Preaching in Hail

The picture didn't turn out as well as I hoped because you can't tell that it is hailing.

Me preaching the gospel in hail

This week I went on exchanges to Davenport. It is a small town of 1500ish people about 45 minutes west of Spokane. Right now there is only a branch but very soon it will turn into a ward. They have a phase 1 church building which means it is really small but can be built on to. They other day at exchanges we had to go to the church for something and when we walked into the multi purpose room (Chapel) this is what we found. Someone had broken into the church by pushing the window in. You can't see it in the picture but the cupboard where the electronics were kept was left wide open. It was pretty crazy. The Sheriff came and was looking around the building for any more clues. Then we watched him extract some fingerprints off the window. It was sweet.

It was a great day in Davenport. One of the Miracles that we saw was we were walking by this lady named Doris who was weeding her flower beds. We offered to help her and she turned us down. We tried striking up a conversation and she wasn't having it. She said I am not interested. So as a final attempt to have a good contact we asked her if we could say a prayer. With reluctancey in her voice she said ok. When we all said amen we were surprised to see that there was another lady there that had joined us in the middle of the prayer. She explained that Doris was her sister in law and that she actually was the one that lived here. She was very nice. One of the first things she asked us was, "do you want to get your hands dirty and help weed?" Ha Ya we do! We taught her the Restoration while we were weeding and gave her a pamphlet and she was very excited to read it it and learn more.

Love you!
-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Kool-aid Challenge

A few weeks ago for p-day we had some unique activities. Usually all the missionaries go to the stake center gym and play basketball and marshmallow dodgeball. But for this particular p-day we did something different. Wal-mart right now has a sale for kool-aid jammers. You can get a 6 pack for 1 dollar. Its a pretty good deal. We had to take advantage of it. So for p-day 4 of us Elders did the Kool-aid challenge. The challenge is to drink 15 bottles of Kool-aid in 15 minutes without throwing up. We started off the challenge with confidence quickly guzzling bottle after bottle.

But just like Ether 12:27 states, "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble"
It didn't take long for us to become humbled and get a little discouraged.

But we followed the counsel of 2 Nephi 31:21 to "Press forward feasting upon the word of Christ [or whatever else you may be feasting on], and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the father ye shall have eternal life"

Alma 26:12
Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Anyway other than that we've seen some cool miracles lately. Kimberlie brought her friend to church! We also just recently had a family move in named the Rigsby's. They are all members but the father. Well the whole family came to church yesterday including the father! We also had a whole bunch of other non-members there because there was a farewell talk. Ha nother small miracle we saw last night. We just started teaching our neighbor named Joan. She is an older lady who's husband died a year and a half ago. She knows Brother Lybbert because back in his day he was the real estate agent that sold her the house that she was living in. Anyway we dropped by to see if we could have a quick doorstep visit, because we can't go in because she is a single lady. When we showed up she said, "come on in the Lybberts are here" We visited for a little and had a great lesson on the Plan of Salvation. It was one more testimony to me that this is God's work and if he wants something done he will make it happen.

Love you!
-Elder (Andre) Johnson

P.S.
This is probably the last week that I will have to sign my name with my first name because Brian is coming home. Thats super weird. When you guys see him tell him I love him and that he doesn't have free reign to steal all of my stuff that is currently packed in boxes right next to his.

Since the Mother's Day call...

Soooooooo much has happened since I last talked to yall!!!!!!!!

I ate dinner. I nightly planned. I got the zone's numbers. I brushed my teeth. I went to bed. I woke up. I cleaned the apartment. I ate some breakfast. Now I'm here. Needless to say the past few hours have been great!

Talking to you guys was awesome! It was lots o' fun!

Love you!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Hot Chocolate

I feel old. My Ward Mission Leader's Daughter's family, the Leavenworth's are in Bowdish ward, my old area. I would have dinner at their house pretty often. I remember Sister Leavenworth always talking about her daughter who was on a mission who had six months left. Well I got kinda freaked out yesterday when my Ward Mission Leader said that his granddaughter got home from her mission that day. The last 6 months just flew by! But the experiences I am having are amazing! Some of them are super exhilarating, spiritual, and motivating. Some are bland, tiring, and difficult. But nevertheless they are all amazing. I am learning from the good and the bad. I feel like no moments are wasted. I feel like they are all preparing me for my future. 

Here was one of those great experiences. Elder Bowring and I didn't shop very well this week so some times it was hard to decide what to have for dinner. I used a skill I learned at a very early age. Look in the pantry, find nothing, go to the fridge, find nothing, go to the cupboard find nothing, go to the pantry, find nothing, go to the fridge find nothing, go to the cupboard find nothing, go to the pantry and lower your expectations. Eat. This is what I did. What I found in the pantry was six different kinds of Hot Chocolate. So I decided that for dinner I would discover which of the six brands of Hot Chocolate tasted best. I made every cup exactly how the ingredients directed me to. I had a glass of water to drink in between every cup of hot chocolate to renew my taste buds. It was a great learning experience for my life! I discovered that Stephen's Candy cane Hot Chocolate is to die for! I also found out that Western Family hot chocolate is also to die for but in a different way. 

One of the highlights of this week was we convinced Bob, a hard hearted old cuss that lives in Sprague to come up to Cheney for a church tour. We drove all the way down to Sprague, met Bro Thompson. Woke Bob up. Told him to get ready. Then we all drove back up to Cheney in Bro Thompson's car. Did the Church tour. Drove back to Sprague. We visited a few people down there then came back to Cheney. Needless to say we invested quite a bit into this church tour. But its because we have faith in this stubborn old cuss. We have seen his countenance change from the first time Bro Thompson introduced us. He has lots of questions about the Mormon "cult" but each time we go over his heart gets a little softer.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers or prospective Mothers!

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-05-01-to-every-mother?lang=eng 

Here's a cool video about you. Plus its a plug for family history.

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Kimberlie Baptism

Kimberlie Got Baptized!!!! It was awesome!!!! The service was really powerful. Lots of ward members attended and the spirit was really strong. Both her and the parents cried at different parts of the service. They're next. They don't know it yet but they are. 

There will be a picture just like this but the parents will be in white and Kimberlie won't.

The other cool thing about the baptism was that Bro Thompson got to baptize and confirm her. I've written about him several times. He's the one that just got baptized last June and he used to be a Nazarene Pastor. He has worked really hard on helping this family accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It was his first time baptizing someone (at least with the proper authority). It was a powerful experience to see two people new to the gospel participating in ordinances that bring them closer to Jesus Christ. 

Well that was definitely the highlight of the week. 

Love ya!

-Elder (Andre) Johnson

Transfers!

Transfers!!! Man I always try and make the email after transfer dramatic but it doesn't really work. So I'll just tell you without any exclamation points. I'm staying. Yay. I'm happy. Elder Bowring is also staying. I was pretty surprised that I was staying because I have been here for 6 months. But I am glad that I am staying.

Kimberlie Westfall is doing great and planning on being baptized this saturday! (oh man I used an exclamation point. I had to. It's exciting) 

Yesterday we had a lesson with Felicity. She's the one that asked us if she could be an investigator last week. We had an awesome lesson about the Restoration. We were planning on doing a lesson on the Book of Mormon next time and giving her the book then, but she asked if she could have one. We can't say no. She said, "I love to read. I'll read it all before next time we meet" We're meeting with her in 2 days. Ha ha we'll see how far she gets but the fact that she is excited about it is pretty cool. 

Anyway I know this is a short letter. This week I will pay more attention to the miracles I see so I can write a more exciting letter next week. 

Love Ya!

-Elder Johnson

Two pretty cool miracles

Hola de muchacho de queso de espanol de las casas!!!!!

We had a pretty good week this week! We went and saw the Westfall family. The family was originally on date for this coming Saturday but because of Word of Wisdom issues the parents won't be able to be baptized on that day. But Kimberlie the daughter is still set on being baptized. Unfortunately we had to move the date back to April 25th because of scheduling reasons. We will hopefully be putting the Parents back on date soon. 

This week we saw some pretty cool miracles. 

1. We went to go visit Travis a less active member at his apartment the other night. He answered the door and we saw that he had a few friends over that were playing a board game. We asked a few questions about the game they were playing when out of nowhere the girl that was sitting there asked, "Do you guys come and knock on his door very often? Because I live downstairs and you never knock on my door." We explained that we usually don't knock on people's doors till we know them but we definitely can come knock on yours. She said that would be great. So we're going by tonight! Her name is Felicity. This happened at the end of a long day of rejections. We had talked to A LOT of people that day but we didn't have much success. Then at the end of the day God just gave us a new investigator without us having to do anything. 

2. We were walking around and we saw this lady that always stands outside her apartment complex in the same place everyday to smoke. I've tried to talk to her like 9,000 times since I've been here but she always just blows us off. But the other day Elder Bowring who has never met her went up and started talking to her and for some reason she opened right up and now she is a new investigator! I was amazed! When I saw him going up to her I had no faith but I was rebuked soundly. Which I was ok with. 

We had a mini missionary this week. Thats a highschool kid getting ready for a mission that stays with you for a few days. That made things kinda fun,.

Well I love yall.

-Elder (Andre) Johnson