Week Ending 11/19/2013

• Pictures
• Sam washing dishes
• Missionary picture
• Sam riding some peddle contraption
• From Sam to Family
• Cold in Texas
• Stake conference and amazing chior
• 8 less actives out
• Challenge to do missionary work
• Testimony
• From Dad to Sam
• Man Cave
• BYU beats Idaho State (Football)
• 4-0 Basketball

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Sam washing dishes somewhere. No details of where this was at or what it was for.

Sam and some of the other missionaries 

Sam riding some contraption. No details sent.

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Sams letter to the Family

Sorry about the slacking on the emails. Things have been pretty crazy for the last couple of p days. Things are going just dandy here though. It was c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cold last week!!! The high was 48 one day and the wind was blowing like crazy! I had to pedal as hard as I could just to get down the hills. I survived though and it warmed back up to a toasty 85 degrees yesterday :)

We had stake conference yesterday and it was amazing!!!! The talks were so good and the Spirit was super strong! The choir was the best part though! I guess UNT has one of the top music programs in the country so there are a ton of great singers and musicians here in Denton. No joke they sounded every bit as good as the Mormon tabernacle choir. We were in a meeting before the sunday session started and we heard them practicing and I said dang the choir sounds awesome! and Elder Hew Len said no that's a recording of mo-tab. So afterward we went in to see who was right and it was the choir it was so cool!

We got to see 8 less actives this week which was awesome! I've found that all of these less actives have something in common. They all in one way or the other said that they don't feel like they fit in at church. What they need is a friend. A real friend. Not only someone to sit by during church but someone they feel they can talk to outside of church. It is so sad that these people can come to church with 200 people and still feel alone. Here is my challenge to everyone. Find someone that needs a real friend and be that person! You will change their lives and possibly what happens to them after this life!

Leave the ninety and nine sheep that are perfectly fine and find the one that is lost and alone. Don't wait! Just like a little lamb every second they are out in the wilderness they could be getting hurt or killed. The sheep are out there let's save them :)

I was eating in a place called Weinburgers the other day and in there people can just write and draw all over the walls and I found this cool quote that someone had written. It said "Strength is the product of struggle. Those that do what others do not will acheive what others will not."

Ever since I have been in this area people have been telling me "oh this is just a hard area" but maybe what the problem is we are just trying the same thing over and over so we missionaries are just getting the same results. I think the brethren in Salt Lake get it. We cant keep doing things the same as we have always done them. We need the members help! Now truly is the time! The work is being hastened! "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing."

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a part of this great work! There is nothing that can compare to the joy it brings! I love this gospel and I love this church! I love my Savior and I show him that by the way I live my life :) I know he loves me and knows me personally :) He has a plan! Sometimes I don't understand his plan, but what I do understand is that he has one and whatever happens is the way things are supposed to happen :) The church is true :) Don't forget it :) Look for that missionary opportunity today :)

Love,
Elder Johnson

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From Dad to Sam

This week was a bit of a blur. Not much going on. Probably the big news is I cleaned out the shed in the back and made it into a "Man Cave". I put a mattress out there and a computer to watch BYU sports and built a fire in the stove. It was real nice. You mom isn't on to it yet and wonders why I am spending so much time out there.

BYU update.

Football team beat Idaho State 59-13. The basketball team is 4-0 and are averaging almost 100 points a game. Scored 112 and 108 in two different games. They play Iowa State this Wednesday and Texas on Friday so we'll see if they are really good or not. That Jabari Parker (the Mormon that went to Duke) is a beast. BYU could have used him. Tyler Hawes is tearing them up. Averaging 29 points a game. He is considered an all american. They should be good for a few years as they only have one senior on the team.

Well that is about it for me. Your mom is telling you things that I was going to write about.

Take care.

Love Dad


PS Send pictures.

Week Ending 11/10/201

• Sam's Letter to Dad
• Not much time to write
• Dad's Letter to Sam
• Access to Sams room again
• Temple trip and breakfast at Black Bear Diner
• Horse ride with a couple of the school boys
• Group of boys to Horse auction in Cedar City

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Sams Letter to Dad

Hey Dad how's it goin?

I appreciate your long letters because you feel really out of the loop as a missionary hah. Sorry I haven't done the group email this week or last. We keep getting to the library and all of the computers are filled so I only have time to write the mission president and send a few short emails.

You should tell brother Moosman hello for me next time you talk to him. I miss him too, he is a great man.

Well like I said I am pretty much out of time. Thanks for all that you do and may the Lord bless you with a missionary experience this week! I love you!


Elder Johnson

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Dad Letter to Sam

On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Russell Johnson <russellcjohnson@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Sam,

Don't know what happened last week. It just snuck by me and I never got a letter off.

Have some good news. Since it has cooled down we have quit running the swamp cooler. That has caused the doors to shrink down and we can now open the door to your room. It has been sealed since you left. Things look pretty much like you left them.

We the deer hunt is over and we are enjoying the fruits of our labor, or should I say the meat of our labor. It has been good so far. It was fun having Cade up for the week.

Speaking of Cade, I guess there is no baby yet, so we are still in intense suspense on what the baby is, boy or girl.

We went to the early Wednesday morning session at the temple this week. We were trying to make the 5:30 session, but missed it by 5 minutes, you know who couldn't get up early enough. Anyway we went to the Black Bear dinner after for breakfast. They feed you a bunch. Reminded me of the good ol days with Reeves Moosman. He always wanted to go to the temple in the early hours and we would stop at the Black Bear dinner after for breakfast. The only difference here is that I took your mom. Reeves is good company, but your mom is a better looking. I miss Reeves, he is a good friend.

I was leaving the school on Friday night and there were 10 bucks in the pasture (well after dark) grazing. Nothing to big. The house is in the Zion unit. Should have been hunting there.

I took two of the boys, Jimi and Trevor (from the school) on a horse ride on Friday. We rode Rocky, April and Chief. They went really good and the boys had never rode horses that travel so good. It was a nice day and we had fun. They were telling me it was one of the funnest things they have done for a long time. When we got back to Grandma Johnson's house Grandma asked if we had ate, and of course we hadn't, so she pulled a few leftovers out of the fridge. Of course you know how that goes. Pretty soon we had a 7 course meal sitting in front of us. The boys really enjoyed it. We had taco's and hamburgers. They said it was the best meat they had ever tasted. You know how Grandma can cook. I took them back to the school with about 10 fresh eggs from the chicken coup. They were pretty excited about having them for breakfast.

I may take a couple more of the boys next week. Beau, Trevor and Scott are all going home soon. Trevor this week.

We had stake conference this weekend. It was real good. Nice not having the stress and can just go and enjoy it, We had a broadcast and Elder Scott and Oaks spoke. Elder Oaks warned us against joining militia's that would revolt or be anti government. I told your mom, "dang there goes another thing I can't do now."

They are really pushing missionary work right now. I guess with all the missionaries out they need the regular members to step up and do more to keep them all busy.

You probably heard Julia got her mission call. She is pretty excited.

We took the boys (some of them) up to Cedar the other day to the horse auction. It was fun. Those auctioneers can really talk fast. You didn't dare even scratch your face for fear that they would think you were bidding. They sold a few good horses, but most looked like they were headed to the dog food factory.

BYU played Wisconsin yesterday and they were all hyped that BYU was going to dominate even though Wisconsin was ranked 21. Well they got their pants kicked and ended up losing 27-17, but the game was not as close as the score Pretty disappointing. They always get our hopes up that they can play with the big boys, but it is never the case.

Well that is about it for this week. Hope you are doing well and not freezing. Weather was cold here, but has warmed up and real nice.

I probably give you to long of letters. I was looking a one of the few letters that my dad sent me on my mission and it was real short and the jiff of the letter was, you mom has probably told you everything already so there is not much to write, love dad. That was it.

Keep working hard and don't be afraid to share the gospel with everyone. I am reading "The Miricle of Forgiveness", there are a lot of sins that we can commit. Thank goodness for the last two chapters or it would seem pretty hopeless. The most important thing we can do is teach people to repent and come unto Christ. So that is what you need to do.

Keep up the good work. We love you.


Love Dad...

Week Ending 11/3/2013

• Sam's Letter to mom
•  Investigator named Blessing
• Pickle ball
• What Sam eats

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From Sam to mom

Hey Mom :) Blessing, the lady who's lawn we mowed works a ton so she is super hard to catch but we have an appointment with her this week so we will see what happens :) 

That's pretty cool that you and aunt susan are playing pickle ball, you think you can beat me now? :) 

I also enjoyed that extra hour of sleep :) My internal clock is a little thrown off now hah it was weird getting up to go work out this morning and it was light outside. Now we'll really be biking in the dark a lot! 

Dang all of that food you made sounds super good! I miss your cooking! I try to eat healthy stuff and cook good meals for myself but it's not as good as yours. Pretty much every morning I have oatmeal and toast and a banana and carrots and orange juice :) I used to make a lot of eggs but that was too much work so I don't do that very often. I eat a lot of sandwiches for lunch :) especially BLTs :) The members feed us really well here so that is good. I don't eat dinner very often at home. 

This ward is awesome I love it! I started drinking protein shakes after I work out and I've put on a lot of weight so that is pretty cool :) well I think it is haha 

It's getting pretty cold here and it rains a lot. I wish I would have brought some sweat pants and those little hand warmers I had. Well I hope you have a wonderful week I love and miss you! 

Your Little Missionary :) 

Elder Johnson

P.S I would still like some pictures of our family to show my companions if you ever have a chance to send some.

P.S.S what's your favorite color?

Week Ending 10/27/2013

• Pictures
• Deer Hunt
• Trip to Thacher 
• Sams 19th Birthday
• Sam's Letter to Family
• Not being transfered
• Turned 19
• Lot's of rain (Frog choker)
• Less active came to church on Primary program day
• Dad's letter to Sam
• Deer season recap
• Took Grandpa Ewell spotting deer
• Sam's 19th Birthday

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Return from the slaughter

My deer after Cade skinned it's cape

All the gang, minus Tanner and Sam at Katie's parents house

The Deer I shot. Not to wide, but tall.

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Sams 19th Birthday at a members house. The member was Bob Foster and that is his son Derrick in the background.

Sam's 19th Birthday celebrated in the mission field

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Sam's letter to the Family

Hello everyone :)

Well we got transfer calls this morning......... and..... I'm staying in Denton with Elder Hew Len :D Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this ward it is the bomb! I'm glad I'm not leaving because we have been having the roughest two weeks ever and we have like no one to teach so I need to stay and find some people and get them on the path to eternal life before I go :) I know they are here they are just really good at hiding!

My birthday was pretty great I cant believe I am nineteen! I think I am getting wrinkles!

We had interviews on Wednesday with President Ames, that is always fun :) He makes you feel so good about yourself I love it hah.

Well like I said teaching has been really rough lately so I don't have any cool stories this week. I do have a cool story of the Lord looking out for his missionaries though! Elder Hew Len and I were out on Saturday and it was cloudy all day but it hadn't rained and we had just finished dinner on the other side of the area and were on our way home. It is like a 25 minute ride so I was trying to get Elder Hew Len to race me home to make it faster. So we started racing and it took about 20 minutes to get home (I won of course ;) ) but not 2 minutes after we walked in the door it started POURING!!!!! I have never seen it rain like this in my whole life it was crazy!!!!! They call it a frog strangler around here haha. But it rained and rained and rained until morning it was crazy!! It was cool though.

Luckily we had an exchange that night so we still got to go out. We had an exchange with our district leader that night too so Elder Johnson came here with me and came to church with me on sunday. Wow I've never heard the same joke so many times in a day hah. Everyone thought it was so funny. "oh johnson and johnson the family company hahahahahaha". Pretty hilarious right :)

Church was pretty great though it always is. They had the primary program and they have 150 kids in our primary! We had a less active guy come to church that we have been working with and we learned about the spirit world in gospel principles and that just blew his mind haha he loved it :) Then we learned about tithing in elders quorum and he said he is going to stop smoking and use the money to pay his tithing :D He is awesome I love him :)

Well that's about all of the excitement for this week. I'm going to go play some basketball now :) Hope everyone has a fantastic week and finds someone to share the gospel with! Don't be scared you can do it! :)

Love,
Elder Johnson

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Dad's Letter to Sam

Hi Sam,

We have just wrapped up another successful deer hunt. On Wednesday it was looking pretty bleak. We only had 4 deer out of 12 tags. The weather changed a little Wednesday night and a fast moving storm came through and we really slayed the deer. We got 6 on Thursday. It was the year of the small bucks as no one got anything to really brag about. In fact out of the 10 deer I think 7 were small 2 point bucks. The most common phrase around camp was "It sure looked bigger when I shot it."

It was all fun though and had some good experiences and laughs. The deer I got was one of the nicer ones. It was a 4x2. I was sitting on Thursday morning looking over a canyon and seen some doe's and fawns. It was a little overcast and so the deer were out later than normal. I was getting ready to leave and I happen to catch a lone deer running up the other side of the canyon. It was about 300 yards away. I scoped it and could see that it had horns. I lost it in some think brush, but then saw it again on the far side hill. For some reason it must have decided it was hungry and stopped to chew on some brush. I could only shoot off one knee. I aimed high on its front shoulder and shot. The deer just disappeared. I scoped all over to try and find it, but couldn't. I watched the side hill for about 15 minutes and Tony and Randy showed up. Tony stayed and watched while Randy and I made our way over to the other side hill. No small task, you know how think the brush is there. When we finally got over there the deer was laying right where I shot it. I had hit it high in the front shoulder and may have even broke it's back. The shot was probably more luck than good management, but I will take it.

Cade decided he wanted the cape so he came and cut it off and we ended up quartering the deer right there and packing it out. When we skinned it, we found my bullet on the other side. It had penetrated clear through the deer and was stopped by the hide on the back side. Cade will get some of the cost off for bringing a deer hide to the taxidermist who is doing the big buck he shot.

Another funny thing that happened was Dale and Cade were walking along a ridge and Cade happen to spot a deer laying under a tree across another canyon. It was 250 to 300 yards. How he saw it I'll never know. Anyway Dale got all excited and though it was a really big buck. They were so far away that the deer either didn't know they were looking at it or it didn't care. Cade got his binoculars out and put it on his tripod and they looked at it for a while and decided it wasn't a monster, but a nice 2 point. Dale had already shot a deer and Cade didn't wasn't to shoot a small one. Bevin happened to be over the next ridge watching a canyon. Dale hiked over to were he was and told him they were watching a nice 2 point buck and wanted to know if he wanted to shoot it. So Bevin came over and looked at it through Cade's binoculars and decided it was big enough. All the while the deer is still laying under this tree chewing it cud. Bevin went and got a dead rest on a tree and shot it. It just flopped over. It then got up and Cade finished it off.

I happened to be just below them watching the whole thing, but couldn't see the deer. It was funny to watch them decide if they were going to shoot it or not. I told them I would hike over and check out the deer. There were three canyons between me and the deer so it was not any small task to get over to it. Of course by the time we reached it, the deer had shrunk substantially. And the nice 2 point was now a very small two point. They were all very surprised that it had shrunk so much. They all said "It sure looked bigger when Bevin shot it." We all hate that shrinking affect when you first see the buck and when you get to it after you have shot it.

Haley shot her first deer this year and one of Golden's daughters who is only 12 also shot one on the side of the rode. They were all very small.

We came off the mountain on Friday and cut up deer. Cutting up 10 deer is a lot of work.

That evening we watched BYU play Boise State. They finally beat them. I think it was 37-20. Pretty good game in the first half. That is when most of the scoring went on.

Cade and I took Grandpa Ewell up to see all the deer that were out. As luck would have it there weren't many out. Last week Cade and I counted over 300 in those lower pastures (where we can't hunt of course). This week there were only about 50. I think Grandpa Ewell enjoyed it though. Just getting out was a highlight for him. He is not looking or feeling very well these days.

We got a nice text from Bob Foster and a picture of you and your birthday cake. They had a lot of nice things to say about you and said you are a great missionary. That makes us proud.

Hope you had a good birthday. What a better way to celebrate a birthday than when you are serving the Lord full time on a mission. It was a little weird seeing the 19 on the cake. Usually that birthday is before you leave. Oh well, looked fun and wish we could have been there.

Well you probably want to get off and doing other things. Hope you are using your P-days to get out and get refreshed for a new week.

We love you and pray for you every day. Work hard and with faith and try to over come discouragement. That is one of Satan's greatest tools to hinder the work.

Love Dad.

PS. Will be sending some pictures in another email and google plus (I think, not sure how that works.) BTW, did you get the picture I sent last week of the fawn chasing the turkeys around?