Another week has come and gone. I can't believe how quickly the days come and go. Well as always I went on two exchanges this week. One with Elder Johnson. Ha ha yes. We were both Elder Johnson. This is the second time I've been on exchanges with an Elder Johnson. Let me tell you it is always awkward when you walk up to someone and say I'm Elder Johnson and this is Elder Johnson. People just look at you weird and think that you are messing with them. Anyways Elder Johnson is a new missionary. He just got out a couple weeks ago. We set a goal to find 4 new investigators in one day. That's a lofty goal for one day but we decided to put our best effort into it. Well the Lord provided a miracle for us. We found those 4 new investigators before the day was over. It was Amazing!
I think last time I told you about how we set up a booth in front of the institute. Well we did that again this week and....well while we were setting it up this guy came up to us and talked (or should I say bashed) with us for the full hour. But luckily we also had some sister missionaries with us as well. Well while we were bashing there was a lady walked past our booth several times. Then finally she got up the courage and went up to the sisters and asked can I have a pamphlet or something? Ha ha! YES you can. They taught her a whole lesson and set up an appointment. Now she has a date to be baptized!!! That's cool. I didn't really get to teach her at all but it was still cool to be there for that experience.
Ah yes and then on Thursday we had my very first Combined District Meeting as a zone leader. The night before we got all the chairs set up and it was then that I realized how many people were actually going to be there. There was about 37 missionaries not including us. It was scary. But it went very well. We talked about chapter nine in Preach my Gospel which is finding. It was a real success.
Then we went on exchanges with some other Elders. We had more miracles there as well. We went to try and contact this referral but he wasn't there so we tracted around his place. Then we felt impressed to try the referral one more time. He was there and he let us in. We read from the Book of Mormon and then invited him to be baptized and he accepted. MIRACLES. I love them. I see all the areas around us seeing so many miracles. I was a bit concerned that our own are wasn't seeing as much but to my great surprise the Lord provides. For some reason I have thought that the Lord only has a limited amount of miracles he can provide in one day. I have found that this is utterly false. We just keep hopping around seeing miracle after miracle, even in our own area.
This week we fasted that we would be able to find new investigators. Specifically one new investigator a day or in other words 7 this week. We worked hard to get this goal and again as we worked hard the Lord provided 7!!! Let me explain some of the highlights. The Bishop in our ward pulled us aside one day and said I have a referral for you. This guy named Jonathon had been wanting to come to church in a long time but hasn't been able to because of complications. But just recently those concerns were resolved and now we started meeting with him. He came to church yesterday and we have another meeting with him on Wednesday. Another one is this referral named Brian. He is a student at the U of O and he runs track. We knocked on his door and he let us is. He has had many friends that were Mormon and he has several that are on a mission right now. He has really been prepared. He asked us while we were chatting with him if we had anything for him to read. We were like um yes in fact. Can't wait to meet him again.
So as always we're really busy trying to resolve concerns in our zone and give people permission for this and that. Like just barely we had someone in our zone ask if they could attend a boxing class. All these hard decisions! I am really growing a lot from this experience though and it is changing me. Love you all
Love Elder Johnson
