Mon Jul 16
Miracles still happen in the latter days! We have been a witness to that this week. There are people all around the world that are ready and waiting to receive the message of the gospel. Even the people who live in Medford Oregon. Everywhere.
We went to see Bill this week. It is so crazy. He started out leaving the room every time we came over teach Serena cuz he wanted nothing to do with it. Then he transformed to making fun of us every time we came over. And now he is to the point where he is coming to church and saying things like, "man I want to quit smoking for one week so I can get baptized and then I will start smoking again." He keeps making these little tiny baby steps in the right direction. He came to church yesterday and in Elders quorum he said, "my home is a happier place since Serena got baptized. Our marriage is better my son doesn't want to fight with me as much anymore..." The gospel can change every aspect of your life both temporal and spiritual. (Mosiah 2:41) Robbie even brought one of his friends to church yesterday!
This week with Thelma she has still been doing great. She has a desire within her to know the truth. She had a dream that she was running from the cops but then a woman came and told her that she should go the long way and she wouldn't get caught. Then somebody didn't listen to her and he got caught but Thelma did listen and she got away safe. I'm not exactly sure how that applies but she took that to be her answer that the Book of Mormon was true. We were super excited. I love dreams. So she is set to be baptized. We discussed doing the baptism on Saturday but then she remembered that she had a pow wow camp thing for her native american culture. So we decided to do it Thursday. So she will be baptized this Thursday at 8:00. We are happy for her.
We had one of the most spiritual lessons in the world on Friday with this guy named Manny. He just moved here from Mexico but doesn't speak too much spanish so we are teaching him. Anyways I won't go into details but he is going through a VERY rough time right now. In our lesson we just let him talk. We asked him how Jesus Christ has helped him in his life. He told us about how he prayed that he would be able to come to America one night with all his heart. The next day he got a notice that he was allowed to go back to America. Then Elder Charleson talked about how he and his dad and a great relationship and how meaningful that was to him. Then we told him about how he could baptize his son if he got baptized right now and he loved that. So we set a date with him to be baptized on Aug 3rd. I did an incredibly horrible job at explaining it. But it was amazing.
This week we had the first ever Zone Training Meeting. It is really the exact same thing as Combined District meeting that we teach every month but now it is 3 hours long! We had to get up and teach our zone for a straight 3 hours. I was running out of stuff to say. Ok not really but the good thing was that President Young came to the meeting as well and so when we ran out of stuff to say we said and we now turn the time over to President Young. It was a really good meeting though.
Taught a guy named Joe. He has a date for Aug 11th. The problem is he smokes and lives with his girlfriend. Those are two huge concerns to work through. But this week we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and we gave him a blessing to help him stop smoking. We hope everything goes well with him.
The Smith's are still on the fence right now. We found out that one reason why Meagan doesn't want to be baptized is because she is afraid of water. She had an experience in her young life and now she will not allow any one to push her in the water. We tried everything to get around it but she would not have it. We think that might just be a cover up for the real concern underneath.
But miracles DO happen in this day and age. I know that from personal experience. I know that the people here in Medford are being prepared. I also know that this gospel is real. I know that I didn't give up 2 years of my life for nothing. I didn't give up my life for nothing.
I love you all
Elder Johnson
