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!!