Santa came to Ontario - Mele Kalikimaka - 12/19/16

"Hold to the light" -Mick Rudolph (From email 1212/16)

Aloha everyone!

Well the news is in.. Elder Golden and I are staying in Ontario one more transfer! This we'll be our 3rd together, which ties with Elder Paxton as being my longest companion. This has been a pretty crazy past couple weeks, but it's been pretty awesome :) Where to begin.. A couple weeks ago, Elder Golden and I had permission to go up to a baptism in Apple Valley for a lady that Elder Golden had taught when he was serving there. Sometimes it can be hard to find rides when going to and from the Hi-Desert, but luckily we were able to hitch a ride from our beloved mission president, President Taylor! It was pretty neat getting to spend the day with him, and the baptism was totally awesome. The lady had been through several sets of missionaries that had worked with her and there were even missionaries that had already gone home that were able to make it. She had gone through a powerful conversion, and her testimony was really really cool. 

President had mentioned that there were some other baptisms going on that day, 3 of which were happening in Barstow, my first area. That got me curious, and it turns out that the Barstow baptisms were kids from a part-member family that I was teaching up there, the Echavarrias! I've been thinking about them and wondering if the kids ended up getting baptized yet. I was pretty excited to hear that they were :) I actually visited them my very first night in the mission field, and they ended up getting a cake and having a little farewell party for me when I left Barstow :)

We had a really powerful lesson with Sergio this week. His daughter, who was baptized a couple years ago was there, along with his cousin, who is seeing the missionaries in Upland. We talked about what was holding him back from being baptized, which eventually led to to dumping all his beer, liquor, champagne, whisky, and wine down the drain with him. He has made a lot of progress and is totally committed to be baptized.

This week we also had to say goodbye to our good friend, Elder Haueter, who is going home. It's been really fun serving around him and I'm going to miss him, but he'll go on to do great things. He was serving in the Tongan ward, and they invited all the missionaries around here over for some food as a farewell, which was really fun :) When you are getting fed by the Tongan ward, you will NOT leave hungry and you will NOT leave without taking home multiple plates of food ;)

Stay positive and love your life!!

Merry Christmas!! Happy Festivus!!

Aloha ke Akua

Love,

Elder Johnson

To bring celebration through meditation, giving thanks for all of creation" -Nahko (Email from 11/28/16)

Aloha everyone!!

I hope you all had fantastic thanksgiving! Elder Golden and I had a nice family from the ward feed us. I love Thanksgiving because it help us realize that there really is so much to be grateful for. Life is full of ups and downs, but even when you're having a rough day, there is always positivity that can be found. 

These past couple weeks have been pretty great. We helped out with a service project that ended up being a pretty big deal. We were helping someone clean out an old vacant Grocery store, and we were loading these gigantic refrigerators onto a trailer. It started out that there were 6 of us there moving some 1300 lb pieces. Eventually more missionaries came, which was nice, but ended up moving a couple more that were even bigger. If you left without any cuts on your hands, you weren't trying hard enough!

We have been meeting with our investigator, Sergio, who is doing awesome. We met his daughter and her fiance that are going to be married in the Portland Temple later in December! They are a cute couple. Sergio is seriously one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He still hasn't fully committed to be baptized yet, but we are still working with him! 

We were able to meet with Valerie, who had been a little hard to get a hold of before. She is honestly so ready to be baptized, but her big hold up is church attendance. 

Christmas season now starting up! It's crazy to think that it's that time of year again! I'm mainly looking forward to Festivus, though ;)

Stay positive and love your life!

Alohe ke Akua

Much love,

Elder Johnson

"Try not to think too far ahead. The pendulum swings soon enough." -311

Aloha friends!

Dang, are we halfway through November already?? I swear October just barley started. I've quoted it before and I'll quote it again. "Time is like a leaf in the wind. Either it's time worth spent.  Or time I've wasted. Don't waste it" -Cage the Elephant. Sometimes it can seem like the 2 years on a mission is a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, it really is nothing. That's why it's so important to make the most of our time!

This has been a pretty stellar week! Were were able to meet with a lot of people we don't normally get to see too often. Our visit with Brian, our investigator, was quite the experience. He is often times under the use of marijuana when we visit, so it is sometimes difficult for him to fully grasp what we are talking about. Our lesson with him this week.. man.. he was especially out of it! Like in the middle of teaching him was giggling and said "sorry I'm trying to keep a strait face," and then just burst out laughing again. The funny thing is that we were actually teaching him the Word of Wisdom that day.. while he was stoned out of his mind. But hey, I suppose he is exercising his rights since recreational use is now legal here in California ;)

We were able to see our high school age investigator, Santana. He's a good kid. He comes from kind of a rough situation, but he's super humble and has great faith in Jesus Christ. It's been a while since he's been taught regularly, so we went over the Restoration with him.

We picked up a new investigator named Edward. He is teenager with a pretty impressive mustache. He's fairly quiet, so it's hard to say how interested he really is, but he seemed to like our message and committed to read the Book of Mormon we gave him. 

Since the start of last week I have now been serving as District Leader. I ran my first District meeting last week and it wasn't too bad. I have some pretty awesome missionaries in my district, so can't complain about that!

Always remember that God loves you and wants you to succeed. No matter what situation you are in, there is always hope.

Stay positive and love your life!

Aloha ke Akua

Much love,

Elder Johnson

Email from 10/31/16

Aloha!!

Things have been good here in Ontario! Elder Golden and I haven't had any of our investigators go crazy on us and threaten to kill us in a little while, so we've got THAT going for us ;) But honestly, things are really good. Our investigator Sergio is doing awesome! We've had some really great spiritual lessons with him. His daughter was baptized fairly recently and is getting married in the Portland, Oregon temple in December! His daughter has been a magnificent example for him and has been a big help toward Sergio and his progression toward baptism. Sergio is such a genuinely kind man. He has a lot of admiration for us as missionaries and is always doing whatever he can to help us out. 

Sorry, it's going to be a short one this week.

Love you all!

Have a happy Halloween!!

-Elder Johnson

Happy Halloween

Birthday Bubbles