Jacksonville is awesome. There are about 2000 people that live in the
actual city and a fairly large population of them are mormon enough to
make a whole ward. The reason why is because this town has a very
great reputation for families. It has one of the highest ranking
elementary schools in the nation. And so that attracts young mormon
families. We also cover a small part of Medford which is a pretty big
city. There are also a fair amount of lds people there (enough to have
a temple) and the people are humble and seeking the truth.
Our Ward Mission Leader is sooo good. We call him or he calls us every
day. The other day I called him to ask him who in the ward we should
try to bring to an appointment and he said yeah I'll make some phone
calls and find someone. I just looked over at Elder Charleson and
said, does he find people to come with us to lessons for us? He just
laughed and said yes we have the best ward mission leader ever. I'm so
excited to work with him and the rest of our ward.
I'm not gonna lie I was a little bit scared that I would not be able
to adjust to working in a family ward but the transition is going very
smooth. On Sunday I felt really overwhelmed because I didn't know
ANYBODY. But Elder Charleson being the great guy he is introduced me
to everyone. The only problem is will I be able to remember all their
names? No. Even with this new supplement i've been taking (which you
may only be able to find in Oregon) called Ginko Biliboa, which
supposedly helps with your memory. I like to call it hippi medicine.
But hey while I'm in Oregon I guess I will be an Oregonian :)
Ok so our investigators. The huge news this week is Serina. She is a
really nice lady with 4 kids and they are all adorable. She has a
husband who's name is Bill who is so cool. He does all the cooking and
cleaning and taking care of kids. His hobbies include smoking,
watching tv and not listening to lds missionaries. The other day when
we came over for a lesson with Serina she turned off the tv and he
started yelling saying, What the heck don't turn off my monster truck
rally!!! Then he's all like...just kidding and just started laughing
with a really wheezy laugh. He's cool. Anyways Serina is really open
to the gospel despite being taught by her father her whole life that
mormons are going to hell. That has proved to be one big stumbling
block in her conversion however...anyways we had a chaple tour with
her the other day and she kept commenting on how much she loved the
family focus the church has. At the end we invited her to be baptized
on June 16th and she accepted. However she did not show up at church
the next day :( We went to see her last night and this is critical. We
asked her why she couldn't make it. Her response was the turning point
in her growth. She so easily could have said "oh I was sick" or "My
kids were just going crazy." But instead she told us...the truth. She
said she had looked up some things about Joseph Smith online and that
she wasn't ready to go yet. We discussed all kinds of the anti
material that she had read. We taught about Polygamy, why we have the
Book of Mormon. We then strongly counseled her to never never ever
look up anything about mormons online except those made by the church.
We gave her some more resources. This was a very critical lesson. We
left that lesson really really excited. I think she will be set to be
baptized with her children on the 16th!
We also found a lady named Sydne (pronounced cindy)? who is an
excommunicated member. She has a daughter who is 8 and not baptized.
She really wants to come back to church. So she came this last Sunday
it was great. Her kids loved it. Unfortunately they had to leave early
due to the freezer randomly breaking down and all the food inside
getting rotten (haha remember that one time that happened to us?).
Anyways when she went to get her daughter Allison, she said Mom I
don't want to go. :) I'm excited.
There is also a family named the Smith's who I haven't met yet but I
hear they are great we went on exchanges when we taught them this week
but we are teaching them tomorrow and will probably set a date with
them.
Whew! My fingers hurt. Alright I will conclude by saying that I miss
Eugene. I try not to think about the people there so I can stay
focused on the people here but it is really hard. It is always
tempting to call up Elder Peterson and just ask how everything is
(which zone leaders are technically allowed to do) but alas I must
remained completely focused on my work here in my new zone. Oh yeah we
also had combined District meeting this last week which we taught. It
went great. I told them to never never never ask someone if they are
interested and that we are robots. I'm not sure if they liked but I
thought it was great. Anyways gotta go love you all dearly!
Elder Johnson
