3/21

Hey everyone! This has been an amazing week!! I had the privelege of going to the temple this week with one of my recent converts while I was back in Garner to see him recieve his endowments and get sealed to his wife! It was probably the best experience I have ever had in my life and I am so grateful for it! What made it better is that i got to go through with Elder Tibbitts, who was my companion in Garner, and Elder Tibbitts is pretty much my best friend in the mission! I am very grateful for President Cotterell allowing me to go and do that! It also added to my testimony that God places us missionaries exactly where we are supposed to be, because both Elder Tibbitts and I are really really close to the Temple, so we were able to go! Where as if we had been somewhere else in the mission, it would have been a little more difficult. Well..i'm also getting started on choosing classes for BYU Idaho..i've decided to major in child development for now, but that may change to pshychology or sociology..or maybe even something else that has nothing to do with either of those..haha. Unfortunately, however..I did not get the track that I want so that is a little frustrating. They have me on the Fall/Spring track..so pretty much I'll go to school this september until december..then i have off all the way until April..and then i'll be in school until mid July..which pretty much eliminates any chance for a summer job after this year. But i guess it'll give me a little bit more motivation to do well in school so that i can transfer to Provo! Well..the zone is doing great! Just to clarify..those 22 dates last week were not my dates..but the total dates combined as a zone. (I WISH we had 22 dates..) The dates this week dropped a little bit..but investigators at sacrament improved a BUNCH so I really feel that we improved this past week. Plus..we have 5 baptisms coming up in the zone this week, so we're excited! That will put us at a total of 6 baptisms for the zone for the month of March..and it's been a while since this zone has had that many! Well..I love y'all and i hope y'all are doing great! Talk to y'all next week!

Elder Johnson

3/14

Hey everyone. I'm sorry to hear about Grandma Johnson's passing, I'm gonna miss her a lot. I think what i'm going to miss the most is how happy she always was! I honestly can't remember Grandma Johnson without a smile on her face. It's times like these that help remind us how great of a blessing the plan of happiness really is! It's really comforting knowing that we'll all get to see her again.

Well..this week was pretty tough..it was spring break! Campus was a ghost town..and pretty much..so was the church! haha..Literally every single one of our investigators was out of town. So this week..in order to be effective..we had to be creative! NC State has something called the "free expression tunnel" where you can just go and paint whatever you want. Well..this tunnel gets a lot of traffic during school hours..so us, two other missionaries, and some singles took a couple of hours out of the day and went and painted an advertisement for mormon.org on the side of the tunnel..it was pretty fun! =) It should be a good little surprise to everyone coming back from spring break! Now the only thing we've gotta worry about is..how long it stays up there! We told all of the members that they're on guard duty to make sure it lasts at least a week! =) Well..hopefully this week will pick up a little bit! The zone is doing great! We went from 15 to 22 investigators with a baptismal date! So things are definitely picking up in that area! Well i love y'all and i hope y'all are doing great! Here are some pictures of the wall! Enjoy!

Elder J

Me golfing

Brother Brack's Reenlistment Ceremony

Free Expression Tunnel

Mormon.org

3/7

Hey err-body! Great news! Our zone more than doubled baptismal dates this past week! =) WOOO!! It really is a lot of fun being able to see the zone improve so much! As a zone, we have a goal of 8 baptisms for the month of March, which is about 1 per companionship. Right now, things are looking great so hopefully we should reach that! This week for us was great! We contacted someone on campus named Christina, who, beleive it or not, is actually writing a missionary that is currently serving in Brasil! She is such a great individual! She is actually in Guatamala right now for spring break doing service for some organization! She seems really excited to read the Book of Mormon, which is exciting! I know that as she reads the Book of Mormon sincerely, which i think she'll do..there is no way that she won't feel the power of the book! =) Speaking of Spring Break..this week is going to be kind've hard..haha.. Literally..every single one of our investigators is out of town! haha..On a lighter note..the NC State school of Math and Science set out to break the world record for a food drive by having the most pounds donated in a day. The old record was held by, none other than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So what do they do? They ask both the Raleigh and the Apex stakes to pitch in and help out! In fact..our church made the biggest contribution to the food drive and the organization set the world record by donating over 500,000 pounds of food in one day! Yay for Mormons, beating the Mormons!! haha.. well..i love y'all! I hope y'all have a good week!

Elder Johnson

2/28

Dear "J" clan. This might be brief..i don't have too much time. But this week has been pretty good! The zone improved dramatically!! We're still not quite where we want to be, but we definitely feel that it was a step in the right direction and that we are going to continue to climb! Our District Leaders help us out a TON and we are so grateful for them! We had an amazing Zone Leader Council meeting this week where our Mission President stood up and announced to us as leaders and pretty much called us out on our lack of faith. He said something to the effect of Elders, we, as a mission in general, need more faith. That was so huge! A key holder, calling us to repentance, pretty much! It was such a neat experience. As far as our area, we've got someone that we're teaching named Kelsey..and she is great! We're excited to be able to continue to work with her and see miracles happen! Well..i love y'all a lot! Take care!

Elder Johnson

2/23

Sooo...surprise! I'm not in Fayetteville anymore. I got transferred on Tuesday, and the libraries were closed on Monday so i couldn't tell y'all about it. I am now a zone leader of the Apex Zone! (where the Temple is) I cover the Raleigh University Singles Ward..so pretty much my area is the NC State campus! It is so much fun! Campus contacting is a blast! But i think the craziest thing about the entire thing is that our ward meets in the same building as the Garner ward, which is one of my past areas!! So i'll get to see everyone from the Garner ward all over again! The greatest part about that is that Phil Hess, who i helped get Baptized in the Garner ward is getting sealed on March 11th, and now i'm so close to both the Temple and the Hess family! The Lord definitely answers prayers! =) As far as Fayetteville goes, I'm going to miss Elder Petersen a ton! I learned so much from him, and we both had SO many miracles our last week together! We were able to set 2 baptismal dates last week, and they both have tons of potential! Also, the Fayetteville 3rd ward just got new missionaries for themselves on Tuesday, so now my last area only has 2 units that they cover, the Fort Bragg Ward and the YSA Branch. Well..i've finally got my mormon.org profile up! The link is http://www.mormon.org/me/3CCH/# if y'all want to check it out. Well..my new companion is named Elder Farrer, he is so amazing! The Lord has definitely been blessing me with great companions lately! We both face a pretty tough challenge. The Apex zone usually hasn't done too well baptizing and numbers have been dropping these past couple of weeks, but I feel that we're going to see a lot of success here in the near future! One of our District Leaders is Elder Marc Oslund. I took his place when in Fort Bragg when I became a Zone Leader, and I had some LARGE shoes to fill! Elder Oslund is a convert to the church and was a pitcher at BYU before he came on his mission! I'm really excited to have him as a District Leader, as well as Elder Tibbitts who is one of my past companions. Actually..he was my companion back when I was in Garner! Small world..We also have another District Leader with a ton of potential! This is his first time being a district leader..in fact..he got called about 5 minutes before transfer meeting started! haha.. But we're both really confident in our district leaders and we're excited to be able to work together and see some miracles! Well i love y'all and i hope y'all are doing well!

Elder Johnson

2/14

Happy V-Day! =) Probably the most worthless holiday as a missionary, but it's okay. At least i got a sweet valentine from my companion this morning! Soo..crazy story. I was sitting on one of the chairs at church on Sunday, and someone in the singles branch comes up to me and asks.."Hey..are you Jared's brother!?" haha..he then introduced himself as Adam Facundo and said that he knew Jared, and had actually taken seminary from Mom! He even said that he had slept in my house! haha..how crazy is that? The church is such a small world.. So yeah..if there's anything y'all want me to tell him, let me know! =) Well..this was an okay week. We definitely saw some improvements and some more miracles! One, for example, we went to go try to stop by a part member family, and while we were walking down the street, we realized that the address we had was not in existance. Soo..we were a little flustered at first, but then we realized that the Lord wanted us there for some specific reason and that we needed to find out what it was. We then looked over at the house a little bit further down the street from us and saw that it had a really nice truck, so we figured we would start there! haha.. Well..we approach the truck and there is a sticker on the back that says "Kingdom of Tonga"..so we were like.."wait a minute!..." sure enough, it was the part member family we were trying to find! We have an appointment to go and see them this Friday..and it's a dinner appointment, too! =) Then while we were walking back..some random guy stopped next to us and asked if we needed a ride! We both kind've looked at eachother and were like ".....sure!" So we hop on in and start talking to this guy, and we have an appointment to go see him this week! That was such a great experience! It definitely lifted our spirits a ton! Well..i love and pray for y'all! I hope y'all are doing well! Take care!

Elder Johnson

2/7

Soo..last week we had a great DLC/ZLC meeting, and we all bought into the goal of doubling our baptisms this year. At first it was a little hard to beleive that it could be done, but then we remembered who it was that was asking us to double baptisms. A couple of years ago, President Hinckley asked us to double baptisms, and even today President Monson supports that. So if that is coming from Prophets of God, then that means it is a commandment from God to double baptisms and He will always provide a way for us to keep His commandments. So then we had a very revelatory experience as my companion, myself, and our 2 amazing District Leaders discussed how we were going to accomplish this. We talked a lot about how we need to increase in our faith, and how we need to repent, and how we need to be obedient to our covenants..and before we knew it, we were talking about the Doctrine of Christ! So we came up together as a zone to not only teach the Doctrine of Christ, but to apply the Doctrine into our own lives, and then we were going to hold eachother accountable. So ever since then, we've been looking for ways that we can apply the Doctrine of Christ into our own lives. Well..last Monday we got an email from our mission president asking us to destroy all of our copied cds!!! I have to admit..i completely ignored that email at first. I think it wasn't until the next day when my companion and I finally realized that we needed the blessings and miracles that would come from being obedient, more than we needed music. So we destroyed them, and we spent the rest of the week watching for miracles to happen! Well..they did happen! We were able to meet lots of people, and set up some great appointments with people we wanted to set baptismal dates with! We even had members who were bringing friends to church this Sunday..it was amazing! All of that happened randomly and right after we destroyed those cds! We were so excited to see the fruits of our obedience!

Well..all of those things fell through. Every single one of them..for random reasons, too. One of them had to leave town because he had a friend die overseas, one had to go out of town for family, one had a sick child and had to rush him to the hospital, one had to go comfort a friend who gave birth to a still born, another was sick, another got called in for work the morning of church. It was as if they were all destined not to progress. We didn't have anybody at church yesterday, we weren't able to teach anyone that isn't moving soon, and we had to drop the only baptismal date that we had. It was hard. To be quite honest, i was very disappointed and upset. I think I even told God that in my prayers last night. But then in the middle of my prayers, i just reflected back on the week and i was able to see all of the positives and all of the good things that happened, and then I realized that my time is not His. We will be able to double our baptisms, but it's probably not going to be a sprint. I realized that I need patience..haha. But i know everything is going to work out and I can't wait to report to y'all next week and hopefully have some better news! Well, i love/miss y'all and i hope y'all are doing great! Take Care!

Elder Johnson