Cooking experiments, sweaty appointments and more investigators...week 9 in Arkansas

Another week has gone by, I feel like i am writing these letters all the time. I hope all is going well for everyone back home. this week we lost a lot of our key investigators. phillip randomly told us that he didnt want to talk with us anymore, and zettie has stopped answering the door when we come and I know she is home because she never leaves her appartment. other than those two investigators everything is going great and we had a rather successful week we set a few more baptism dates and found a lot of investigators. most the week we just walked around on the streets because my tire exploded on my bike a couple weeks ago and I havent bought a new tube yet and we are way over miles on our car. (He mentioned in another email he was so glad when his tire popped cause he was able to run fast alongside his companion on his

bike even though he was in his suit to their next appointment--he arrived a little sweaty but he was in heaven running). We found a new family that moved in across the street from our church that is really excited about the things we have taught them and know that is true. they were planning on coming to church but they ended up in the emergency room of the hospital instead. she is alright and is doing great now, her wrist just randomly started swelling.

I am starting to get sick of eating waffles pasta and oatmeal for every meal so I am starting to actually cook things now. I usually just throw a bunch of random food items in a pan and stick it in the oven or blend it all together in the blender. Most of the things I make end up tasting disgusting but every now and then I get a new recipe that is worth keeping. we made a dessert called "dont ask" made with 3 jars of icing a whole bag of m&m's some reeses, whoppers, and snickers, and food coloring all mixed together in a bowl (didnt eat much of that, kinda unhealthy). I dont usually make unhealthy things like that, Ive also created a new vegetable soup recipe, green smoothies, and a vegetable pasta sauce. 

Good luck to everyone putting there mission papers in this next few months, id love to hear where you are all going!

Love elder Johnson

Crazy weather, Hospital visits, Working hard with a great companion...week 8 in Arkansas

This week has gone by really fast and I honestly cant even remember all that has happened this week. I was able to give a lot of blessings at the hospital this week. I am hoping to hear back from the families of the people I gave to blessings to but so far I havn't heard from any of them. One of the guys I met in the hospital had surgery on his lungs and something went wrong during surgery and he was expected to not make it very much longer. before we got to the hospital to give this guy a blessing the computer system shut down in the hospital and it made it really hard to find this guy that was supposed to pass away any day. it took us over an hour to track him down and find him in this hospital but being able to serve him with the priesthood that I have been given made all the time it took to find him worth it. whether gods will is to have him move on or to heal him I know that he will be alright. hopefully that family will call me back sometime soon, I would love to hear how he is doing.
a couple weeks ago I got a new companion and I have really enjoyed being his companion. after struggling through the first transfer I feel like I am enjoying everything about my missions a lot more now that I have a companion that I get a long with. we have a lot in common and have been working really hard these last 3 weeks. although almost all of our baptismal dates have fallen through we have still taught more lessons, found more investigators, and invited more people to be baptised than I ever have previously in the short time I have been out here. we currently have one baptism that is supposed to take place on the 15th for phillip. we also had Zettie, a kinda crazy lady, come to church yesterday that wants to get baptised but is struggling with giving up smoking.
The weather in arkansas this weekend has been really bad. currently there is probably an inch of ice covering all of little rock. it was pouring rain and ice all night last night.
Last week we climbed the biggest mountain around for p day, which in arkansas isnt very big its more like a hill but it was still pretty exciting. we got to go rock climbing and got to see some of arkansas out of the city area. I dont have much to write about this week, but all is going well! hope everything is going alright back home! miss you all!
Love elder Johnson

Thank goodness for sister missionaries...

So Elder Johnson didn't say too much in his email home today, but luckily a sister missionary, Sister Goudie posted some pictures of what they did on their PDay--hiking and raking leaves, sounds fun!  From the looks of the pictures, the weather looks just about perfect.  Unfortunately, that's all I know about his week, except they were on bikes all week and didn't get to run much because they were sooo busy.  I'm sure they're busy doing great things, hopefully next week I'll hear more about those great things.  Elder Johnson's companion, Elder Nielson is the one in the light green shirt and I think they get along really well.                                                     

Gotta love pictures...especially when they're of Elder Johnson

Elder Johnson must have been bored on his P Day (either that or he got tired of me asking for visual proof that he's alive) because I finally got some pictures, yay!

Everyone in the MTC called this look on Elder Johnson's face...the gazelle look!

His favorite...Elder Steed!

Sister Armstrong--Elijah Armstrong's (the runner) sister

The Gazelle boys

MTC

Snow in Little Rock!

P-Day

1st baptism

New companion, same area, epic 3 days--week 7 in Arkansas

A lot happened this week out here in arkansas. The first big event of the week was transfers on wednesday. elder Nielson is my new companion. He is from Rexburg Idaho and loves adventure sports, mountain biking, BMX, etc. He has been in oxford mississippi for his whole mission so far and has been out for a total of 7 months. He was actually my last companions companion in the MTC. luckily hes ok with getting up at 6 everyday to workout so I still get a pretty good run in everyday, but im getting really sick of the treadmill, 2 straight months of only running on a treadmill. we have worked really hard these last few days and have had a lot of success with a great story to go with it. On thursday we focused the entire day to finding new people and setting appointments with them to come back and teach lessons. I believe we found 11 new investigators that day and taught 9 quick lessons. which is more lessons and investigators I have ever had in a day. Friday started out really slow, no one was answering there door and several of our appointments with our new investigators had fallen through already. it was dinner time and we had two more appointments set up for that night one with a old lady named Zettie and another with Erika, both were single ladies and we werent aloud to teach them in there homes without a ward member with us. we quickly called several of our most reliable ward members to come out with us, but with it being valentines day everyone had other plans. we decided that we would probably be able to teach zettie from on the porch but we probably wouldnt be able to teach erika on the porch through the door because she has a baby that cant be in the cold for very long. We got to zetties appartment and began teaching her about the restoration and gave her a book of mormon. she said that she had read part of it before but that she had always thought that it was taking away from the bible instead of adding to it. (she loves the bible, she has 24 copies of it) we invited her to be baptized on the 1st of march and she accepted. after we left me and elder nielson were both really excited and we were getting out our phone to text the baptism date to some of the other missionaries when brother hiatt called. I had never met brother hiatt before and I didnt even know who he was. he explained to us that his whole family was out of town except for him and so he didnt have any plans for valentines and that he had this feeling that he should call us and see if we needed any help. since he had offered to go we would be able to teach erika in her home and not have to skip the appointment. When we got to erikas house we expected we would be teaching just her but once we went inside her 4 kids and her mom were all there waiting to hear our message. we started teaching, which at first was very difficult since her mom (joann) would interrupt us constantly with scriptures from the bible making it very hard to stay on track. but eventually she went quiet and was just listening, until after we taught her about the first vision and then she started to tell us about a prayer she had said earlier that day about how she wanted guidance in her life and a new path to take. we then invited both her and erika to be baptized on the 1st of march and they both accepted. I know that brother hiatt was inspired to call us and offer us help that night so that we could visit erika and joann and help them come unto christ. The next day we re committed Phillip to baptism for the first of march as well. sunday we taught another new investigator we found name Aaron. he is kinda crazy but is a great guy he has 4 kids, one of which he named Phat king.... I almost started laughing when he was telling us there names. he loves scriptures as well, he had a rough life of being in and out of prison a few years back but changed his life around by going to a church down the street. we gave him a book of mormon the day we met him and he was really excited, he reads it to his kids everyday even though they are all 7 or younger and probably dont understand what he is reading. after a long lesson with him with lots of random comments from him about something he read in the book of mormon, which is good i guess but made it hard to stay on track, we invited him to be baptized on the 8th of marchand he accepted. with the help of the lord we were able to set 5 baptism dates in 3 days. we were really blessed to have so much success in one week. the whole last transfer we only set 3 dates and two of them fell through. in those three days we also found 15 new investigators and taught 15 other lessons along with 8 member lessons. we were really blessed to have that much success in those three days. ive never taught that many lessons in an entire week.

Love, elder johnson

Two months gone, staying in Little Rock with a new companion and best of all...a Baptism!

Hello to everyone back home! I miss you all a lot! Im super excited to hear about everyone signing with weber, the teams gonna be stacked in 2 years! cant wait to run with them again. congrats to everyone racing through this indoor season. I believe simplot is usually this weekend so good luck to everyone competing in idaho! DXC!! i have enjoyed a lot of running this week and got a good tempo run on the treadmill today, 3 miles in 15:27.
Transfers are coming up this next week and we got word yesterday that my companion, Elder Jardine, will be transfered somewhere and that I will be staying here unless something really unexpected happens at transfers this wednesday. So as of now I dont know who my companion will be this next transfer. im hoping I can be companions with an ultra marathoner I met last week. I would love to go on a long distance run every day. Along with elder jardine leaving there will be a lot more responsibility put onto me, which I think will be a good thing. I dont like not have responsibilities. I will have to teach the area to my new companion, im hoping I will get to be the designated driver because of that.
James Sears was scheduled to be baptized yesterday, but had a tough challenge of not smoking for an entire week to have the baptism go through. we prayed and fasted twice for him at the beginning of the week and he was able to have the strength to completely stop smoking and be baptized yesterday. it was one of the greatest feelings I have had being out here watching the joy in his family as he was baptized and joined them in the church.
Last friday we had a blizzard here and got 3 inches of snow. doesnt sound like much compared to what we are used to in utah but here in the south none of the cities are equipped with equipment to handle the snow. so that three inches closed the entire city for 2 days. we were out on the roads as everyone was trying to get home and there were pile ups of cars everywhere and cop cars and fire trucks trying to help people all over the place. It took us an hour to drive a little under 2 miles, it was ridiculous! The area we live in is really hilly so at the bottom of all the hills there were always big groups of crashed cars. It was kinda funny seeing how cities react here compared to back in utah where 3 inches wouldnt be much snow at all.
Miss you all! hope everything is going great back home!
Love, Elder Johnson

Week 5 in Arkansas

I dont feel like much happened this week that is really exciting. On tuesday I got to go on exchanges with one of our zone leaders in conway so I was up there for tuesday and part of wednesday with Elder randall. That area is a lot cleaner and more of a nice area than the one I am in right now. The area im in now is the more rough part of town. I thought conway was a really cool area though. The members there seemed really supportive of missionary work and were lots of fun to work with. One of the houses I went to I was told was from the church of christ and we went in and started teaching and they were really rough and just criticized everything about our religion and were really rude. After a half hour of teaching everyone there just started laughing. apparently whenever there are exchanges they like to trick the new missionary and try and scare them, they all had been members there whole lives. They are a really cool family and they make great chocolate cake. while on exchanges I also met a ultra marathoner from washington. I finally found someone that loves to run and didnt think I was really weird. Thats another thing ive learned while Ive been here, runners are a lot different than the rest of the world. The rest of the week was really slow and included several "zero" days where we taught no one. We had been biking all week and it had been really hard contacting anyone. On saturday we had taught 5 of our goal 13 lessons so far that week and it was 34 degrees and pouring rain and all we had were bikes. we prayed for success and for investigators to be put in our paths to teach and that day we were able to teach 7 lessons. That was the most lessons my companion had ever taught in one day. The slow week turned out to be pretty successful. James baptism is scheduled for this sunday, but if he isnt successful in quitting smoking by tonight then it will be canceled. President wants him off smoking for a week before he can be baptized. Friday night we had a conference with elder L. Tom Perry. It was for all the leaders in our mission to try and encourage leaders in the wards to help the missionaries be more productive. Listening to him outside of general conference is a lot different than when it is general conference. He is really funny and it seemed like lots of his stories were jokes, he was really entertaining. He told us about how he always gives his card to nonmembers and tells them to bring it to a member show it to them and tell them that this guy wants you to share the gospel with me. The nonmember usually goes on to ask will they know who you are? and he replies by saying i dont know, maybe they will.
Transfers are in one week and I dont really have a opinion on whether I want to stay here or go somewhere else. I would like to go to memphis but if i leave then I will have to cancel my gym membership here and find a new gym there, sooo its a toss up.
Being in the south isnt as different as I had previously thought it would be. at least in the area i am in there are very few people that have bad southern accents or that eat any different food.
Love, Elder JohnsonWeek