Word of the day:Abdicate

 This week i was really thankful for seminary! Thanks to the support of my amazing seminary teachers; especially Brother Barlow, Sister Olds and Sister Richardson. A couple times I was able to remember my scripture mastery scriptures and share them, AH YEAH! haha. It was sad to hear about the passing of Elder L  Tom Perry. He was an amazing man and influential apostle. Thank goodness for the plan of salvation and the knowledge we have of our families being forever! 

   Elder Millard are having such a blast together!! We are laughing pretty much all day. We have started learning a new word everyday and then use it throughout the day. its pretty awesome. We also have been working out hard core! Elder Millard was a pro gymnast so its pretty much been like training for the Olympics, i love it! 

   So we had had some amazing opportunities to be in the community and serve. We went to the Roanoke mayors office and set up an appointment to see him! We met with the community rep and he was really pumped to meet with us! He got our number and said he'd love to have us help out in the community! What a wonderful opportunity to find and teach! We put our number on a #BecauseOfHim pass along card and as we were wrapping up, we invited him to check out the video! I just love missionary work! 

   Manny and Shayla are doing so well. They have been coming to church consistently. He should be ready for baptism in the next few weeks!! They are such funny people, i love them! Nylaejah is doing well also. She is about to become a sister again! Benita is a wonderful Cuban lady that is returning to activity! Shes so kind and has a strong testimony; i love meeting with her! Shes had us for dinner, super good! I know Homer would've wished he was there for it haha. 

   We have MLC tomorrow! so yet another road trip up to Charleston!! Its always a blessing to be with President and Sister Salisbury! Roanoke is doing really well! #NokeOrNothin is what we say haha!  Its awesome to have Elder Yocom (one of the missionaries i trained)  here as a district leader in the zone! Hope yall have a blessed week! Love you! 

Elder Johnson 

#AllFlash #NoShame

  Hello one and all!! Hope yall had as great of a week as I did! We had transfers, but im still here in Roanoke! My new companion is so stinking awesome!! We are always laughing and having a great time!! Its only been like 3 days but we have had the most glorious 3 days. We have been busy teaching and having a great time! Chris has been coming out with us and that's always good times.    We used our crockpot  that mom got me and it went great! had a nice chicken and rice casserole waiting for us when we got home from church! props to mama Johnson for the sweet hook ups ;) 

   We had a really sweet lesson with Kevin Brown! Hes such a family man and loves reading the Book of Mormon

every chance he gets. hes always working to help support his family. In the next few weeks he'll be able to slow down and come to church! We taught him a little bit about the temple and he is really excited to lean more. I always love to picture our investigators in baptismal white and temple white!! Talking to people about the temple brings such a strong desire to go! 

   On Sunday before sacrament meeting, there was an elderly women who was taking selfies in the foyer, it was the greatest thing! I couldn't believe it! she had it on flash and had no shame! haha. Frankie rosser is a really cool convert and had us over for a cookout he was having! he makes really good food and he kept feeding us till we were about to bust! We were able to teach Nylaejah while we were there. shes is really smart and and kind. shes 11 and is working towards baptism. Shes should be ready in a few weeks! Kelly is doing great!! hes really working to get to church. his back pain has been bothering him but hes been praying. We've had a powerful lesson with him the other day and the spirit hit him. i love seeing the spirit work with people and help them find the peace they're looking for. 

   Its been a wonderful past few days. Thank you for your prayers, i feel the support and love. I love it so much here in Roanoke and my new companion Elder Millard. Love yall!! 

Elder Johnson 

Transfer Blues

Well we had a great last week together as JLo! finishing strong! haha. quick shout out to my brother Joseph! He had his birthday over this past week, and getting married soon! Cant wait! 

     We had zone conference with president and Sister Salisbury. They had Elder Lopez and i sitting up in front with President and sister Salisbury! usually its the assistants but we were conducting. it was a lot of fun! Sister Salisbury had us take selfies on her ipad haha We learned how to be creative in the way we find teach and baptize; being a full purpose missionary. for example, if we are doing s service project, then we would invite a less active or an investigator to join us to feel the charity you feel as you serve. and have them invite a friend and have them serve to and meet the missionaries! its wonderful and there are SOO many ideas. 

   We were able to meet with Jenny our neighbor! she is so awesome! shes real and doesn't like how the world is moving away from Christ. we agree! thats why were out here! haha We have been trying to contact the crawfords, a part member family and we saw sister Crawford as we were driving to an appointment so we stopped and said hi! they are such cool people!!! i felt so comfortable and loved. 

   Roanoke had their 25th anniversary of the Colors festival and we got to be a part of it! its its one of the largest cultural festivals in Virginia. We had missionaries there all day in shifts. The public affairs rep for our stake was there and said that we could get put in the Roanoke times! Chris took some pictures of us all and it should be in the paper!
    Well transfers are tomorrow. i get to stay in Roanoke for another transfer! but Elder Lopez is getting transferred to Blacksburg. ill sure miss him, we've had a blast serving together! We'll see each other on the plane ride home though! i love it here in Roanoke. Ilove teaching people about the temple! its such a powerful place! i cant wait till i can go when i get back home!! hope yall have a great week! your in my thoughts and prayers! 

Elder Johnson 

You can call us J-Lo

what a blessing it is to have mothers. im blessed to have the mother i do. Hope yall had a wonderful mothers day! i had a blast talking with my family! especially my dear mother :) it was also wonderful to see and talk with my soon to be sister in law Rachel! 

So we had lunch with our neighbor Steve. hes very hospitable, and fed us good! his wife carol is very kind! 

I love the people here, both members and investigators! everyone is really friendly. the area is so beautiful during this time of the year to! everything is so green! the weather is warming up to so its time to bust out the short sleeve shirts! 

so we went to chik fil la (probably spelled wrong but you get the idea) for lunch and when we walked in a nice young man came around from the register and introduced himself. he called us elders which people don't call us unless they know us or are members haha. hes not a member but used to live in utah and liked the missionaries there. we invited him to come to church and he said hes been wanting to come to our church so he should be coming this next Sunday!! 

Elder Lopez and i decide that together we are J-lo, so that's what a lot of the members call us haha

We have been teaching people who speak Spanish, and englsih as a 2nd language. so there is a barrier. but ive been praying for help to be able to know whats being said and studying things in Spanish. as we've been teaching i understand what they're saying then i respond in English and they can understand what im saying. its so amazing how the Lord has his hand in HIS work and how i can be a small part, to receive the gift to understand people who speak another language. i love this work with all my heart. love yall so much! have a GREEAAAT week! 

Love Elder Johnson   

HaPpY MoThErS DaY!!

Zipa de do da, zipa de day! my oh my what a wonderful day! the sun is shining, its 70 degrees, its almost like being in California again, except we got water here! it has been a week of great things happening. Clark sent me some of joseph and Rachel's engagement photos, those are epic! haha

so this week we were in  walmart picking up a few things and this lady comes up to us and asks us if we're elders. we said yes and she was got all excited and said well im sister Farley from Vinton. so we talked and she asked if we had had lunch yet, we hadn't so she invited us to go with her! We went to the Golden Corral! haha it was truly an honor to get to know her! she has had some really hard things happen in her life. we laughed pretty much the whole time. she had this royal feel about her. after a lot of food and laughs we walked back to our cars and she stopped and thanked us for coming to lunch and said she hadn't had that much fun in a long time :)

our trip to Charleston was fun! i always love being with president and sister Salisbury. they always teach us with such power!  Chris has been coming out with us! he's a funny guy! he had us over for dinner last night, and made us resses milkshakes!! soo good! he's always got u laughing. We have been seeing our investigator/ neighbor steve. hes a funny guy! he's very curious about what we do as missionaries and members of the church and has a fun personality. he flagged us down this morning on the way to the library and talked to him for a bit. he's having us over for lunch tomorrow!

Well today we have the cool opportunity to call a young man from Arizona that is coming to our mission! get to welcome to the WVCM fold! im pretty excited.

well im lovin it here in the wild wonderful West Virginia Charleston mission!! hope its a great week for yall! have a wonderful mothers day!!!

Elder Johnson

http://www.mormonchannel.org/timeformom?cid=HP_FR_5-1-2015_dMC_fMC_xLIDyL1-B_

Goin to the chaple, Goin to get married!

what a week of blessings! well everyday being a missionary is a blessing! but this week we had some really awesome things happen!

we had interviews with president Salisbury! it was such a blessing to have a one on one with him, hes so inspired! he has so many great ideas for how we can do missionary and being creative while we do it! we get to see him at MLC tomorrow. thatll be a fun road trip up to Charleston. its about a 3-4 hour drive, but when your in good company its all fun! 

 our bishop asked us to go meet with a less active man named chris. we stopped by and set up an appointment. when we came back he was really glad to see us! he had served a mission and wanted to be back in church! hes only lived in Roanoke a short while and said hed love to come out with us when ever we could use him! we are so excited to have found someone eager to come out with us. its a win win cuz we can help him come back to church, and do missionary work and he wants to learn the area better so its working out! 

Shayla and manny got married!! it was so cool to be able to be a part of it. the relief society and primary president were such a huge help! they looked so nice and sharp. we had a good support from the ward. 

Cutting the wedding cake

A view or Roanoke 

This is the Roanoke Star. A landmark around here.

We have been teaching our neighbors! its the coolest thing! Elder Lopez was backing me ou of our driveway and one of our neighbors was like " alright, stop! what are you doing!?" haha so we explained to him some of the things that we do as missionaries that may seem strange to people who dont understand. he was so fascinated by the stuff we do and had us over for a breakfast snack! when we went back, his wife was there and was interested in hearing what we had to teach. 

the work is hastening people!! the Lord is preparing people for us to teach and it soo exciting to be in the middle of it! i love being a missionary so much! so much power is in this work! 

Love yall! 

Elder Johnson 

Cadence got baptized!

My beautiful baby sister got baptized this weekend. i was really glad that i was able to be help give a talk. from the reports that ive heard, it went well! thanks you everyone who helped.   We had a week of answered prayers and great things happening! plis the weather has been great!! almost like California ;) 

well, Manny and his wife Shayla who we've been working with are getting married this Saturday!!!! the relief society is super excited and is being such a huge help in helping us. We really have no knowledge of planning weddings, if it were up to us there would probably be some store bought cookies and a nice note on the chalk board haha. they are such wonderful, funny people! we always look forward when we get to meet with them. Us and Shayla were super hungry last week at church so he busted out some fruit snacks and shared with us haha. 

We got to meet with Kelly! We hadn't been able to meet with him for like a week but we got to see him Saturday and talk about baptism and he said that he knows that its what he wants to do! so we were obviously super pumped!! hes an awesome guy! 

We went on  an exchange with some elders in the zone. i was with Elder Holbrook, hes an awesome elder, got a fun personality. during the day we got a phone call from a number with an Oregon area code. We were confused cuz thats obviously not in our mission haha but we answered. turns out it was a missionary who recently finished his mission and was saying hi! haha it was a pleasant  surprise haha

So homer has moved to Utah :(  He will be missed a lot but i know he'll be happy out there! it was hard saying bye cuz he was like our 3rd companion. we got to have dinnner with him one last time with him and Cathy. Cathy is a recent convert who is the sweetest lady. she is always so positive and kind. but yeah, Homer is gone but itll be all good. thanks for all  yall do. i love love love being a missionary. i cant say it enough! have a blessed week!! 

Elder Johnson