Forget Yourself and go to Work! Eh?

So this week wasn't very eventful, we did a lot of driving though! We had Zone training on Tuesday, which took like 3 hours. We drove to Dartmouth for a 5 minute doctors appointment, which took 7 hours. With all of this driving though, we were able to listen to almost all of last conference! and Oh my gosh, I'm so excited, the gospels true, and I love me some modern day revelation! A couple of weeks back I heard a talk, either in church or one we got online to listen to in the car, It was about Growth. The talk detailed that to Grow we must be put through trials, and "stressed" (like the Mormon message on trials), because we are either in a Comfort zone or a Growth zone. I realized at that time, that I was pretty dang comfortable with Elder Smith and this great area. So I prayed for a growth zone, and now here I am! (Last time I prayed for a Growth Zone we ended up moving twice) and so if we want to progress, that is what God want's as well, and He will definitely answer these prayers. I'm learning a lot. I've been reading a talk by Elder Holland on "the miracle of the Mission", and I'm really coming to Understand that this is the lord's work and He can do it with or without me. But as I strive to be obedient, and bring others unto Christ, God Will Bless My Efforts! I am reminded of something i heard not too long ago. God never answers our prayers with a no, He answers "Yes", "Not Now", and "I've got Something Better". I've been taking a look at how God answers my prayers, and so far I have found this definitely applies Though one exciting thing happened, we just started doing Family Home Evening at the church every week with investigators, and less-actives, and this week for the activity we played "do you love your neighbor" lets just say, I always loved my neighbor when it was sister Graef (a 6 month pregnant Filipino women) man, it was scary going for the same chair, I wouldn't go for it if i saw her going for it because i have respect for women (especially pregnant women) but let's just say, some other people learned to respect her the hard way😁

Well Not much has happened since I emailed last Wednesday.....oh wait! my Whole life is actually different. I'm in the Same area, and the same district, but I have a new companion, and I'm suddenly in charge of imparting all i know too him! Oh, and we may have baptized Gary (Blind Gary) on Saturday😉 So Long story short, I love Gary so Much! He's the funniest dude like ever, and such a blessing in my life

, add him and he will make your gaming reach a whole new level of fun. Specifically Cole, ADD GARY!) About 3 months back, when i had just arrived into the mission field, Elder Smith Shared the Joy of Knocking apartment buildings with me. They're pretty fun, because you find all sorts of people in them! Not your typical middle class New Brunswick Roman Catholic. One day we were knocking and ended up talking with a lady for about a half hour, during this time here neighbor wandered out checked his mail, and grunted a greeting at us. We knocked the other apartments on that floor, except for the neighbor who grunted at us, and then knocked the rest of the building. On our way out of the building, both Elder Smith and I were prompted to go knock that guys apartment. So, we knocked on this guy's door, without saying a word he opened the door and invited us in. This was Gary. Gary was depressed, and in that first month i knew him i wouldn't have seen him getting baptized so soon, because he wouldn't even pray. But Prayer was the key, one lesson we focused on prayer, and crammed a couple of awesome members into his apartment with us. He asked us to prove where in the bible it said we need to pray, and as i went through the scriptures to find a good one for him, he proved it too himself! Gary Prayed that night, and the spirit was definitely there. From that point on Gary was Hooked. Gary's life was changed, he finally got his apartment subsidized, which he had been waiting years for, and as a requirement of the subsidy, they had to upgrade him to a larger top level apartment! Due to these subsidies Gary has excess money now, which is a huge change from the $50 a month he's used too. I Baptized Gary on Saturday and the first words out of his mouth were "I'm still here." He was Joking, but had such a grin on his face. After he and I changed we walked into the chapel where the Mormon Message "lift" was being shown. By the end, Gary was in tears. It's so amazing to see how God has Blessed Him. The Next Day He told Us he seriously couldn't sleep because he was so excited to "get the ghost from Smith". When We called Gary on Teusday to tell him which one of us was being transferred he was with one of the members. The Member sent us the text below while we were talking with Gary. I love you all, and I want each one of you to share your testimony of Jesus Christ with someone this week. You never know how it might effect them. Love Elder Johnson

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.