4/25

Hey everyone! This has been just an average week..nothing too exciting happened. We did find a bunch of new investigators, so that was pretty exciting! Yesterday was Stake conference for our Stake, and we really enjoyed it! It was a great way to celebrate Easter! The zone is picking back up, a little. We had a great month of April and hopefully we will have another fantastic month of May! We are going to be meeting with Elder Scott this Saturday! I'm so excited for it! He is definitely one of my favorites! =) Elder Moreno and I are getting along really well! We both work hard together and we teach really well together, and we have a lot of fun together! He's definitely turning out to be one of my favorite companions! He's really big into skate boarding and other extreme sports, infact he got invited to some skate competition and took like..6th place in the entire state of Utah! But yeah..we were riding our bikes and he saw a jump, so he went off of it..and went face first into a bush! We got it on video! It was priceless! haha.. Well i love y'all and i'll talk to y'all later!

Elder Johnson

4/18

Soo..talk about a crazy week! First we had activity zone conference over in Chapel Hill..The lesson was really good and it was on "Revelation through Prayer" Then afterwards..we played ultimate Frisbee, volleyball, capture the flag, and soccer, followed by the final relay race..which my team actually won! =) My part in the relay race was to spin around 10 times really fast, and then sprint down the field..i ended up about 3 lanes over from where i should have been! haha.. But..the best part about the zone conference was the announcement that on April 30th, Elder Richard G. Scott is coming to our mission and we're going to have a mission conference! I'm so excited for that! Well..in case you haven't heard..about 62 tornadoes touched down in the state of North Carolina on Saturday, 6 of which were actually in our area. A few people died, and a lot of people were left powerless. We, fortunately, were safe the entire time and we never lost power. Unfortunately..we did not actually get to see any of the tornadoes..=( But on Sunday morning, we went out with a bunch of other brethren from the singles ward, and swiftcreek ward, and cleared out a bunch of trees. It was so weird because we would be driving through a neighborhood and everything would seem perfectly fine, but then we would turn down a street and there was utter chaos everywhere! I have never seen anything like it. It was a lot of fun being able to help others out, and a lot of people were very grateful for our service! We worked all morning until it was time to go to church..and then we ended up having to go to church in blue jeans and t-shirts! haha..weirdest experience ever has a missionary.. Someone asked us (jokingly..i hope..) if they switched our p-days to Sundays! haha.. But yeah..it turned out to be a great experience and an effective finding activity! (which is exactly what our zone needs right now...) Well..i love y'all and i pray for y'all every night! Take care and good luck with everything!

Elder Johnson

4/11

Hey everyone! Sorry if this is short, i don't have much time..had to do a bunch of other stuff on the computer today. Soo..we had a baptism..randomly. haha..One of our dates named Tara called us up on Monday night and was like.."hey is it possible for my baptism to be moved up to a sooner day?" Tara has been coming to church and keeping all of the commandments since about December..so the answer was yes. =) But it turned out to be a great spiritual experience! Just before the ordinance, her and a friend went into the changing room and she was about to come out, but she felt really nervous. Suddenly she just fell to her knees and pleaded with the Lord for strength to go through with it! The Lord answers prayers. =) We've got another date for the 23rd of April with someone named Kelsey. She is amazing! She is pretty much a dry Mormon..haha..But she's been reading the Book of Mormon and she finally is pretty confident that it is true! =) Well i love y'all! I hope y'all are doing well!

Elder Johnson

4/4

Well..today is officially the first day of my last transfer in the field..That is so weird..Elder Farrer is getting transferred to be a senior zone leader elsewhere, and i get to train a new zone leader again! I really LOVED General Conference! It was all exactly what i needed to hear to help me accomplish goals that i have for this last transfer. It is definitely my new favorite General Conference! =) This has been a pretty good week! We are teaching someone named Sister Hunter who is SO solid..she's got a testimony of the Book of Mormon, understands the apostasy and the importance of baptism and everything! But unfortunately she works every sunday.. She knows for sure she'll be off Easter Sunday and she plans on coming to church then..but it would be so great if she could come EVERY Sunday. She's already asked her boss for work off on Sundays, but it got denied. =( Hopefully we will see a miracle this week! We plan on teaching her this week of the potential she has as a child of God to have great faith and obedience! (teach "be" rather than "do") Hopefully through her faith, something will happen! =) The zone had a couple more baptisms this past week, but also dropped in a lot of numbers. We had a great zone leader council meeting last week where we learned of the importance of finding new investigators and hopefully we can improve on that number as a zone, because that is where we struggle the most. Kelsey Souza is doing great! So is Tara! They both went to conference and enjoyed it! Hopefully things will pick up in our area so that we can be a model area for the zone. Well i love y'all and i hope y'all are doing well!

Elder Johnson

3/28

Well..this has been a pretty okay week. We had a miracle happen last Sunday! There is someone named Tara that comes to church every week who is not a member. She had a baptismal date back in October but something happened and she refused to continue to meet with the missionaries anymore. Well..last Sunday, Elder Farrer and I both felt like we should talk to her and invite her to meet with us again. WELL..all throughout church we didn't really get a chance to talk to her. So during third hour..i was feeling a little dissappointed, that we didn't get that chance..but after class let out, she was waiting for us in the hallway! She said she had been going through a hard time and prayed for some guidance. Then, as much as she hated it, "meet with the missionaries" kept coming to her, and she took that as her answer! So after church, she circled the building 2 times looking for us and was about to give up, but then she saw us through the window as she was walking by the class! We were able to meet with her this past week and she set the baptismal date of April 23rd! Then yesterday during fast and testimony meeting, she got up and bore her testimony for the first time of how she used to not believe in God, but thanks to the Book of Mormon, which she knows to be true, she now knows God and knows that He loves her! It was pretty cool! =) As far as Kelsey Souza goes, we'll have to see when we go to our appointment tomorrow. She plays ultimate frisbee for NC State and was gone all weekend long on a tournament, and her date is for this Saturday. We're going to pray REALLY hard for her to recieve her answer! =) Well..i love y'all and i hope y'all enjoy conference this week! Take care!

Elder Johnson

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