Dec 29 - Galveston

Hey family and friends!

Thank you so much for the wonderful packages and cards! You really helped me have a extra special Christmas away from home! Christmas on the mission was actually very neat. I really am starting to feel of the true spirit of Christmas. I got to have a chance to reflect on the greatest Christmas gift of all, and the was from our Heavenly Father. He sent his son Jesus Christ to the earth, to live and walk with us and to be our greatest example. He Atoned for our sins and took upon him all our sins and sicknesses and pains and afflictions of every kind. My favorite verse about the Atonement is in The Book of Mormon in Alma 7:11-13. I am grateful for Christ and how he loved me and all of you so much that he did this great act of love for us so we can have the chance to live with him and our Heavenly Father again one day.

I love all of you so much and thanks for all that you all do! I only have a few minutes left so sorry if this is short. The college where we usually email is closed until Jan 11 and this library only lets us email for 30 mins. But, I hope you all had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year! Make some new year goals and try to achieve them!

-Elder Johnson

Here are some pictures from Elder Johnson's first Christmas in the mission field

Dec 21 - Galveston

Hello Family and friends!

This week was a kind of slow week because of transfers. We had to say a lot of goodbyes and a lot of hellos. Elder Roberts moved to the inner Houston area, so he is now down in the city. My new companion's name is Elder Christiansen and he is from Blanding UT. He has 2 transfers left in his mission. He likes to play the guitar and the cool thing with him is that he was my zone leader but now he is my companion too, so I am learning a lot from him everyday. We have gone on a lot of exchanges with each other before, so for the past couple of days it has felt like one big exchange. I went and introduced him to a couple of the members and our investigators and half of them have met him before so it was pretty funny. They were all anticipating a new face and then they saw him and were like oh hey. I think I have met you before. We have been riding our bikes hard this week and it's pretty funny because my new companion has been in a car for a long time, so we come home and lays down because he is really tired. I hope I stay on a bike so I can stay in shape.

We really want to work with OYMing (opening your mouth, talking to people) so we thought of a plan. At every district meeting we would total up the total OYM's for the companionship and whomever had the most OYMs would get a trophy. Our trophy is a stuffed animal that we found in the closet (a camel), and he is called Olly the OYMing camel and he is pretty cool. So, if you were to win the trophy, you would get to add something to Olly. This week we won, so we gave him a neck tie. I got the idea to add something to him from Boy Scouts back in the day, because I remember at Boy Scout camp if we were the cleanest, we got a big stick or some sort of trophy and our troop would get to add something to it. So, we are doing that with Olly.

The OYMing helps a lot because we have a lot of new potential investigators and this week is going to be an awesome week. We want to extend 3 baptismal dates to people and try to OYM 10 people each every day. So, that's 20 people a day, every day. So, by the end of the week that would be 140 different people. Pretty wild huh!

We had a cool missionary fireside this week and Elder Roberts was in charge of it so when he got transfered it all fell into my hands. Not only that, but our ward mission leader went out of town so it really was all in my hands. A member in League City named Chad Neth came down, and he is a professional singer. He has a couple of songs on the EFY CD's and has done some songs with Michael Mclean. Anyways, he came down to do a musical fireside. It was really good and I had fun making the final preparations! He is a really cool guy and he sings a cool missionary song on the 2006 EFY CD. I had a lot of fun learning how to plan a fireside and I have an extra special appreciation for all the people that planned the firesides growing up, because I realize now how much work it takes! So thanks!

I think one of the things that a lot of people miss while on their missions is ESPN and the big games! We went to a resteraunt on friday for a district lunch and all of us were glued to the TV to get the latest new on the sporting world. It looks like the Lakers are still doing well, so that's good!

I want to say thanks to all the ward members and all my friends and family for writing me all these letters! I am kind of getting behind with writing letters because I have been getting so many, so I will get them out as soon as possible! But I really love hearing how everyone is doing!!

Thanks so much! See y'all soon!

Elder Johnson

A Picture!

Steven and his friend Tyler at the MTC

I found this picture of Steven on Facebook and thought you all would like to see a picture of him.

Dec 14 - Galveston

Hey family and friends!

How is it going?! It feels like it has been a loong week. We have been blessed with high winds and rain this week! I kind of like it when it rains though because the thunder is really loud and it sounds pretty cool. One of the things that is cool about Texas is the sky. There are no mountains so the sky looks huge!

This week is transfer week and my companion Elder Roberts is getting transferred. It is sad but exciting at the same time because we have become great friends but I am excited to see who my new companion is going to be and I get to have more responsibility. I think I will grow a lot this transfer and Elder Roberts said this transfer coming up is going to be one of my favorites because I will grow a lot.

Also two missionaries are going home this week! Elder Stack and Sister Campbell. They were both awesome missionaries and I know they will be blessed for the rest of their lives for their service here in Houston! I still have about 19 months till that happens haha.

We have a couple of investigators so things are not looking to dim here, and we have been trying to keep OYMing and that seems to help. I really feel like I have changed into a better person so far in my mission. I think one thing that I want to keep trying to do when I get home is to continue to read an hour a day in my scriptures. It is one of my favorite things to do and I love to learn more and more every day. I need to get going now though and I want to say thanks to everyone that has been supporting me and praying for me y'all rock!!
-Elder Johnson

Dec 7 - Galveston

Dear Family and friends,

This week was I guess you would call it interesting. I can't really remember anything amazing that happened. My retarded companion got me to start buying basketball cards and its something fun to do on a P-day. But I opened a pack of cards and I pulled out a Jrue holiday rookie card. Yes, I did score 18 points on him in high school. I started freaking out that he is in the NBA and has a basketball card haha.

Friday was another pretty cool day, we had district meeting and we read a thing called President's Notes, which is a letter from the president to the missionaries. Sometimes in the President's Notes he puts in a quote from a missionary about their week. So far since I have been there, he has quoted 2 different missionaries, and this week he quoted a part from my letter, so I am one of 2 missionaries that he has quoted. Sorry if I sound like I'm bragging, but it was just cool.

Then, later that day, we were one exchanges with the zone leaders, so I got to go up to League City and guess what happened. Yup, it snowed. I thought I was going to get away from that stuff. Especially because I am super far south, but I was wrong. So, I got to see what zone leaders got to do sometimes, and we went to a couple of baptisimal interviews and stuff like that. So, I would say that I am happy being a missionary who gets to work a lot and does not have to spend time going to interveiws instead of working. Even though it is cool and all. I guess you could say I am content with where I am right now :)

Some of you have been wondering what I would want for chirstmas and stuff. I'll make it easy for you. A Walmart or Target gift card is a great gift because then you don't have to send out a huge package. Speaking of Christmas, on Sunday we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and man that Mormon Tabernacle Choir is amazing! The other thing that was pretty cool was that it was Fast Sunday and I had the chance to go and listen to the people in the ward and branch share their testimonies. The branch impressed me because there were like 17 people who wanted to share their testimonies. It was really cool and I have never seen anything like that. The one thing that I have noticed was how much a ward is like a family. People are so nice and really help each other out. I am thankful for ward families, and the comfort and blessing it is to go to church every week! Umm, I don't really know what else to write in this letter so let me know if you want to know anything specific for the next letter!
Love y'all a lot!

-Elder Johnson

NOTE: Steve send this letter out a week late. He forgot to send it off...

Nov 30 - Galveston

Dear family and friends,

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! I am sorry but I only have 10 mintues left to write this weekly letter. This week was a week that consisted of talking to a lot of people and eating, and eating, and eating.Thanksgiving was a very cool day and probably one of my favorite things that we did was going to serve food for the Salvation Army. I don't remember doing this ever in my life and it was a really neat experience. I got the chance to bring big plates of food to people and sit down and talk to them for a while. I met a Laker fan who loved Kobe and a guy who had been all over California before. I also met a couple of people from Minnesota! It was a very cool experience and I want to do that again next year!

If any of you were worried about us and eating food on Thanksgiving, you shouldn't. Guess how many Thanksgiving dinners we had lined up. Yup, 7. Luckily a couple of people cancelled and one of the members just had us over to play games instead of eating so we ended up eating about one Thanksgiving breakfast and three dinners. Let's just say I was very, very full. My problem was not eating bad food, my problem was that all the food was sooo good, but I could not eat as much as I wanted to. It was one of those times that I wish I had the superpower that I could just eat forever! :)

The other thing we did this week was working on talking with more people on the streets. It's called opening your mouth (or OYMing). We have standards of excellence, basically goals that we have to be better missionaries. And one of the goals is to get 10 OYMs each day. So, 20 as a companionship. Elder Roberts and I really wanted to do this but it is pretty hard to do, even when you're on a bike! We devised a plan and made a deal. The deal was that if either of us did the 10 OYM's per day the other person would buy bluebell icecream for the other person. Bluebell icecream is the best and we love it so it helped us to be motivated. Well, we both did it so it's basically like buying bluebell for ourselves. Haha. Well, it was really fun to do that and it helped us find a couple of new people to teach and one of the people that we talked to wants to get baptized; so we will see how that goes!

I have to get going, I went a little over 10 minutes! Thanks for all the letters and the support!!!
-Elder Johnson