Things are going really well right now. This week we had stake
conference. It was really cool. I had no idea they were going to do it
like this. But I guess because the church is growing so rapidly, the
Apostles and Seventies are spread thin. So for our stake conference they
did a broadcast to a bunch of stakes in Oregon. It was really cool.
They had Elder Cook speak and also a seventy, someone from the general
young womens and young mens. The talks they gave were flawless. Elder
Cook spoke about missionary work. Which is a pretty popular topic these
days. Which I love. He gave some real stories of people from the Oregon
Eugene Mission and the Oregon Portland Mission who had been converted.
Unfortunately Savona and Matt were not able to come. But it was really
cool because Amy (one of my recent converts from Eugene) was there. It
was really really cool to see her and Peter again.
So Matt is this 17 year old kid who we've been working with for a
while. He's kind of a punk. He likes to skateboard and play football. I
thought I had this kid figured out. Then all the sudden he texted us and
asked if he could sing a musical number in sacrament meeting. I fell
out of my chair! He's really cool. I love doing our weekly plan for him.
I always write down notes about what we will teach them. This is what I
wrote for Matt. "Talk to Mother about baptism, bribe him with candy,
tease him, plan of salvation, commit to read and pray." This is exactly
what we did this week. We brought some oreos and when he got an answer
right we gave him one. We also teased him about coming to church. It
worked last week because he came but this week he had a sleepover at his
friends house. We will continue to bribe him and tease him.
Ok update for Natalie. We went over to the lesson not really
knowing what we were going to teach we just wanted to find out what her
concern was. We just asked her a ton of questions. She told us about how
she felt like it was weird changing religions but then a t church she
talked to a member who had gone through basically the same thing and she
was converted. She took that to be her answer. So as far as things are
looking now I think she will be baptized as planned.
Something really awkward happened this week. I tell my son Elder
Phair that if its not awkward then it's not missionary work. Most of the
time this is untrue but there are some definite awkward moments in
missionary work. We went to this less actives door and their daughter
answered. The conversation went like this:
"Hey is your mom there?"
"No she's sleeping."
"Ok well we are new to this area and we just wanted to meet you
guys and share a message. Do you know if there's a time we could meet
this week?"
"Um I don't know."
"Ok well do we have your number?" (this was a very stupid question
to ask. I was trying to ask Elder Phair because he had the phone. So he
looked in the phone and tried to see if we had their number.)
He said, "You spell your last name N-O-R-R right?"
"No we aren't the Norr's they live next door!"
I have so much more to tell you but I can't. I will just tell you
that we also met with Savona, Cammie, and Kirsten who are all doing
great. I hope to give you more details next time.
Love you all!
Elder Johnson
