Mon Jul 2
Today is miracle monday! So we don't p-day today. We are only e-mailing today and then we will finish the rest of our p-day on the 4th of July. Instead President Young in his genius has called for a miracle day today. Today is focusing on finding people to teach. Today we have already seen miracles. We went out this morning and I turned to Elder Charleson and said, I bet we are going to get in and teach someone this morning. We tracted to the sketchiest street in town it's called Columbus. We actually had great success. We gave out 3-4 Book of Mormons and a few pamphlets. Then at the very end we knocked on this guys door and he immediately said come one in. We sat down and just talked with him for a little bit. Then we asked him if he had any kind of religious background. He said yeah I'm mormon. Turns out he was baptized 10 years ago but has been in and out of prison all kinds of stuff. But he is back now and he wants to come to church. He is in a very tight situation right now though because his ex-girlfriend moved out and he is left to take care of their baby girl. We told him that through Jesus Christ things would get better. We taught him about my favorite thing in the whole world, the atonement. That word is thrown around so much in our church, but I often times wonder if people really know what they are talking about. The atonement is everything. It was a pretty sweet miracle to start off the day. I'm excited to see the other miracles that happen today.
So! This week has been awesome! We have seen a lot of great success. First I'll tell you about Jan. So I mentioned last time that she is a great friend of the Hungerfords. I also told you of my fear of Brother Hungerford. Well before we started teaching Jan, Brother Hungerford called us and gave us some pointers. He told us that he trusted us with anything but he greatly suggested that we shouldn't bring up baptism. Well.....we brought up being baptized. Alright we didn't just bring it up....we straight up invited her to be baptized. She just looked down and said she would think about it more. We were just like, Hello! You've come to church more than active members for the past 3 months! You are ready. Ok we didn't say that. But we did say that she was ready. She said that she thought it was too soon. Well I guess we can't argue with her. But if you want my personal opinion I think that the main reason right now is that she doesn't want to be baptized without her family. She has 2 kids and a husband who are only semi-interested. We are going to figure out a way to get them all in at the same time. The 2 kids came to church though but the husband was out of town.
We also taught Thelma again this week. She's cool. And she came to church. Right after sacrament meeting we asked her what she thought of it. She said she loved and that she wanted to share her testimony but she didn't know if she was allowed to because she wasn't a member. Dah! I wish we would have explained that she is for sure allowed to. We had a lesson with her yesterday and she told us what she wanted to say though. She said that in the last couple weeks of hanging out with the Bakers she has felt more love from the them and from the church than she has with her own family and she is just amazed by it. We will most likely set a date with her for baptism this week. I can't wait!
The last news is about Bill (Serena's husband). I think I remember describing him at first as a guy who has several pretty awesome hobbies including smoking, watching tv, and not talking to mormons. Well he has changed a lot! Well kinda....he still likes smoking and watching tv but now instead of not talking to us his hobbies are now making fun of us. Which is an improvement....? Yes it is. We came by Saturday night to ask if the family needed a ride to church. They said they were good. Bill said he couldn't come though because he had some bills to pay. But crazy enough he showed up halfway through church anyways in shorts and a t-shirt. He is a changing man. He has made so much progress. Like now instead of yelling at his kids he plays video games with them all night. He is the coolest redneck I know.
Anyways that'll about do it for me! Thanks for all your support and have a wonderful 4th of July!!!!!!!! Yay America!
Love Elder Johnson
