Delicious to Me

My delicious breakfast! Pancakes with an egg cooked in the middle of it. Mom you would be proud of all the cooking we've been doing! This last week we made fajitas! Ya I know right. And they were actually good! We are getting so good at cooking that we've decided that we will bring chili to our ward trunk or treat and Chili Dinner this Friday! We may or may not just buy a few cans of chili from Wal-mart and warm it up in a pan but hey, I'm sure they'll be impressed. We just started a new tradition that hopefully sticks. Free quesadilla Thursday from the Elders! I know the name doesn't flow but Thursdays just work best for our schedule. We live right next to Moscow High school so every day at lunch time we see tons of students leaving the school to go get lunch. So we're gonna start giving free quesadillas out on Thursdays. We'll just start by inviting members from our ward but if there's free food involved I'm sure they'll invite their friends. Our greatest cooking adventure however since Elder Holmes and I have been together is our invention of the Chicken Nugget Bean Burrito! Its basically exactly what it sounds like. Tortilla, beans, Chicken Nuggets (we prefer the frozen dino nuggets from Wal-Mart) and cheese. And you can add hot sauce if you want. When Elder Holmes first came up with the idea my thought was probably the same as yours is now, Thats disgusting! Though I didn't believe at that time that it was good I had nothing save a desire for it to be good and I exercised a particle of faith and experimented on the word and found out that it did indeed become delicious to me. (Alma 32:27-28) The mixture of chicken bean and cheese was very complimentary.

Well now that you are either inspired or disgusted I invite you to act accordingly.

The missionary work is going great too! We are teaching some really great people right now. We had another meeting with the Pikarella family last night. It was inspiring to hear their stories about how God had given them answers to their prayers in their past, and we taught about how God can give them answers to their prayers about the Book of Mormon today.

This week I've been learning more about having Faith all the time. I've really learned through experience that Satan wants our lives to be miserable. He wants us to be uncomfortable and to worry. He wants our minds to be in confusion. He wants us to react to fear rather than act in Faith. He is always putting thoughts into our minds that make us doubt in fear and make our life uncomfortable. Faith is the firmness of mind, the trust in God, that make these temptations from Satan loose all their power. This week I've been practicing having faith every moment and never allowing fear and doubt to creep in. I'm far from perfect, but as I've been working on it I have felt a lot more peace in my day to day life and I'm all around more happy.

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Jiffy Lube and Kitchen Garbage

Today we had a sweet miracle. We had to take our car in for an oil change. As we were walking up to the Jiffy Lube a worker's head pop out of the underground area and yelled, "Hey Elders! I need to get you my contact info before you leave?" It was sweet! As he handed us his name and phone number he said, "I've been less active for quite a while now and its time to come back!" 

Last night we were walking around downtown moscow with our ukelele and we saw across the street there was a couple walking and the guy was strumming a guitar. So I purposely strummed really loud to get his attention. We both looked at each other and were like hey! So they came over. We played I am a child of God for them and he played a song for us it was sweet!

Yesterday we had a less-active show up to church out of the blue! It was very surprising!

All I can say is at least the garbage is in bags and not all over our apartment :)

We're havin lots of fun and I'm learning a ton right now! But I'm also out of time.

Love ya!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Elder Holmes

Well life's been pretty good up here. My new companion's name is Elder Holmes! Here's a picture of him.

This week we had some great lessons with Justin and Danya. But it was also pretty stressful because I was adjusting to having a brand new missionary and also trying to prepare for zone training that happened on friday. But things are pretty smooth now. 

This week I've also been searching diligently to understand more about how the spirit gives us an answer to whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. I've learned a lot as I pondered my own experience as well as read the scriptures and PMG. This is what I've come up with so far. As we read the BofM certain passages with ring true with us, this is the Light of Christ. If we ask God through prayer if the Book is true then read a passage that rings true to us, then we recognize that God is communicating with us and giving us an answer to our question. (The Holy Spirit works through the light of Christ. PMG Chap 4) That feels pretty cool to realize that the creator of everything is communicating with us personally. It builds our faith. The fruits of this realization are "love, joy, peace" etc. (Galatians 5). When we have this experience we naturally want to repent. I have seen many investigators read the Book of Mormon and experience the Light of Christ. They like the Book. They think its good. But they often don't realize the ways that God is communicating with them. Without the personal connection to God their faith is not strong enough to influence them to repent.

Well Love yall!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

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BTW: There are two great ways to follow the events of the Washington, Spokane Mission:

Facebook Mission Group Page: Washington, Spokane Mission - President Dymock
Blog: https://washingtonspokanemission.wordpress.com/

Love ya!

Doug (the spaghetti squash)

Well transfers are tomorrow. I will be staying here in Rolling Hills and training another new missionary. Elder Morse is going to CDA. I'm gonna miss him a ton! We had some good times. As a tribute to some of the good times we had together we will attach one of the songs we made up together. 

Well my guesses about conference were completely wrong. But thats ok I still sustain them anyway! 

Conference was sweet! Elder Holland's talk is definitely true! I am a living testimony of that! My Mom stuck with me, bore my sorrows, and carried me through the 2 most difficult years of my life. I definitely couldn't have done it without her! Love you Mom!

This week we found a new investigator named Katrina. She is friends with some members in our ward. She is awesome! Most of her friends growing up were Mormon so she went to activity days and Stake Dances. 

Once upon a time Elder Morse and I were given a Spaghetti Squash from this lady that we helped with her garden. We loved this squash so we named it Doug. And we drew a face on him. This is his story. (p.s. I love life cereal. I eat it every morning)

(Note from Lane: The audio clip he sent was not understandable)

Concrete Bear

I'm pumped for General Conference! Here are my guesses on whats going to happen.

New Apostles:

1. Tad R. Callister

2. L. Whitney Clayton

3. Lynn G. Robbins

New Seventy

1. Nelson Boren

2. Donald E. Mullen

3. David Wilkes :)

This week was great! There is a family in our ward that are all active except for the father. The father had not given permission for his 9 year old twin children to be baptized until this week when the daughter turned 8 and wanted to be baptized. So she was baptized this week and the twins are planning on being baptized in the next few months. 

Last night we had a great lesson with Justin. He expressed that growing up he had prayed many times but never felt like he got an answer. I know I and most of us in the world have struggled with that same problem. We had a very edifying discussion about how to recognized answers from God.

So last night we made a bear out of concrete inside our apartment. I don't really know why. Elder Morse just really wanted to when he saw the empty container of animal crackers shaped like a bear. You can't really see it but there is an "M" on his belly because Moscow High school's mascot is a bear. And the High School is literally right outside our door. I'll send a picture when its done drying and we've peeled the plastic off.

Love you guys!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Yo - 3 things...

Yo

1. About a week and a half ago Elder Morse and I went to the Monsons (member in our ward) house to share a quick message with them. Turns out their parents were visiting from Pleasant Grove Utah! They also work at the MTC. Oh ya and the fathers name is Thomas R. Monson. We shared a quick message sang them a song and left. A few days later we came back and the Thomas Monson and wife were still in town. They said that due to some car trouble they had spent a lot of time at Les Schwab. They had a good gospel conversation with one of the workers named Justin and he said he was interested in hearing from the missionaries. We just met with him last night at the Monsons house and the lesson went really well. I was floored that Thomas Monson comes into town for 4 days finds us an awesome person to teach, sets it up so we can teach in a members home then leaves. 

2. Last p-day I got an email from somebody named Travis. He said that he was interested in meeting with missionaries. So we set up a time and met with him. He is super solid! It was incredible to hear how God has been guiding him and how he has courageously followed. He had met with missionaries about a year and a half ago but didn't follow through with baptism. But he said that he knew that God wanted him to start meeting with us again. 

3. Last Monday I was on exchanges in the Troy area. Troy is a tiny town 30 minutes outside of Moscow. There are also a few other tiny towns in their area. Elder Dugan and I were together. I came out with Elder Dugan by the way so it was fun to be reunited with him. We decided to got tracting for a while and we had the classic "Homecoming talk" experience. After being rejected a few houses in a row we knocked on one and a lady answered the door. It was obvious she wasn't very interested and she mentioned that she attended another one of the churches in town. We stalled by asking her if we could sing her a song (I had my ukelele). You could tell she kind of wanted to say no but she couldn't resist so she agreed. The song was about familes which got her talking. We had a good discussion about protecting the family in our society. Then she asked us a question, "Are your families strong in their faith in God?" We both said yes. "Thas really really good" This kind of gave me the impression that hers wasn't and it concerned her a little bit. So we talked a little bit about the spirit world. She became very interested and asked "do you want a drink of water? Come on in." She got us some water and sat us down at the table and got everyone else in the house to come join us. So we started teaching! It went super smooth. Every question she asked was super good. At one point I started quoting a scripture then I looked down at my scriptures and I had unknowingly flipped right open to it! She eventually opened up to us about how her father didn't believe in God and had passed away. She was pretty worried about what would happen to him. It was amazing to see the relief that came on her face when we told her about Gods plan. Unfortunately I don't get to teach the family because  they're not in my area but I'll try to stay informed on how things go with them.

Elder Morse and I got to speak on Sunday again. We got asked on Thursday if we could do it. The member of the Bishopric that asked us was gone about a month ago on the Sunday that we spoke so he asked us if we could speak. We were both super excited for the opportunity. When we got to church everyone was like "why are you speaking again?" but by then it was too late. Our name was already on the program. HA HA! We both talked on faith. I learned a ton preparing for it! Faith is a deep concept. We know that its believing in something we can't see but we also know that we can do some crazy stuff with faith.  

"and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea."

Snap

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Apostles, Baptisms, Burning holes in Suits, and Brigham Young

Apostles

This week Elder Daniel L. Johnson of the Seventy toured the mission. It was super awesome! I had a personal interview with him! That was fun!

On Sunday all the missionaries from our zone and two others went down to Lewiston for their Stake Conference because they were having a special visitor. Before the conference we had a missionary meeting with Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Stapleton of the Seventy. It was sweet! Man he is a good teacher! My favorite part of the meeting was then end when he was testifying of Jesus Christ. He quoted doctrine and covenants 46 which says something like "to some it is given to know of Jesus Christ and others it is given to believe on their words" "I know that Jesus Christ lives". Oh snap! He was pounding his knuckles on the primary podium.

Baptisms

Gregory got baptized!!!!!!! It was a little crazy before service but once it started the spirit was super strong!

Burning holes in suits

We had the classic missionary experience of boiling water in the kitchen an hour before the baptism because the hot water in the building ran out. We were boiling water in a giant metal pot that covered two of the stove circle deals. The whole stove was extremely hot when we were done. Unfortunately Elder Morse was leaning over one and burn a whole in his suit. If you look closely at the picture above you can see it. 

Brigham Young

We walked into A&W to buy a hamburger and this bearded man walks up to us and says get whatever you want its on me. Then he pulled out his Wallet and showed us his drivers licence which carried the name Brigham Young. Nuff Said

Elder (Andre) Johnson