Elder Bednar Visits!

Hey Everyone,

This was such an amazing week, i don´t know where to start. i feel like i could write 10 pages and it still wouldn´t be enough. Well the first big news i have is that i got my christmas package today with my christmas music, thank you! it only took 2 months to get here, but like you said i will just have it for next christmas, and by that time i will only have 5 months left in the mission.

The conferences with Elder Bednar were amazing! it was such a spiritual and motivating experience. He is seriously a spiritual and gospel genious, but i guess that is what happens when you are constantly in the presence of prophets and apostles for 5 and a half years. On Saturday, we had the mission conference with him, and i got to sit on the 4th row. he doesn´t speak spanish so he used a translater, but it was really good for the Americans. He only knows 3 words in spanish, ¨Espiritu Santo, hola, and uno por uno¨. every now and then he would say one of those words and make a joke of how it is the gift of tongues is kicking in. He has a great personality, and basically just had a 3 hour conversation rather than give us a talk. right when he walked in, he commented about how hot it was and then took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and just started talking with us and asking our oppinions on things or what we thought about other things. we were given two of his talks to read before he came and he first asked what we liked about them and what we learned, he wasn´t intimidating at all. He told us that we shouldn´t write anything that he says, but what the Spirit tells us. it was pretty much a 3 hour demonstration of how we should talk and teach with people so that they feel the Spirit and receive revelations and confirmations. I know that every missionary there received revelation for themselves and for their investigators. it was truly an inspiring experience. One of my favorite topics that he talked about was the Atonement. He explained that there are two parts of the Atonement. the first is to be cleansed of our sins. the second is that it gives us strength and power to endure burdens, or problems and endure to the end (mosiah 24, v.13-15). Many people pray to have the Lord take away their burdens, when they should be praying for strength to carry them. He also talked alot about prayer and how everything is in the will of the Lord, not us. About 2 hours into the conference, he told us that we have an hour left and the time is now ours to ask him whatever question we wanted. 3 of the 70 and their wives also came with Elder Bednar: Martinez, Costa (who in the the presidency), and Coleman. He told us that we would never have this much time in a group so small as us, to ask whatever question we wanted to an apostle and three 70. of course we all wanted to ask him a question, but he was only able to answer about 7 before the time ran out. There were some great questions asked, like how has the Lord shaped him throughout his life to become an apostle, how has he grown closer to the Lord being an apostle, and what has he learned from prayer. it was a very spiritual experience for all of us.
side note: he made a comment of one of the ¨stupid games¨ Mormons play. one of these games is guess whats in my head during church or meetings or whenever. this is when we ask questions and look for someone to say the specific answer we are thinking of. instead, we should ask for their opinions because maybe they understood something else that we never thought of. So if you play whats in my head, the word from an apostle is to stop.

The next day, Sunday, we had the stake conference with Elder Bednar. once again, it was amazing. he talked alot about the same things that he talked about with us, such as the atonement. He also talked a little bit about the earthquake in Haiti. he said the best way to help is to pay fast offerings. the system is already established, we don´t have to do anything more, just pay fast offerings. we are going to do a special fast for them so that they will be able to receive more supplies. Right now, we have 3 families that we teaching where only one person in that family is a member. all 3 families came and a couple other investigators to the conference to hear to words of an apostle. they all really enjoyed it and felt the Spirit. We are going to put some baptismal dates with some of them this week.

This wasn´t the only good part about this week, we had a couple amazing experiences when we were guided by the Spirit. About a week ago, my comp and i were walking to the church for a meeting. on the way there, we felt impressed to contact a house. we contacted it and the lady said she didn´t have time then but we could come back another day, so we put a day and time to come back. a couple days later we returned for our appointment, but she wasn´t there, surprise surprise. we started walking away, when a member who lived right across the street called us over. This member is active, but she works all the time and i have never visited her because she is always at work. this day she got home a little early and was cleaning in front of her house. she said she had a friend who wants a book of mormon. we gladly got the information of her friend and visited him that night an hour later. he knew a lot about the church and wanted to learn more. we gave him the book of mormon and he was very excited to read it and told us he wants to go to church. Just by following the promptings of the Spirit to contact a house that wasn´t interested, we were guided to someone who really wanted to learn more. Another story is, about a week and a half ago, the bishop and his wife gave us a reference. we taught the reference and everything went great and she was excited about it all. she also works alot and is really hard to find at home. we have passed by her house about 6 times since that first lesson and she hasn´t been there once. the last time we went to see if she was home, we found her neighbor outside her house. he is a 20 year old kid with an open heart. he started talking with him and put a time to return to teach him. 2 days ago we taught him, and it was an amazing lesson. he was so excited about everything we said and was even more excited when we gave him a book of mormon that he could read. at the end of the lesson, he put a time that we could come back and told us that he would be waiting and that he would definitely read the book of mormon. I don´t know if these two guys will progress (i hope so), but i know that we were guided to them by the Lord because they were ready to hear the gospel. The best story about this week is about a family that i have only met for 30 minutes. i can´t remember if i told you, but right before the end of my 2nd transfer with my trainer, Elder Earl, a lady in the ward asked us if we could go to the hospital to give her neighbors 2 little kids a blessing who had gotten Dengue (the really bad illness carried by mosquitos). we went and gave them a blessing, not thinking much about it, and then a couple days later we were both transferred out of our area. at the stake conference, a family sat in front of me. i knew they looked familiar, but i could remember how i knew them. about half way through the conference, i realized it was that family. i talked to the elders in my old area to see if they were teaching them. they said, after elder earl and i gave them a blessing, they healed almost instantly. this sparked their interest in the church. shortly after, they started receiving lesson from the missionaries and assisting church. the elders said the mom and daughter are ready for baptism, they are just waiting for the dad who is pretty close. I know that it was the Lord guided us then too and it was His power that healed them, and hopefully another family will be brought into the gospel.

Well, as you can see, i had an amazing week. This is no doubt the work of the Lord. i love you all and hope you have a great week.

Elder Johnson

Post Earthquake - I'm Okay and Joan got Baptized!

Hey Everyone,

so this was a very eventful week. first of all, about the earthquake, yes we did feel it. it has been really rainy and muddy here, so in the middle of the day we went home to change shoes, and when we walked out of our apartment, my comp turned to me and say, ¨hey is this an earthquake?¨ it was definitely an earthquake. where we were, it wasn´t big enough to knock us over, we just swayed back and forth for a couple of seconds. afterwards, everyone was outside talking about it. i don´t know too much about it, only that a hospital in Haiti fell and a lot of people died. i am not sure if we are going over to Haiti to help because it is a different country, but if they tell us anything i will be sure to let you know. it also caused a tsunami that is supposed to arrive friday, but i heard that by the time it gets here, it wont be that big. i feel bad for Haiti. they are already so poor and it seems like stuff is always happening over there. for right now, all we can do is pray for them.

The great news about this week is that we finally baptised Joan! that whole week we went over to his house everyday to make sure that he was still doing good, and on Friday he passed the interview. the district leader said that they had a really spirit talk during the interview and that he was definitely ready which made me happy. i also got to baptise him which was a great experience. you will have to wait until next week to see the pictures though because the USB on this computer doesn´t work and all of the other computers are taken. All of the other baptisms that the other missionaries had fell through so Joan was the only one. It was a very spritual experience that i hope he will always remember. he also brought his non-member mom to the baptism so i hope that she was able to feel the spirit as well. the next day on sunday, my comp confirmed him to the church and gave him the Holy Ghost, and during the 3rd hour he received the Aaronic Pristhood. he just seems so happy and excited to be a member. we had a lesson with him on monday, and after we tried to put an appointment with him on wednesday, but he told us he couln´t because there was an activity at the church that he wanted to go to. he has been making a lot of friends in the church, and i am sure that he will help the ward a lot.

Besides that, the only big news is that Elder Bednar is coming this weekend! He is talking with all of the missionaries in the mission for 3 hours saturday morning. they said that he will talk to us for a while, and then after we will have a question and answer period where we can ask him whatever we want. I am so excited to listen to what he has to say. He doesn´t speak spanish so i´m not sure if he is going to use a translater or just whip out the gift of tongues. The day after on sunday, we get to go to the stake center for conference where he will talk to everyone. the best part about this is that he wants all of the investigators to sit up front and then the members behind, so i am sure that the missionaries will get to sit with our investigators. we have about 7 of our investigators that are planning on going.

Well, as you can see, we had a great week (it could have been better for Haiti), and i hope you are all doing well. have a great week. love ya

Elder Johnson

The Word of Wisdom - makes ya or breaks ya

Hey Everyone,

So this week was a descent week. unfortunately, we didn´t baptise Joan because he drank coffee twice that week. he forgot that you can´t drink coffee and keep the word of wisdom and the same time, and he was really sad that he had to put off the baptism another week. we have been contacting him everyday to make sure he hasn´t drunken anything during the week and he has been really good so far. he is really excited about his baptism and talks about it with us and is even getting his nice clothes ready for this saturday. even his mom (who is not the best person on keeping the word of wisdom) is getting her nice clothes ready to support him on saturday. I was a little sad that we had to put it off another week, but the good news is that my comp and i are both staying here for the transfer so we will be able to baptize him. everything is going good so hopefully i will have baptism pics for you next week. on New years eve, we went by to see Joan to wish him a happy new years and he was dressed like a gangster ready to go out so we were really nervous and prayed a lot for him. we later found out that he didn´t go out at all, he just stayed at home and babysat his nephews. he really has a good testimony and we feel good about his baptism this saturday, i am just glad that we didn´t baptise him when he wasn´t ready.

For transfers, almost our whole district is staying the same. one of the dominicans is leaving and a new american straight from the mtc is coming, which will make me the 2nd oldest missionary in our district with 7.5 months.

We have this family that has been receiving lessons from the missionaries for over a year now. the father is an active member, but the mom smokes and is not a member, and they have a 12 year old daughter who isn´t a member and a 6 year old son. with my old comp, we would just always talk about the word of wisdom, but with my new comp we changed it up a little. we would teach them 2 or 3 times a week but for only about 15 min each, but we would have a really spiritual lesson. we hardly ever talked about the word of wisdom, but about topics that could help her quite, such as the Atonement, Faith, the Book of Mormon, etc. when i first got here, she was smoking 5-6 cigarettes a day, and now she is down to 1. she wants to quite before the 17th so she can go see Elder Bednar clean. We were so excited when she told us this because we really haven´t been asking her about it. she prayed during that lesson she told us, and it was the first time i have ever heard her pray for help, and really have that desire to quite and keep this commandment. we have a really good feeling that she will quite smoking and be baptized withing the next couple of months.

i don´t remember if i told you this other story, but i will tell you again. a couple of weeks ago, the other missionaries in our area gave us a reference for someone at the very end of our area (about a 40 min walk). one day we had a couple hours free so we went looking for him. we didn´t end up finding them, but we found this lady, Yanel, who is an active member, but goes to a different chapel. she has helped us so much these last couple of weeks, its amazing. she told us a couple days ago that she needs blessings, so she is helping us as much as she can. we will show up at her house 1-2 days in the weeks and she will just take us around to teach all of the people she knows (and some people who she has never met before), just because she knows how important the gospel is and wants everyone to hear it. one of the families she showed us is really progressing. the 22 year old daughter reads the Book of Mormon and goes to church with yanel, and the mom has a lot of questions and really likes talking to us. they are a really special family, and have a lot of potential. they also have two little boys who are physically and mentally handicapped. they can´t talk, walk, and have no control over their body. its really sad, but the family has a good attitude about it and have a lot of faith. i know that we received that reference, so that we could find these other people.

Well, the parties have died down a little bit here which is really good for us. we have a really good feeling about this transfer and about the investigators we have. We really didn´t do anything for new years. we went home about an hour early because it was getting a little dangerous outside with drunk people and guns. we were tired so we just went to bed and woke up the next morning. Really not much too it, just an average day. Hopefully you all had a great week. i love you..alot.

Elder Johnson