Date: Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: Letter to Sam
To: Tina Johnson <tinaej8@gmail.com>
Holy smokes I cant believe it is Monday again! This week was a little slow but we did get to teach some people. On Monday we went to a P-day activity with my district. We played basketball but they were all terrible! It was still pretty fun though. On Tuesday we had a meet president Ames meeting. He is the new mission president if you don't know. He is really awesome I know he is going to do some great things. We all got like 30 seconds to talk to him so we sat in the chapel forrrrreeeeeevvvveeeerrrrr! He told me to push my companion to work hard. He said he talked to Elder Baxter about me and I gave him my letter to Elder Baxter and he said he would make sure it got to him so maybe I will get to hear from him. Wednesday we had district training. It was really good. The Sister Missionaries gave us a ride and we got lost. We eventually found it but I think we used up all of their miles for the next few days haha. On Monday tuesday and wednesday I felt like we didn't get to get out and proselyte very much. Thursday is planning day which takes till like 2 so that took like half of that day too! We got to teach Evon though. I love Evon he is awesome! We taught about the word of wisdom and keeping the Sabbath day holy. We weren't planning on teaching the word of wisdom but somehow our conversation ended up on health so we just went with it. When we were talking about the Sabbath day we started talking about sunday dinner and we all agreed that pot roast is the staple sunday dinner and evon says he makes the best pot roast ever so he is going to have us over for dinner one of these days. He wants to go to church but is really nervous about it. One of these days he is going to come though! We will just keep inviting him. We had dinner at the Halls that night and sister hall's less active sister and her sister's non member boyfriend were there. He is battling with cancer for the second time and so I think he is wondering what happens to people after they die. Good thing the gospel answers all of those questions!!! We gave him a book of Mormon and he said he would read it. He doesn't live in our area though so we will have to refer him to other missionaries. I didn't get to see fireworks for the second year in a row :( i did get to go to a pancake breakfast for the fourth of july though! They sent us home with all of the rest of the pancakes so we have like 50 pancakes in our fridge! On saturday we went to go teach Celia but she was sick in bed, but that actually turned out to be a blessing for us because we got to teach her husband instead! He is really open to the gospel and said we can come back so that is great. He gave us a subway gift card that Celia bought for us, she is so sweet :) We met a man named jerry last night while we were tracting (hooray tracting actually worked!) He is old and has had nine major surgeries and has survived being shot so he knows that he is only still here because God allowed him to be. We gave him a book of Mormon and he promised to read it (wow someone actually promising us something for once) and he said we can come back this week :) Elder Daley got two flat tires this week! Somehow I ended up fixing them both hah he just does everything so slow it drives me crazy and I wont let him rest for two seconds which i think drives him crazy :) I love him though we get along really well. He is so nerdy I love it hahahaha he is always telling me about all of the intense times he has had while playing video games :) sounds like everything is going well at home so thats good! I cant think of anything else exciting that has happened... Oh this guy yelled at us last night and told us to go away because we scared his family by looking in his window hah his whole door was practically a window so I don't know how we could have kept from looking through it unless we closed our eyes when we walked up. Everyone else here is usually really nice though so that is good :) We still need more people to teach. Everyone that reads this email I want you to go find one person and set them up with the missionaries! If every member got one person to join the church we would double the church membership! No one can argue a testimony from the heart so go out and share it! Why keep something so powerful and special to yourself? Let me know how it goes :)
Love,
Elder Johnson
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On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 10:50 PM, Tina Johnson <tinaej8@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Sam,
Taylor just left, she stopped by with some yummy cookies and to get your address. She stayed a long time. She is just working and hanging out with her family. She really needs some friends. Hanging out with your family is good but you need to get out which doesn't sound like her family does much.
She was asking me about your AP pass code, which she said was in your AP pamphlet. So I can get your AP scores. If you have it some where I could get on the internet and find out your scores. Let me know.
We have sold 3 puppies. Last week when I told you dad wasn't a very good salesman, he ended up selling that puppy to them. But we haven't had any calls for a long time so we are thinking we need to drop the price again. But on a good note, Kerry Prince said that he just gives his puppies the 6 week shots, so instead of paying the vet $200 we went and bought the medicine and only paid $48, More money to go towards your mission.We will give them all their shots tomorrow and they will be ready to go.
For the 4th of July, dad was with the boys at the school most of the day, so we just went to Uncle Dales for dinner, watched a movie then went up to the baseball fields and watched the fireworks. They were good.
Friday, we worked and was going to go up to Kolob camping over night, but dad got home from work too late and he told Brother Dutton he would help clean the church the next morning. So we just invited Bob and Cindy Scow over to play cards, and we went up the next morning after cleaning. Dale and them got some more property to put cows on, so they went up to build fences. The weather was wonderful up there and hot down here so it was great.
After everyone went home dad and I went for a quad ride and it go a little chillie. It was beautiful though, big meadows with grass and flowers. I loved it but I always love quadding( I know that's not a word, but you know what I mean). Dad did a little fishing but didn't catch anything. He said his worms got mushy out in the sun.
Tanner came over for dinner today. Since Travis has come he has had a lot more friends to hang out with even though he doesn't always hang out with Travis. Travis has just got him in a circle of friends. It's a good thing since without you Tanner would have had no one. He is going to move in with Travis as soon as his lease runs out.
Well that was our week. Glad everything is going good there. Be humble but bold.
I Love you,
MOM
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Russell Johnson <russellcjohnson@gmail.com>
Jul 7 (8 days ago)
to samuelj
Hey there Elder Johnson,
How is everything going? Hope you had a productive week. Sounds like you are working in a rich area. Those area's can be tough, although if you can convert one; they have the ability to do a lot of good for the church.
This week was busy as usual. Monday we now mow the lawn's and do yard work. For some reason we didn't this time, your mom said it was just to hot. It has been in the 112-114 range this past week. At night it was in the 90's. It has started to cool down now and we had a couple of rain storms today, which the stake was fasting for, so the prayers were answered quickly. We can still use a lot more.
Tuesday for YM we did the dinner and a movie. We went to Durango's and went and seen the Super Man movie. It was a little corny, but entertaining. If you like movies where they fly full speed into each other and knock buildings over that is the movie for you.
Went to the Temple Wednesday. That was nice.
Thursday was the 4th of July. I worked. Well if you call it working. We took the boys to the park and had a barbecue and played kick ball with a slip-n-slide and a little kids pool.That was fun and the boys enjoyed it. In the evening we went to visit Grandma Johnson.She fell and hurt her back. She is still in a lot of pain. You need to write her. You know she does not do computers. In the evening we went with Dale and Cheri and watched fireworks at the softball field. They were really good.
Friday not much went on, just work. We ended up buying shots for the puppies and will be doing it ourselves tomorrow. We sold one dog this week and a guy is coming to pick another one up tomorrow and a third next week. He lives up north. That leaves us with 6. No calls as of late. I have found that not having papers is not the best.
Saturday, the priest were asked to clean the church. We did that then went to Kolob to build fence. That was enjoyable. It was a lot cooler on the mountain. We got most of it complete. After, your mom and I went on a quad ride, you know that is her favorite thing to do. We rode about 40 miles on the Kanaraville mountains. We came back and fished, but the fish were not biting.
I did have a couple of faith promoting experiences this week. I'll give you the short versions. Both were answers to my prayers.
The first happened on Wednesday. I was working on a riser on the property we have and I opened one of the valves to see if there was any water pressure in the lines. There was and more than I expected. Anyway, I tried to shut the valve off but it would not close. I worked with it for about 20-30 minutes, Meanwhile the field was being flooded. Finally, I said a prayer in my heart and told Heavenly Father that there appears to be no way for me to turn this water off unless you intervene and do something that I can't do. As I prayed I kept trying to get it turned off. Suddenly the water began to slow down and eventually I was able to shut it off.
I offered a prayer of thanks, but then Satan came knocking and I began to wonder if my prayer was answered of I just was able to finally get the valve to close on my own strength. Of course Satan wanted me to think it was me.
A little later Darren came and was doing something and turned the same valve on. I drove down to see what was taking him so long and he couldn't get the valve closed either. I went over to help him and with both of us pushing down on it we couldn't get it closed. We tried for quite a while and finally decided we needed to take the shutoff valve off, meaning someone was going to get real wet. We would then screw it back down with a wrench. McKay came along and we had him remove the valve cover and he got wet alright, but still couldn't get the riser to shut off. Darren finally went in and had to unscrew the bolt that shuts the valve off. He also was very wet when he was done. Well we finally changed the bolt out and got the water shut off. The original bolt had rusted away and the threads were gone. That is why we couldn't get it to screw back down.
I realized that I would have never got that riser to shut off by myself and I knew Heavenly Father had heard a simple prayer and answered it. I think he gave me the second experience to show me that He had really answered my prayer. There was no wondering any more.
The second experience was also a prayer. When playing on the slip-n-slide with the boys from the school, I tweaked my knee. That night it was very painful and I couldn't walk on it. It made it hard to sleep. I got up in the night and keeled down by my bed and began to pray for relief. I told Heavenly Father that if he could make a riser bolt so I could close a valve I know he could heal my knee. Well the thought came to me to go take some IB Profen. I thought about that and then though, if I do that would that really be a answer to my prayer or show a lack of faith on my part? Then the thought came to me that Heavenly Father reveled the knowledge to someone to make this pill to help relieve pain and so it could be an answer to my prayer. I took the IB Profen and went back to bed, by morning the pain had gone away for the most part and I was able to work the entire day with no problem.
You know how I don't like to take any kind of medications, but this seemed to be an answer to another prayer. For the most part my knee is better. The last time I hurt it, I was down for about a month.
I'm not sure what I was to learn from these two experiences, as my faith would have still been intact even if either or both events had turned out differently. I think it is always good to know that Heavenly Father does hear us and answers our prayers. Sometimes it is not immediate or so obvious, but He does answer them in the way that is best for us. Even the simple and seemingly insignificant events in our life.
Well that is about it. Hope things are going good for you.
Love Dad.
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