It's Luke in his new t-shirt!!!

TWO MONTHS COME AND GONE ALREADY!

So yeah Brother Linder is pretty amazing!! I went on splits with him yesterday because Elder Nieman had to go to a meeting down in North Glendale, so I was with him for a couple of hours. He is so excited about missionary work and made cookies to give to all of the members who we have set up this Family mission plan with to get the members to do missionary work. (Side note: Brother Linder has send us pictures of Luke and also sent me a really nice email last week about Luke.)

So that is way cool that you are having the missionaries over for dinner. Make sure that they don't leave until they have either left with a thought about missionary work or until they give you a plan to help with the missionary work in the Johnson home!! You should feed them cheeseburger pasta!!! That was my favorite meal!! Speaking of meals you should send me some recipes in that box that you are going to send me. We are eating a lot with the members, but we still need to make our own lunch, and rice a roni, ramen, and ham and cheese sandwiches get kind of bland after a while.

Yeah so this past week has been one of the hottest weeks in Arizona in a while!! Around Tuesday or so it was 118!!! Yeah that was really crazy!!! I am getting super tan though!! :) I go through my camelback about 3 times a day...haha

So everyone who is members here is a fan a BYboo and it is kinda boring cause no one is a fan of the U, but I will just cry repentance maybe they will be converted at the last day ;)

So this week has been kind of a slow one, but as it says in Preach My Gospel, your success as a missionary is determined on you commitment to find, teach, baptize, and to strengthen the Church. I know that as long as I am determined on finding in the hot Arizona sun that the Lord will trust me enough to put someone in my path...as a matter of fact just this last Thursday we were ridding our bikes around Anthem to find some people (which no one is out in 118 degree weather) and Elder Nieman had to make a quick pit stop and I needed to cool down a bit...so we stopped by the local Walgreens, which is right across from our new church building, and we just walked around the store so that we could cool down a bit. Then we came outside and were unlocking our bikes when this guy drives up to us says come here for a bit I need to talk to you, so we went up to his car and he says, "What does it take to get you two guys to come and teach my family"...by this time me and Elder Nieman were so shocked that all we could say was well what is your number and we will give you our number so that we can contact you and come to your house to teach you...so we exchanged numbers and we are going to call him tomorrow, and set up an appointment to teach him!!! Yeah crazy!! all we were doing was doing what we were susposed to and I guess the Lord trusted us to put that guy in our path!!!

Well I love you all and hope that your week goes great!!...and oh yeah if you could send some music that is spiritually uplifting in that box too that would be great!! We only have two CD's and I am sick of them and silence!! :) Please?

Love ya!!

Elder Johnson

Luke's First Baptism

The missionary bunkbeds

Luke's First Dust Storm!!!

Luke...street contacting a cactus...haha!

Luke's First Baptism!!! (Pictures to follow soon!!)

The picture was from the ward mission leader in the XXX ward (the other ward in XXXX is the XXXX Ward) his name is Brother XXX and he is a super cool ward mission leader!! Unfortunately, he is moving October 10, so his stay will be short lived, but he is really cool and does A TON of member missionary work!!

So this week has gone pretty good, I had my first baptism on Saturday!!! She is a lady by the name of XXXXX and she was one of those golden investigators. She is so awesome and makes me want to strive to get another baptism. It was a great experience and was something that I will never forget.

The Couple that I am living with are the XXX and for the most part they just leave us alone and let us do our own thing which is nice. Sister XXXX is a convert to the church and she is pretty crazy, like this morning she asked me if she was a Stocking patcher, or a Stocking worker?? haha yeah...and did I mention that they have 2 dogs and 3 cats? I LOVE the dogs and HATE the cats!!! haha I said that I have always wanted a dog and now I have two that I have adopted!! :) They always follow me around when I go to eat lunch or something...

So I have told you stuff about my companion, but I guess it wasn't enough...he is from Benton City, Washington. He was home schooled. He didn't go to college. He loves long bike rides in the hot Arizona sun... and he is super funny and a great trainer. haha is that enough? ;)

So my bike...yeah...um the pedals broke, the gear shifter was put on wrong and the front end neck was on backwards...so I took it into a bike store and I had them fix everything that was wrong with it and made sure that it was all in good working order. So that cost me about 60 bucks to fix, so I am going to need a bit more money now that, that is all taken care of...and my back tire tube has a massive hole in it so I will be getting a new tube today, and my brakes are worn down too, so I need to get some new ones as well today. So if you could put in a bit of money that would be great so that I can get my bike all fixed up... :)

That is way cool that Madie has Sister XXXX!! She is going to have so much fun now!! She is going to be learning a lot now that she will actually like the teacher!! :)

Tell Keara that High School is really scary the first few days, but if she does a lot to keep her busy it will fly by and she will love it. That is what I did and High School was super fast!! Speaking of time going fast, can you believe that I have been out in the mission field for almost a month??? and on a mission for almost two?? Wow! Time flies super fast when you are out doing the Lord's work!!!

We are teaching this girl who is 15 years old and is a bit younger than Keara. Her name is XXXX XXXX and she was introduced to the gospel about a year ago. She is so ready to get baptized, but the only thing is is that her parents won't let her get baptized because her mom was told some crazy stuff about the Church and won't let her until she is 18. She is such a great example to me of how I shouldn't take my baptism for granted. I was lucky enough to have amazing parents who know the truth and I was baptized when I was 8. She on the other hand is not able to get baptized and knows that this church is true, but has to wait to receive those blessings of baptism. During Sacrament meeting I really try and to remember my baptism and those sacred covenants that I made with our Heavenly Father. I hope that one day her mom's heart will be softened and will let her get baptized.

Well I will attach some pictures to this and other emails so make sure you tell me that you have gotten all of them!!

Love ya all!!

Elder Johnson
(I have been told to take out all names from blog posts, so I have done that. So the xxx are names that I have chosen to omit.)

Saturday, we got an unexpected text message, of a picture of Luke and his companion helping an investigator move.

Monday's August 15th Email (We were on vacation!)

Sunday stuff here is totally crazy and really long!! I am at the church building (which is about a half an hour away from my house!!) from 7:45 in the morning till about 2:30, and about 3:30 if there is ward council. I have to go to both of the wards that I cover and so I go to two different sets of meetings and man is it tiring, but there is no rest until bedtime so after church we go out tracting and then study then go to bed. Sundays are Crazy!!!
Well I am glad that I won't have to do the roof when I come back!! Has dad lost some weight going up in the sun and working on the roof? I have been loosing a little bit of weight, but the members here feed you really well!! The second that restriction to not have missionaries over for dinner lifted it has been super crazy!! Well biking in the hot sun is enough for me to loose a bit of weight, but my thighs from biking about 15 miles a day have gotten super muscular!! So I will have super muscular legs and a mean Arizona tan by the time I get back!
So the work has been a bit slow these past couple of weeks, mainly because everyone was out of town because school here in Anthem started today!! I am looking outside the window here in the Library and I see all of the High School kids walking around...good times...NOT!!!

So I think that now school has started in Anthem the work will pick up a little bit, and the members here in Anthem are getting a new building that is just down the street from where I live, and the people who we tract into are really talking about it and the new Temple, which is in my Zone!! I have been talking a lot about the goings on in the Chapel and we are having an open house in a couple of months when the building is actually finished and me and Elder Nieman are going to be having tours of the new Anthem Building!! That is where we can get a lot of people to teach is from these new buildings that are going up and it has been a great opportunity that I have had.
Well tracting and getting attacked by Coyotes at night and Cacti by day is really fun and it has been a great experience!! Time sure does fly though, next week will be my two month mark already!! That is crazy to think about!!
So I have been looking through some old copies of the Ensign that are in our room and came across the special edition that is all about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I just started reading it during my studies and it has a lot of good stuff in it and really has helped with teaching about Christ and really trying to understand in a way that I can effectively teach. I you guys have time make sure to go on the interwebs and look it up because it is a good one and has really brought me closer to Jesus Christ and to really be a full representative of him.

So yesterday we were riding our bikes to go tracting and we street contacted this kid and then call us Satan?? and Atheist?? After hearing that I thought of the line from Princess Bride when Indigo says to the Sicilian" I do not think that word means what you think it means." INCONCEIVABLE!!! :) Then when we knock on peoples doors and they answer the door and say that they are Christian, and then we say so are we and then they say that you aren't we just point to our name tags and say "What does the word after The Church of say?"...JESUS CHRIST!!! Then we teach people what the word Christian means... some people are interesting...:)

Well I hope that the week is good for you all!!!

May God Bless you

Love,

Elder Johnson

PS. I found some people in Anthem who went to Layton High!!! haha he is in the Bishopric of the Anthem ward....GO LANCERS!!!

This is what they call a "mountain" in Arizona! Haha!! (Daisy Mountain)

Elder Johnson and Elder Short...known eachother since 4th grade!!

Luke said this kid in the middle plays for BYU...but he's still a cool kid!

Band friends at the MTC (Elder Olsen, Elder Johnson, and Elder Para)

One Month in...and counting!!!

Hi mom!!

So I finally got your package this last Thursday and showed my companion the scalp massager and he freaking loved it!! haha!! He is super nice and is the best trainer that I could ever have!! He has taught me a lot about the goings on here in Anthem and me and him are meshing really nicely!! He is super into computer and I told him that my dad was a computer programmer and had and old Windows computer and he totally flipped!! He changed to OS on the computer next to me to UBUNTU just with a flash drive!! haha he and dad would get along nicely!! :)

It is good to see that dad finally got up the courage to do the roof!! haha good thing that I am not there!! :) The hot Arizona sun is just enough for me!! :) It has been hot here but I think that I am starting to get used to it, it was 98 yesterday and I thought that it was a cool day?!?! haha a couple of days ago it was 102 and it wasn't that bad...I woke up today and found out that my skin is starting to have a nice tan to it!! when I get back the ladies will not be able to resist my bronze skin!! ;)

It is good to here that Keara is bringing Shakira to YW, I am planning on writing all of the girls via snail mail today and I will tell her how to handle people of different religions. In Arizona I run into a lot of Catholics, Baptist, Jehovah's Witnesses and many other different religions...

Ok so I will give you the address of where I am living at, but make sure that you don't send me anything in 10 weeks from now because that is the end of my training and I might be transferred then, but before those ten weeks you can send it straight to this address:

Elder Luke Goss Johnson

3414 West Morse Dr.

Anthem, AZ 85085

It will be a lot faster for packages and stuff, but for letter you can just send it to the mission office and they forward it to me. If you do send packages to the mission office and not straight to me, ALWAYS USE USPS NOT OTHERS!! They can't forward packages from anything other that USPS to me and I have wait until Zone conferences which only happen every 90 days... so you can use this address until then end of 10 weeks which is in October, or until I tell you I will be getting transferred.

I will be sending some Arizona stuff in the mail and some other stuff too!!!

I love the area here and the members have been feeding me well :) Anthem is really great, except for Sundays because I have to go to 2 wards because I cover both the Anthem and the Gavalin Peak wards.

The other day me and my companion were going through the area book and found some people to visit and we got a New investigator!! All those hours of tracting in the hot sun have really paid off!! I learned that all it takes is just a little bit of faith and it will all be worth it!!

I have a baptism on August 20 and have been the teacher for her the last lessons and am way excited for that!!

Well I will send you some pics in the Email and in some other emails( because it only lets you send three at a time)

Love you all!!

Elder Johnson

haha and oh yeah, me and Elder Nieman when down this back road and got chased by a Havalina!! It was crazy!!

HE SENT A LOT OF PICTURES WHICH IS GREAT, BUT TAKE SOME TIME TO DOWNLOAD, SO I WILL BE POSTING THEM SOON!!

First email in the field!!!

Hi Mom!!!

President Taylor told me that he called you when we had our Zone meeting on Friday, he is such a nice guy!! I have been have great fun in my first area, which is a city that is about an hour or two north of Phoenix called Anthem...I am serving In TWO wards and have been having a lot of fun getting to know all of the leaders in them, and they are feeding me and Elder Nieman well. My trainer, Elder Nieman, is way cool and has taught me a lot about tracting and other things as well. So my first experience tracting was a good one, until we knocked on this guys door and he told us to go away and so we moved on to the next door and when we did he came out of his house and started yelling at us because he thought that we were soliciting something...haha it kind a shocked me a bit but I got over it, he just wasn't ready to here the gospel I guess. So Anthem I really hot and is a bike area!!! It hasn't been too bad so far, but I think that the worst of the summer may be behind me and I will just have to take it in its full amount next year, but it will only be once because when I get home it will be right in the middle. We have been tracting a lot and have been doing a lot member missionary work to get the members in the two wards excited about doing missionary work, because it makes our job go a lot faster and easier and puts the lords work in a faster pace.

I can't believe that it has already been a month!! Tracting this past week has been tough, but I just keep remembering everything that the savior has done for me and then realize that the heat and being rejected so many times is really not that bad. When I got here there was already a progressing investigator who is getting baptized on Aug 20, so I will be able to go to that and really see the end of the missionary process. Elder Nieman told me that he tracted into her and told them that she has always wanted to be baptized and they freaked out, because that doesn't happen too often...haha

Well I went to church for the first time here and since we are covering two wards we had to go to two different sets of meetings. It was a little long, but the members here are WAY different than the ones in Utah. We have to drive a half an hour just to go to church which is quit the change from Utah, but the members are really focused on missionary work. They are building a new building that is closer and more convenient and is only like ten minutes from were I live, which is still a bit different than Utah but closer to where I am living.

I have been living with an older couple and they are super funny and nice. Me and Elder Nieman live in a small room and they let us use their kitchen when we have to energy to cook something, which is not that much because we are exhausted by the end of the day...haha

So my first week here has been filled with a lot meetings and after one of those meetings we went with the other Elders who are in my district to In'n'out burger and reminded me of home :) We walked in and a really nice man paid for all of our meals haha I guess that is what happens when you have a name badge that says JESUS CHRIST in really big letters on it!! haha well as representatives of Jesus Christ we would like you to pay for our burgers...haha well I have given away a lot of BOM cards and I have been starting to take the lead in door approaches.

Well I have been learning a lot about The Savior and Heavenly Father here, I have been studying in Helaman 10:1-5 about how Nephi was a great missionary and all the things that the lords gave him because he was a great missionary. I have been growing so much closer to my Savior and love him very dearly. Life is not rewarding unless you have some trials in your life. I have seen what the blessings of bringing souls unto Him does in my own life and in the life of other members...it brings happiness.

Well I will talk to you next week!!!

Love,

Elder Johnson