Week 4: First Full Week in Boise

Hey there!

So I have survived one week of the mission! It has been great, very
exhausting but I know I will get used to it. So we have been doing
car/bike everyday. We usually drive our car to town, then get on our
bikes and ride around. We've been getting a lot of good miles on our
bikes! So I have met lots and lots of our families/investigators. We
have about 16 investigators right now which is a lot to handle! We
have a big range of backgrounds, we teach a lot of part member
families, a lot of inactive/less active, and a lot of excommunicated.
They are all so great though, this is nothing like what I thought a
mission would be like, I thought when we taught somebody it would
be like intense and they're like drilling us with questions, but its so
much fun and a good environment. Elder Stepherson told me the
other day, don't worry about forgetting a principle to teach or
something, they don't have any idea what you're suppose to teach,
so be confident with what you say and if you leave anything big out,
that's what your companion is for. So teaching has been lots of fun.


Thursday night we went and contacted a inactive member, a guy in
his 40's, he is way cool, he was headed out for a bike ride when we
got to his house and we were on our bikes so we went out with him.
We got to do some other contacting while we were with him, but it
was mostly just fellow shipping with him. Then we went to the bmx
track with him and rode that for a little while. My mountain bike is so
sweet I love it , but bmx tracks are definitely made for bmx bikes, the
rhythm section is pretty hard to do with 26" wheels lol but I was
jumping some doubles so it was awesome.

We went on Wednesday night to a Meridian Stake Center, a couple in
the ward was having their farewell that Sunday, they got called to be
the Mission President of the Baltimore, Maryland Mission. So we sang
Ye Elders of Israel, Army of Helamen, and Called to Serve for them in
Sacrament meeting. There were two zones there, so about 30
missionaries.

Sundays are probably the longest days because we have to go to 3
Sacrament meetings, we cover a whole stake, so we get to pick 3 of
the 7 wards to go to. We usually try and go to the wards where we
have investigators going to church. It was Father's Day so most of
the people we committed to come to church didn't come. So this week
we're lowering the hammer on them lol.

Yesterday we had a miracle happen to us. We had a dinner appoint-
ment all the way north of town and we were on bikes all day, we
left our car at the house. So time flew by us and it was 8:45 pm
when we left their house to go home, so we had 15 minutes to get
home on time and the ride is about 5 miles and either flat or up hill
and we were already exhausted from riding all day (we got odo-
meters on our bikes and we had ridden 20 miles already) so we
were riding back and Elder Stepherson turned down a random road
that we never turn down so I yelled up ahead "where are we going?"
and he said "I don't know, I just felt we should go this way". Not a
minute later a big truck rolled up and asked if we wanted a ride!
Haha, it was so great so we put our bikes in the back and he drove
us back and we got home right at 8:59 pm! Miracles happen, I see
them every day here.

So Saturday the Ramos family got baptized! It was awesome! There
were so many people there, people had to stand in the back. Oh and
that morning President Yardley had called to check up on me since I
was a greenie and we told him about the baptism and he said he was
gonna come! Man we were nervous having our Mission President there!
But it turned out great and it was such a spiritual experience!

The best address to use is my mission office address still, since I'm so
close I get it either that same day or the next day so it works fine,
plus with transfers, we still get letters for missionaries that used to
live here so just use the mission office one even for packages, just
make sure you use priority mail or first class so that they can be
forwarded to me (UPS, FEDEX etc. can't be forwarded so I have to
wait about a week to get those packages).

I'm glad YC went great, Cody is a good helper, he's got a good
head on his shoulders.  I still haven't gotten my back pack from
Missionary Mall yet, but Elder Stepherson gave me his old one
so I have one I can use for now. I asked my district and they
have heard of Elder Fletcher, they had never met him but they
do remember the accident last December.

Well I love and miss you!

-Elder Johnson