Week 9: Last week in Kuna

Hey so this is my last e-mail from Kuna, Idaho! Yesterday
Brother Miller took us out for a farewell lunch and we went
to my favorite place, B-dub's (buffalo wild wings). That was
awesome. This past week has been pretty good. We had a challenge
in our zone for the companionship that could get the most member
present lessons in a week and we won!!! We got 7 this week and
blew everyone out of the water! Lol so we got to keep the trophy
this week. We were out in Melba on our bikes and were about 2
miles from our car when I got a goat head in my tire and it went
flat! Big surprise! That was the 4th flat this transfer! I
decided to replace the tire and inner tube because that tire was
super thin. Now I'm rolling on some street/dirt tires and am
flying around town and haven't got a flat yet! So that's been
awesome! Here's one last report on my Kuna investigators:

Brent- had us over for dinner and the next night a lesson, he has had
all the lessons and he is praying for a baptismal date. He will be
baptized soon and I'll be coming back for that for sure!

Brad- we had to read with them to get them to do their assignment
but he's progressing...slowly

Rick- had Lesson 4 and is talking with Bishop and will be baptized
next month, I'm coming back for that one too

Sean- met with him and gave him the Bishop's number so he can
figure out what to do to be baptized.

Tommy-taught lesson on the gospel

Norma Jean- talked about the Holy Ghost and challenged to be
baptized

Jesse- haven't heard from for 3 weeks :-(

Fabian and Crystal- taught stop-smoking program and they're
in the middle of that right now ;-)

J.C.- came to church!

Joan Shannon- is a new investigator, she had the lessons
2 years ago but parents wouldn't let her be baptized. She
turns 18 in August and we're teaching her so she can be
baptized then!! And she came to church!

So it's been a really good transfer, we planted a lot of seeds
and there are seriously about to be 5+ baptisms in the next
1 or 2 months so I will be coming back here to see those!
I'm getting transferred to Nampa tomorrow morning. I'll be
in the Nampa South Zone and Elder Mintoghe is my new
companion! So next week I'll tell all the good and exciting
news of a new place!



-Elder Johnson

Week 8

Hello family and friends!!!


This past week has been a hot one! It's been 95 + everyday and on
Saturday it was 106 and that was the day we decided to ride bikes
all day...yeah, that was a mistake lol. I was sweating bricks! This
past week we have had a lot of success with getting our ward
mission leaders to actually do their jobs. We have it set up now
where we go out with a ward mission leader on Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, and Sunday night. That will give us a lot of work to
do and get to know more families. We also finally got a large list of
less active and inactive families for some of our wards so we will be
busy the few next weeks meeting them and teaching them.

On Thursday night we had a lesson with Brent, we taught lesson 4
which is the commandments, it went really well. He was willing to
accept them and start living them. We challenged him to pray for a
date that he will be baptized. We're meeting with him Wednesday
night so that's gonna be awesome! Hopefully I can come back to
Kuna to see his baptism.

Sunday a missionary came home and gave his farewell in the 4th ward,
that was a packed house. He went to the Mcallen Texas mission. We
had two investigators there so that was a awesome powerhouse talk
for them to hear. We got all but one of our investigators to church so
that was awesome! After church we went out to Melba and met with
Norma Jean. She's an 85 year old lady who we've been teaching for
awhile. She is so close to baptism. She knows it's true. Her only hold
up is that she doesn't have any dresses and she would feel
uncomfortable at church wearing pants. I think we can help her with
that lol. She's been saying she'll get baptized at some point in her life
since she was 12! We were really bold with her and promised her, as
representatives of Jesus Christ, that if she read the Book of Mormon
and prayed to know of a date to be baptized, she will have the Holy
Ghost tell her an answer. I know our next meeting will be awesome
with her.

We struck out this week with getting baptismal dates set, I've found
out that people don't just WANT to be baptized. It's hard work to get
them to be baptized, so we're working hard to get some. This up-
coming week, our zone is having a competition with getting the most
lessons with a member present. Our goal is 8 this week. I think we
can win if we get that, hopefully we can get some more. I want to
ask you to go out with the missionaries when they teach investigators.
Be there when they teach. A huge obstacle for investigators is coming
to church because they don't know anyone. If you're there when they
get taught, they will have a familiar face at church. That will help
them and make the missionaries love you! Please introduce yourself
to any investigators you see at church. That will either make or break
a investigators experience at church.

I learned something really cool this week. We were teaching Rick,
who's an excommunicated member. We told him that because of
Jesus Christ, two things were accomplished, and he told us no there
was three. So we said well, he was resurrected so that we can
conquer physical death, and he also atoned for the sins of the world
so we can conquer spiritual death. We asked him what the 3rd gift
was and he told us that it's the gift of the Holy Ghost. In
John 14:26-27 it says that Jesus will leave the earth, and will leave
us the comforter (Holy Ghost) to take his place and that will give us
the peace, not what the world thinks of peace where it's temporary,
but an eternal peace that never ends. I thought that was awesome.

Today was p-day and we went and worked out at a member's
house this morning with one of our priests in one of our wards. I felt
so weak, I could only get 185 up like 5 times. :-(  Then we went to
a zone BBQ! We played some b-ball, then football, then some
ultimate Frisbee. After that we went back to one of the companions'
house and had a Hawaiian BBQ. Elder Dumaguin is from Hawaii and
he cooked us some rice and Hawaiian steaks. It was so good!!!! Ok,
well that's all for today. Hope everyone is doing great! Thanks for
all the letters and packages!

-Elder Johnson



"You need to occasionally be uncomfortable, that's the only time that
you grow. Think of the uncomfortable experiences you've had, you've
probably learned something from each one. Learn to live outside of
your comfort zone."

Week 7

Hey Momma Ice,

We had interviews yesterday, it was our zone's interviews with the
Mission President, and he kinda gives us hints about what's going to
happen with transfers, so it sounds like I am leaving Kuna :-( 
He wants Stepherson to train again because he's amazing and
another big group of missionaries is coming this transfer. He said that
he will most likely splitting up but he said he'll put me in a good spot.
Nothing is definite yet but we will find out a week from Wednesday.
You should stop sending my mail to my address, just go through the
Mission Office. I found out that's what they want you to do anyways,
they don't want us using the address of the people we're staying at.
It stinks but it's only a day later that I will get it so it won't be too bad.

This is my genealogy: my trainer Elder Stepherson (Dad), his trainer Elder
Bergquist (Grandfather) and his trainer Elder Ely (Great Grandpa)

My talk went really well, I spoke on prayer and we had two of our 
investigators there! It was awesome. We were seven for seven for
our goal of investigators coming to church, so yay! I got another
flat yesterday on my bike. It's so lame I'm having really bad luck with
my bike! I've had to buy two inner tubes, a new tire, new pedals
(because I left mine in a parking lot) and my cranks are bent now. I
don't know if Phil can do anything, I can still ride with them bent but
they rub and I don't know if its the sprocket or crank that is bent. 
Hopefully I can get all of the bad luck out of the way early on the
mission lol. We had a lot of good progress with our investigators this
week. We met two more people we're going to start teaching so it
was awesome. Sorry this is short this week. It's hard to read and
reply to everyone in only a hour. I don't know if I can write in my
emails all the stuff that happens in my week, lol.

We didn't get any of the three baptisms we were hoping for. Two of
them were out of town and the other is starting to avoid us it seems
like so that was a drag. We have others that are also getting close to
baptism, so we should have some by the end of the month. I do have
a camel pack so I'm definitely hydrated enough. 

The open house fireside sounds awesome, and we are doing that
here. We're starting to do that this summer and we're gonna have
one like every other month. Ours will most likely be for investigators,
less actives, recent converts and inactives.

I got your guys' packages, thank you so much! The protein/powder
was awesome and the letters and pictures were so sweet to get! I
love pictures so maybe I could use a little photo album to put them
in and I don't have any pictures of us as a family so I would love
some of those. So the only thing I would like to have is some cool
envelopes to mail my letters in and a would really like some stickers 
to put on those envelopes, just some like Disney or anything cool like
that would be awesome. Also stamps, I know I have a lot but I have
a lot of people writing me and I go through them quick! The gift card
idea would be great, we don't have a lot of choices here in Kuna but
Meridian isn't a far drive and we find our selves out there often and
they have everything.

JT is going to Guatemala City South Mission. He's way cool. He
reports with like 10 other guys in my ward to the MTC.

Well I love you and hope you guys are doing awesome! I will
write you more hand written letters from now on. Do you get
to go to topsail this year? I hope so!

-Elder Johnson

Here of some clips of me on the BMX track and I added
pictures from the MTC to the first MTC Post (back in June).

Elder Johnson on the BMX Track clip #1


Elder Johnson on the BMX Track clip #2


Elder Johnson on the BMX Track clip #3

Week 6: Part 3

Hey Mom,

I just sent you a letter and then saw that you just sent me another
one lol. So I think I answered most of those questions, I'm glad you
guys had a good 4th, transfers are the end of July like the 26 or 27.
Money is ok, I do have to budget but it's all good. Well I got to go,
we're playing football in Boise today and we gotta get there quick.
You guys are awesome and amazing and I love the support thank
you so much. Love you!

Week 6: Part 2

Hey Momma!

Thank you so much for the package!! It came last night and it was so
awesome! Those cd's were great, the drink mixes were exactly what
I needed. I totally forgot to bring Mitch's address this week so I will
definitely remember to do that next week, lo siento! We got to
borrow Brother Miller's steam vacuum last night so we have steam
cleaned our basement and it smells normal now and is so clean we
love it! We found out it was the couch that smelt so bad, that cat
pee'd so much in it you can't ever fix it so we put it in the far corner
and put tons of blankets on it to cover the smell. Today we're
headed to play football zone vs. zone in Boise so that will be fun.

Well I love and miss you guys a lot. Good luck running! I miss
being able to work out a lot, maybe in your next package you
could send some protein por favor?
Love and miss you!


-Elder Johnson

Week 6

Dear Family & Friends!



Hola from Kuna Idaho! HAPPY BE-LATED 4TH OF JULY!! This past week
has flown by! So we have been teaching a guy named Fabian, really
good guy. He's turned his life around 180 degrees. He was in prison
for a few years and now is on probation. He has a real nice house,
and 4 kids and a nice wife and is suppose to be on probation for 6
more years but he is doing so great that he will probably be let off
in November. That is great because he wants to be baptized but
has to get off probation first. Any ways, we've been helping him
clear all of the cheat grass (its like grass and hay mixed, but definitely
a weed) in his backyard so that he can put some hydro seed down to
get some grass. So our district (4 elders) have been doing that every
morning this past week and nearly have it done, we've put in probably
12 hours so far. he's gonna make us some stuffed mushrooms and
steaks tonight for dinner so that's gonna be awesome.

We have been extremely busy teaching our investigators and we had
a lot of progress with them this week. The best one is Brent. So
we've been teaching him for 3 months and he hasn't come to church,
but he came on Sunday! It was so awesome! That was a big miracle!

We met with Brad on Sunday and he's been the guy that just tries
and grill us on questions and has so many concerns with just the
basic doctrines of God and Jesus Christ and the Bible and Book of
Mormon, but this week, he told us that he doesn't mean to be so
stubborn and arguable, he said that he loves having us over and
that we've helped him so much, he said 5 months ago he wasn't
even believing in God and now he does and we finally got him to
pray out loud with us. So we gave him scriptures to read on
prayer and told him to pray every night with his fiance, so we
were so excited!!

On the 4th of July, its a partial proselyting day, so we were told if you
have appointments go to them but do not contact or try and make
1st contact with people. So we had a morning appointment with Sean
and we taught the 2nd lesson (plan of Salvation) and that went great.
Then we went over to Meridian and played some b-ball with our zone,
it was a blast. Then we grabbed lunch and then went to the BMX
track for a few hours. We had a nice BBQ at the McBrides house.
After that,  we went back to Sean's house and watched the fireworks,
he had the good stuff. So I had a great fourth. We finally made it out
to church in Melba, the people there are so nice and friendly I loved it.
We got called up to bare our testimonies by one of the bishops,
which I'm getting used to now. Then that night we got a call and we're
speaking in the 2nd ward this Sunday on anything we want, so that is
kind of the worst topic but the best too because we get to speak on
what the spirit feels the people need to hear.

So this week we are challenging 3 people to baptism so we've been
praying for a date and we got an answer so now we just gotta get
them to commit!

Thank you all for your letters and your support.

-Elder Johnson