13 Dec—Houston

Family and friends,

Well, I am trying to think of what to say this about the week. It was a really good week for us. The sad thing was peoples' baptisms got pushed back again. We have two for sure for sure this Saturday and maybe two on Sunday also. And then another family wants to be baptized on Christmas. So it should be a good stretch for us and if we get eight, then that is going to be an awesome miracle/Christmas gift from God.

This week were were really blessed. Felix, one of our passed investigators that moved, ran into us at a complex, and he gave us his address and we went to go visit him and his girlfriend. They are awesome, and are doing great. Then he invited us to go and visit his sister. The big test. If the family likes us, he will really start progressing a lot. We had a lesson with his sister and boyfriend on Saturday with Felix, and she just threw question after question at us, and it was a great lesson because we were able to answer them. Then she wanted us to come over the next day, so we did. We watched the restoration movie with her, and she had some more questions about the Book of Mormon. We answered them, and she told us she is going to have to go to church to see if its true, so hopefully this coming week or on Christmas she will come. She wanted to read a lot in the Book of Mormon, and asked us to give her five chapters that we would recommend to start reading. We gave her 2nd Nephi 29, Mosiah 3, 3rd Nephi 11, Alma 46 or 43 (one about a war because she wanted a war chapter, and also the last big war chapter in the book of Mormon because she wanted a couple of war chapters). We are really excited.

Then we went to go visit a member that we had never visited, and we got there and this lady opened the door who we didn't know. We asked for the member and he came out, and we sat down to teach them. We asked the lady if she had ever talked to missionaries before, and she said she was a inactive member of about eight years. She has been living with the member with her family, and her husband for a while. The husband came in later, and we had a good lesson with them. We left with a prayer, and we asked the member who he wanted to say it and he picked me. Then I was about to say it, and the less active husband said no, I want to say it. So he did. Then after we were getting up and the wife said, I want to say a prayer as well. So she did, and she just started crying saying that it was an answer to her prayers, and we got a return appointment and met the whole family. They have 3 awesome kids who are totally getting baptized one day not far off in the future.

So, it has been a blessing and our teaching pool keeps growing and it's a good thing because we should be having some baptisms coming soon. I really love this place and I hope we get to stay together another transfer. Transfer calls are 2 days after Christmas. The 27 of December, so we will see what happens. It is getting excited. And to answer questions about pictures for Christmas. Hard copies would be cooler than just pictures on the computer. Well anyway, I love you all and thank you for the prayers and all the letters. They are great!

Love you all!
-Elder Johnson

6 Dec—Houston

Hey family!

Well, let's see, this week was intense! I guess we can start with the ZLC (Zone leader Council). In this meeting, we get to set goals for how many baptisms and confirmations we will have as a mission, and also as a zone. We have a mission goal of 500 confirmations this year, and we need 81 this month to hit it. Usually, we around 40 per month. So, we need a ton of miracles this month in order to do it. As a zone, the highest we have gotten since I have been here is 8 confirmations; maybe it was 7.

But Man, God has been preparing the zone for this month. Elder Richards and I sat down and prayed as we decided on our goals, and we went through the areas and felt the Lord tell us that he wanted us to have 29 baptisms and 29 confirmations. That is 7 a week, plus 1 week of 8. It was a very high number, so we kept praying about it and kept having the spirit tell us that this is what he wanted for our zone. We finally came to the conclusion that we better stop asking for the answer when he had already given it to us, or he would get mad. So, then we made the rest of the goals.

Our mission right now has a mission goal for the weekend in white (On the 18 and 19th, the mission has a goal for every companionship to baptize; so that everyone will have a white Christmas). If we as a zone hit the weekend in white, we should be in reach to hit our zone goal. Right now, we are sitting at 4 baptisms for this weekend; and next week we should have 7. With the weekend in white, we should have 11 plus some. Then, the final week with the rest. There is going to be a blizzard down here in the Houston West zone!

Elder Richards and I realized that in order for us to make this goal possible we would have to go back and put some more things on the sacrifice list. And I decided that it was time to get rid of the basketball cards. Man oooooooooohhhhhh man that was a hard one. I went outside and gave them to a kid playing basketball. OOOOOOO man it is worth it though. We are going to see the miracles in the area. We have already ween them. We have had 7 investigators at church three weeks in a row! It is awesome!

On Friday night, we couldn't get a hold of the sisters up in Houston one. They live in the city city, and so we were a little worried for them. 10:30 came around and still nothing, so the A.Ps told us to go and drive over there. It was awesome! We got to go on the freeway and drive through some cool parts of Houston, and see some of the big buildings. Right when we got to the sisters' apartments, they called us and told us there phone is broken and they had been trying to call us for the past 40 mins. So, they were safe and it was fun! And we got to see some of downtown.

Other big news. We got texting! Woohoo. We can text investigators and other missionaries. So it is very exciting. And makes the work a lot easier. You jealous Greg, Jeremy and Tyler? Hahahah. I guess that one of the pros to being a missionary in the states. Right now only the zone leaders and assistants can text. They are testing it out to see how we do. So, hopefully it will spread out to all the missionaries in the mission.

As far as pictures go, sorry Dad, I forgot my camera.... Next week I will bring it. We get to call home for Christmas, and I was wondering what time is a good time for you for the phone calls. As far as Christmas goes, I can't really think of anything that I really need. Maybe some pens and that is about it. I think it would be cool to have a set of scriptures that isn't a quad. But a separate Bible and a separate Book of Mormon. Other than that pictures are always super cool.

Well, I think that is about it for the week. The area is going great and we are hoping for six baptisms this weekend, because two of ours got pushed back a week. So, it is going to be awesome and I hope it all works out!

Love you!

Elder Johnson

29 Nov—Houston

Well this week was a great week here in Houston.

I guess we will cut the fluff and get to the good stuff. Thanksgiving. We started off eating a Thanksgiving lunch at our bishops home. He loves Elder Richards and me and we all get a long really well. The lunch was your typical Thanksgiving lunch with turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, and cranberry stuff. It was really good and we ate a lot! So that was at 1:00pm.

Then after that, we went to a lunch at a less actives home at 4:00pm and watched a movie with them (To this End was I Born) and ate some empanadas and turkey and mashed potatoes again. It was really good as well. This is when we started to get full.

Then we went over to the Vanegas family's home and they cooked a huge turkey and some mashed potatoes and green beans and that was really yummy as well. They invited the Lopez family over and it was a really fun time. I started to look at the big turkey leg and they started chanting pierna pierna peirna! and so I took it and sister vanegas freaked out and pulled out her camera and started to take pictures of me with this huge turkey leg. Then she was like bite bite bite and so I bit it and she took more pictures. It was great. They were really funny. They had us cut the turkey also and I tried so hard to get this nice piece and every one was watching and I cut a tiny sliver and it was just embarassing. haha.

Then after that, we went over to an investigators place and I was super full. We walk in and the table was set and everyone was eating and there was two chairs just waiting for us and she goes Oh Elders thank you for coming. Would you like to eat some pasole (the soup with like corn and stuff). I was so full and so was my companion, but I said man I am pretty full and then Elder Richards says, yeah sure un pocito. But un pocito (a little) is really a lot in the Spanish language. So, we got to go and eat a big bowl of pasole. I could barley get it down. Our member that was with us over there says, Elder, when you finish the bowl of soup I'll give you a prize. And I say ok what is it. He says, another bowl of soup! It was funny.

So that was my Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. Well, that was my week! Well thanksgiving.

Also a funny thing about the people down here. They started putting up Christmas lights on Thanksgiving! Hahah I can't remember if a lot of people do that, but I thought it was weird.

I guess the other new news is that the night of Thanksgiving a cold front came in. So it is now officially cold again here in Houston.

Well, that is about it I hope you enjoy the rest of a good week and Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Johnson

22 Nov—Houston

Ok, who is ready for the best story ever.

So, I was at the gas station and my companion was filling up the gas, and I was just standing by the car and this Mexican guy comes up to me and says, "Hey are you from the Mormon club?" I said I am a missionary for the Mormon church, and he was like oh great! Can you help a brother out and give me some gas money. And I said I can't help you with money. And he points at my tag and says man what does that tag say! And then he took my tag off my chest. Shoved it in my face, and said, what the bleep does that tag say mother bleeper. And I said man give me my tag back. He goes give me gas money. And I say man give me the tag this is stupid. And he walks over to his car puts the tag down and says come and get it Bleeper. (meanwhile, all the people at the gas station are looking at this guy thinking he is super dumb.) So then my companion calls the mission president to tell him what is going on and everyone thinks that we are calling the cops. Then the crazy man says man you bleeper you worship, get this, John Adams. And I just started laughing at him and said man who in the world is john Adams! hahahaha Then he goes John Smith and I said Joseph smith, and he was like yea you worship Joseph Smith. And then he starts saying how he wants to fight me and I just turn my back. (so my companion is on the phone and he is like president some guy just took Elder Johnson's name tag off his chest and now he wants to fight Elder Johnson. And president just says hmm can you get it back? and he says nope not unless we fight him. And so he tells us to go into the gas station and to have the people in the gas station call the cops.

So meanwhile the crazy guy has walked into the street and this guy named Jay comes up to me and says man why didn't you punch that guy? I said I am a missionary man, and he said well you should have punched first and repent later. Haha so then we ask Jay if he knows him and he said he had seen him around a few times, and we asked him if he could get the tag back and he said man I would have to fight him. Mean while Jay calls over one of his "brothers" who had a bike and tells him what happens and the guy on the bike got really mad and him and Jay ran across the street and found the guy. They were too far away from us so we couldn't see what happened, but about 5 minutes later Jay came running back with my name tag! Man it was soo legit! I love this place. The people here have our back.

As far as investigators go everything is going smoothly! We had 7 at church!

As far as the zone goes we try to get 11 baptized and 11 confirmed a month. As a mission we try to get 50 baptisms a month. December is going to be a big month for our zone. President Saylin challenged our mission to have a weekend in white and on the 18th to have every companionship in the mission baptize. We will see how it goes. The zone is down for it and so we will see what happens!

Well I love you all and have a great day!

-Elder Johnson

15 Nov—Houston, TX

Well, I am very excited to say that Elder Richards and I are staying together for another transfer! YEA BABY! I am super stoked! We are going to have a crazy transfer.

It sounds like everyone in the family is doing great! I will try to write a couple of small ones to you all and we will probably write some letters after so hopefully I can get one out to all of you! Well thank you for asking me some good questions in your emails and I have some stuff to write about this time.

My companion is Elder Richards and he is from Sandy, Utah. The best thing that I have learned from him is, to be a confident missionary. Right now, I took a quiz in Preach my Gospel about the Christlike attributes, and I need to still work on my charity. We definitely push each other to be better and more obedient missionaries.

Man, we have a lot of interesting investigators. We are working with the members a lot, and they have given us some sweet referrals; the bishop even gave us his brother as a referral! Right now we have 4 families that we just started working with, and I have a feeling most of them will probably be baptized. This are the reasons why: 1) they were member referrals or part-member families, so they already have that support system; 2) we are doing a good job at teaching to the needs of the investigators, instead of just teaching lessons; and 3) almost all of them were at our ward activity. WOOHOO!

I guess we had a miracle in the zone last month. Elder Greenwood left the zone and we were at 26 dates in the zone, our goal was to have 40. Then by the end of the month, our dates went from 26 in the zone to 54! By the end of October, we were at our goal for almost all of our key indicators and it was just awesome!

Ummm, another blessing happened last night. Well, we got home from a great investigator fireside, there was about 50 people there (Missionaries and investigators) and we got home and there was tons and tons of fire trucks around our complex, and guess what?!? The apartments from the building right next to us caught on fire! Only two apartment rooms were destroyed but none-the-less the fire was about 40 to 50 feet away. It was close!!

Hmm, which of my companions would I want Kimmy to date. MY trainer Elder Roberts would be awesome! Or Elder Cole or Elder Greenwood, or Elder Richards. yup any of those guys.

The hardest rule to keep. Working out in the mornings, because I wake up and feel suuuper tired, and all I want to do is go to the pink couch we have and sit there and take a little nap. Hahahaha But I threw the pink couch on my sacrifice list, so no more pink couch in the morning for me.

My favorite principle to teach. I really like teaching agency and telling people the choices they have and then guiding them through the decisions that will make them happy in their lives, like faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, following the spirit, and keeping the commandments. Then I also like to invite people to be baptized. Because if they say yes then it's awesome! If they say no, then you can get doubts out of them. It's a win-win situation.

To answer Kelly's question, if I could only pick one fruit to eat for the rest of my life from the choice of a banana or a mango, I would pick banana, because you can make a lot of stuff from it. You can fry it, you can blend it up with milk and sugar and make banana milk, you can make banana bread, you can make a banana split, you can squish it while it's in the banana peel and make a banana bomb. It reminds me of Mario kart and dropping a banana at the last second to make my enemy lose the race! Yea bananas rock.

Well, sorry to burst everyone's bubbles. I am probably the same height. The picture I sent was me in a trailer so I am not 6'9 hahahahahah that was an awesome letter dad!!!

I love you all!

-Elder Johnson

8 Nov—Houston

HEY!

This week has been great! I don't really know what to say besides that I am alive and well. The zone is killing it! My companion and I get along great, it is cooling off now and I have actually gotten cold for once! Transfers are in a week and I really don't want to leave! I think we might get a baptism this week. We just need to go see if our investigator got an answer to his prayer, and if he did, he will be baptized on Sunday.

Things have been busy, but I do like to be busy, it makes me feel like I am not being lazy and stuff like that. I forgot my camera, because I would be putting some more pics in this email if I had brought it, but I didn't, sorry!

Well I love you and I need to go!

-Elder Johnson

1 Nov—Houston

Hey fam!

Well, this week has been a good week. Our dates in the zone keep climbing and were are at 58 right now. Also, we had a baptism on Saturday. We baptized a 10 year old girl named Jackie! It was super. Let's get to the good stuff; I decided to try to upload some photos so here it goes!

The zone

Espinosa family(family that was baptized last transfer

Jackie

Espitia family baptized the transfer after I left Manvel

Hey check it out! Dad was in the Liahona. We are Latino!

Alright now thats done I will talk a little bit more. hmmmm I dont know what to say. next week we should have another baptism and the week after that as well. I dont knmow why Elder Richards and I are getting so many blessings but its happening! I love the mission life right now! The work is really taking off!
I love you!

-Elder Johnson