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

"I believe in the good things coming" -Nahko

Aloha!!

Man, I'm not sure how I let myself go this long without sending out a weekly email to you all.. But holy cow, a lot has happened! Let me see if I can sum it up quickly..

Nearly 3 weeks ago I finished my first transfer down here in Ontario.. It's been pretty great! Mountain View ward is awesome and full of some really great people. I do miss the desert, but I am enjoying the change. It has a little more of a So Cal feel down here ;) I'm sad to say my companion, Elder Gomez, got transferred; however, since he is very fluent in Spanish, President Taylor has switched him over to Spanish speaking! He was incredibly excited and is now tearing it up in the Spanish ward down in Chino!

This is my 3rd week with my new companion, Elder Golden, who is a freaking stud! I served with him a little bit before in the Victorville zone back when I was in Barstow, so I was pretty excited to hear I was going to be serving with him. We've had a good time and work really well together!

Just over a week ago we had to deal with one of the most bazaar situations that I've ever faced on my mission. We had an investigator that "blew up at us" to say the least after we offended him for having to leave to be home on time. He is always talking about how he has a "good half" and an "evil half," and boy we sure saw his evil half. After we arrived home we saw we had multiple missed calls from him that we missed because we were biking. He thought we had been ignoring him, which set him off even more. We called him back and tried to calm him down, but he cussed us out over the phone for a couple hours and kind of threatened to kill Elder Golden. Eventually he was telling us he had a knife to his throat and was threatening to kill himself. It was pretty scary in the moment trying to talk him out of suicide. It's the type of situation you never really imagine you'll ever have to deal with. I told him that I know that God loves him, has a plan for him, and that that is the last thing that He would want him to do. Eventually he calmed down and we were able to go to bed. We talked to our mission president the next day, and he advised us not to go back or contact him. He showed up to church the next Sunday, but only to give us his Book of Mormon and pamphlets back. It really is sad, but it's probably for the best.

Other than that craziness that went on, things have been pretty great! Our investigator, Valerie, has been coming to church every week lately and has a baptismal date for Nov 12, which is looking pretty promising :)

I really enjoyed General Conference, even though I know it's "so last week" by now ;) It seems like every time I watch General Conference I have a favorite talk that really stands out to me and.. and then it always turns out to be EVERYONE ELSE'S favorite too.. Well, the same thing happened again this conference with President Nelson's talk on Joy. I guess that just means it was a pretty rockin' talk, right? He says,

"Life is filled with detours and dead ends, trials and challenges of every kind. Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us. Yet we are here to have joy?

Yes! The answer is a resounding yes!"

Everyone is going to go through hard times as President Nelson described; nonetheless, we CAN still find SHOULD still find joy. As President Nelson goes on to say, "when the focus of our lives is on Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening--or not happening-- in our lives."

Stay positive and love your life!

Aloha ke Akua

Much love,

Elder Johnson 

<3

Pictures shared 10/3/16 - Ping Pong game and Birthday package!!!

Leg healing from bike accident

Birthday package

Sibling bookmarks

Birthday cake...

"We're a part of something special" -Nahko

Aloha everyone!!

This has been a pretty stellar week! On Thursday we had the chance to have a conference with Elder Dube of the 70. That was REALLY cool. It's kind of cool how each General Authority that has come to speak to us is each unique in their own way. They each have their own personalities and roll with it! Elder Dube is from Zimbabwe and has a great sense of humor! He was very enthusiastic and exciting, while still teaching by the spirit. It's those kind of meetings that motivate me to be a better missionary!

While at the conference we had the chance to see a lot of other missionaries from the mission. I always value the time we have to see buddies from the mission because you never really know when the next time you see them is going to be; especially if they are going home soon. I got to see my one trainer that is still kickin' out here in the mission! I freaking love Elder Infanger! I learned so much from him when I was being trained and it's been so cool seeing him around the mission the past year. I can't believe he's going home in a week! I'm going to miss him.. Just as much as I miss my other trainer, Elder Rudolph! Man, I can't even comprehend how lucky I was to be trained by those two.. 

Well, taught some really awesome lessons this week. We taught a woman named Valerie, who was a former investigator, but we recently started teaching again. She is doing awesome! In our previous lesson with her we asked her why she wanted to be baptized and she said she couldn't put it into words in the moment, but that she would get back to us on that. This week when we saw her she had written down her answer. He answer was beautiful. She said that she wanted to follow Jesus Christ and that she believed in the Book of Mormon. She even mentioned something about wanting to be a temple worker!

We started teaching a man named Jose this week. We had met him on the street a few weeks ago and he was surprisingly nice to us. He was very excited about having us over for dinner even thoutgh we had just barley met him! It almost even scared us a little bit going over to his place. Most people aren't that excited about having us over at first. We didn't want him to go all Saratov Approach on us ;) But no, he was actually a genuinely nice person. Super cool! He ended up taking us out for pizza and we were able to talk to him about what we do as missionaries and about his religious background. We will be meeting with him again this week :)

Our other investigators that we've been seeing a lot are doing well! Joseph is working toward his baptismal date in November and Sergio is still making progress :)

Stay Positive and love your life!

Aloha ke Akua

-Elder Johnson

Elder Infanger heading home

I'm front row second from the left

from 9/12 email....."Build bridges; don't destroy them... Let love conquer pride!" -President Uchtdorf

Aloha!

Man, is this already week 5 of the transfer?? The time really does go by.. These past couple weeks here in Ontario, California have been pretty eventful! We ended up teaching a lesson to a Pastor.. or did he end up teaching us? It was quite interesting hearing what he had to say and learning about his beliefs, while sharing our beliefs his him as well. As a missionary, you learn that not everyone is going to accept what you teach, and that's okay. In the end we all come from the same God or Creator, after all, which is why it's so important to love and respect people for who they are, regardless of their background or belief.

It's really nice that my companion, Elder Gomez, grew up speaking Spanish. That comes in handy A LOT; whether it's talking to people on the streets or even teaching lessons! Like the other day we knocked on the door of a Spanish lady, who allowed us to come in and teach the Restoration! Well.. Elder Gomez taught the Restoration. I said, "mucho gusto," and then did a lot of smiling and nodding :) This scenario happens fairly often, which is cool, but then we always turn them over to the Spanish Elders.

I'll tell you what, the mariachi music is starting to grow on me. We hear it all the time down here! It takes me back to the time in Utah when I had 104.7 as one of me pre-sets."Mi Preferida! Mas Musica!" XD We hear it coming from cars all the time and houses as we bike by; especially on weekends! We bikes past so many fiestas on Friday nights! They've all got laser lights, mariachi music and all.. It's legit!

We actually have an investigator that lives in the apartment right across from us! There is a lot of craziness going on with his 8 roommates, so we usually go to the park with him to talk.He came to scripture study with on Wednesday evening, which was pretty cool! It's funny, in the Missionary Handbook it says when you can't arrange for members to bring investigators to church to "bring them yourselves if members are not available," but then states directly after that "investigators are not to be given rides in mission vehicles." Elder Paxton and I had talked about how that's a bit contradicting. We should bring them to church, but they're not allowed in our vehicles? How can this be??
Well I think I finally figured it out this week when we went to scripture study with Joseph ;) Joseph was rollerblading behind us as we biked to church, but he was feeling pretty tired partway there, so I let him grab onto my bike and I pulled him the rest of the way to the church Marty McFly style! Well, in actuality it was probably more Napoleon Dynamite style haha But there you go, I brought him to church without him entering a missionary vehicle ;)

We've taught some other good lessons this week as well. We picked up a new investigator with a nice lady who was part of another Christian faith and had never talked to missionaries before. She liked our message and said she would read the Book of Mormon. We should be seeing her again next week!

Stay Positive and love your life! 

Aloha ke Akua

-Elder Johnson

With a fish taco

"Journey in peace now. You don't have to be afraid." -311

Uh-oh!

Guess what day it is??

GUESS. WHAT. DAY. IT IS???

HUMP DAAAAAAAAAAY!!!! WOOT WOOOOT!!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist ;) But it's true, just 3 days ago I hit my year mark. It's honestly just bazaar to think It's been that longs since I've seen any of my family for friends back at home. It's gone by fast though! It makes me think of Thomas S Monson's talk, Finding Joy in the Journey. He quotes the Music Man, where Professor Harold Hill says, "You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you've collected a lot of empty yesterdays." I've come to realize that relative to the rest of my life, this mission experience is only a small chapter, and that it's so important to make every day count! There have been ups and downs, but overall this first year has been incredible. I can't wait to see what part 2 has in store :)

Well, I've now been down here in Ontario for a couple weeks now, but haven't been able to send out on email yet because of a temple trip we went on last week. It's been great! However, it turns out that even when your bike does get stolen from your balcony at night, the mission WILL provide you with a mission bike to use, sooo I'm still not off the hook from biking. But, It's honestly not even as bad biking here as it was in the hi-desert. It's a little less hot, and oh my gosh.. there aren't NEARLY as many hill. There might be a very slight incline at some points, but it is NOTHING compared to monstrous hills Elder Paxton and I tackled daily in Hesperia! I still have nightmares about Peach Ave.. 

But the work has been really good here! Elder Gomez and I got a text earlier this week from one of our investigators saying that he wanted to be baptized. That sure isn't a bad text to receive! He has some struggles he's working with, but if things continue to go well, he should be baptized at the beginning of November! :)

We also met another lady this week, who was a former investigator. She had some problems come up in the past, but she still wants to be baptized, so we are hopefully going to help her get baptized in the next couple months!

Life is good, folks! Stay positive!

Aloha ke Akua

-Elder Johnson

Redlands Temple day

Hump Day package!!!

Hump Day socks

Traditional burning of the shirt