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

week 7

So to start off, people have been praying for me to be fed well. we started with only 2 dinner appointments this week, and by the end we had actually had like 7. So i guess i must have sounded to desperate last week about the food, but thank you for the prayers! Strawberry season has definitely hit! I was fed Strawberry shortcake so many times this week, one day we were fed it 3 times! it was so good though, i think that i might have to start eating this for breakfast because it's pretty easy to make. One cool story. This week we were in a town called Quispamsis. My comp was flipping through the area book and i was calling people. He saw one persons record a couple times, and felt prompted to visit them, though they were technically out of our area. We got it cleared, and headed off to visit this part member family. We were in the backwoods and found the address. Elder Smith confidently walked up, introduced himself and boldly asked if we could teach him (the non-member) he said no and excused us. as we left i realized we were at the wrong Place! now this probably doesn't sound that funny, but like it was flippin hilarious. we tried the place next door (because the house number was on a rock in between three houses), and like the same thing happened, the last house didn't answer, so we assumed it was them. We started driving up the road and decided to knock. We stopped by this sweet lake, and took pictures. While doing so a guy walked up to us and started talking to us. This is all in the spread out backwoods of Canada by the way. This guy ended up being the non-member we were looking for and we had pulled over next to his house, that backed up to this lake! God totally sent us to see the Shipley Family in a roundabout way, and he wanted us there at the right time. looking back i can see where the spirit prompted us in small ways, that we didn't notice at the time. Life is crazy, so love it. Love Elder Johnson P.S. There is a cool website linked to familyserch called RelativeFinder.org and it shows how you're related to lots of cool people, and you can make groups to see how you're related to your Hombre's. My District Leader Is my 3rd Cousin 😁

week 6

This week i met a dreamer named Kevin, an 80 year old man taught me to make fudge, and i haven't seen the sun since last Monday! (I guess Annie was wrong) Wednesday we did about 30 minutes of proselyting at a car show, which was cool, and totally effective as we had just finished learning to make fudge with Chester, the Local Fudge wizard. We had so much fudge i don't think i'll be able to eat more for a month. it was basically the best food you can think of except better. This week we went on exchanges in the city St. John, please look up pics it's soooo cool, and its on the ocean/river. This is where i met kevin, the dreamer. So in St. John these people are called dreamers, i don't really know what was up with them they are just barely special needs i suppose. Kevin was around 60 and he liked sitting in the rain. We met him in King's Square where we were holding a free lemonade stand so we could talk to people. unfortunately it was raining so the park was mostly empty. This was good though because it led us to a woman on the edge of the park who we learned had been inactive for over 20 years. When we first talked with her she was about ready to beat us with her book, but after listening to her life's story she she said she'd love to talk with us again, and thus again God Loves His Children! and i'm grateful that God prepared us that day so that we would meet her. After this we talked with a guy the local missionaries call "180 proof" he's a little mixed up in the head. But in genesis it says something like "the son's of god married the daughters of men" and 180 proof explained to me that actually this means Aliens came together with earth creatures, and we came from this; "Obviously because we are the only animals on earth with 2 legs!" so basically the gospel is true, and you can know for yourself. If you ask God with a sincere heart, and real intent to act on the answer you may know the truth of anything you ask him. So I invite you to study out what you would ask god, and when you have a sincere question ask him! I love you guys Elder Johnson