Back row Joe, just like his mom!!! Haha!! This was a training in music!  (for those with musical background!)  Even funnier!! Guess that is why he is on the back row as he knows it already!!

Elder Johnson, Trainer

So this week was a great week for the work here in the area. Elder Rigby, my new companion and greenie, set his first baptismal date yesterday and that was awesome to see that. He is doing awesome his first few days here. He experienced a drunk investigator on Thursday, which was an interesting experience, Friday we were able to contact an investigator who we haven't been able to contact in a while and Elder Rigby gave a good lesson to a lesson active family who we have been working with, Saturday he gave his first blessing and picked up a couple of new investigators, and Sunday he commited his first person to be baptized. So he has had a really interesting couple of days and has grown a ton. I am really humbled to be training him and it has been something that I r

eally needed at this time in my mission. So the man who we commited to be baptized comes to church every week and really wants to have God more in his life. So that is going to be great to continue to work with him and prepare him to be baptized on October 27th! We picked up a couple of new investigators this week that has been a real huge miracle that it happened. So a couple of weeks ago there was a part-member family that we helped move in and they have a 16 year old daughter who was baptized about 3 years ago in Vegas. So we helped them move in and on Saturday I had a strong impression to go and vist this family and it was awesome. Coty the 16 year old who is a member was having some health issues and so we went by to offer her a blessing and one of the first things that she said to us was that her dad wants to take the missionary lessons and so that was a miracle because from we have heard is that he has always not liked the church so we talked to him and he has a real broken heart and contrite spirit and is really wanting to change his life and let go of the past. So that was really exciting to be able to see that change happen in him and see the family be completed and come closer to Christ.

Well that is all for this week!

Love ya!

Elder Luke Johnson

Elder Nieman (Luke's trainer) and Elder Johnson with Luke's first couple baptized!  They were helping with transfers!!

Elder Johnson's Greenie, Elder Rigby!

Elder Rigby, greenie, and Elder Johnson, trainer!!! He is from Mountain Crest and played football!!! Looks like a great companionship!!

TRANSFER WEEK!! Elder Johnson is now a TRAINER!

So I don't know if you knew but transfer week is this week and here is what is happening.  I am staying here in Surprise, but Elder Jones is leaving.  We kind of all knew that this would happen because he has been here since last November.  So it is really sad to see him go, he taught me a lot about what it is like to be a convert and how hard it is for them.  So that was really good for me to learn...So on another note my mission is about to have a nice change of pace.  I have been called to be a trainer of a new missionary!!!  That is super crazy!  President Taylor called me on Saturday and told me that I would be training a new missionary!  So that is pretty awesome! It has now been 14 or so months since I was trained and man time just flies by!  Elder Nieman is training this transfer as well and so I got to see him at a meeting we had yesterday to train the new trainers and man was that crazy!  He goes home in two transfers and so we talked a lot about our good times in Anthem and about my last area, because he is there right now, and now I will be training a new missionary and will be that mentor that he was to me to another missionary!  So that is some exciting news as of late.

 

So the area is doing pretty good.  We are slowly but surely picking up in our work.  We are trying to get in contact with some really good part-member families and start teaching them there has been some conflicting schedules as of late so hopefully we can start meeting this week with the new missionary.  We are teaching a man named Peter and he was found by a member who helped him with some house troubles and we have been teaching him pretty regularly for the past couple of weeks and he comes to church every week so he has some really good potential there.  There is actually a really cool back story to all of this.  We were looking through our area book last week during weekly planning at some former investigators and came across the same Peter that we are teaching and from the things that the past missionaries wrote about him was that he just wasn't ready at that time.  That was about a year ago and now it is his time to accept the Gospel.  It is so amazing to see how even though he wasn't ready a year ago he was prepared to accept it at this time and you can see how the Lord prepared him for that through experiences that caused him to meet a member, that member following the spirit to help him and invite him to church, and the us teaching him the Gospel and he is know accepting it.  So that was a cool thing that happened this week. 

Have a great week!!

 

Love,

 

Elder Luke Johnson

So this week was a pretty good week.  We are really trying to make serving in four wards work and it has been so far.  We have been do a lot of finding and it is starting to pick up a bit.  We have  been really making part-member families a focus because there a some here that are ready to be complete and to have the fullness of the gospel in their lives.  We have been working hard to find people and we have been really working with the members to start getting some referrals going.  This area is pretty awesome and I am really excited to start teaching some people the we have found.  We have a part-member family who have been taught by the missionaries in the past, the one who isn't the member, texted us this past week wanting to meet and so we are going to meet with him this week and hopefully some good things come from that.  We have a guy who was found by a member who helped him when he was having some troubles with his house.  He came to church last week and we had a lesson with him and he was really receptive.  He came to church yesterday and that was really awesome.  We were looking through the area book and found that he was meeting with missionaries in the past and wasn't prepared at that time but now we think that he is.  We have a couple more investigators which we had a lesson with them on Tuesday that went really well.  They have been going through some personal things and so it has been a bit difficult trying to teach them but they are ready for the gospel and it is something that they really need.  So some extra prayers from them would be great!

Well that is all for this week!!

Hope everything is well!

Love,

Elder Johnson

It's September....already!!!

So this week has just flown by!  With us now covering two extra wards we are still trying to get in the hang of things, but things overall are doing good.   The weather here is starting to cool down and that is nice!  This August has been a lot better then last August in temperature,  and this week the highest that it is supposed to get is 104 so that is not bad at all...haha.  So this August marked my last August that I have being a missionary, that is weird to think, but we have a saying here that helps us with the heat and it is "just get through August" and boy is that true!  It is crazy because I am coming up on my lasts pretty soon here and it is so crazy how fast time flies!  Me and Elder Jones were have our studies on Saturday and we were like, wait a minute August is over! So now the temperatures go down and makes being on bike bearable!!

 

So for an update of this week in Surprise!  We have been working hard and we are starting to get some work coming along.  Our focus this past week has been working with Part-member families and it is starting to pay off.  It is a really effective tool that has been the result of all the great success in this area in the past, so that is going to be our main focus.  We were able to find one family, who are a part-member family, and are going to try and to start teaching the dad more.  He has a crazy schedule so setting something up will be kind of hard, but he wants to get back into being taught and so that is good.  So there is some great potential there.  We also have a guy who we found tracting who is a non-denominational Christian, and has a lot of question about what we believe and is trying to understand what our beliefs are so we have been going over there and teaching him about that, and hopefully he will continue to meet with us and start acting on that knowledge and feel that this is right, but it is going to take a bit of time to get to that point.  We have been stopping by some more part-member families whose children aren't baptized, so we are trying to get the head of the household to start coming back to church so that the child has that support from home.  So that is going to be a fun thing.  I have starting to find out what is working in this area and running with it so that the work can go forward!  This area is a lot like my first area in Anthem, but it has its differences that I am trying to work with and so it has been a really good learning experience.  I am taking those things that I have learned my previous areas and have started to adapted them to this area.  So I am learning a lot from this area, and that is good so that I can better know how to help the work of the Lord later on in my mission/life.

 

Love,

 

Elder Johnson

Knock, knock....at the haunted house!! Almost Halloween, you know!!!

 

Giving a pass along card to the funny guy in the cowboy hat!!!

 

Scary house in Surprise!!!