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

1/31

Wow..what a week! I have never been so busy in my life! I spent about 9 hours driving this week back and forth from meetings in other cities..we had church all day on Sunday because we cover 3 units, and we were able to teach 16 lessons this week! Busy busy busy..But i'm grateful for it though..it's what i've been praying for..now the task is just getting everything all organized so it's not so stressful! haha..Well..Brianna's baptism went really well! She was baptized by one of the senior missionaries covering Fort Bragg, Elder Burris. Him and his wife are both from Austin, so we have a lot of great conversations about good ol' Texas every once in a while! My companion and i are doing great! I love serving with Elder Petersen, just because of how much i learn from him each week, as well as how well we get along! I'm impressed by how much the Church is embracing technology now a days! They want all of the missionaries in our mission to create a profile on www.mormon.org and to encourage our members to do the same and to invite their friends to look at it! Mormon.org has changed a TON! It's so amazing now..As a missionary, i would encourage each and every one of y'all to create a profile and get started on it! =) But also, not only do we have cell phones..but we can text now! It makes things so much easier and it is super effective! Next thing you know..we'll be proselyting via facebook! =)

Soo..the King family..the family that we taught and wants to get baptized but are moving to Fort Riley, Kansas..it turns out that they are moving one street away from the Ward Mission Leader in that ward..how crazy is that!? It's pretty amazing to see how the Lord works..even though they won't be baptized here..He's still doing everything He can to help them out! Oh..and speaking about solid people not being able to be baptized here..we had been teaching these 3 singles and 2 of them are pretty solid! But then we found out on Saturday that they are in the Army reserves and will be heading back home in 2 weeks..haha..it was pretty funny..it really does seem like we're professional seed planters lately! haha.. well..i love/miss y'all! I hope y'all are doing well! Write me! =)

Elder Johnson

1/25

Hey everyone! This has been a pretty great week! We've been blessed with so many miracles, it's hard to know where to start! This past Tuesday we were able to meet with a family named the Kings, who were a referral from that family that moved to El Paso. They are such a great family! They have so many great questions and it has been so much fun meeting with them and being able to answer their questions and help them to learn! We were also able to meet with someone named Nathanial Davis, who is going through his AIT schooling right now in the Army. (AIT school is the schooling you get right after basic training to teach you how to do your job) Well..because of some pretty strict rules that he's under, we weren't allowed to teach him in a member's home, so we ended up teaching him in the food court at the mall on base. Then in the middle of our lesson, some random guy inturrupts us and starts screaming out some anti at us..which was really awkward..haha..Finally he left and we kept teaching..then 10 minutes later he comes back again and starts doing it all over again! haha.. it was pretty weird..He did, however, compliment my smile! =) Well..inspite of the adversary's efforts to drive the spirit away, we actually had a great lesson with him! We have another appointment to see him this Saturday, as well as with someone else named Rose who is also going through AIT right now. Well..Brianna Stewart is finally getting baptized this Saturday! We're so excited for it! Some of her family is flying in for it, and we're trying to invite as many people as we can to it, so hopefully we'll have a great turn out! Well..i hope everything is going great for y'all! I love and miss y'all! Take care!

Elder Johnson

1/18

Hey y'all! How's everything going!? This has been a pretty good week! Elder Petersen and i have been getting along great! He's probably going to end up being my favorite companion, just because of how hard we work, and how much fun we have! (but most importantly because of how hard we work..) =) He's been a great example to me of how to work with members, and i'm really looking forward to learning more from him as we continue to work together! But, as far as missionary work, we weren't able to find any new investigators this week, however, we were able to find a TON of potential! There was a family in one of our wards whom came up to us and gave us a referral to stop by, right before they got transferred to the Army Base in El Paso, Texas. So we stopped by, which was a little intimidating because we aren't really allowed to knock on people's doors on Base, unless we have an appointment..But fortunately we were able to set a return appointment for today, so we're really excited for it!! There's also a couple of other people that we are trying to get a hold of, whom have great potential! So yeah..hopefully soon we'll begin to see some change! Well..i love/miss y'all and i hope y'all are doing great!

Elder Johnson