28 June—Manvel

Hello Family and Friends,

Man this week was a busy week. We had a bunch a bunch of new investigators. 14 to be exact and 3 of them are families. Things here in Manvel are going well. We are getting our goal of 20 sitdowns and 70 oyms every week, and this week we had 25 sitdowns and 15 of them were investigator lessons. It was awesome!

The thing that I have learned this week is the importance of the members in the work. We had a great week for teaching but none of the people we taught this week came to church. You want to know why? We had 1 member lesson. Yes, I know it takes two to tango, and we need to do better with the inviting members part. But I have learned the importance of members in the work. When you invite a member to come and teach with you, the investigator gets to see that people of our religion are normal. They get to hear of the wonderful testimonies and experiences that the members have and they will feel more comfortable coming to church. So, my challenge to anyone who reads this letter this week is to call the missionaries and tell them a day that you want to come out with them. It will be awesome and the members always say that they always feel like its a hassle to come out but when its done they feel good and enjoy the experiences that they had with the investigators.

We got a call from our district leader that there is a hurricane warning. Pretty crazy! I hope another one does not hit Galveston again. That wouldn't be good. We ate dinner at a member's house the other day and they asked how long I had been out and I told them 11 months. Pretty crazy! Almost over the hill. It doesn't feel like it has been that long, but when I look back at all the people and places I have met, I realize that it really has been a long time.

We had zone meeting this week and our mission president gave a really neat talk on discipleship at the end of the zone conference, and he said some really neat things. He said that the path to discipleship is a path that you cannot stay still on. You are always moving forward or backwards. He said that there are ways to know how you are doing on your path to discipleship. I didn't bring my notes with me but I will do my best to remember the key points.

First he said consider your personal study of the scriptures. Is it the time of the day where you feast on the words of Christ or is it a time where you merely read through the scriptures. Personal study should be when we dive deeply in the principles of the gospel and it should be a time of the day when the spirit is teaching us.

The second was to consider your obedience. And he talked about be obedient to the inforcible. Meaning, being obedient to the things that people won't always notice. But the things and promises that you have made with God. For instance, some examples I can think of are your thoughts, or lying. Just submitting everything to the Lord, submitting your will to the Lord because that is really the only thing we can truly give.

The third that I can remember is consecration (or perfect use of the Lord's time). He said that how are you using the Lord's time, how are your conversations with your companions; are they conversations that will bring the spirit or are they the opposite.

I know there is one more but I can't thing of it right now.

President has been talking a lot with me about my studies and has been trying to get me to take my studies to a new level and he has been giving me topics to study. One is taking on the name of Christ and he gave me Mosiah 5 and Alma 5 to read. Another topic was about D&C 11:30; I'm pretty sure that's the scripture. It's about becoming a son or daughter of God. So those are topics that I have been running with the past couple of months and it has helped me to have a great experience while studying.

Have a good week everyone. Next week, I think I will touch on the importance of sacrament meeting.

-Elder Johnson

21 June—Manvel, TX

Hello everyone!

This week was a pretty good week. We have been trying to get some of our investigators to make the commitment to be baptized. We have people that have been coming to church every week for over a month. One of them is a family of 5 and the other is a single guy and they are all awesome. The family of 5 is super cool; the parents just need to get married. They need to talk to our branch president but something comes up every Sunday so it hasn't happened yet. We found a solution, I think, this week. We are going to take the branch president out with us this week to go to their house and they can talk about it with him in their home instead of at church.

The other man we have been working with and he said he loves the church and he feels like it is true, but the there is something that he still needs an answer to and he said he needs to figure it out on his own. We are praying for him.

So, stories for the week. Something exciting, something new hmmm. O0o0o, the member we lived with is cool, her name is sister Allison and she is really good at quilting. She is really nice and she gave us some fire extinguishers that had expired and told us to go and use them outside. It was pretty sweet. So we got to play with fire extinguishers.

Also this last week I got a chance to go on exchanges with the zone leaders and it was a lot of fun. The weird thing was that we taught everyone in English. I hadn't said a prayer in English for a long time and it was hard haha. That's alright though. It was a lot of fun. We taught a really cool lesson with a lady's husband who is in the army fighting right now and she is living with his mom and dad right now and they are super star members. They are great. We had a lesson with them and she was crying and she said she was excited to learn more about the gospel and it was just great!

So, super star member status. What is the definition? Well hmm, members that like to do missionary work! If you want to be a super star member:

1. Talk with you friends and invite them over for a family home evening

2. Go out with the missionaries

3. Be friends with you neighbors

4. When you talk to nonmembers about your weekend tell them you went to church.

5. Last but not least :) feeding the missionaries is good too haha

This things will invite the spirit of missionary work in your home and I promise there will be a lot more joy in your life.

Have you ever thought of the blessings of the plan of salvation? How we know where we came from, what we need to do while we are here on the earth and where we are going? Or maybe repentance? The knowledge that we have about the atonement of Jesus Christ? How we know how to truly repent? Maybe that after this life we will see our families again and our families will be eternal, or forever? This little bits of truth we have a lot of people don't know. When people hear these things they will start to think and start to want to learn and grow and progress. It is awesome!

So, open your mouths and share these things with your friends! They will thank you for it.

Another thing that I have learned on my mission is the importance of home teaching. Thank you Dad for being a good example to me of home teaching. If everyone in the ward would do their home teaching every week, the wards would become stronger and there would be less less-active members. Fellowship each other. When there is a new member or investigators that come to church go and talk to them. Invite them over for pizza and to watch the NBA playoffs (Go Lakers) and talk to them. They need your help just as much as we need theirs. It makes me sick when people say, well they need to get out of their shell also. They can come talk to us. I have to admit that's how I felt before my mission. But man it takes faith and courage to come to church and be baptized. Lets not make it harder by not fellowshipping.

Lately, I have been loving reading the scriptures. My Mission President has been working with me and with studying. He said there is 2 different types of studying. The first one is kind of like studying for school. You get the information, you know the stories of the scriptures and know the basic principles. The second one, he said, is the spiritual side of study. When the spirit is teaching you. I have realized there is more to scriptures then just the stories. A lot more. I am not talking about studying deep doctrine like Kolob and other stuff like that. I am talking about studying a doctrine or principle deeply; there is a difference. Take faith for instance; we can all go to Alma 32 and read it and say ok I know what faith is; faith is having hope for things which are not seen which are true. But then you can go and search the footnotes find more scriptures and pray for guidance, ponder about what you are reading and let the spirit teach you and guide you. Try it out sometime its cool.

Well thank you for everything you have done to help me on my mission everyone! You guys are great! and I heard the Lakers won the NBA playoffs. WOOOOOOOO

-Elder Johnson