Wild wonderful West Virginia!

Wild wonderful West Virginia! home of the mountaineers! Theres no place like it. Maybe thats why my cool cousin Ethan is on a team named after this place! 

well today, 8 months ago i embarked on this mission! its gone by really fast! We had a wild and wonderful week this week. Met a lot of really nice, and some not so receptive people. There was a man that talked to us at the beginning of this week. He went off talking about our sacred doctrine and mocking it. he didnt give us a chance to talk so we walked away when he was done. the spirit was gone and i felt really angry, and confused at how someone could be so inconsiderate. As i thought about it and prayed, i was able to feel calm. it really strengthened my testimony. i know that what we believe is true and no angry old man, nobody can take away that i know this gospel is true. 

  We went to this buffet called Ryans. Its an awesome place! as we were eating a manager guy comes up to us and starts asking where we're from. at first i was thinking we were getting in trouble. but he started talking with mormon lingo so we understood. He ended up giving us each 2 free meal passes!! so we can go back and eat 2 times for free!!!!! pretty cool. Something else cool that happened, that my Father will probably will be proud/happy about; we were tracting a street and there were these teenagers playing basketball. Elder Brenchley made a deal with them. If we beat them then they had to go on mormon.org. We ended up beating them (i scoring the winning basket ) It was really fun to be able to play some basketball and share the gospel while doing it. 

  Saturday, Shady Spring High had their homecoming parade. We went to that and sat with the Mcgradys. It was a lot of fun sitting with Sister Mcgrady and her daughter cuz everyone knows them and they made it a lot of fun cheering and such. All the float were throwing out candy! it was great! talked to some people and even got someones number so we could meet with them. We met up with the Young family after. They are such an awesome family! Love them so much. They take really good care of me and my companion. We consider Sister Young our mission mom haha. Yesterday was a big faith builder, not only cuz of church but of an experience we had. We got a call from the  other Elders saying that Steven Snuffer ( a man in our ward and our area) was found unconscious in his home and is now in the hospital. We figured something was wrong when he didnt answer our phone calls the other day. He always answers. We found out he had fallen at 5 am Saturday morning and couldnt get to the phone. he might have had another stroke. he wasent sound until after  church at 2pm the next day. his dog laid on him all night to keep him warm and alerted the people that went to go see him. We saw him with the hellers (his home teacher) to give him a blessing. When we walked in his hospital room he asked if we were there to play pool. We got over to his house and play pool with him sometimes, its awesome. we said we were there to give a blessing and he was very thankful. It was hard to understand him but the spirit was defiantly there. Elder Brenchley annointed the oil, it was his first time. it was a powerful experience. Im grateful for the power of the priesthood and know its real. Thanks for the support! Love yall very much.until next week  

Elder Johnson 

Never regret or forget

Ahh, what a great time to be a missionary! I love it!

Boy was this week a winner! We had an excellent week! We were able to teach a lot of people and find more to teach! thats key; to find more people to teach even when your teaching a lot.  we had a lot of fun doing some service for a lady in our ward. her patio roof was rotten and caving in so we tore it down last week. this weekend we build up a new one. We had a good time doing that. She was very grateful. 

we had a very uplifting and inspiring meeting with President Salisbury  this last thursday. The theme was "ponder the possibilities". Something that i really enjoyed was he pointed out that EVERY decision and action either brings us closer to Christ or dosent. And how we should ponder the possibilities with every decision. This weekend we also had darrel and Jennifer come to church!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was such a miracle and blessing!! Jennifer is on date to be baptized on oct. 11!! Im confident shell make it! They stayed for the 3 hour block and said they had a great time! Sister Sandy Mcrady really took Jennifer under her wing and helped her feel very welcome in relief society! It was great. 

We were walking a lot this week cause we are low on miles. As we were walking, a lot of people honked and waved at us. Its always nice to have people support us in that little way. As we were walking a less active lady in our ward pulled over and was talking to us. She invited us to join their family at dinner at this good Mexican restaurant! it was awesome! it was karaoke night at the bar upstairs so we got a good laugh out of that. Last night for dinner we had Venice! (Deer). The Heller family gave us some, we cooked it up and it wasent bad! 

If you havent heard about the Meet The Mormons movie, look it up on  MeetTheMormons.com! It should be a really good one! It will get a lot of people asking questions and see that we as mormons are normal people. It should be coming to theaters if it gets enough popularity so spread the word! 

Love yall! I love being a missionary. If you are questioning going on a mission, stop, and just go. its something youll never regret or forget.

Love Elder Johnson

We have what they're looking for

got my new missionary!! his name is Elder Brenchley! hes a fireball, ready to work! had a great first few days with him. We had, yet again, people come to us and ask us what we're all about. its really cool because you can tell these people have a sincere desire, looking for truth. And we have what they are looking for! Well i took Elder Brenchley tracting and the coolest thing happened! the very first door we knock on is this women who asked who were were, told her and she let us right in! She was really nice and kept telling us that we were godly men and that women like that. She said "next time yall come over, we will eat, praise Jesus and glory in His word. We will sup together!" hahahah she was a great. she wants to come to church! her name is Ms. W Johnson.

  We were able to go out to the Shresberys home and the Johnsons home for dinner this weekend!! they live about an hour out from our house so we havent been able to get out. We went to the Shrewsberys for a cook out for their sons birthday. That was a lot of fun! got to talk to some non-members! Dinner at sister Johnsons home was so much fun! sister Mcgrady (Sister Johnsons sister) drove us out with Ryan young. Sister young and Allison came along to. We were all laughing, and having a good time! "supping together" as Ms W would say hahaha. The members are so good to us. I enjoy the Beckley ward very much. Our investigators are doing well. Jennifer wasent able to make it to church :(   We're going to see them tonight. 

  We have specialized training this week! that should be fun! Go up to Charleston. Its always a nice drive. I sure love this work. Being a missionary is so rewarding. This is Gods work and i have the honor of representing His Son, Jesus Christ. How great is my calling! thanks for the support and prayers, yall are the best and i love you.

Love Elder Johnson

Happy in beautiful West, Virginia

Elder Johnson and his companion 

Elder Johnson and the Elders in his distrct

Behold a Royal Army

The hymns in the hymn book are filled with sooo much that we can learn from!! as a missionary i love "Behold a Royal Army". I like to think of me and my fellow missionaries (shout out to all the Pleasent View missionaries from Huntington Beach) Being the ranks filled with Soldiers. Its so motivating. I love hymns! 

Well the first part of the week we took our car in to get the brakes checked. sears wasent able to find any problems. so the mission office told us to go to the chevy dealership. drove over and waited a good 2 hours. the man checking the car comes and says "your car is unsafe to drive, we'll give ya a rental for the next day or so". so we fill outr some paper work and he walks us out and hands us the keys to a 2014 CHEVY SILVERADO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  4 door full, 10 foot bed!!!1 it was a full sized truck!!! best day ever. drove that around. 

       Well i got a call from the mission President the other day and he asked me if i would train a new missionary! Im  a little nervous cuz this will set the stage for the rest of his mission. I know itll be an adventure, im excited. We were able to se a man that has been less active for 20 years. hes a so son of a member of our ward. Really nice guy. Miracle he even talked to us cuz hes been pretty against the church. He wants us to come back and teach him and his wife! that should be awesome! 

We've been able to see Jennifer and Derrel a lot more! and jennifer quit smoking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 we're so happy! shes so close to baptism!!! i love going to theyre home. they always offer us drinks and are very kind. love them. Yesterday we were handing out the pass along card pictures of Jesus and some guy ran up to us and asked what we were doing. we talked to him and explained what we do as missionaries, We have an appointment with him tonight! he said he'd bring his Girl friend to!! the work is moving right along. I LOVE being a missionary. thanks for the support and love. yall are the best from the west! 

Love Elder Johnson 

Once an Eagle always an Eagle

Im grateful for musinex  and benadrell! this week started off with bad cold. Got over that and went on with life. Lots of way cool stuff happened again this week. We were walking around Beaver lake to find people to talk to and came across some people on the bridge. We stopped and talked with them. It was a young man and his family preparing for his Eagle project! So Elder Mcmullin and i, being eagle scouts offered to help. They were excited and confused at strangers offering but told us to come back at the end of the week to build the mini pier. So we went back and had a great time helping them and answering questions they had about the church. It was awesome being able to help him. It reminded me of my days in scouting with  Elder Baugh,  Elder Burden, Elder McCarthy and Elder Myers. all of us being missionaries now! thats awesome!    We had really good times. 

We were in Sheetz ( a gas station ) and we went inside and this guy comes up to us and talked to us about how hes seen us walking around doing our "pilgrimage". He told us to pick out some things to buy! he bought us stuff to eat cuz he knew we were doing the Lords work! that was pretty awesome!  

Yesterday was an adrenaline kicker! we were driving down the road and Elder Mcmllin notices that the breaks arent working very well. we checked the break fluid and we had plenty. so we switched and i drove to see if i felt it to.As we were driving the breaks would completely go out for a few seconds, then come right back. We decided to drive home and walk so we wouldnt crash. on the way back they went out  completely and a car in front of us stopped and we almost hit it but turned out of the way in time. We're getting them fixed today! 

Had a great lesson with our investigator Buford! He  told us he was 16 he was baptized!!!!  so no longer an investigator hahah. 

Sister charla cline should be coming to church sunday! Shes such a nice lady! we have been talking about the plan of salvation with her cuz of her grandsons passing and it has helped her a lot. David lilly has been doing better. We had a really strong lesson with him. he was crying after cuz the spirit was so strong. 

Thanks for all the support and letters! its really encouraging! Love yall! 

Elder Johnson

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