June 14th, 2016

seeing some old MTC buddies at Dallin H Oaks

Me picking my nose

Banana bread we made! So good!!

The whole mission! See if you can find me.

it was dusty

my first real burger in England 

We played football and I was messin Foster up

We helped a member remove their kitchen tiles

Me and this guy getting photo bombed

made my hands bleed

So we got our moves email on Saturday and in it me and Elder Foster found out we are going to be in a tri companionship. Another missionary is going to come to Salisbury. Not going to lie, I was disappointed. Being in a tri can be really awkward when teaching and finding and the new guy is German.... Haha but then Sunday evening rolls around and I get an email from the mission office with travel plans for the new trainers. I was so confused so I called president and asked what's going on. He basically said oh sorry you slipped through the cracks and I forgot to call you Friday. Haha then he told me that he put us in a tri because there is a new missionary coming in halfway through the transfer on July 5th from Thailand. I'm going to be leaving Salisbury halfway through the transfer to open a new area and train. I am SO EXCITED!!!!! And really cool thing about that date too is that Alex the 14 year old investigator is going to be baptized on the 2nd and he asked me to baptize him! The Lord has a plan for us all!

Elder Oaks was so good! He is such a funny man and had so many good spiritual insights. The conference was in the middle of London at Hyde park chapel. On the walk from the train station to Hyde park I felt like I was in that scene from parent trap when the girl goes to London. It is crazy there and there were so many cool sites to see and things to do!! There was 400 missionaries in the conference and it was packed. We had all the missionaries from both missions, London South and Central. Our mission president and his wife spoke and so did the other mission's, then the area president and his wife spoke, President and Sister Kearon. He actually gave a talk at conference in April about refugees. Then Elder Oaks and his wife spoke. The first thing I observed is that the leaders of the church have really cool wives! I learned so many different things from all of them and their talks and took pages of notes. Elder Oaks dropped some really cool doctrine on us that I would love tell you but.... Milk before meat (1 cor 3:2) haha it was a great conference and one of my favourite things he talked about was the doctrine of repentance. He said repentance is the first step we make preparatory to baptism, but baptism dose not bring about repentance and should not. Baptism is a fruit of repentance and a natural result of it, but repentance is the first step and is what we as missionary need to focus on while teaching our investigators. I felt so spiritually fed after that conference and I know it is going to help me improve as a missionary and good man!

The rest of the week was fantastic! We found two new investigators. One was while me and Elder Foster were walking around Amesbury to catch the bus. I felt like we should go stop by someone names Charlie, an old potential investigator we had. On our way we walked past a lady trimming her hedges in the garden. Her teenage son was there too playing with his baby sister. We stopped outside the fence and asked if she needed any help. She said no (as most English people do) so we then started talked about the gospel. She said she would hear more so asked her if we can teach her now and she said yes! So we taught her and her son and baby girl the restoration and gave them a Book of Mormon to read. She loved it and we will be seeing her next week! It's so cool how the Spirit works and how if we are living worthy of the Spirit and if we follow all the little feelings and good ideas that come into our head then Heavenly Father will bless us.

Alex, our investigator, is doing so well! He has more of a desire to live the gospel than I did at his age! He loves learning and loves church and can recognize the Spirit! It is incredible to see someone his age hunger and thirst after righteousness (3 Nephi 12:6) the way he does. He is going to be a great missionary!

Love you lots

June 6th, 2016

This week has been solid! Elder Foster and I have been getting along so well and he is such a good friend. We have been doing a lot of work and seeing a lot of cool miracles.

We were tracking around Andover on Tuesday and it started to pour. We were fairly close to a member and my poundland (dollar store) umbrella was on its last leg so we decided to pop in and wait out the rain. The Covils are a couple in their late 70s early 80s and they are very kind. We shared with them some of our personal insights and then Ron shared a really cool analogy that stuck with me.

The church is like a gym. This gym has everything you could ever want in a gym. Because of the sacrifice Christ made for us we all can get a free membership to the gym we just have to go up to the desk and ask for one. Many people go to the gym because they have this vision of being in great shape and having a great body. This pushes them to go regularly and work our really hard while they are in the gym. Then there's the other who know they are out of shape and they know the gym will help so they get there. Others go to the gym because everyone they know goes and it's a fun time. There are many other people there for their own individual reasons too.

People who go to the gym, whether they work really hard or hardly work at all, will not see immediate results. But over time they get healthier and stronger. Most people don't notice the results of going though, they just generally feel good and are happy with the gym, but if you asked them they probably wouldn't be able to say how much stronger or healthier they actually are. 

There are people who stop going to the gym for many different reasons. They gradually lose results gained from going and the less they go, the harder it gets to go back. They get to a point where they recognize they are out of shape. It doesn't bother them too much though because they look around and see that most people are out of shape too. Their old gym friends encourage them to come back and enjoy the gym with them. They may go back but when they do they see their old friends lifting weights they can no longer lift and doing things they no longer want to do because it's hard and they think something along the lines of, "sure, exercise and being healthy makes them happy but it won't make me happy anymore. I have other things to make me happy now." They forget the joy of the gym and only see it as hard, meaningless work because, "what's the point of being in shape and healthy anyways?"

So this analogy could be expounded on way way more, but I kept it short. We can still relate so many different gospel principles to it. I didn't directly relate to any because I think it's more fun and it sticks to you more as you find relations to gospel principles yourself and aren't told them. It's exactly how Christ taught. He would give them a parable, but not the meaning. So as you read and think about this little gym parable, let the Spirit teach you what you need to know from it. What can you take away.

So remember that less active guy we were doing MMA with. Well we got a teaching appointment with him and he said he wants to come to church!

A really cool miracle we had yesterday was being able to teach Josh. He's a security guard at tesco who we see a lot when she go shopping there. We had a dinner appointment at 5 and we walked out of our flat at 4:30 and the first person we run into was him. We said hi talked for a bit then told him what we do as missionaries. He said he has 20 minutes right now so we sat down on the small wall right where we were and taught him he restoration. It was a short but powerful lesson.

Tomorrow we are going to Hyde park chapel in London to hear Dallin Oaks speak to our mission and the London central mission so there will be 400 or so missionaries there and I'm so excited. I'll take lots and lots of notes to let you know how it goes!

Love, Elder Johnson

May 30th, 2016

The week has been really good! We have been able to pick up a new investigator and set a baptismal date for Alex on the second of July. He is such a good kid and I'm so excited for him to be baptized. The new investigator we got is 24 and is pretty well versed in the bible. Our first discussion was about an hour long and it consisted of him asking a lot of questions. We gave answers that he generally liked and accepted and he wasn't bashy at all. It was really quite fun to teach him. He was excited to be able to read the BoM and actually funny enough already had a copy that someone gave his sister years ago. He told his sister that he was meeting with us so she gave him her old copy of the Book of Mormon she got years ago from missionaries in the past.

Missionary work is hard and can be quite exhausting, but it is so rewarding when I'm able to help people come closer to Christ. I feel that I am developing good habits for the future. I'm learning how to be a good missionary and a good follower of Christ in general. I love this work.

Next week we are going to London for a double mission conference where Elder Oaks will be speaking so that should be cool. He is a funny guy so there should be a lot of laughs. I'm also exited to see some of my old MTC buddies who went to the London central mission.


A cool miracle we had this week was being able to do MMA with a less active. So we have this less active named Jo who is a beast. He owns a fighting gym and teaches MMA. He's also a semi pro fighter. So he always invites us to his gym to come fight and practice because he said a lot of his students need God haha my last companion never wanted to go but me and Elder Foster decided to go to see if it would be a good place to do missionary work. So we went to a Jujitsu class which is a non striking class (can't bruise the money maker) and there were about 10 other students there. When we got in, he turned the music off and introduced us and told the guys that we were there to convert them! Well during the class we got a chance to talk to all of them and I even got a chance to grapple with some of them. I'm sure glad I did a little bit of wrestling when I was younger so I wasn't completely stupid. Jo the teacher asked to grapple me in front of everyone and since they don't really do wrestling here in England I could hold my own. Elder Foster who is a soccer player just talked to the guys about us and the gospel while I was grappling with Jo and other guys as well. It was a really cool experience and something I never thought I would be doing in my mission, but hey the Lord gives us talents and abilities for a reason and I'm just using what the Lord gave me to spread the gospel haha I think we are going to go every week!

Love, Elder Johnson

Our new investigator who is 14 and from Portugal. (The one in thebasketball jersey)

new companion!

I made pizza and quiche from complete scratch dough and all. I've been learning a lot of new recipes and do all the cooking. 

I have done face masks with every companion.

went on a hike with some members 

found a hedgehog

England has lots of history

May 23rd, 2016

My week was fantastic. Elder Foster is such a good missionary! He is a super hard worker and we have seen a ton of miracles. One day we were walking on a bus and the bus driver asked if she could come to church. She just asked! We are going to be teaching her Friday. Also we played soccer, or I should say football, with about 20 Africans. It was so much fun and we got some referrals from it. Elder foster is a varsity soccer player so he was killing those guys. Then we taught this lady named Feya. Hernandez and I taught her about 3 weeks before and since then she has read 19 chapters of the Book of Mormon and in her closing prayer of the lesson, she said "if I come to know if these things are true I will embrace them whole heartedly"! Also our investigator Alex who is 14 gave a talk in sacrament meeting... Yes our investigator gave a talk. It was so good and he bore his testimony! The whole young men's program was asked to speak in sacrament for priesthood commemoration and we figured he has been to church 6 times so he's ready to give a talk haha not sure if it was allowed but it was so so good! That's my life. I'm loving it!

One of my favourite personal insights from last weeks studies was in the fifth chapter of Jacob versus 21 and 22. The servant asks why would you plant this tree here, the ground is bad. The master replies don't council me for I have been working here a long time. The Lord's hand is in all things. We need to have faith and stop asking "why did you do this" or "why did you put me here". We need to be asking what can I do now with what you have given me or what would you have me do. The Lord has been working on us and those around us forever. Have faith that He is doing what he says He is doing. An abiding trust in Him will bring miracles. 

I love you! 

Love elder Johnson 

May 16th, 2016

My week has been up and down. The family of 5 dropped us. They didn't give us a reason, they just said they didn't want to get baptized. Also we got stuck in the house of an anti-Mormon who told us we were going to hell for a while so that was fun.

The good part though is my new companion. He has been out on his mission for 7 1/2 months, he is 18, and he is from Utah. He is such a good kid and he is striving to be exactly obedient which I love. We have already seen a huge influx of miracles. One is we walked on a bus and the bus driver asked if she could come to church and where the location is. She didn't come this Sunday, but where going to find her and chase her down! Another one is a member in our ward brought a family to church and we are going to meet up with them this week sometime. I was so happy they came. Alex came again too but I'm a little worried about him because we weren't able to see him this week. Other then that life this good. I love Elder Foster and I love being in the Salisbury area! 

I'm learning more and more of what a privilege it really is to be able to preach the gospel on a daily basis especially in such a beautiful country.

Love, Elder Johnson

May 10th, 2016

Hey!!! 

It was so so good to be able to talk to the family!! They are doing so good. I got to talk to my future sister in law for the 3rd time and my sister is putting her mission papers in!! The family is great! 

Missionary work is going really well! 2 out of the family of 5 have a baptismal date for the 28th of May. They are progressing really well. We just need to get them to church more! We are also teaching Alex still who is the 14 year old boy with two less active parents. He has come to church every week for past 3 weeks. He's a really good kid. 

A few cool miracles I was able to see this week was from an exchange I went on. I was in another area that I didn't know and the goals we set for the exchange was to be exactly obedient and to speak to every person we saw. We went berserk. We talked to a guy named Shawn and he was very religious, but he was open so we boldly asked him is he had 20 minutes. He said yeah so we walked him to the chapel and taught him the restoration. The Spirit was flowing so strong. Later we talked to a grumpy old man walking down the street. He didn't believe in God and didn't like religion. We promised him if he would walk into church he would be able to feel the Spirit of God. We had him promise he would come and he said he would come but it may only be to just step in to prove us wrong. We testified of Christ and told him he would feel the spirit there. The missionary I was with on change told me yesterday that he ended up staying all 3 hours and they have a return appointment to teach him this week! 

It amazing the power that obedience brings and the spirit that comes when we testify if Christ. I love being able to boldly testify of Christ everyday! 

I love you! Have a great week!