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