Monday's Letter! (Busy summer fun!)

So this week has been a really good one!  haha It has been a little hard to not be "trunky" and all of that because this last Thursday I got my flight itinerary too and also a letter from President Taylor informing me of what is going to be happening the last couple of days in the mission field.  So that was super weird to get, I have seen a ton of other missionaries get the same stuff and now it is my turn I guess! haha

So this past week I have been making a list of "What I have learned from my mission" and I have realized that I have learned a lot about a ton of stuff!  I have kind of grouped it into 3 main categories of 1. being able to rely a lot more and the spirit 2. Understanding my role in this life and my relationship with God 3. Being able to learn the Gospel and continue my learning. I think that I will use a lot of this in my Homecoming talk, so I won't go into too much detail but I will just say that I have kind of compared the mission to the Plan of Salvation.  We know the Plan of Salvation to be pretty much into three parts 1. Pre-Earth life 2. Earth life and 3. Post-earth life.  So it is with the mission we have 1. Pre-Mission life, where we learn the Gospel and prepare for a mission we know that we are supposed to go to gain experience to help us for after the mission and then we have number 2. Mission life, where you learn valuable experiences in the Gospel understand the Priesthood and create a foundation for the rest of your life and then number 3. Post-mission life, where we return home and live with our families and create families of our own.  I thought that this was a really good way to think about just how important a mission is and how much it relates to almost everything that we do. So that was something cool that I thought of this week in my studies! It is amazing the awesome knowledge that our Heavenly Father gives to us when we study the scriptures!

So anyways, we had a tough time teaching people this week because people kept canceling on us, but we were able to talk to a couple of members this week and they are going to have us over for a dinner and invite their non-member friend to it and so that is something that was pretty cool!  It is amazing because there was this one member who we were with that is going in and out and activity in the church and they just moved into a brand new home and so we blessed it and then afterward I asked who they knew who needed a prayer in their life and they started off with the usual, I don't know answer, but then the spirit started to work and the wife said that she had a friend that she had invited to church a while a go but it never went anywhere.  So with the blessings of modern technology in her fingertips she got on facebook and started to message her and was able to set up a lesson with her friend in her house!  That was so amazing!  It is amazing what good you can do with technology and to how easy it is to share the gospel on the Internet now!  That is something that I will do when I get home and use that for good and not as a way of wasting time.

 

Hope the summer in going good for you guys! 

 

Hope your week goes great!

Love,

Elder Johnson

It is getting hot here, I think it got up to about 114 this week and so that was really unbearable, but I was really grateful that we have a car and that I don't have to bike 20 miles in this everyday!  :)

 

So Elder Moala is trying to get me all pumped up before I get home!  The people who we live with have a weight lifting bar and so we have been doing that every morning and so I will be nice and ripped before I get home! haha jkjk probably not!  I like food too much. :)  So I have been made an honorary Tongan because the Tongan people eat like me, share food like me and look like me! haha (minus the dark skin) haha It has been really fun being with Elder Moala, he plays for me the hymns in Tongan all the time and now he has said that I speak it in my sleep! haha I can only say like 2 or three words when I am awake but apparently I can say all sorts of stuff in my sleep! haha  It has been fun helping him learn English.  He is learning very well, there is only a few times that I have to have him say things over again to see what he is saying, but overall it is really good.

 

So this week has be really good!  We have been able to find a couple of more people this week and it has been good.  We were able to start teaching a Lady named Kelly and her family.  Kelly is a less-active member and is wanting to come back and she has a nonmember husband and step-son and so I really hope that some things will progress with them.  She has been through a lot and so she is really wanting her family to come with her and eventually have the gospel in their home more!! That was really awesome!  They are an awesome family!  She is watching her two grandchildren for the next couple of weeks and they are like 4 and 7 and they are both fluent in Italian and mostly fluent in English!  The 7 year old is pretty fluent in English and was translating to his sister what we were saying so that was really cool to see!  You can really tell that they want Christ more in their life and it is awesome to see that!

 

We also had a pretty good lesson with a Lady named Anne who we found last week and It was a really good lesson!  We talked a lot about the purpose of the Book of Mormon and why this church is the true church of Christ today.  It was a really good lesson and we had a really good fellow shipper with us and so it was really good to see that.

We are continually finding more and more ways of what we need to do in this area to find people to teach.  We talked with a member in the Verrado ward who went all out and made a huge dinner with all sorts of non-members and less-active members and told us to invite as many people as you want and to have a good lesson planned to share!  So that was really cool!  I hope that excitement will be able to spread throughout the ward! 

 

Hope you have a great week!

 

Love ya!

 

Elder Luke Johnson

 

 The hills are alive...with the sound of missionary work!!

UMM....YEAH...IT'S 119 DEGREES....TIME TO COME HOME!!!

OK...3 MORE WEEKS! 

More Zoo Photos and a LARGE pizza a member bought for them!

So this week has been really good!  It has been a great couple of weeks being with Elder Moala.  I have learned a ton about the different culture of Tonga.  I think that is has been great because things in Tonga are really different and it has been good to learn that from Elder Moala because you can see the difference in how things are in different parts of the world.  He has taught me a lot about the different ways they treat their Elders and Missionaries.  They have a lot of convert baptisms in Tonga and he has told me that it is because of the respect and love that they have for God and the his servants and that it is a bit different here because not everyone is all happy to see us all of the time.  So it has been a learning experience for both of us to be able to kind of mesh the different ways that we have been raised and to be really great together.  We talked about it quite a bit yesterday and it was good because we were able to find out ways to bring the Tongan spirit to these wards, as it is quite needed here.  I have really gotten a good feeling about him being here and that he is exactly what these wards need to help the work progress. 

 

You know it is kind of funny how these bast 8 weeks or so have gone.  I have really thought about why I was assigned to this area and I fasted yesterday to know and I have gotten a really strong feeling that I am supposed to be here for other missionaries.  When President Taylor called me to be a District Leader he said that he felt inspired to have me serve here as a District Leader and I have been able to see that.  I have been able to see some impact that I have had with the members of the District and I am continually trying to see more and more of my purpose here.  I am very grateful for the opportunity that our Heavenly Father has given me and continues to give me to serve in this area, with the people that I have.  I have learned quite a bit here about the different things that I am to do to keep the spirit of missionary work with me throughout the rest of my life.  If anything else, I believe that this area has been exactly what I needed for this time on my mission. 

 

We were able to find a solid new investigator this week and I am super excited to be able to teach her.  Her name is Anne and she is from France and has a couple of kids and has had contact with members at the school that she works at in Buckeye and has a lot of faith and is really open to learning more and she has said that she has gone to a cottage meeting and a church service in Buckeye with some members there and she has really liked it!  So hopefully we will be able to continue to teach her! :)

 

We have noticed a lot of part-member families that we need to start working with and so we are trying to meet with them and to help them to start progressing.  It may not amount to anything while I am here, but it will plant the seed for the next missionaries.  I have learned a lot recently about the importance of always giving the credit to God and to be able to be a worthy messenger for him and I am super excited to be able to continue that knowledge.  It kind of all came yesterday when there was this lady in our ward who had some pretty traumatic experiences in Mexico with being held in prison for something she didn't do and that while she was there she continually prayed and asked for guidance and was able to share the gospel with the people that she was with and was a missionary and she continually gave the credit to God and Jesus Christ.  I realized that while I was sitting there that I haven't been doing that as much as I should and that everything that I have been able to do on my mission is because of the spirit that Our Heavenly Father has given me and has been able to help me overcome a lot of my weaknesses.

 

Hope your week goes good!

Love,

 

Elder Johnson

Happy 21st Birthday, Elder Johnson!!!

 Luke with his district going to the Wildlife World Zoo in his area!!

 Luke's companion from Tonga gave him a Lava Lava for his birthday!!

Feeding the Giraffe!!

I don't care....I LOVE IT!!!

No transfer, but he is getting his 15th and final companion (hopefully!)

So this week was really good!  It is getting to the end of school here and so I think that it will be a bit easier to meet with people.  An awesome experience this week was that we were able to contact an investigator that we started teaching when I first got here, her name is Danielle and we have kind of lost contact for about a month or so and we knew that she lived in Verrado somewhere and so we have been praying to know where she lived.  So this last week we were visiting a member and realized that she had said that she knew her and so I felt prompted to ask her about Danielle and asked if she knew where she lived.  She gave us the street and what house it was and so we decided to just knock that street and we noticed her in the park.  So we talked with here and found out that she was just super busy and we had  a good talk with her and it seemed to help her a bit.  She has been really overwhelmed with stuff so we talked about the atonement and was able to say a prayer with her in the park and then we left and hopefully after school we will be able to talk to her a bit more. 

 

We were also able to actually set something up with a potential in Verrado for this next Sunday that has been really hard to meet with.  We were in Verrado and we felt prompted to go check on Jen and see if we couldn't set something up with her.  So we talked and she was giving us the usual of needing to check with her husband and so we talked and taught about prayer and invited her to pray right there on the spot and she did and really felt of the spirit!  Then right as we were about to leave her husband pulls up and we set something up to teach the whole family!  So that is really amazing!  I am way excited for that!

 

Some good stuff is happening here and I am excited to continue to see things happen more over these next 6 weeks and work with this new companion of mine.  

 

The weather here is about 105 and it continues to get higher and higher!  I really really grateful that I am going to be in a car for my last 6 weeks! haha :)

 

 

Love,

 

Elder Johnson

Pictures!!!

The lizards and turtles are huge in ARIZONA!!  Nice parking job!  He is getting spoiled with a nice car too!

April 29th Letter. Busy Week and I forgot to post!

So this week has been a really spiritually filled one!  It seems like I say that pretty much every week, but that is because it always is!  Which is a good thing!  So we went on exchanges this week on Tuesday with the Zone leaders and I was in the Zone leader's area and my companion stayed here and they went to this apartment complex over by Luke Air Force base ( oh yeah did I mention that we have and Air force base in our area? haha just like home with jets flying everywhere!) and they were contacting some people over there and ran into the guy named xxxx.  He opened up a ton to them and they taught him the first lesson right there.  Then on Thursday my companion and I went and taught him.  We had planned to talk about the Plan of Salvation, but as soon as we started it felt wrong, so we started talking about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration a bit and gave him a Book of Mormon and when we gave it to him we testified of its truthfulness and he said that I believe in it from the things that we have said and he treated it like we had just given him the Gold plates themselves!!  It was a super spiritual lesson!  Then just as the lesson was about to be over I felt a very strong impression from the spirit to invite him to seen a baptism that was happening in one of the other wards on Saturday, which I like never do with an investigator that we just met two days ago, but I knew that it was from God and that he wanted him to be there.  So I extended the invite and he said he would love to.  Then on Saturday he came to the baptism and he came about 30 minutes early so we used that time and gave him a church tour and then the whole baptism service he was writing down notes and broke down in tears because he felt the spirit so strong.  I happened to glance over at something that he wrote down and it said " Catholics method of baptism, FALSE!"  So that was an awesome thing to see the spirit tell him that!  Then after the baptism we talked with him and he said that after seeing and hearing the things today I know that my Catholic baptism was false!  We were speechless!  He later said that he will be coming to church quite a bit now and that he really likes what he sees and feels at this church!  So next lesson that we have with him on Wednesday will be about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and inviting him to baptism.  The spirit is so awesome!!  I have learned a ton about how to follow the spirit share the knowledge that I have learned from the spirit to others.  There is no greater feeling to teach someone and to have them have and "Aha!" moment!  It is the best!

 

We weren't able to teach xxx this week which was a bummer, but hopefully we will be able to this week.

We have notice that we have a ton of potential that we just need to make to new investigators and so we have set that goal for this week.  We also have made it a goal to contact every ward member, to either see if they have and friends to teach, or if they are less-active to bring them back and maybe they have family who aren't members.

 

Being a district leader is so fun!  We talked a lot this week in district meeting about loving each of our investigators and only caring about their salvation, and it seemed to really help every one because they seem to be discouraged lately, so that seemed to heighten their spirits!  I have made it a goal to spend as much time possible to always talk about those who we are teaching, because it brings a spirit of love to all of us.

 

I would say that this week has been amazingly awesome!

 

Love,

 

Elder Luke Johnson 

7 more emails and Luke is home! Really? Yes!

So the weather is starting to get really really nice again?  I think that it is the last bit of nice before it peaks over 105! I just realized that 90 degrees feels nice to me now! What is the weather like in Utah? I am sure that it is really nice!  It is going to be nice to only see a high of 105 again haha!!!

 

So this week has been really good for missionary work!  We are finding a lot of potential investigators, and some of our current investigators who have been a little stagnate for a few weeks are starting to go a little somewhere!  I hope that a lot more of them will go somewhere!  We have found ourselves with a ton of potential that has really gone anywhere in a few weeks and so we are going to put some life into our teaching pool and hopefully revive it back to a progressing teaching pool. 

 

We didn't have the chance to meet with our current investigators this week, but we did have one of them, her name is xxxx, come to a cottage meeting (it is a meeting where a member of the stake presidency talks about a gospel principle and has some new members bare there testimony) that the stake was having with out even us knowing about it!  She lives in xxxx and all of her neighbors are members and constantly invite her and her husband to stuff, so that was really good. We unfortunately weren't able to go to it because we thought that we wouldn't have anyone go, but some good things came from that.  We heard from the Zone Leaders who weren't there that there was also a couple others who were there who live in the same city and so we are going to see who that was and see if we can teach them.  So that was really cool.

 

We also had a really awesome experience this week too!  So I was on exchanges with an Elder from my district, and we were going through the ward roster visiting a whole bunch of people in a part of our area, mainly because me and my companion have set a goal to meet everyone on the ward rosters, so we did and came across this one address were a member was supposedly living and drove up to it and saw a guy out front fixing his car.  So we talked to him and was very open to us from the beginning and told us that didn't really know a whole bunch about who God was and what happens after this life and really wanted to know what we believe.  It was awesome because he was so open to have us talk to him and we just talked with him and asked inspired questions and hopefully we will be able to meet with him this next week.  It was awesome and the spirit was so strong!

 

We are starting set up a ton of appointments with members in the ward to be able to start to help them be more excited about missionary work!  We just simply go into a members house, if they have kids get to know them and help them with their missionary prep, and then ask each of them something that we can pray for and then testify ask for people who need a prayer in their life and leave.  I have seen this way work so many miracles!  People start to think of missionary work as member + the spirit+Elders, instead of Elder+Elder.  

 

There is a man in our ward who talked to us about the importance of missionary work and how privileged and blessed it is to be a member of the true church of Christ.  He gave us a few statistics, the first one was what percentage of members there are with the amount of people there are on this earth and it was about close to about 4 million member to about 7 billion people on the earth.  Then said out of how many of those have been missionaries and it was about .0001 percent of those people.  So if you were to look at it as a whole 99.999% of people have never or will never have the opportunity to be a full-time representative of Christ!  That was something that really helped to understand just how important missionary work is, and also member missionary work.  If you think about it, if it were just the full-time missionaries doing all the finding, that is about 2 to how ever many people live within the ward boundaries, for us it is about 1000.  But if you were to put every member a missionary, so everyone who is over the age of eight, that is about 200-400 people finding those who want to know of this great gospel message.  That is amazing!  I learned this early on in my mission and has been the focus of all the areas that I have been in and will be a huge focus here.  It is exciting!  It is amazing to think just what happens when everyone follows all the words of the prophet and become a member missionary!!

 

Just thought I would add so cool stuff that I have thought about :)  I like to call them spiritual twinkies! haha :)

 

Love,

 

 Elder Luke Johnson

So this week has been pretty good!  Time just seems to be flying by!  This past week kind of seems like a blur, but it has been pretty good.  The area is really awesome and it is such a fun place to be!  I am so grateful that I have a car, because it is getting up to about 100 degrees down here and being on bike for a third summer would probably kill me! :)

 

So I think that I am starting to get the hang of being a district leader.  I think...ha ha  they gave me second district meeting this past Friday and that was really good!  I actually had too much planned and went over on time! ha ha Which is kind of funny because District meetings usually last about and hour and a half!  Can you believe that I can actually plan a meeting for that long now! I can remember when I would only say like a handful of like 50 words in a day and how I hated to talk to other people!  Now I really enjoy it!  I will probably be like Keara when she was little and talked to the scariest looking guy in Maverick when I get home! ha ha!!  In District Meeting we talked about finding new investigators because that seems to be something that is always in need of some work, and I realized that I have learned a lot about finding people and that becoming a district leader and being in this area has caused me to act on that knowledge that I have and to also share it to other missionaries who may not have that experience yet to help them to gain it!  So I thought that that was pretty cool.

 

So some people who we taught this past week was a guy named xxx and he is a very intellectual man and has a lot of deep questions, and kind of gets held up on those things.  We talked a lot about agency and hopefully we will be able to continue to help to understand faith a lot more so that he can gain that.  It is interesting how many people have that concern of just not having faith, I am grateful to see that now to not only help other people in the future, but to also make sure that I don't get caught up in that stuff.

We are also taught xxx this week, which is always an amazing experience!  She is just soaking up a lot of what we teach to her and is progressing a ton!  She is praying and reading and now we are working on just getting her to church.  We have been teaching her in the xxx ward right now because the friend that she has who introduced the gospel to her lives in there but she lives in xxx.  So this next week we are having a lesson at a members house in xxx that she knows and it should be really good!  I have really noticed this past week or so that these wards are very missionary minded!  We are trying to just get some people to teach from the excitement.

We also taught a couple this week named xxx and xxxx.  They are really awesome and have a lot of faith in Christ and we talked about the Plan of Salvation with them and was able to clean a lot of stuff up about the afterlife that they didn't understand, so that was really good!  I think it helped them to see that the what we believe with where we were, why are we here, and where are we going is a lot of what they believe with just a bit more added to it and nothing really too far fetched, which seems to be a concern of theirs.  They have a concern of being rejected by their family and so hopefully their families hears will be soften to not give them too much flack.  They just need to start to read and come to church and I think that the Lord will take care of their family.

 

So that is about all that we have taught this week, but like I said, the wards are super excited for missionary work and I really think that there will be some great things happening soon!!

 

Well I think that that is about all for the week!

 

Hope you guys have a good week!!

 

Love

 

Elder Luke Johnson

 

Elder Johnson and Companion

The street they live on!

The kitchen of where they live!!

Lookin' Good! Some photos taken from the Mission Blog...

Lookin' Good Elder Johnson!! Zone Interviews taken on Saturday, April 13, 2013!

So I got transferred to Goodyear! haha looks like I might just finish my mission here.

 

My address is:

 

18803 W Earll Ct.

Litchfield Park, AZ 85340

 

So yeah that is where I am at and I am also a District Leader here too, so that is pretty cool, I guess.  :)  

 

So being a district leader is really weird!  I am now officially "old" so being a district leader is kind of training the other missionaries to take my place!  So basically what I do as a district leader is just plan and direct district meetings and take the numbers of the missionaries in my district each Sunday to report to the Zone Leaders.  I have only two other missionaries in my district so that makes things pretty easy!  So that is good.  When President Taylor called me to be district leader he said that the spirit told him that I need to be a district leader in this area, so I guess I will find out some time why I supposed to be here.  I just keep praying and trying to figure that out through the spirit!  I conducted my first District meeting on Friday and that was pretty good!  I was able to teach a lot of things that I have learned to the others about getting people to church and I am super excited to continue to do that.

 

So as far as people who we are teaching, it looks like this might be one of those areas where we have to start a new with who we are teaching.  So that is good.  The first night I was here we went to a members house and they had invited a non-member over for a discussion and so we talked and she is super ready for the Gospel and so I really think that she has some great potential.  Her name is xxxx and she has three kids and is trying to be closer to Christ.  She has been around members for quite some time now and has had a Book of Mormon and she is super wanting to know more so hopefully so great things will start happening for her.  That is pretty much all we have who we are teaching actively that I have met for now, but things will pick up.  The members here are super missionary minded and give us referrals left and right and so I have faith that it will pick up in no time.

 

So this area is awesome and I am super excited to be working here!! 

 

 

Love,

 

Elder Johnson

IT'S TRANSFER WEEK...

So funny thing happened this morning...I guess I am going to be transferred...?  So that was a little unexpected for me, but not at the same time...It is kind of funny actually.    I am super sad to be leaving this area and I have come to really love it, and I know that the main reason I was here was to help the family to be baptized and I guess now my work here is done.  The Lord has a plan for me and I know that,  I have been really comforted as I have prayed and read the scriptures and I know that where ever my next area is it is where the Lord wants me to be and that there is someone there who needs my help.  I am excited for what the Lord has for me in my next area and these next few months.

So I think that that is about all for this week!  Sorry it was so short, but I will email you on like Wednesday or Thursday and let you know where my new area is at!  I am hoping that I will stay in a car. We will see.

Love you all!!

Elder Luke Johnson  

So this week has been a really awesome one!!  The baptisms were on Saturday and that was such an awesome spiritual experience for me!  She was the first one to be baptized and she was baptized by Elder xxxx  the missionary who started teaching her mom and so that was such and amazing thing to see.  Then after she was baptized her brother was baptized by the bishop and the spirit was so strong when that happened.  Then after he was baptized he came out of the font to meet his mom and his sister and hugged his sister for a really long time and you could feel how much our Heavenly Father loves them and is so happy that they have decided to be baptized.  They have gone through so much and to now see them wash all of that away was so amazing!  Words can't really describe it.  Their mom was so excited and happy to see them come into the fold of God that when they were confirmed yesterday she excitedly waved her hand as we welcomed them in by a sustaining vote.:)

 

I can remember from about a month ago when we had looked at our board of investigators that we are teaching and really focused in on the xxx family because we were inspired to and that our Heavenly Father wanted them to both be baptized on March 30.  So we set that goal for them, which at the time seemed achievable but a little far fetched because xxx  had not only said that he didn't really want to listen anymore but we knew that xxxx didn't really understand the whole not smoking thing.  So we acted on faith and we kept teaching them and teaching them but nothing was really going any where until about a week and a half ago we were talking with their mother and found out the xxxx  had done some not so good smart things and is now wanting to talk to us again.  So we went over there on the same night and committed him to baptism and the daughter to stop smoking and they both said that they would, and then as the story goes they are now baptized and on that path back to our Heavenly Father. 

 

So the reason I share this story is because we have looked at about four families and people who we have felt prompted to focus a bit more on and to be baptized within the next month of two. The first one is the xxxx family who have been taught for quite a while now and we felt like they are ready to be baptized at the end of next month and so we looked at it and realized that all we have to do is to just try a bit harder with them to help to get to church because that is basically the only thing that is holding them back.  So we have been thinking of some ways to help them to get to church.

 

The next one is Dan xxxx.  He has been taught for a while too, but we felt a really strong impression that he is about ready for baptism soon.  He is awesome, he married a member Danielle who went less-active as a teen and has been letting us come over for a while now.  So there is some real intent there but we just have to  figure out how to help them act on it.  Dan doesn't really come to church because of the crowd and so we have been trying help him through that so he can come.

 

The others that we have is two families.  We haven't met with them as of late and so we have made it our focus to start teaching them and to help them come closer to Christ.  They are both part-member families and so it should be awesome to see the change happen there.

 

There are tons of great things happening here and I am so excited to be apart of it right now.  I love this work and the happiness it brings!  This is such an awesome work!  

 

Love,

 

Elder Johnson

 

Good place for Luke to be!!

So good to see him behind the tuba once again!!!

A local member let him use his tuba!  So nice!!

So this week has been a really crazy and emotional one.

It mainly started this Saturday when we got a call from the President saying that one of my companions is going to be emergency transferred to the first zone I was in and that he is leaving today at some time...so that was a little hard to hear for him and also for me too.  He kind of took it hard but I know that he will do great things down there.  This is his first area and I know that it is very hard to be transferred away from it, especially when his dad was born and raised here and that is a good tie to his home.  So I hope that he will find some awesome people to teach down there.  It kind of impacted me too because it was kind of like a reality check for me, I was kind of hoping that he would be around when I am to go home and so it kind of got me that I really don't have that much time left and I really hope that I can stay diligent as a continue to work for the Lord.  So I have really made some goals for myself to become more involved in peoples life and gain more of a relationship with them.  I kind of found myself starting to go through the motions and just teach the lessons while not really connecting with the people.  So I have come back to the basics again and while I am studying to get some revelation to help my investigators and it has really started working a ton!!!  I saw myself doing that when I was in that zone and I am starting to look back and see what I did there and figure out where I forgot some stuff and restore it back to what it was. 

So anyways some exciting news with our investigators!!!  We have been having meeting with the xxx  xxx everyday this week to help them prepare for their baptism this Saturday!  I am super excited for that because they have been through a lot in their lives and that is so amazing to see just how much they have turned around their lives!!  It was so cool how everything this week has played out with them finalizing that decision to be baptized!  So a couple of days ago a got this text from a recent convert of mine in the first zone I was in who was coming up to the city this weekend for her Birthday and wanted to go to some lessons with us so I thought that she was perfect for xxx because she had some word of wisdom problems before she got baptized and so does xxxx.  So we brought her over and they connected a ton!!  It was the perfect situation for her, because we were really struggling to find a solid fellow shipper who was around her age with the same problems as her and since there is like 3 active YW and they have all been members for their whole life.  It was a little hard to find someone and so it was such and amazing thing see one of the people that I baptized follow the spirit and contact us because if she hadn't I don't really know if she would be getting baptized now!  So that was awesome!!  We has a really emotional lesson with them on Saturday because we had to break the news that my companion was leaving and so that was a little crazy, but that didn't stop anything. They are going to have their interview on Wednesday and then baptism on Saturday and I am super excited for that!!  They have come such a long way since I first met with them.  They are one that I have really gained a good relationship with them and I see just how much they are progressing because of that.  I took me about a transfer and a half to get a good relationship with them but now that I did it has really been an awesome thing! 

We weren't able to meet with the other family this week because of sickness, but we have been following up with them about every other day to see if they read so that is really good.

We met with a guy this past weekend and he had a ton a questions for us and they were all very good questions that really helped him to progress.  He brought his daughter in and she had some questions for us and she sounded interested to learn more so that is really awesome.  There is a ton a good potential there and hopefully some good things will come of it in the future.  I was able to answer a lot of the questions and I really used the spirit while doing it and after we were done with the lesson we found that we had taught all the principles in Lesson 1without really knowing it.  So that was a good example of teaching people and not lessons for me.

The other family are doing good, their mom came back and so hopefully we can get them all to church soon and they will start progressing.  They know it all they just need to start living it.

So that has pretty much been my week.  It has been an emotional one but an amazing one with tons of growth.

So I think that is about all!

Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Johnson

Can he really WALK ON WATER? Haha!

Flooding of a road in Camp Verde, but it does look like he is walking on water!  LOL!

So this week we were able to find a lot of potential and a new investigator!  This past Friday we were up in one of the cities we cover and it is a really funny place because sometimes we go there and we don't find anyone home and other times we go we find everyone home!!  This last Friday was a day were out of the 11 families that we tried to visit 8 of them answered the door and with about all of them we set something up for when we go up there next Friday.  We made a list a while back of all the members in the area we cover and we counted 99 families who are less-active up there and so we have been devoting a lot of time there to find those who lost their way and those who need to find it.  We were able to have contact with a less-active family and they probably haven't been contacted by anyone in about 5 or 6 months and so we were able to get some good things going there.  

 

Also on Friday we went to the Reservation and met with this part-member family who has a ton of potential, the father is a member has been less-active pretty much his whole life and doesn't really know too much about the church, and his wife Libby is a non-member and has had a lot of questions about the church and is wanting to learn more and so after spring break happens we will go over there and start teaching them and they really want a church for their kids too and so it will be an exciting thing to be able to bring the spirit into their home and bring that family closer together!  So that was an amazing miracle that happened this week because we have really been struggling with find new people to teach and so this a prayer that has been answered!  

 

We also had another amazing miracle happen this week too!  We were able to set a date for baptism with one of the investigators and that was super amazing!!  She is so ready for it too and I am super excited for it!  The whole family comes from a very hard background and so it is so amazing to see just how much the spirit is working in that home.  Her mom has really been the driving force behind all of this, she was baptized just a couple months ago and really wants her kids to be able to feel of the Gift of the Holy Ghost like she has.  Her son has been a little non-committing with us and so it will take a bit more work with him, but he will come along eventually.

 

We had an amazing lesson with another investigator last night and was able to commit all of the kids to come to church.  Their less-active mom still doesn't want to go but we are getting them rides through the ward so that they can get there.  They are pretty awesome and hopefully they come to church so we can get somewhere with them. :)

 

We also had a pretty good lesson with the guy who is having a hard time quiting drinking and smoking.  He has cut back a lot on the beer and is starting to not want it anymore.  We asked him last night why he wants to get baptized and he said it was to be with his wife and we asked him what was stopping that and his wife, who is an active member said that it is that thing in his hand (his beer) and so that was good for him to hear that.  It is going to take a while with him to be ready for baptism but it will happen.

 

Well hope your week goes good!

Love,

Elder Luke Johnson

Luke got to go to the Mesa Temple to see the sealing!!!

So this week has been one of the best weeks of my life!!  We are still trying to get some good things going in the area but I know that is will pick up soon because I have gained a more eternal perspective on missionary work this past week.

So to start off, the most awesome thing that I was able to see was the Sealing and Endowment of Don and Toni  from my first area in Anthem.  I am so grateful I got to see that because it was just what I needed to see the final product of the hard work I put into that area and those people.  They have become super active in the church and now they are a couple for all time and eternity!!! :)  I remember the first contact that my companion and I had with Don.  I answered the door without a shirt on and a martini in his hand and we sat down with him and talked about the Book of Mormon and was able to give him a copy and then we came back by a week later and started teaching them and the first thing that he said to us was that he wasn't going to give up his coffee and his alcohol and so we were able to share the spirit with him and his wife and ever since then they have progressed so much and now they are endowed and sealed and that was such an awesome thing to see them in the Celestial room of the temple. So that was awesome to see a couple of recent converts be able to go through the temple.
While I was there for the endowment of Don and Toni I was able to see a bunch of old ward members and also I had a really awesome surprise to see a Less-active couple who we found in Anthem going through the temple to receive their endowments and also I was able to see them be sealed!!  I can remember when we first got in contact with them.  We were biking down the street one Saturday in the 120 degree weather of August of 2011 and suddenly we saw a couple on a bike going the opposite direction flag us down and they came right up next to us and said "Hey! You Mormon missionaries?" We said "yes" and they said, "What time does church start tomorrow and where is it?" This was before the Anthem Chapel was built so we gave them the address to the Daisy Mountain building and the time the ward they lived in started.  The very next day we saw them at church and we were going to talk to them after church but they rushed out of there too quickly and we weren't able to get there address, but we remembered them saying that they were on this one street.  So we knocked all the doors on that street and found them and started meeting with them and they started coming back to church and then later on they told me that their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren all got baptized a few months after I left.  That was such an amazing thing to see the two different works of missionary work come full circle.  The first, the importance of finding new people to teach so that they can enjoy the blessings of the temple and second the importance of finding those who once accepted the gospel and who have fallen away from the fold of God and get them back and bring their family with them so they call all enjoy the blessings of being a family forever.  These two experiences have greatly increased my vision, testimony, goal, and thoughts about missionary work and the such great importance it is and what the eventual goal is to be. 
I have thought a lot about these experiences that I have been able to have this week and have been thinking about ways to see that in this area and I have noticed multiple times now that there are at least 150 less-active members in both of the wards in which we serve and that there needs to be some attention paid to these families who have not yet seen and enjoyed the blessings of living the gospel and being sealed together as a family.  So we are going to be making some goals this week to were we can save those who have fallen away and also bring those who do not know yet about this great gospel.  It has been such a good learning experience that I hope to take to this area and to the rest of my life.  Missionary work is so amazingly awesome!!


So I think that that is all for this week!

Love ya!

Elder Luke Johnson

Luke's First Baptisms were sealed in the Mesa Temple on Saturday!!

Luke in his tri-companionship! 

Saturday's Baptism!!

So this week was a really good one!!  On Saturday we had the baptism and that was a super awesome thing!!  She is so awesome and invited her non-member mom and sister to it too!!  I really think that her family will come around one day!  It was such an amazing experience to have been able to complete the family.  We talked about the priesthood her husband and he has made it a goal to be able to be ordained a priest and eventually get his family to the temple!!  So that is so awesome! 

That family with all girls in it are still meeting with us and we met with them yesterday night.  We had a good talk about the Sacrament and how that is a way to be symbolically "re-baptized" every week at church as we renew those covenants that were made at baptism.  The two older ones were baptized when they were eight, but then some family drama with their dad cause them and their mom to go less-active so they didn't really feel like their baptism really meant anything to them so we talked about church and the Sacrament to help them understand that more. 

We also met with another family too!  The mom is a recent convert and her kids have just started to take the lessons a few weeks ago and so we talked about baptism with them and the son who is 16 wants to and daughter who is 15 does too, but she wants to feel ready for it.  So we will help here with that.  They come to church every week so hopefully we will be able to see them be baptized in March.

We have some great potentials that were sick this last week, and so this week we are going to focus on them and hopefully be able to make them to new investigators in this next week!  One is a less-active family who have 8 kids and 5 of them are not baptized!  So hopefully we will be able to reactivate the parents and baptize the kids so that that family can make it to the temple!  :)  We also have two to three other families in both wards that hopefully we will be able to start teaching!!  The work is awesome here and there is a ton of great potential that we hope to be able to bring to some good things happening here!

So this week was Valentines day and that was probably one of the worst ones! It started out with planning for of next week and then we decided to go up to a town called Rimrock.  It is a small little town up in the north part of our area and we only go there once a week because it is so many miles away.  We went up there and right as we were about to go to an appointment, they canceled on us, and so we decided to try another investigator who we didn't have an appointment with and right as we were on our way, out of the blue they texted us saying to come a different day.  So that was weird, then we tried a referral we got there and he grandma answered the door and we asked if he was there and she said no he wasn't and so we got in the car and called him and guess who answered?  The Grandma! haha So we asked for him and she gave him the phone and we talked with him.  So we had a granny lie to us, but it was funny!  Then we went and visited a blind guy, and came back down to Camp Verde to have some dinner at Sonic and that was pretty good, but right as we were about to leave our battery died!  So we had to call our ward mission leader to come and give us a jump and we went back home and then called it a night.

Oh yeah!  So I got a message from one of my Recent converts in Anthem.  They are going through the Mesa Temple on March 2nd!!  :)  I really hope that I can get permission to go!! 

So that is some good stuff for the week!

Hope all is well!

Love,

Elder Luke Johnson

First, and awesome thing is that it snowed in Camp Verde last night!!  It was like a blizzard and I had to drive in it!  That was super awesome and it reminded me a lot of driving in Utah.  So that was awesome!  I was freaking out because I haven't seen snow fall from the sky for almost two years!  That was such an neat thing!  Camp Verde is a really awesome place!

So we have a baptism this week!  She is super awesome!  Her husband who is a less-active member is starting to get back into activity and that is awesome!  She was found by tracting and they found out that her husband was a member and then they started teaching her and now she is super ready for baptism! She is getting baptized this Saturday and I am super excited for that.  They are a pretty awesome family.

Other than that this week has been a week of really test our faith.  I think just about every appointment we had fell through, and almost all of our progressing investigators have stopped being interested in the Gospel, so sound disappointing right?  Well it is, but I have not at any time felt discouraged which is such an amazing thing for me.  I can remember that it was a big struggle of mine in the past, with understanding why people who are super ready keep canceling appointments, not coming to church, not wanting the Gospel, etc.  But something that I have really come to know is that there is always a reason for everything, our Heavenly Father know all!  So we were able to spend some more time finding people and talking to some former investigators and all of these great things to set us up for an awesome week this week and the ones to follow.  There is a ton of amazing potential here and you can just feel it!  

 

There was also another awesome experience that happened this week!  So I couple of weeks ago we were coming home from an appointment that we had and it is really dark here in Camp Verde, so I took a wrong turn.  After a wrong turn we ended up in a new part of the Indian Reservation here that my companion had no idea about, so we said that we would tract that area and see if there was anyone over there.  So we did and ended up finding 2 really awesome potential investigators and a former investigator!  We are going to hopefully go back this week and see about trying to teach them.  It was an amazing thing being led by the spirit that day to find that area.

 

So I bet your thinking that the Indian Reservation has wiki-ups and tepees everywhere huh? No, it isn't like that.  There are homes on it and the older reservation is a little bit sketchy, but the newer one is like a suburb type place.  They are the Yavapai-Apachi Indians and of course like all Indian reservations, there is a Casino on it! haha  The Indian people are really nice to us when we talk to them, and are pretty open to listening for the most part.  It is a really cool thing. 

 

So I think that is about all for this week! 

Love,

 

Elder Luke Johnson

SNOW in ARIZONA? Yes, it happens...here's proof!!

Zone conference (held earlier this week) pictures!

So this week both me and my companion caught some sort of food poisoning and I kind of got it worse.  I tried to tough through it, but we had a meeting on Wednesday, when I got it, and I threw up a couple of times.  I had some of the priesthood holders give me a blessing and then we went straight home and rested.  I was up all night throwing up, but I woke up the next morning and felt a ton better!  So I got dressed and everything then went out and did some work!  It is amazing just how much the Lord protects his missionaries!  A normal person would be out for a couple of days, but it only took about 12 or so hours for it to go through me and I felt better after that.  The priesthood is amazing.

So the people in this area are amazing!  There is so much work happening in this area!!  We have a couple of people who are going to be baptized this month.  One is super prepared and she is going to get baptized on February 16 and that is going to be an awesome thing!  We were having a hard time meeting with her this week so on Saturday we were up in her area and we were like we should text her to see how she is doing and to see if her and her husband (who is a less-active member who hasn't been to church in a while) are coming to church.  So he said that he didn't have anything to wear.  I thought we were the same size.  We went home, I got some clothes for him, and then came back and met with them.  Unfortunately, the clothes didn't fit him, and he was trying to make the excuse that he didn't have the right clothes, but we said the Lord accepts anyone no matter how you are dressed!  The only thing that matters is if you are there and talked about the for a bit.  Then the next day he was at church!!  It is so amazing what happens when you just go the extra mile to help and things work out.  I have really learned that it takes just a little bit of the extra mile to help someone come closer to Christ.  So that was an awesome experience!

There is another person in our area.  He is a really great guy and I have only met with once, but he is super awesome and going to get baptized next week!  My companion talks about it quite a bit and so it will be exciting for him to get baptized.  He works a lot in Phoenix, and has a house down there that he stays at quite a bit so it is a little difficult meeting with him but we are always communicating by phone so that is good.

We are also working with another investigator who is part of a family who are all members and has been investigating the church for a while now. He has gone through some interesting stuff in his life and is a really great guy, but he is from the south and has a bad problem with drinking, smoking, and swearing a lot, so he has just recently cut down on the drinking and trying the kick that first, then after he is done with that he will the smoking and then the swearing.  He is trying and it is pretty tough, but he wants to do this so he can be better.  He is super funny and is what you would think of when you would think of a redneck.  I'll have to take a picture some time, He has two confederate flags on his wall, with a picture of Jesus in the middle of it! haha :)

We are also teaching a family that I have really been able to click with because they are all girls and I have   three sisters.  We talked about the plan of salvation and they have a lot of knowledge with the bible because they are in like decathlon for the Bible and so we have been working on that and talking about the spiritual meaning behind the bible and that has been working great!  We throw in a bit of the Book of Mormon to clear some confusing up that they have of stuff in the bible and it is working great! 

There is a ton of great things happening here and it is going to be an awesome thing to continue and build on the work that is happening!!

Love Ya,

Elder Luke Johnson

So this week has been probably the easiest transition to a new area!!!  I am super excited for this new change!!  It is in the mountains and the temperature has not reached above 65 yet!  So that is an amazing thing!!  Hopefully, I will finish up here in a car so I won't have to endure the heat of the Phoenix Valley!

Camp Verde is a very old town that has a lot older people in it and the wards here are very small.  There is a lot of less-actives in each of the wards.  So there should be plenty of stuff for me to do.  There isn't a lot of stores, the only grocery store in Camp Verde is a Basha's (kind of like Dan's), a Maverik, a Taco Bell, a McDonalds, and a Subway.  So not too much, but every now and then if we have the miles for it we go up to Wal-Mart in Cottonwood, but not too often.  It is nice change from the city.  Not as much traffic and it doesn't take you an hour to turn left at an intersection. 

 

So the area that I cover is from a little town called Rimrock (you can Google all of these) which is close to Montezuma's Castle, down through the Yavapi Indian reservations, and through Camp Verde, all the way down to a redneck town called Verde Lakes.  That is our area!  It takes about an hour and a half in car to go from one end to the other.  It is awesome because I like driving so I am loving it here.

 

Me and my companion are getting along great and it is really exciting!!  He has only been out for three months so I have been showing him some things that I have learned on my 19 months of missionary service and there is going to be so great things happening!

 

We have about 5 people that should be baptized in February with plenty of more to come.  When I first came into the area we went to a family whose mom is a recent convert, and the kids are now taking the lessons and we had a lesson with the daughter and it went really well!  My companion was telling me that they were pretty attached to the past missionary, but I think I managed to loosen them up to me and feel the spirit while we were teaching.  So that is awesome!  Hopefully we will be setting a baptism date with her pretty soon.

 

We also have another solid investigator, and she is going to get baptized in a couple of weeks.  She came to church yesterday for the first time and she loved it!  She is pretty awesome and it is going to be really exciting to teach her some more!

 

The next one was a family that I can really relate to.  They have 5 girls in that house, two of them are less active, two are not baptized yet, and one is 7.  The mother is a member and has had some bad things happen to her in the past with the church, but yesterday I felt like I really connected with them because my experiences with my sisters I was able to get the lesson on focus and to really make things person for them.  I always said that I wish I had a brother but I am now saying that I am grateful to have not because it has helped me to relate so much with other people!  

 

So I have had a feeling about these people that we are teaching like I knew them before and that I am supposed to help them come back to Christ.  It is a feeling that I haven't really got this early on when teaching people and it is an awesome thing because it really has helped me gain an eternal perspective on a lot of things.  I think that is why this transfer was probably the easiest transfer for me, because I have started to really understand the purpose of me being in people's lives as a missionary and that through the mission president, God direct where I need to be at a certain time on the mission. 

So I love it here and I am super excited to jump start the work and see tons of miracles happen!!!

 

Love,

Elder Johnson

The only through traffic is to heaven!!

Haha!!!

HE'S IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!

So I got transferred up to Camp Verde!  It is about as far north as the mission goes.  It is a lot like Cache Valley Utah so that is cool.  Like a 10 degree difference from the Valley because it is up in the mountains!  I am also in a car now!! So I am not on bike anymore and it is super exciting!!! My new companion is from South Jordan, and is my 12th companion now on the mission! He is pretty funny and I think we will get along great!

 

Well here is my new address:

 

2140 Hillcrest Dr.

Camp Verde, AZ 86322

 

So that is that :)

 

Love

 

Elder Luke Johnson

Missionaries get to play full-size Chutes and Ladders!!!

Getting Transferred....again!! Really!!! Very SHORT email!!

So this week is transfers week, and what an emotional one it has been!  So first thing is first...I am getting transferred... It is a sad thing leaving this area because it is such a great area and I have really come to trust in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ here.  Especially this past transfer, with last transfer news I don't think that I had quite the right amount of faith that was needed for trusting in our Heavenly Father and know that this is his will, but this past month I have really studied it and I am perfectly calm now that I know that I am leaving this transfer.  I have complete total trust in him now and even though there are tons of things that I don't know are going to happen, I know that everything will be OK.  Elder Jensen is a great missionary and it will be good for him to take over this area, not really knowing it too well, but I know that he will do great here with his new companion :)  There is so many people here that I have been able to meet and to learn from and have been able to help and I am so happy for that. 

 

So that is crazy that everyone is home!!  Yesterday two missionaries went home and that was a real eye opener for me because one was in the first district that I was in and I really got to be good friends with him, and also the other elder too because he was my past companion.  I can totally agree with you and say that time goes by super fast!!  I can't believe that I am coming up on my 19th month mark!!  Time just flies by!  

 

Well I think that is about all I have for this week, sorry it is so short, transfers make the email short.

 

Love ya!

 

Elder Luke Johnson

New year, New companion!!!

So what a crazy week it has been!  The year that I come home has started, I got a new companion, and it is cold? I can't believe that 2012 has already come and gone!  I hope these next 6 months don't go by as fast as the first 18.  It is kind of an interesting thing how time works as a missionary, days feel like years, months feel like days, weeks feel like hours and years feel like just yesterday!  I guess it is kind of preparing me for "big-boy" life! Well, I have really gotten to the point of really working my best until all is done! :)

So as you might of noticed we kind of baptized all of our investigators, and now we are finding some more now.  It has been an interesting struggle with finding new investigators while having current ones to teach, I keep trying to figure out how not to do that and I am still working on it, but hopefully in the future in won't be like that. 

Yesterday I had a really awesome spiritual experience! So since we don't have too many investigators right now I prayed and fasted that we will be able to have some people to teach and help to get to the temple through baptism.  I ended my fast at 4:15 and then headed straight to an appointment that we had with a part-member family at 5.  The husband is an active member who just married a non-member in like July and he really wants his wife to learn.  So we went over there and she is pretty interested in learning more and eventually getting to the point of joining.  She said that she doesn't want to rush anything or feel pressured and doesn't have too much of a background with any sort of religion, or any real knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.  So we shared the first part of Lesson 1 with her, talking about God and Jesus Christ and strengthening a relationship with him and she seemed to have liked it!  So we are probably going to be teaching her every week now.  So we picked up a new investigator to teach right there then after that we went over to the bishop's house in the other ward and started teaching Peter again.  We kind of stopped teaching him about a month ago from him not really wanting to progress any further with keeping the word of wisdom and stuff, so yesterday we started to teach him again and it was a really strong powerful lesson.  He has kind of regressed since we first started teaching him, but we just focused one basic, and that was prayer.  We will help him to get a real testimony through prayer and then hopefully it will progress towards something.  So as you can see it was an awesome day last week. 

Sickness still is really hurting the work as of late. 

Our 16 year old investigator hasn't really met with us because of a bad flu and his dad isn't letting him do anything because of that.  Hopefully in the future he won't be as flaky with things but right now we are just being patient with him and trying to help him.  He super solid and could be baptized like tomorrow, but there has just been some things hindering his progress, like sickness, and sports. 

There is a ton of great things that are going to happen these next weeks with a lot of members who have some neighbors who are close to taking the lessons.

My new companion is awesome!  He is starting to pick back up on mission life really well!!  He is just coming back from having to go home and is excited to get the work going!  It is going to be a great thing serving with him!

Well hope everything is going good!

Love ya,

Elder Luke Johnson