Smoke!

Well its only been a few days since I wrote last so I don't have much to say.

However transfer calls were last night. Elder Morse and I will be staying in the Rolling Hills ward in Moscow Id! I'm pumped! I love my son so I'm glad I'm not leaving. 

Danya didn't show up to church :( But she did text us and say sorry. Hopefully the spirit is working on her and making her feel a little guilty. :)

 Moscow has been super smokey! There's tons of wildfires everywhere. So it makes it kinda hard to ride bikes because we breath so heavy. Funny story. We got a bunch of furniture from this lady we helped move last week. We have a bunch of extra dining table chairs. They are pretty nice and have cushions on the seats. But the lady we got them from smoked so they smell a little bit. We stuck all of the extra chairs in the back bedroom and opened the window so they could air out. Then as a joke Elder Morse put a sign on the door that says, "Smoke Room" with a picture of a cigarette. Well the joke was on us because we came home that night and the smoke had settled in Moscow so when we went into that room it was definitely a smoke room. It smelled way more like smoke than it did before.

2 And when that day shall come they shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts, with thunder and with earthquake, and with a great noise, and with storm, and with tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire. -2 Nephi 26:2

All I have to say is the church is true.

Love ya! -Elder Andre Johnson

Ukelele!

We went to the temple this morning! It was a great experience! Every time I go I love it a little bit more!

Unfortunately Gregory's baptism was postponed :( The night before Amber, Gregory's mom who is a recent convert, got super sick so she asked if we could postpone the baptism. She is still pretty sick so we haven't rescheduled it yet.

 

We had some pretty cool experiences this week though. Yesterday we were split with some of the youth in the neighboring ward and we were tracting. I brought my Ukelele because it does miracles when your tracting. Oh yeah I can't remember if I told you but I bought a Ukelele a few weeks ago. Toootally worth it. Anyway after a few houses we met a guy named Jeremy. He told us that he was a missionary once too. But after his mission he became involved in a serious alcohol addiction which basically destroyed his life. After going through alcoholics anonymous his testimony of the atonement of Christ was super strong. His testimony is simple. He says that if God tells him to go back to the mormon church than he would do it. But he is just taking life one step at a time. At the end we asked him if we could sing I am a child of God for him. He agreed in fact he sang with us. The spirit was super strong and he started crying! After giving him a hug he asked if we could come by again. It was awesome!

Danya came to church! She only stayed for sacrament meeting because she had to go to work. Our lessons have been super edifying. She has started reading from the Book of Mormon and Praying too. 

We've been making up lots of songs on the ukelele. I'll have to record some of them and send them to you guys. 

Love ya!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

A Little Spice

Well I was reading a copy of the blessing I received when I was set apart as a missionary and it gave me some advice about writing emails home. It said to write home about your successes, your struggles and your testimony. I realized that I write a lot about successes and my testimony but I don't usually write about my struggles... because I don't want to get depressed and I don't want to make all you guys depressed. But I think it's good advice because, what's a mission without a little struggle? What's life without some sweat and tears? This email is suppose to bring a little spice to our sometimes overly sweet view of the "perfect missionary experience." Too much spice in food makes it too strong and inedible. But just the right amount of spice makes food delicious. This has been the case for my mission.

High expectations are placed on missionaries. Before I came out I had high expectations for myself. I knew that this short period of two years would go by quickly (which it has!) and I wanted to make sure that I didn't waste a moment of it. I wanted to baptize many. This alone probably sounds great. I had the attitude a new missionary should have. But as I started my missionary service I found myself very very stressed all the time. I wanted to go go go. I wanted to spend every minute out talking to people. However at the beginning of my mission, my companions were a little less anxious about the work. At the time this was extremely frustrating. I didn't want to waste my time! I had many "more than mild" conversations with my companions about more effective use of time, better weekly planning, talking to more people, and teaching with more power. 

After several difficult companionships, and in the middle of another I sat at my desk frustrated. As I prayed for help I had something come to me which I consider revelation. It changed me, which had a powerful effect on my future companionships. I realized that there are many different aspects to missionary work. And I put them in priority order as to what makes a missionary most effective: 

1. Personal Testimony. A missionary won't do anything if he doesn't have a testimony 
2. Companionship. The Lord does missionary work with two missionaries. He only works with them if their is unity.
3. Obedience. Obedience is key to having the spirit. Depending on the situation obedience can be put above companionship. If it is the case of serious disobedience. However in my case I mostly dealt with minor disobedience. It is more effective to have a powerful unified companionship that is striving for obedience than to have a companionship that is torn down by constant nitpicking at tiny rules. 
4. Teaching skills, use of time, numbers of lessons taught. This was the big one for me. I realized that the other 3 must come first or number 4 will not work. I had been so focused on number 4 that I was destroying unity in companionships. This helped me a ton in future companionships and I was able to help many other companionships while I was a Zone Leader.

My next companion was a super star! Elder Maguet! He has been the AP ever since he was with me. We would go go go. We taught and taught and taught. It was a blast! I got higher numbers with him than I got with anyone else. My next companion was Elder Leavitt. We worked hard. We taught like crazy. We put tons of people on date. At one point we were looking at having 10 people baptized in one month! It was exciting. But unfortunately one by one each person fell off date and never made it to baptism. This was extremely hard to deal with. I was working hard and fast. Constantly trying to change to become better. But I learned that I was moving too fast. Mosiah 4:27 took on a whole new meaning for me. I needed to learn to slow down. This wasn't just something that I needed to know for my mission but for my life. I have a tendency of working myself past the point of cheerfulness. So for the last few months I've been working on slowing down. It was super hard for me but its been amazing!!!!  I've found that I have the spirit with me so much more.

The last thing that I have struggled with on and off is feeling like a successful missionary. I think every missionary struggles with this somewhat. We come out with the attitude and expectation that if we work hard and are obedient than we will baptize. Well its not always like that. Other people have their choice. If Gregory's baptism this Saturday goes through then that will be my 2nd convert baptism in my 15 months of serving. Before I started I definitely would not have chosen to have such little fruit from my long labors but now that I have experienced it I'm so grateful. It has helped me become significantly more humble. Its helped me to have a greater love for the Lord. 

There was one day when I was feeling frustrated and I turned open to a scripture in Alma. The scriptures that I read have completely changed my attitude and look on missionary work. (this will be more meaningful if you read the scriptures with the email) Alma 29:1,2 "oh that I were an angel" Alma wishes he could be a better missionary. He wishes that people would listen to him. v. 3 "But I sin in my wish... I ought to be content with the things the Lord has allotted me."  V. 7,8 "Why do I desire to be an angel? The Lord has a plan for how all of his children will receive the word of god." V. 9 "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory in myself, I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." 

Bam! It completely changed my view! I'm not here to bring tons of people to repentance. God has a plan for how each of his children will receive the gospel. I'm here to bring exactly who I'm here to bring to repentance. No more, No less. I'm here to do God's will. That is my glory! That is my Joy! To do what God wants me to do everyday. Does this mean I should slacken in my work? No! Moroni 9:6 is a great scripture about that. Missionary work has always been fun for me but ever since this hit me missionary work has become much more meaningful. I love every moment. I love every miracle I get to see! I love every time I get rejected! I am grateful for all that heavenly father sends me. I love seeking to do my fathers will. It brings me joy and fulfillment. Am I a perfect missionary? No way. I'm always striving to be better. If I were a more effective missionary would I have more baptisms? Probably! But I'm not, and that's ok! I'm not here to be more than what I am.

Well hopefully you're not depressed, or asleep because this is a super long email. I hope your life and view of missionary work is spiced up a little. I hope you realize that you aren't the only one that is imperfect. I'm right there with you. I hope you realize that to those who are faithful in keeping the commandments everything that comes good or bad becomes a blessing. I hope you have a greater love for our Savior who righted every wrong and made up for every imperfect situation we have gone through.

Love you guys!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Syringa

Dear Family, 

My area is a pretty rich area and it is pretty small as well. Friday we got rejected hard core a bunch of times. It was kind of depressing. But in the evening we went out of town about 5 minutes to a trailer park called Syringa. Its kinda the dump of Moscow. Half of the trailers are deemed unlivable and lets be honest the rest should be. But that night I gained a greater understanding about why Jesus spent so much time with the sinners and the publicans. Everyone there was super nice to us. First we had a great lesson with a recent convert named Amber and her family and now her son Gregory is on date for august 15th. Then we had a guy that was outside grilling call to us to have us come talk to him. We had several other great lessons there that night. It was a pretty stark contrast to the earlier part of the day. 

Man I've been trying to write this letter for like 30 minutes now but I can't think of anything interesting or clever to say. So hope you guys have a great week!

-eLDER (aNDRE) jOHNSON

New Companion - Elder Morse

My new companion I am training is name Elder Morse. He is from Tucson Arizona. He is a super solid missionary already (ya I'm an awesome trainer) Ha ha just kiddin. He was just super prepared before he came out so I basically don't have to train him at all.  

Rolling Hills ward has been fun. Currently it is an all bike area so we are definitely gaining a testimony that the name chosen for this ward was inspired of God and very true. The ward members are awesome though. They just had a baptism the Saturday before we got here so everyone in the ward is excited to do missionary work. I have never got so many referrals in one week as I have this week. Our area is pretty small though besides a big section of booniness that we can basically never go to because we don't have a car. 

We are teaching a 24 year old girl here named Danya. She is super awesome. She has had a hard life. She has been involved in drugs and other bad things like that. But she is really humble and wants to know if God is really there. She was originally found by the previous missionaries because she just walked into church and at the end of Sacrament meeting asked the bishop for advice in her life. He of course referred her to the missionaries. Right now she lives at her parents house. Her Mom is very supportive of us coming over and teaching her, in fact she sits in on the lessons and adds in her own insights. They lived in Salt Lake City for about 12 years before recently moving here so they are acquainted with lots of Mormons.  We are also going to start teaching the Son of the Recent Convert in the ward. 

(Mom don't read this next part)

Because we are opening up a new area we moved into a brand new apartment. As we were bringing things in from the truck several of our neighbors surprised me at how welcoming and excited they were to have us as their new neighbors. One neighbor Christina, talked to us for a while. She told us, we're excited to have you as our new neighbors, you are much better than the last tenant that lived in #8. "Ha ha sweet! We are representing the church well!" were my thoughts. "Wait, who was the last tenant that lived her?". She explained that the last tenant who had lived in the very apartment that we were bringing our bags into had just so happened to murder 3 people in that apartment complex 6 months ago. "Great! This place seems like a great environment conducive to the spirit!" She went on to say that the man had of course been sent to jail to await trial after the crime. "In fact the county jail he is staying in is right there" she pointed to a large building several hundred feet away. "Great now if he escapes his first destination will be back home!" So if you don't hear from me again, just know that I love you guys and I hope you have better luck in housing assignments than me.

Anyway Moscow is awesome, My son is sweet, the ward is stellar, and the Church is true.

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Transferring to Rolling Hills ward in Moscow Idaho

Well its transfers once again. They were a bit surprising for me this time. I will be leaving Sandpoint and going to the Rolling Hills ward in Moscow Idaho. I will also be training a new missionary! I'm pretty excited about that.

I won't find out who he is till tomorrow. He is flying in to Spokane today.  Moscow Idaho is home to University of Idaho. However I will be in a family ward.

I finally took a picture of Pend Oreille (Ponderay) lake. I know, not the best photography. In my defense I was driving while I took this. We are driving on the Long Bridge which is a mile long across the lake. Its super pretty.  Well I can't think of much more to say than that this week. Don't worry I'm sure I'll have some awesome adventures this week to talk about in my next email.

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Schweitzer mountain; New Pres

Today for P-day was an adventure. We rode our bikes down Schweitzer mountain. This is the first time I have ever really mountain biked. Elder Baczuk had only been 1 other time in our life so we didn't really know what we were doing but we made it back alive... with a few scrapes and bruises. I only crashed 3 times. We took some awesome pictures that I was going to show you but I left my camera at home so I can't. Sorry.

We got a new mission president this week! President and Sister Dymock (Dim-ick). For the last few weeks Elder Baczuk and I have been guessing what they looked like. I guess 5' 10" With blondish hair. Sister Dymock as tall with Dark hair. Well when they walked into our "Meet the dymocks" meeting last friday it turns out that they look like exactly what you would picture a Mission President and his wife to look like. He is about 5' 11" with dark hair partially balding and a little gray in there. She is tall with dark hair. They are pretty awesome! They are super pumped for this calling. I would show you pictures but I don't have any.

Love you!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson