"No matter what is on your plate be grateful" -Nahko

Aloha!!

It has been another great week here is So Cal! It's my first week serving in Victorville and it's been pretty groovy. Green Tree ward has a lot of really awesome people and we've got a lot of cool people we're teaching.

There is a less active member that was in jail, but finally got released! The reason he was locked up in the first place is pretty ridiculous and it really is a blessing that he's home. He has some people living with him that are interested in the lessons, so we've been over there quite a bit. We're teaching a lady named Yvette, who has progressed a lot. She's been coming to church every week and has a baptismal date in March! There's a cool guy, Tony, who plays music. We've taught him a little and are tying to get him to come to church. 

We've also had some cool service projects here. Elder Whitelock and I served at the Lord's Table, which is a service put on by a catholic chruch and gives food to the homeless. It's kind of ironic having a couple of Mormon missionaries serving people tea XD. We also served at a squash farm, which was pretty cool.

Stay positive and love your life!

Much love,

Elder Johnson

Farewell Barstow

There comes a point in your mission where you finally have to be transferred. After serving for 6 months in Barstow, California, my time has finally come. This morning I was transferred to the Green Tree ward in the Hesperia Zone, where we cover Victorville and meet at the Apple Valley stake center. Basically, I'm serving south of where I was before in the high desert :) I'm really going to miss Barstow and all the people there, but I'm excited for the change! Last night I said my final goodbyes to some people in the ward, and people we were teaching. It was a day full of mixed emotions, I'll tell you that. 

This last week Elder Coombs and I continued to work hard with all our investigators. We taught one of the recent converts the stop-smoking lesson, and so far he has been smoke free for a few days! We had started teaching a new family with 9 kids! There's a lot going on in Barstow, and I know all the people we were working with are in good hands with Elder Coombs and his new companion.

Stay positive and love your life!!

"I believe in the good things coming"

-Nahko Bear

-Elder Johnson

Sun is Shining

Aloha!

The sun is shining again here in Barstow! Right now we've finally reached that in-between stage where it's where it's not cold, and hasn't quite reached Satan degrees Fahrenheit yet. Just nice and warm :)

We have some good things going on here in Barstow! The west Elders started teaching a Rastafarian, and I am so jealous. Elder Coombs and I started teaching Kane again, who Elder Rudolph and I were teaching back in October. Kane is from New Zealand and is playing basketball here at the collage. He's a super cool guy! His roomates are down in Vegas at the moment, but we will hopefully start teaching them again too once they're back!

It's funny how with tracting in some neighborhoods almost everyone tells you you can come back and teach them and then in other neighborhoods "they cool." 

We started teaching Veronica again who was really close to baptism about a year ago. She had been pregnant  and the doctor told her to wait until after she had the baby to be baptized. She had the baby, the missionaries were ready to baptize her again, but then she got pregnant again! She wanted to be baptized, but said "I just need to stop getting pregnant" haha. She just barely had her baby a little bit ago, so we are on with the lessons!

We still have quite a few investigators that have the same problem with divorce papers. They need to get married before they're baptized, but need to get a divorce from their previous spouse before they can be married. Kind of a tricky situation, but the wheels are in motion!

On Saturday I baptized an 8 year old girl named Kaylee. She has been coming to church for 3 or 4 years with her grandmother and finally got permission from her parents to be baptized! Her grandmother told her she could pick any of the missionaries to baptize her, and she chose for me to do it. She's a sweet young girl and it's really awesome she had such a desire to be baptized. 

The zone leaders asked Barstow to do another musical number down at zone meeting. We didn't have the musical genius, Elder Rudolph, with us this time, but we still put something together. We started out singing, "Israel Israel God is Calling" for the first verse and then sang "Guide us oh Thought Great Jehovah" to the tune of the first song, and then we just belted JOY TO THE WORLD!!!  and had everyone join in and sing! It was amazing :)

Stay positive and love your life! God loves you.

Aloha ke akua

-Elder Johnson 

Outlets...cowboy hats

baptism

Valentines package...mini drum set