said '7 and a half months.' And she said 'That's not breaking a record yet for New Bern, but you are close!' haha And I said 'Yeah we'll see, I might be getting transferred here in the next week.' And she said 'Aww well we hate to see you go, but we will miss you!' And it was just a nice little short conversation with her! She's great and everyone else is great as well! So that's what I love about this current area! I also love the untapped potential that's here. There's so many great things that could happen and will happen here if the right missionaries are here. But if they put the wrong ones here all the work we have done will go to waste.. So I would hate for that to happen... I think the biggest change is how I view people and being able to see and learn more about the church. Seeing why people get offended and don't come back and why people don't come has forever changed how I will view advice Bishops give me or what people say to me. My favorite thing about serving my mission thus far is probably just the experience and how much fun they are! Yes it is lots of work but it pays off. I thought a mission was going to be lamer than a rock sitting in an Arizona rock garden. But they are way more fun than you think! And it teaches you so much about serving others. Nothing I'm doing benefits me, except for the experience and lessons I learn, but otherwise it's all for the benefit of others. No money, no extra blessings, not extra favors of Heavenly Father, not being exalted, nothing like that. Your helping others reach for the Celestial Kingdom and helping them become better people. So you learn lots. haha
So for fun things that happened this week, now that we got all the spiritual stuff taken care of. This week I got to work on Brother Webber's race car! We put on new calipers and new lines. I'll get another video of us starting it up and running it. He still needs a few more things! The carb started leaking on it last time we started it and ran it. And we're trying to sort out the line lock. We also need to make a bracket for the line lock switch since you can't reach it when in the harness. Kinda like taking my car through a drive through.. doesn't work.. I promise! haha You can't reach the lady trying to hand you your food! haha Then on Saturday we cooked a pig on a giant pig cooker for ward conference! It was awesome! We got to just pick at the pig while it was on the cooker. We would just reach and grab some rib meat, butt meat, anything! haha It was so good! The process of making Carolina BBQ is quite the process! And I video taped all of it so you can watch it! haha Your welcome! So that was cool! But, that was our week! Hope all is week back home! I miss you guys!

Love,
Elder Johnsen