Severus the Salamander

Two nights ago our nightly planning session got interrupted by this little guy running through the apartment. This is Severus the Salamander is what we named him. How a Salamander got into our house I have now idea.

Well Elder Bowring and I have seen some awesome miracles this week.

1. Last Saturday we had 3 investigators invite themselves to church. Two of them we had been teaching for a while. The other was a guy we met on the street. With each of the we simply taught about how Jesus Christ can help them. We read 3 Ne 27:16 and testified about how God can help them. When they really understood it and believed it they didn't need an invitation to church they just asked where the church was and what time it was at. Obviously the three different contacts didn't go exactly the same but they all had that desire to go to church.

2. Westfall Family. The Westfalls own the only Motel in sprague. Heres a picture of it.

They're an awesome family that has been meeting with the missionaries on and off since last summer. The family is a Mom and Dad and a Teenage Daughter. For most of the time I have served in Sprague they weren't really progressing very well. But last week we went over with Bro Thompson (recent convert) and had a great lesson. We resolved a few of the concerns they had. Then we committed them to read Helaman 5:12 before we came back in 2 days. Previous to this we had invited them to read the Book of Mormon everyday but they had never done it. Well when we showed up 2 days later they were very excited to tell us that they had read the verse and 16 more! Then we had a great lesson and now Brother Westfall and the Daughter are on date for baptism! Sister Westfall is getting there she just has a few more concerns. They all came to church up in Cheney this week and they made lots of friends.

Awesome Miracles.

Love you people!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Sad, happy, sad

I have like 2 minutes to write this.

Sad: Elder Leavitt is on the airplane home back to southern Nevada right now. Happy: he went out with a bang. Us, Brother Thompson (recent convert), and Jeff Smith (investigator) sang "Ye Elders of Israel" in Sacrament Meeting. Then Elder Leavitt bore his testimony.

Happy: Transfer calls were last night. I am staying in Cheney 2nd ward! My new companion is named Elder Bowring. He's been out 6 months. I will be senior companion! Thats new for me. I'm pretty excited.

Sad: I don't know if I told you last time or not but the Smiths moved. Not to far but they are on the other side of Cheney which means they will be in Cheney 1st ward, which means that I will no longer be teaching them. It stinks but at the same time it will be ok. The Smiths are determined to quit smoking and be baptized. 

Happy: I love you!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Bye Elder Leavitt :(

We saw some cool miracles yesterday. Rick and his daughter came to church. We had a lesson in Gospel Principles about tithing and fast offerings and he asked us if he was allowed to pay tithing before he was baptized. He was really excited about it. He also participated in Elder's Quorum a lot. This was great progress for Rick because he hardly had any Christian background growing up so its hard for him to participate because he doesn't understand a lot of the things we talk about at church. It was awesome to see the way that he soaked up everything he could yesterday. It was also really cool to see the way that he interacted with members. He looks like he's been going to church for years.

We were disappointed that Sebastian and Janita didn't come to church. Later that night we went by to find out why. Sebastian told us that he and Janita had a lot of stuff they had to do in Spokane that day and they also spent some family time at the mall. But then he told us that they still wanted to go to church so they looked up the locations on their phone and went to church out in Spokane. It was sweet! I mean I still want them to come to our ward but the fact that they made church a big enough priority to go to a different church even though it was inconvenient was pretty exciting.

Elder Leavitt is going home in 1 week. Its really weird. Last Thursday we had our weekly planning session. They way we do it is we write down our schedule for every half hour for the week on our whiteboard. After we were done Elder Leavitt looked up at it and said, "My entire mission is on that whiteboard" AHHHHHHH. Missions go by way too fast!

Transfers are coming up in a week. I probably won't leave but you never know. I sure hope I don't. We found out that we only have 3 new missionaries coming into the mission and about 30 that are going home. So basically this transfer a whole bunch of areas will be combined. It will be interesting to see what happens.

That's whats goin on in Cheney.

Love Ya!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

District Destruction

My District is getting destroyed. Sister Frye (center of sisters) isn't in my district but she was last transfer. She is going home because of medical reasons. Sister Crowell (furthest to the left) and Sister Nemrow (Furthest sister to the right) got their visas to their original missions and are going to Taiwan tomorrow. Sister Pope (second sister from right) is finishing her mission at the end of this transfer. And Elder Leavitt is also going home at the end of this transfer which leaves only Sister Jenkins and I. And because we only have 3 missionaries coming into the mission this transfer we are predicting that Cheney 1st will be combined with the YSA. We'll see. I'm gonna miss my district. Its been fun. 

Oh yeah and this picture is a really good description of Mine and Elder Leavitt's companionship.

 

Well the Smiths are diligently working on quitting smoking again. They could really use prayers. Sebastian and Janita are planning on being married this friday and baptized on Saturday. 

Rick will be baptized very soon but we aren't sure on the date yet. 

There are several other Part Member families in the ward that we are focusing on and we feel will be baptized within the next few months.

This is a picture of Sprague Church. Are you allowed to take pictures at church? I don't know. Sprague Church happens every other week. Its in the Sprague Community Hall. There is a super cool spirit at Sprague church. Almost everyone there was either baptized or returned to activity in the past few years. Yesterday we got to see Brother Marquis receive the Aaronic priesthood. It was awesome! Especially because Brother Lee was the one that did the ordination. Brother Lee returned to activity last summer and just recently received the Melchizedek priesthood.

Service seems to work pretty well in Sprague. Last summer the ward took on a huge project. A former pastor owned an old building that fell down so the ward members went out everyday for two months and helped him clean it up. Now that former pastor holds the Melchizedek priesthood. His name is Brother Thompson. Well brother Thompson introduced us to a man named Bob. He was recovering from open heart surgery that he had a few months back. He was living in this super old house that was very ugly. Before his heart problems he had purchased new siding to put on his house but now was unable to put it up. So the ward has been taking a few hours every Saturday to go out and put siding on his house. I'll send a picture once I get one. Bob has been much more receptive to our teaching ever since we started the project. 

Well that is some of the cool stuff happening up here in Eastern Washington.

Love ya!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Holy Moley 1 more thing! Our district does a "game night" every Saturday night that we can bring investigators and members to. One of the YSA members found out that I went to PG highschool so she was asking if I knew this person or that person. Then she asked if I knew Marci Johnson... Uh ya thats my sister. She was like no way I played on her soccer team! She plays on the EWU soccer team now. Crazy connections.

bye

No soliciting or Missionaries

This past Sunday was an adventure. We pulled into the parking lot at the church an hour and a half before Sacrament meeting for our usual meeting to see that there were only 3 cars in the parking lot where usually there is a ward worth of cars parked out there. We walked inside to see that the church was dark and there were only a few people in the building. That morning someone had run over a transformer box and made the power go out in half of Cheney. So we had church in the dark. It was sweet! We had a member bring some flood lights then they set up lanterns all around the chapel. There was no microphone so the speakers just spoke really loud. The spirit was super strong though!The Smiths came to church! They've really struggled the last month to get to church but to our pleasant surprise they showed up!!!!!!!!!!!

Rick is doing great and should be baptized in the next 2 weeks! Sebastian and Janita need prayers. They have the desire to be baptized but in order to do so they are going to have to make some sacrifices.

Some people love us so much that they put signs on their door about us.

Nuff Said.

We went to the temple this morning. It was da best!

Love Ya!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Epic

Howdy!

Sprague is still Sprague

 I'm an epic Missionary. Boo yah!

Sebastian and Janita taught part of Gospel Principles class this week! They were freaked out but they did awesome! They are scheduled to be married later this month and be baptized the next day! The ward is going to be helping out with the Marriage ceremony. "Weddings I love weddings... Potential investigators all around!"

Love you!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Superbowl mourning in Cheney

To start off I just wanted to say that I am almost as disappointed as you Lindy. The entire city of Cheney is depressed right now because of the Super Bowl. Last night we were walking down the street and we watched a couple break up right after the game. Ha ha our guess is that they were mad and needed to take our their anger on something. We also saw this guy that we knew but we figured it would be best to talk to him later because of all the profanity he was yelling. It was very difficult to proselyte last night because everyone was watching the game. Ha ha we had a few quick lessons with people at their doorstep but they were only half paying attention because they were watching the game.

There's kind of a long story behind why we took this picture that takes to long to write. But it turned out pretty good so I thought I'd show it to you.

Sebastian and Janita are coming along great! It is super cool to hear their testimonies! The spirit is always super strong every time we go over there. Right now the only thing in the way of them getting baptized is they need to get married. They had their marriage planned for March when their family could be their, but right now they are considering moving it back to February so they can be baptized then having a reception later that their family can attend.

The Smiths are still struggling to give up Smoking. They could really use some prayers. Their testimonies are really great though. We've especially seen that improve in Sis Smith in our recent visits.

This week we met this guy named Sean and invited him to come to Stake Conference. He came! We had a special meeting before the General Session for New/potential and Returning Members which he came to. The only thing is he walked in carrying a cup of Coffee. Ha ha  I used to get super nervous when investigators did stuff like this at church but I've seen a lot worse than bringing coffee to church so I just kinda laughed to myself. After that meeting I told him that we would be going to the chapel for the next meeting and that he shouldn't bring his drink with him. The look on his face was priceless as the realization set in and he said, "You guys are the ones that don't drink coffee" He was pretty embarrassed. But it was fine. We told him it wasn't a big deal and he felt better after that. He is a super awesome guy though. He is very humble and excited to learn about how he can come closer to Jesus Christ.

 

Here is an interesting phenomenon we saw this week.

Boo Yah. I'm on a bike!

Love yall!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson