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November 20, 2017 - Miracles and Training

Hello!

First off I received exciting transfer news last night. I am staying in Sarnia and will be training a new missionary! I am humbled and grateful for the assignment. My mission president also assigned me to be a district leader so it should be fun learning the ropes and balancing the both at the same time. I am going to need a lot of help from the Lord. Whoever my trainee is, he is blessed to begin his mission in Sarnia, a lot of good things are happening here.

Continued story from last week

Last week I talked about how my companion and I got our car stuck in the muddy trail. It happened at 3:00 p.m. on our way to give a lesson to our investigator Austin who's dating a member of the Johnson family. Immediately after we got stuck we thought, ya we're going to need some help. The Johnson's we're the closest members to us (8 min drive away) so we called them up. Austin happened to be at the Johnson's place so sister Johnson sent Austin on their quad to offer some assistance. Before he arrived we collected sticks and logs to lodge under the tires. When he arrived he connected his line to our hitch and tried to pull us out while Elder Larson simultaneously hit the gas to come out. Lots of different attempts and fidgeting resulting in no movement. Eventually Sister Johnson drove to us and came out all excited and exuberant about the whole crazy experience (kind of reminds me of my mom) while I'm just like yeah. She took us home for dinner and her husband went out with us again to get us out. He jacked the car up and put long planks under the wheels and we got out pretty easy. It was 6:00 by this time.  He helped us retrace our trail back to the real road which was difficult because it was dark out by then. We made it and no one was hurt, my clothes were just a bit dirty so sad. Amazing help from the family, we were toast without them!

This week!

Miracle #1 We have an ad on kijiji (it's the Craig's list of Canada) called "Free help and service" to offer our hands to anybody who needs it. A couple of weeks ago a lady named Ann needed our help. She's in her 60's and is from Jamaica originally. To shorten the story, we've seen her 3 times and combined service and teaching with every visit. It just so happens that Ann has a deep commitment to God coupled with a soft heart; she is accepting the message of the Restoration. Just last week she also just took in a tenant who was looking for a place to stay to be close to his mom who's sick. He's in his 20's and has been through a lot in his life because of his broken up family. He's a good guy so we'll see what happens with him as he sits in on the lessons.

Miracle #2 We also got a response from a lady who needed help with her leaves so we did that on Wednesday. Her name is Liliiane and she's originally from Cameroon and has been in Canada for about 2 years (There's mostly Caucasian/Canadian born residents in my area so it's interesting how these 2 people happen to be foreign). She has a christian background and couple of kids but we didn't meet them because they were at school. We helped for about an hour and told her a little about who we are and what we do, but we didn't push our message on her or anything. The story doesn't end there. At 10:00 this morning Liliane called us up expressing how she is struggling to help her children find direction and purpose in life. She asked us, "As Elders, could you teach my children about the purpose of life and the teachings of Jesus Christ?" 

Wow, perfect question. We are going to sit down with her family this Friday. I am so excited about this.

Service is powerful! Lesson I've learned: If missionaries value service before they value numbers then they will see more miracles. Why? Because Jesus Christ's life and mission and atoning sacrifice is the perfect example of an act of service. As a missionary, I am a representative of Him.

Miracle #3 At 10:30 this morning (30 mins after Liliane's call) we received a call from an unknown number. He asked, "Are you the Sarnia missionaries?" I said yes and he said he wanted to attend our service. Wow. He's met with missionaries for a bit in the past. He said he's been reading the Book of Mormon recently and it's brought true peace into his heart for the first time in his life. He said he wants to memorize it! We'll see about that but man I couldn't believe the miracles.  Maybe the trainee that is coming in has been praying in all of these miracles so he has some work to do when he gets here.

I love the work, the work is true. Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy said, "Handwork reveals capacity." I have taken that structure to create a different statement, "Humility, reveals spiritual capacity."

I hope you have a good week! Get ready to #Light the World in December!!

Elder Johnson

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