It's a Boy!

Well I'm going to be a dad (as mission lingo puts it) I'll be picking up a fresh little Greenie tomorrow at 10, and Elder Smith Gets to hang out with us for the rest of the weekend so that will be cool. It's going to be so awesome to Train a new guy! I still pretty much am a new guy, so hopefully i don't confuse the kid. It's going to be weird losing Elder Smith, I love the dude, he's a stud. Cool Story! So Saint John is the "Huge City" next to our area, and Elders Hoole and Maughn were knocking on the Eastside. They are about to knock on a door, when an overly excited hippy lady grabs them and says some stuff, they are so caught off guard they can't comprehend. Long story short this is Megan, She is a less-active, who was driving to her brothers and Having a rough day/life. She started Praying to God for a sign of what to do in her life! it could even be that dead fly on her dashboard, she didn't care. As she pulled up to her brothers, she saw to handsome young bucks knocking on his door, and she had found her answer! Unfortunately for these two young bucks she had moved into my area, and out of theirs. Megan is so Cool though! she's been less active for a while and has a super cool non-member husband named Tom. They are both totally ready for the Gospel! They both keep reiterating, over and over that they want to come to church and want God in their lives now! They both Have been down some rough paths, and have found for themselves that they truly need God in their lives, and all of these material things are a joke. Sounds kind of hippy right? I love it! It's so fun to have lessons with them (though not as fun as having a lesson with Blind Gary) They are just searching for truth, and light in their lives. It's amazing to see the potential happiness and peace the gospel is going to bring the both of them. Pics 1. We found a ridiculously large church, and guess what? It was Catholic! because there are a lot of Catholics in the Maritimes. We spoke with the Matron and it was interesting to learn there are more similarities than i had previously thought, such as the repentance process (or at least how it was explained to me). 2.Sunrise 3. I Forgot the keys inside the house, and got stuck in a tiny window 4. epic fog Well I'm grateful to be here, helping others come unto Christ. I love you all, and hope you are getting pumped for Conference! it's going to be da bomb Elder Johnson

Tea? Really??

So i would like to start by saying, the Canadians are really concerned about you guys! Probably more concerned about you than you are about yourselves. Why? Because Politics. Canadians know more about our Country than we know about it. A large majority of them wish Bernie was president and Love Barrack Obama, they're just concerned about this election, they all tell me once they find out I'm American. This week we really focused on Gary Tingley, we lovingly refer to him as Blind Gary, because 50% of Canadians seem to be named Gary, and this Gary just happens to be blind (legally that is). So Elder Smith and i have Prayed real hard to know the date that we should invite Gary to be baptised, and we came to the answer of September 10th. So Wednesday we re-invited Gary to be baptised and he totally accepted! We went through the Baptismal questions and he was on fire! To 'Do you Believe in Jesus Christ' he yelled "Heck Yes!", and to 'Do you believe Joseph Smith and Thomas s. Monson as prophets of God?' he said "too easy next" (because he Loves President Monson). We get to the word of wisdom, and Gary stumbled "I don't see anything wrong with tea, at all, why would i stop drinking it?" he said. "I'll keep the other 98% of it" but that's not good enough, and Gary was offended. His fire died. We had 2 other lessons with him, and he had re-committed to be baptised September 10th, but come sunday morning we found him drinking tea, ignoring our calls, and not coming to church. Well that stinks. It really does. But Gary knows the truth, it'll just take him time, and personal prayer. So on another topic, yesterday Elder Smith and I were volunteered to teach Elder's Quorum since the teacher had to bail. We decided just to have an open discussion/Q and A. I was totally prompted to ask about Scripture study, something i need to improve, and this set off an awesome discussion. One simple system that one guy used in reading/studying the scriptures was... 1. What's going on (background of what you're reading) 2. What principles are being taught 3. What are YOU Learning My Challenge to Ya'll is to try this tonight, i tried it this morning and i like it 👌 FUN Story. Nature abounds here and i almost hit a raccoon the other night. Elder smith and I may or may not have a points system set up 😉 just kidding... Elder smith has arachnophobia, not really but he really doesn't like spiders. Here in New Brunswick, they probably don't spray for spiders, because they are everywhere, it's crazy. Every house we go too has at least a dog, a cat, and Front door covered in huge spiders. Blessedly, spiders haven't landed on him while we are knocking yet, because I've found His tongue is definitely loosed I know Jesus Christ is our Savior and He loves everyone of us individually! Love Elder Johnson P.S. Totally saw the fourth largest passenger ship in the world, driving through St. John on Wednesday. it was cool.

The Government Deports my Companion

So like, the government didn't actually deport him, i just said that so you'd open this email and read it, so there! I hope you didn't actually think that a Canadian would deport anybody, they are all too nice. But last night our GPS led us down a forbidden trail. It wasn't actually forbidden, but we were driving down a dirt road on the way to a dinner appointment, and the road narrowed a little at a time till we were on this super tiny four wheeling trail! so we stuck it out, thinking "hey, it'll open up to the road soon enough" but then we came to the impassible river of mud, and figured we were better off not attempting that. Estelle the Chevy Equinox handled it well, and were able to back up to a y in the trail where we had room to turn around. So in short, we took our mission vehicle mudding. on accident. This week was sweet we were able to teach a lot about God's priesthood authority here on the Earth, and The importance of learning for oneself the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We have an investigator named Sharan (shuh-ron), he's from India, and a pastry chef! So Sharan is very easy to teach because he is very smart, but as we've taught him he kept emphasising his belief that all religion is good, and he wants to pull the good out of all of it. Now I agree in one sense all religion can be good, but not all religion has the exact truth, how could they? they disagree in their teachings. Now please don't let me offend anyone, i do respect your beliefs and I am just sharing mine. So, we taught Sharan that our church teaches that it is the only church that is 100% true. This is a Bold Statement, and we told him that these are our beliefs and we challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and pray daily so that he can learn for himself whether what we are sharing with him is true or false. It was great because later in the evening Sharan was at what we call a "cottage meeting" where our investigators come and meet at a members home and we discuss a gospel topic. The topic was the Book of Mormon. Bishop Russell led the discussion, and shared all sorts of convincing facts that tell us the Book of Mormon is true. "But in the end" he said, "none of these matter, to know for yourself you will need to study the Book of Mormon; through reading, pondering, and praying, you can know for yourself." God totally inspired that topic so as to better help Sharan understand. so.... challenge time 😉 i challenge you to study the Book of Mormon for at least 5 minutes every night for the next week. ok? can you handle this? Study defined as searching, pondering, and Praying. take the challenge as a family, make sure someone is holding you responsible to read each night. YOU GOT IT! Love Elder Johnson

3 Minutes

Canadians 65% think i look like someone they know (Its super weird, apparently i have one of those faces) 25% don't believe I'm white, and assume i'm either native or Mexican (too far from the other border) The rest- assume i work at whatever store i'm grocery shopping in So this week was Gary week. The guy in the picture down there, ya that"s Gary. Gary is legally blind, and so dang funny, we've had him with us like half of the week. When we first met Gary, He was really closed off to people, and just sad, stuck in the rut of disabled unemployment. That was one month ago. We met Gary by knocking an apartment. We talked to his neighbour forever at her door, and in the mean time Gary "scoped us out" and "pretended to check his mail, even though he'd already done it that day". We actually skipped his door for some reason though, and knocked the rest of the building. On our way out of the apartment both Elder Smith and I got hit with the prompting to go back to him. It wasn't like a crazy burning of the bosom, just being slapped by a thought. We knocked on his door, and he let us in without us saying anything. Yesterday, we brought Gary to church. He told us he wasn't going to last 3 hours of church, but we ended up spending 5 hours with Gary! We taught him about the Sabbath and priesthood before church, then we had church (which was revitalised by him, the discussions were great, and funny. Converts are the life blood of the church), and we had a lesson after with the bishop and a couple of guys who had hung around. Gary totally felt the spirit, he was just grinning, and he was actually dancing in the parking lot! He is a seeker of truth though. I previously thought we might have a concern of converting him to the sociality of the church, rather than the principles. We were telling him how one of us could be transferred in a month though, and he was totally disappointed. But, He said we needed to stop wasting time talking about other stuff, and spend as much time in the lessons as possible. Gary has definitely felt the spirit, and is hooked. This is the true church, and for those of you reading who are non-members or less-actives please ask yourselves why the heck I'm choosing to give 2 years of my life to it.Take 3 minutes tonight, to think about these things and your life, and ask God if it would be good to talk with the Mormon Missionaries. I promise you will receive an answer, just be open and look. Love Elder Johnson "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." -Abraham Lincoln

Inner Hippie

​This week was fast and furious, but I had the some opportunities to let my inner hippie out. We had Zone Conference on Tuesday, which was super legit, because in this mission we are so spread that we Elder Smith and I barely see other missionaries. On Thursday we had a lesson with Gary. Now Gary is one of the funniest people I know, but his life is sad because he is legally blind, and stuck on welfare in a basement apartment. We took Harley Westerman, One of the goofiest members in our ward to his lesson to meet him. Man! that was one of the funniest lessons I've ever been in. Though the spirit was there, for sure. After so many weeks Gary is truly understanding God's love for him. At the end of the Lesson we asked him to give the closing prayer, and he Gave it! Gary was beaming after the prayer, he just leaned forward and gave us high fives it was so cool! We had another lesson with Gary yesterday, and he is coming along so great. We gave him a simple lesson on commandments, and challenged him never to swear again. "Oh....." he said "That's it? give me more!" and he then basically taught himself that prayer and scripture study are commandments, and gained a simple testimony as I raced him through the scriptures to find a scripture that gives us prayer as a commandment, He found it first😁 My hippie came out this week as we met Judy, who is a gardener and green living kind of lady. She gave us a tour of her garden (that was just gorgeous) for a good two hours, which led us to teaching her Sunday and finding her husband needs help this week chopping fire wood. Judy's whole property was described best by Elder Smith when he said "I feel like we're in Fablehaven!" It's way sweet and has an electric fence all the way around it. Judy gave us each a little cactus as well, so 'm basically at home now. We taught a less-active on Friday morning, Sue Watson. She's just a greenlife hippie, running triathlon's and Iron man's. We were teaching her on he back deck, and we heard a baby bird out in the grass. The next thing we know, a crow swoops down and carries it away to eat it. Sue was not Pleased "The world is so cruel!" she stated in distress. Elder Smith and I are so blessed with the investigator's we have, and I can see that God really prepares people who we can connect with, Testifying to me personally that he knows us. No matter what, God knows where you are in your life, and he has a plan for you. There really aren't coincidences. Elder Johnson PS it's berry season, they are everywhere. And its always foggy, I feel like I'm in Twilight when we go through these backroads.

Following Promptings

It's been like 4 days since i last emailed, but it's been good. So Elder Smith and I helped a less active family move on Friday morning, and so we rescheduled our studies to that night. As we were leaving the church to go do studies that night, i was thinking of a member and felt prompted to knock their street. "Elder Smith" I said, "I don't know if this is a prompting or if I'm Crazy" and I turned the car around, and we Knocked the street. About 3 houses in I was doubting whether I had a prompting or not, and Elder Smith pointed out that we weren't even on the Members Street! Shortly after this mini conversation, Kellie opened the Door, and SHE was why we were there. Kellie is a truth seeker who has recently started searching the Bible and praying, she has an amazing testimony of Prayer. We had a great lesson with her, and She wanted her daughter to meet with us as well, because her daughter lost a friend 2 years back, and her daughter is angry at God and the World. Promptings of the spirit aren't always overwhelming feelings, and at times aren't even discernible as promptings. But as we do our best, we can ask ourselves "Is this the Best thing?", and that can help. I love you guys, and I know Jesus Christ is my Savior, I know that I am Imperfect and without Jesus I couldn't live with God again. He is such a blessing. Love ya! Elder Johnson

Transfer 1

Soooo. This week be Crazy. Elder Smith and i were assigned Talks, and a Zone Conference Training this week, on top of that we have 9 investigators in our teaching pool, and a bunch of other people we are working with, so we got hit hard this week, but the Lord DEFINITELY Blessed our efforts. So I was looking through the Area Book on the way to Sussex, I found one Former in there who had no contact info, just address, and he sounded like a promising guy to visit. This guys name is Garnet. So we went to garnet's house and He Wasn't There. So we came back again and again throughout the week. We finally contacted him and he said he wanted nothing to do with us and he had lost faith, the spirit was with us though and Elder Smith and I we asked questions which were inspired, because instead of kicking us off his porch he grudgingly let us in to talk. We had a lesson basically talking about his beliefs, I think this Really helped because he shared beliefs which sounded like he might have some faith in god still, and this helped him recognize the faith he still had. We had a follow up lesson on Friday, in which we invited him to be baptized August 27th and he Accepted! God really does have a plan for His children, and i testify that He loves and blesses his children as well, to the level that they allow Him to bless them. In Other news Friday was weekly planning, and after giving the training on Thursday, we were Sapped! so Elder Smith and I played Hide and go Seek in our apartment, and it was so dang fun. I didn't think that it would be possible to first off play hide and go seek in an apartment, and second have so much fun doing that, but Brothers and Sisters, I TESTIFY That Hide and Go seek is super fun, and instead of being hooked to this dang pokemon go ya'll need to get together and play some real games in real life. I saw My First Moose, it was roadkill, and we didn't see the car that hit it, so either the moose ate them, or after hitting such a majestic creature they just ceased to exist. Kind of Glad i didn't see it though because that was a large animal, and i don't think that car could have come through in any good shape. I love You all, And so Does Jesus Christ, And It is by his grace that we are saved, so long as we exercise faith in him. 💞 Elder Johnson

P.S. For those of you who said you'd write me (*cough *cough *grunt Merril Gary) I'm sorry i can't write you because I only have the emails of people who write me first. crazy stuff