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