"I'm happy inside allll all of the time" -Bob Marley

Aloha!!

We had another great week here in the desert! I'm starting to not even notice that it's crazy hot. It has just kind of become a part of life haha! People say that the hottest months here are August and September, so it's still only going to get hotter!

We did some service at Lord's Table this week, where we feed the homeless and hungry. It's funny, there was one week where a couple ladies that come in said that I look Elvis and had me say "thank you very much." Now I'm known as Elvis by some of the people that come in. But now it's starting to get a little weird.. One of the ladies that started it was asking me what days we come in and I told her that it kind of depends. She said, "okay, well I need to bring my 17 year old daughter to meet you.. I've been telling her ALL ABOUT Elvis!" 

 0_o

Besides that things have been pretty good! You can't go to Lord's Table without hitting up Apollo Burgers and getting one of their crazy burgers! This time I got the Mac n' Down, which is just a massive burger with chilly and an extra patty made of fried macaroni. It was actually one of the harder one's to finish that I've had!

Our investigator, Yolanda, has been struggling with her back issues and has been waiting to have her back surgery in a couple months. She has been worried about hurting her back in the baptism and has been debating on whether to wait until after the surgery. Well, miraculously the doctor said she could have her surgery this week! She went under surgery on Thursday, was feeling pretty sick the first couple days, but is making a good recovery! We will stop by next week to see her. 

Jeremy is going through an interesting time.. But honestly, I don't think he's ever NOT going through an interesting time. He has read us some more of his poetry that is just completely out of this world! He talks about how he's been close to throwing his TV off his balcony because it is to distracting to him. He's been working on his Mad Art and says that the Lord was telling him that he might have to cut off his right arm to fulfill his chosen destiny as a Mad Artist. He was telling us that he had been praying for death the past couple days, which was really sad, but then he just busted up laughing and said, "what is this s@#%," pulling off a rotten noodling that was on his arm XD  Jeremy never ceases to make our

day :) He has a lot of really crazy things going on in his life, but keeps his sense of humor! He still wants to wait until his life is more in order before he gets baptized, so we are going over next week to help him clean the place up.

Stay positive and love your life!!

Aloha ke Akua

-Elder Johnson

"Today today live like you wanna. Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire." -Matisyahu

Aloha!

This has been a pretty great week for us! We've had some good missionary work going on. It was Elder Paxton, Klienman, and Brown's year marks, so we had a little fun burning some shirts :) We joked that the burning of the shirts was a symbol of burning away the past. When the burning shirts started blowing the past people were yelling things like, "the past is getting away!"and "you can't stop the past!" I guess that's the type of things thing that's funny when you've been living a missionary lifestyle for so long..

Our investigator, Yolanda, is so ready for baptism, but has a lot of trials in her life that are getting in the way. She has a lot of health issues that prevent her from coming to church. She would also like her sister to come to the baptism, but she lives out of state and has her own struggles with making it here. Yolanda has a strong testimony and desire to be baptized. She is spiritually ready, it's just a matter of time before she's physically ready :)

Our investigator Jeremy is doing well! He's spent many years on hard drugs, which have messed with his mind, but we are coming to find that he is actually a really intelligent person. He went to Arizona State when he was younger and studied Astronomy and Philosophy. He reads us some of his poetry that is dark at times, but also like really good. They're super psychedelic. My favorite one kept talking about "purple moon butter" XD He made it church the past couple weeks, which has been really exciting! 

Another positive note, my knee injury that happened a couple transfers ago is doing a lot better! Don't need that to happen again haha

Stay positive and love your life!!

Aloha ke akua

-Elder Johnson

Pictures from the last 2 weeks:

leg finally getting better!

scab fell off

Johnson and Paxton strike again!!!

Aloha!!

This week has been pretty crazy with transfers, new mission president, 4th of July and whatnot! Yes, Elder Paxton and I are both staying here in the Mojave River ward in Hesperia! That's THREE TRANSFERS baby!! We're both pretty stoked about that. Everyone was certain that one of us would be leaving, but that just proves once again that you never know what will happen with transfers. We did get a new zone leader living with us in the house and it is the one and only ELDER WATERS, my MTC comp!! Elder Carter is leaving us but he's not going too far. He's now serving in the other Mojave River area XD I'm pretty excited about this transfer :)

President and Sister Hobbs are now home with their families. We're going to miss them, but President and Sister Taylor are awesome! We had a meeting with them this week and they are super cool. President Taylor sounds just like the mission President in Texas from the District Videos haha. He was an attorney, banker and really seems like he knows what he's doing. He and Sister Taylor are both so kind!

Our 4th of July was pretty sweet! Since we had to be in by 6 we ended up having a full P-day! We also weren't able to email, which gave us A LOT of time on our hands. We ended up hitting up Olive Garden, spending some time in the Mall, and then playing cards at our place. When it got dark we busted out the glow stick, got on the roof and watched other people's fireworks XD

Stay positive and love your life!!

Aloha ke akua

-Elder Johnson

4th of July 

Pictures from last week (June 27, 2016) ...no email to go along with them.

Sweaty from bike ride...108 degree weather

Last Zone Conference with President Hobbs