Well we have had a fantastical week. We are working with 4 main investigators right now. Dustin, Whitney, Tia, and Chanelle. So Chanelle we have been working with for a while her problem is still with her parents. We did make a little headway on this though. She said that her parents are starting to let up a little so that might be good news.
We were teaching Whitney the other day and right in the middle of the lesson we received a call from Tia. Now Tia is an investigator who was soooo close to getting baptized and then all the sudden she fell off the map. When I saw that she was calling I did something I almost never do. I stood up and walked out of the lesson and answered it. She said she has been going through a really hard time and she wanted to meet with us again. It was AMAZING! I was so happy to hear from her. We set up the appointment for Wednesday night. Now on Wednesday night we were going to have a visit from a guy who worked at the MTC. His name is Brother Mills. So there was these two guys who work at the MTC and they came to our mission for a short 2 day tour. They went on exchanges with only 4 companionships out of 100 and.....we were chosen. It might kinda sound like a good thing but let me tell you we were really really intimidated by this guy. So he was going to spend just a couple hours with us and teach some appointments with us. So we tried to stack that time with a lot of appointments. So Tia was one of them. Another one was Whitney. We have been teaching Whitney for a couple weeks now and she's doing great. Honestly we were wondering why she didn't want to get baptized. We didn't really know. She's the one who showed us her favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon. Well both of these appointments went very very well when Brother Mills came. He had a way of asking just the right questions to them. By the end of the lesson BOTH of these girls were crying and saying they would be baptized. He was the best missionary I have ever seen. I think the thing that did it was when he asked a question he didn't just ask a question to get them talking or to see how well they understood. He asked because he loved them....He didn't even know them! And yet he showed his love for them simply because they were children of God. My mission has changed from this point on. I am so grateful for this opportunity to work with him.
Now Tia set a date for March 25th and Whitney...well we didn't set a date with Whitney but she will come very soon. She already said she would be baptized she is just scared to talk to her parents about it. Dustin is another one we are working with. He met with us and we had several really good lessons. The crowning event of the week was Elder Holland. Elder Holland came to Springfield (right next to Eugene) to reorganize the Stake Presidency. We got Whitney and Dustin to come to that. It was really incredible to see him speak. He talked about how we covenanted to sacrifice and by so doing we covenanted to go through hard times. He explained that we have to go through having a broken heart so that we can testify more powerfully of what Christ had to go through. He did it with the classic Holland Boldness and needless to say I left the meeting feeling like I wanted to go through a hard time.
Well folks our new Willamette zone is doing great we met together briefly with them last p-day and for district meeting and everything is going just fine. I like having a bit of a smaller zone because then that allows me to help people more individually. Well I better get going I love you from the bottom of my heart!
Love Elder Johnson
