July 11th, 2016

       Elder Pongbundit is a champion. The day we met he almost made me cry. I met him in the mission office as I was the only trainer because he had come out 3 weeks into the transfer. A few things I quickly learned about him is his English is very weak, he loves to smile, and he has a rock solid testimony. On the drive from the mission office in Crawley to Stains where we were going to meet President Goobler I got to chat with him for the first time and in his very broken English he told me that he is a convert. He was baptized when he was 18 and this came through him meeting missionaries that were teaching English. His parents were very much against him coming on a mission and wouldn't let him go for 4 years. He went to university and worked in Thailand until in his 3rd year of uni his sister needed money so he gave her all the money he had. This prevented him from going to school. He said his parents saw that he was very sad because now he couldn't do anything for himself so they let him go on a mission. He is a miracle. He then bore his testimony on the atonement and although his English was bad he testified with such a moving power. He said he used to be very bad but now he is good because of Jesus Christ.
        He is the most humble person I know. He came to the MTC and the president had to buy him shoes and a bag because he didn't have any. He always says thank you anytime I do anything even when I correct his grammar or tell him, "it's your turn to talk". It's really funny when I cook for him. He makes me feel like a pro chef haha. He is also like a sponge and tries to absorb everything and he actually does pretty well. It takes us about 10 times as long to teach/learn something because if we want to explain a thought we end up playing charades and looking in dictionaries and pointing a lot haha but it's honesty funny and we both laugh.
       I have been non stop teaching English which has made me totally aware of how bad I am at English, but the Lord knows all things and has been helping me so much. I feel like I have been learning more than he has. I have been so humbled by Elder Pongbundit especially when he prays. His prayers are SO sincere. He is overwhelmed to be in England with an American companion who doesn't know the area and doesn't know how to teach very well, but he still trusts in God so much. I love him!
      The week has been a lot of exploring the city of Plymouth. It's pretty difficult opening a new area because you have no clue how to get anywhere and what buses go where, but it's an adventure! We have been playing a game called mystery bus where we get on a totally random bus and just ride till we feel like getting off then we work around the area and catch the bus back. It's definitely a fun way to learn the area and we have met some weirdos. People in Plymouth are a lot meaner then in Salisbury. Some guppy tried bashing us on the bus and then we were knocking and these two atheist guys went at us as well. I talked to them for like 10 minutes and they were getting bothered and then Elder Pongbundit said in his broken English "sorry, we are not perfect, but we love you and know God is real." Hahah that shut them up real quick! And I don't even think he knew what we were saying!
       A super random story that may be dumb to you, but means a lot to me that happened this week is when we moved into this flat the shower in our room was broken and didn't get warm so I got all the tools in the flat (two screwdrivers) and tried to fix it. I made it a bit better but didn't totally fix it because I needed a wrench. That night I prayed that the shower would be fixed so we could take warm showers. The next morning I turn the shower on not expecting a whole lot (weak faith) and I sat waiting for the water to get warm just feeling it with my hand. After about 2 minutes of waiting I just accepted the fact that it would be cold so I just got under the cold water and once I got under it started to warm up then get hot! It was a miracle and reminded me of the story of the children of Israel carrying the arc of the covenant with them and having the promise that they would be on dry ground and when they got to the river they just expected the water to stop, but it wasn't until they took the first step and got their feet wet that the water stopped and they were able to cross on dry ground. The Lord always answers our prayers, even when we pray to have a warm shower haha and even when our faith isn't where we with it was.
       Not a whole lot other than that. The area of Plymouth is really beautiful. Another cool thing is we're in a 4 man flat and there are 6 missionaries in our ward so we literally see other missionaries in a daily basis which is so new to me. 
       A cool miracle we saw was the first day we were here was when we were about to walk into the chapel to do iPad training. I heard a basketball bouncing so I ran over to the fence to see what was going on. There were 6 kids playing at a park so we ran around and I walked up to them and said, "I'm American and I love basketball. Can we play with you?" (It's not very often you see people playing basketball. Actually it was the first time on my mission) so we played for like an hour and talked to them for a while after. We then asked if they do this often and they invited us back to play Saturday. We went and took the the ZLs (well they took us in their car) and played. When we showed up there was 8 kids, but by the time we left there was around 20. It was SO MUCH FUN! And I got to know most of them by name and they called all of us Elder and referred to us as missionaries. They were all such good kids. I asked them if they ever play indoor and they said no it cost money. I told them they could play for free at our church. They all got really excited to play indoor. So pretty much we got twenty 15-17 year old kids to come to church to play basketball! If that's not missionary work I don't know what is hahah

Went shopping at the Asian market and got some mochi!

The first meal I made my comp was eggs spam and rice haha

July 4th, 2016

The week was so so so good!!! We had some great lessons and Alex's baptism was amazing. We started the week at wrestling and Jo Taylor, the less active who teaches the class, asked me if I brought my bag with me. So the night before we went to his house and shared the restoration with him and his non member wife. We do this object lesson that I love using nails. (I'll send a video I made for my zone). So when we get into wrestling he asked if we brought the nails because he wanted us to teach the whole class!!! We didn't but tonight is the last night and I am going to do it with all of the people there!
     We also taught that family who is from the Caribbean again. We planned to do a lesson about faith, but when we got in we changed the lesson to the plan of salvation which we had taught the week before but the mother wasn't there. She loved it and the husband took notes this time. He learned a ton and said it gave him hope! I learned loads as well during the lesson and my testimony was strengthened. I love how no matter how much we think we know we can always learn and build on what we know. I've taught that lesson many times and this time the Spirit taught me.     The highlight of the week was Alex's baptism of course. And preparation for his baptism. When we had the interview on Wednesday I got to talk to him after he passed and bear my testimony to him. I told him my favourite scripture. 1 Corinthians 2:9. I told him that life is going to be hard and Satan will try and take him off the path and when things get really hard the most important thing to do is to love God. When we love Him we follow Him, we keep His commandments, and we represent Him. The day of the baptism was really special and we had another good chat right before he was baptized when we were in the bathroom getting ready to go in. The baptism itself was so special and when I was holding his arm I felt like I was holding my little brother. After he came out of the water I gave him a big hug and knew God was happy with him. I felt so much love for him. After he expressed how he felt like the water went through him and he felt so clean and warm and I told him that feeling can always be with him if he keeps his promises he made. He was very happy and I knew he felt it. He is a special kid. The confirmation was great and Elder Foster was the one who got to give him the blessing. Life is very good! I get to leave Salisbury on a very good note and now I'm moving on. My next stop is Plymouth! I'm so excited to get my boy and stay in the west of England. It is such a beautiful country.       That's pretty much my week! I love being a missionary and serving the Lord.

June 27th, 2016

The week has been fantastic! We have had lots of lessons and two investigators came to church! Alex was one of them and he is so ready to be baptized on the 2nd of July. Jason a guy who we have been teaching for a few weeks came to church. It always seems to happen that the Sunday you bring an investigator to church something bad happens. It wasn't necessarily bad, but a guy from the stake gave a 25 min talk on genealogy and it was SO boring. Me and Elder Foster kept looking at each other with the look of "oh my days" but it all worked out. He said he liked it. 

We had a Caribbean family we taught as well. The husband is really cool and inquisitive. The mom is Shika and the daughter is 7. It was the second teach we had with them and it was one of my favourite teaches I've had in the mission. We didn't practice it at all or have very much prep and due to buses we got to his house an hour early. We got in and the Spirit was strong. We taught the plan of salvation and answered all his questions. We flowed so well and worked in perfect unity and the key I think was just having love. When a companionship loves each other and strive to love those around them everything will always work out.

Here's a random video of me chewing I thought you might enjoy.... Hahaha

Went to the cathedral today. It was so cool. We took the official
tour. It was crazy and I took lots of notes haha the cathedral was
built in 1200ad and it only took 38 yrs. it's like 2 times the size of
the salt lake temple. Too bad it's the church of the devil whore of
the all earth....

Still nice to look at though haha

June 20th, 2016

The new companion is German and he is so funny. Well it's not just him it's more of the 3 of of us together haha he is just as sassy and sarcastic and me and Elder Foster but he is German so it makes it so much funnier. He doesn't say things politely. Me and Elder Foster don't know if it's because he's German or just rude hahah when we ask for things he will just say "give me that" in his German accent and then we just laugh at him haha. We all get along equally and we don't feel like anyone is third wheeling. I'm honestly going to be sad when I have to leave. I've laughed so hard in the past 4 days!

So Alex, our most progressing investigator, is doing so good!! We have taught him a lot and he comes to church every week and he answers questions in young men that are spot on. I love that kid! Every time we see each other he gives me a hug! That's one of my favourite parts about being a missionary is making life long friendships! I absolutely love it out here. I've been growing and changing so much into the person the Lord wants me to be or I at least have been trying to.

The rest of the week has been great! We have been teaching a lot of black people! First lesson on Tuesday night was with a Nigerian family. I was at the temple that night so went a part of it. They were referred to us by a member. Wednesday during knocking we found a Caribbean family and taught them all on Friday. The lesson was really good and wasn't too weird or awkward. We actually flowed well and the family really liked the lesson and committed to reading the BoM. On Saturday we played football only with Ghanians and we were the only white people as usual haha! We got a ride home with one of the people playing and it's around a 30 minute drive and we had a really good gospel conversation. Never taught that many black people. 👍🏿

My new companion comes on July 5th. He doesn't know English and that's why he is is not here yet. He has to stay an extra 3 weeks to learn. So I'll be teaching him haha and he is Thai straight from Thailand! I don't know the area I'll be going yet. It's all a mystery. President Goobler jokingly asked me if I have any revelation in where I should go so he doesn't even know where I'll go haha.

Fred and Jill brewer both 80 yrs old have been married for 53 years. The first picture is them on wedding day. The 2nd is their 25 wedding anniversary, and this is them now. They still makes jokes at each other and mess around. They making me so happy!!!

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