Skip to main content

September 18, 2017 - Conference and more Conference and more...

Hello.

It was a crazy week. I spent most of this past week away from my proselyting area. My comp. and I left early Thursday to stay in an apartment 6 hours away to be close for zone conference the next day. Zone conference was once again a wonderful experience. I got to see my recent companion and my MTC comp again who are both awesome guys, just awesome. After Zone conference we drove back north 3 hours to stay in Sudbury where our Zone leaders and district leader and comp stay. A total of 12 missionaries stayed in that apartment Friday night, it was pretty fun. Saturday we all played sports together in the early morning, attended a convert baptism courtesy of the Zone leaders, had a stake sponsored dinner and attended the adult session of stake conference. After that we got some Dairy Queen and us 14 missionares stayed over night again in Sudbury. If you haven't served a mission then you might think all Elders are calm, well behaved and strictly obedient. Well that is false. We are far from perfect and most of us aren't that mature yet. The shenanigans that happened this past weekend proved that to me. After this weekend, I have gained a testimony why the white handbook says to refrain from gathering in large groups of missionaries...things happen haha. The next day we went to Sunday session of stake conference and drove him basically. I learned a lot from the conferences but I also felt pretty lazy. It'll be good to get back in the swing of things.

A cool thing happened today, my mission President and his Wife visited our area for the first time. They spent last night in a hotel and spend a couple of hours with us before heading back to other duties. We had lunch with them at a members house, showed them around our chapel and did interviews, and then showed them our apartment. They are amazing people and are definitely called of God.

One thing I learned from Zone conference was how critical the morning is in order to have an effective day. Some words from a speech by Elder Holland stuck with me: "You tell me how your morning schedule goes, and I can tell you the kind of day, week, month, year, mission, and life you are going to have." Our mission president compared our day to a 4X100m relay race. Every 100m leg in the race is important but if you start slow, or drop the baton (the spirit) in the beginning, it's hard to pick things back up. There's a phrase floating around, "Begin with the end in mind." I think starting full throttle is a great way to begin with the end in mind. In my life, I don't think I have ever regretted getting up early and starting strong; however, many times I have slept in and started slow and really regretted it. May we all start strong and stay strong.

I hope you have a great week and enjoy the fall season!

Elder Johnson

Pics show 9 of the 14 missionaries (plus me behind the camera) who were at the Sudbury Slumber Party Friday night.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 23: Loads of Service this Week and Golfing!

​​Hello! Yesterday was not our p-day because of Victoria Day. We missionaries do the opposite of everybody else: the Sabbath is definitely not a day of rest and holidays are go days!  My week started off pretty sweet. For p-day Elder Kohl and I went to the golfing range and also played on the chipping and putting green. We shared a $14 bucket of balls and played for close to 3 hours so it was absolutely worth it! I'm still good at golf :) We also helped out the members a lot this week. We have mowed and done weed whacking for a couple senior members, helped a sister pack stuff before she moves, cleaned out gutters, painted a bedroom, and de-cluttered a back yard. What would the ward do with out us?! Some might think that's too much service, I think I would rather be doing that than tracting haha.  We've been primarily working with the members to find people to teach. This way of finding basically looks like the following:...
Post a Comment
Read more

January 22, 2018 - The Iron Rod is a sure Foundation

Hi, We found a really nice lady this week through tracting. She really liked the Restoration message and we answered her many questions. She's married and in her 30's. She is just a really cool person so I'm excited to keep meeting with her. Elder Martin and I have been pushing ourselves to talk to more people recently. We set a weekly goal to give out a certain number of Book of Mormon's. Having the goal in mind has motivated me to get out and talk to people when I don't feel like it--it's a feeling I get a lot unfortunately. I've noticed there is always opposition before and after we do something important for Christ.  Getting up Sunday morning and going to church has never been difficult for me; however, living what I learned at church is a little more difficult. I've learned that the adversary is relentless at "following-up" with me shortly after I have a spiritual experience. Satan will do anything in his power to make me lose t...
Post a Comment
Read more

January 29, 2018 - No Longer Stuck in a Rut

Hello, We transitioned from flip phones to smart phones this week. Unfortunately for me, my phone has not been delivered yet so I have to wait a little longer. And unfortunately for Elder Martin, the software on his phone is glitchy and he can't get into it so he has to get the software re-installed by a Samsung specialist. Unfortunately for us, we are the only companionship in the mission without a working smart phone right now. Hopefully the specialist gets it fixed today so we can get on with things. We've just been using our old flip phone and it works fine for now. In my email last week I talked about a lady we found by knocking on her door.  Her name is Michelle, we had our first sit down lesson with her yesterday and it went very well. She has a catholic background but didn't stick with the religion (big surprise there, no offense to the Catholic church). She accepted the message of the restoration (she understood the apostasy and the need for priesthood auth...
Post a Comment
Read more