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

November 16, 2009

Hey all you people out there!

It's the moment you have all been waiting for. It's time to here what happened in this weeks episode of Galveston Texas Dun Dun DUUUUNNNN.
We finally made our comeback week! On Monday we got three dates (baptism dates). Two of the dates are a married couple and they are planning on December 6th, and the another man is planning on that date too. It was a rough week last week but through prayer and relying on faith and the Lord we made it out and now we barley have time to do anything. I go home, write in my journal and sleep cuz im am tired! The rest of the week on Thursday we helped a family in the ward move and they are really awesome!

We have been trying really hard to work with the members in the ward. We have made an area book and we are visiting the members and teaching the restoration to them, and our commitment is to invite a friend or family over for family home evening and we can teach them a lesson. It's going great! We have gotten three referrals from it so far!

Umm on Saturday we took a lady to the church that has a baptismal date and she brought a friend of hers and her sister. While we were at the church we taught them part of the restoration and extended to them dates and they said yes! So that's five dates by the end of the week. I know the Lord has everything to do with it!

We finished our final preparations for the zone activity and its going to be awesome...except it is raining today!!!!!! Ughhhh so know we have to do everything inside the church!! Shoot!

I am sorry that this letter was short this week but we have to get going and set up for the activity and its raining so ill talk to ya all later next week!

-Elder Steven Johnson!

Nov 9 - Galveston

This week we have been doing some damage control. By damage control I mean trying to get out of our slump. We have had a couple of new ideas. Well, a new idea. It has been really hard to get referrals from members, so we thought of a plan to help our district get referrals. It's nothing new, but I think it's going to work. We made member area books and went through the ward list and found all the members in our area. And now we are visiting one member a day and teaching them different preach my gospel principles and taking a picture of the family to put in the area book so when a new elder comes into the area they can know who the family is and what we have been working on with them so the member and missionary relationship stays and it doesn't leave once the elder they like leaves. Also we are extending small commitments to them like praying for opportunities to bear their testimonies and such. Elder Roberts and I feel really good about this and I have a feeling that it's going to work.

I also went on exchanges with the zone leaders again, and this time I took them around Galveston. We worked all day and by the time we got home that night the zone leader laid down on the bed and said he was exhausted; so that was another good thing :) hahaha. Those car elders need to ride their bikes more.

Elder Roberts and I are also in charge of the zone activity this transfer and it's going to be awesome. We made the ultimate relay race. It starts off with four companionships having a chest with a padlock over it. They will receive a first clue for the key to open the padlock that says "In this pie your next clue lies." They will have to find a capsule in their cream pie. The capsule then contains another clue that says to "Go to the freezer and take a cube, you will know what to do take it to stage three." They will find a Rubik's cube in the freezer (almost all the elders know how to do a Rubik's cube). Stage 3: They go into a room and it's covered with colored dots and on the back of four dots there are four different bike lock combos. So, they get the combo and go to stage 4. Stage 4: the bikes are locked up and the tires is out and deflated. So they have to change the tire and ride the bike to stage 5. Stage 5: they go into the gym and have to make a basket from a mark on the floor. In stage 6, they go to another room and there are four boxes covered in tape and seran wrap stuff and they have to open the box. In the box, there is stuff for stage 7. Stage 7: they take the marshmellows in the box and put them in their mouth and have to tell the person in stage 7 that is blindfolded that the clue is in front of them in the jello. The blindfolded person has to use their face to get the clue out of the jello, which leads them to the paper that has scriptures and the number of word for example John 4:6 13th word so they have to write down the 13th word. It then spells "Find the key, it's in room 3." So, the go to room 3 and there are hundreds of balloons in there, and in the balloons are keys so they have to pop the balloons and get the key for their padlock. The key unlocks a chest full of prizes and stuff. Then after this awesome relay race is a barbeque. So it's going to be awesome!

The missionary work is good. I don't really know what to say. This week was rough. We have no dates, but we have found 6 new investigators. We have been working hard and knocking a lot of doors. Also riding our bikes around and talking to the people on the streets. I got my first complement that my Spanish is good from a guy that was cooking a barbeque and gave us some food. He was really nice but sadly wasn't interested. The biggest challenge is waking up on time. Both of us struggle with that but we have been getting good at it :) I had no problem with this at the MTC, but I guess after riding bikes all day you get pretty tired.

I really like reading my scriptures for an hour everyday and I always learn something new. I hope I can keep that habit up when I get home. And also waking up. I realized how much of the day I waste when I sleep in and how I dont miss out on much when I go to bed at 10 because all the stupid things happen at night time anyway. Well, I hope everyone feels better that is sick and I miss you all!!!

-Elder Johnson

Here are some pictures from the Zone activity

November 2 - Galveston

Hey family/ friends how is everything?

This week was pretty wild. So, as you know last weekend I broke my bike, and it turns out that it really wasn't as broken as I thought! it just needed a screw and that was it! Woohoo. The derailer was hanging funny so we thought I broke it. But I did get a tune up because the brakes were bad and the bike was all squeaky but now it runs as smooth as butter.

So I was on this little blue rental bike that had no shocks and the seat couldnt be raised without usuing a wrench and it had tiny skinny tires and the bike was so old that I hand to push this lever up to go into the different gears so I could petal normal and didn't have to peddle really fast to go a normal speed. So that was not very fun and we had that bike for 3 days and I went at least 300 blocks on that dumb little bike. But hey, it was a blessing because I didn't have to walk.

Then this weekend it was biker weekend and apparently 100,000 bikers came to Galveston, and guess where we went over the weekend... that's right, we got shipped off the island and stayed with the other Elders in our district in Texas City! Woohoo. It was fun, we went on splits with them and I got to knock on Johnson Street with Elder Stack. No one on Johnson street listened to us and I got a lot of doors slammed in my face, but other than that it was cool to be Elder Johnson knocking on Johnson street :).

Saturday was Halloween and we went to the Hons house because we either had to be at a member's home or our home at 6:00pm. So, we went to the Hons and they fed us some grilled cheese sandwhiches and soup and it was delicious. They also made us Butterfinger milkshakes and those were great! We brought settlers of Catan and played a few games. I won 2 of them Elder Roberts won one and Elder Stack won one. It was fun.

Today was transfers, and everyone in my district is staying except for Sister Hammar. She is going into her 3rd transfer and is training someone! crazy so that is exciting because most of our district gets to stay. Next transfer two of the missionaries in my district and going home! crazy. and Elder Stack is going to go down to Sister Jackson's Homecoming and he is going to meet Mom and Dad! woaaaaa werid!! My comapnion got a 1 transfer extension and that is cool so he doesn't go home until March.

Well, I hope everything is going well! I love you all!
-Elder Steven Johnson

p.s Steve asked me to remind his friends that he is not supposed to email friends, just his family, thanks!