Oregon Rain

Hello everybody!

I hope everyone had a fun, safe week!  It has been straight showering this week.  I kinda like it, ha ha!  I got a new companion on Tuesday.  His name is Elder Kehl and he is from Colorado Springs. He has been out for a little over a year and is a Spanish elder like Elder Chamberlain.  He is about 5'5" so I'm living with a bunch of shorties!  He's a way chill dude and I'm pumped to work with him.

This week was pretty sad because we had to split up our area book.  Elder Chamberlain and Elder Hunt are now teaching Angie, John and a few others and Elder Kehl and I are teaching Kadyn, Josh and a few others.  We haven't met with Kadyn in a while but we have a lesson with him tonight to hopefully put him back on date.  We also haven't met with Josh in awhile but we are meeting with him tonight, also.  He is doing really good.  He goes to seminary and reads every night.  He's solid.  The other investigators we took are James Brown and Marcus Sutton.  James is a beast--ha!  He's about 60 years old and jacked out of his mind.  He has a super high pitched voice too so I can't take him serious!  He comes to church every week, but he is on parole until 2019.  We still meet with him every week.  Marcus is our other investigator.  He is dating a less active girl in our ward so we basically teach both of them.  We taught the Law of Chastity this week and right before we started they said they had some exciting news for us----they are planning on moving in together.  I was like, OH GREAT!  We straight up told them they can't do that and they were pretty chapped about it.  We told them to pray about it and on Sunday, they told us that they are getting married instead of moving in!  So, that's cool!  Our investigators are doing A1 and hopefully we find a lot more this week!  One of our new investigators last week named Emily, dropped us on Friday because she looked up the church on Google....that's a mistake.  She found some things about the temple that weirded her out so she dropped us, pretty sad!

We had some pretty bomb dinners this week.  There is an old couple in our ward named the Deckers.  They took us to this hecka fancy restaurant and told us to get whatever we wanted so I was like aight BET!  You already know I got a $34 steak!  It was freaking awesome.  The members here are great, they always feed us well.

Nothing too crazy this week.  Love and miss you all so much and I'd love to hear from you!

Burgers at the Taylor's

The District
Chamberlain, Hunt, Hill, ?, ?, Radmall, Johnson, Kehl, ?, ?

The District

Love,
Elder Johnson
204 Boone Rd SE #8
Salem, OR 97302

R.I.P to the Trio

Hello Everybody,

Two months already!  Wow, that is crazy!  This week was good and busy!  We found 10 new investigators this week.  We did work!  We had 8 investigators at church yesterday and three less-active families we are working with came to church also.  It was such a good week!  We got transfer calls on Friday.  I am getting a new companion, Elder Kehl.  I meet him tomorrow.  I am nervous/excited at the same time because I know the area so I'm gonna have to take the lead on things for the first little bit.  It'll be good though.  I'm about to get my 5th companion and third trainer in two months ha ha!  For real--RIP to the trio--that was a good time.  We're all still living together so that's good.

Our investigators are doing great.  I'm so sad because we are going to have to split up the area book.  It suuuucks!  They are doing awesome still...Angie called us tonight and said she is completely DONE smoking.  I was pretty pumped to hear that.  She is so strong, she has been going through a lot.  It has been so cool to see her growth and progression.  Another one of our investigators, Josh, got signed up for seminary this week!  He is a junior right now and has some awesome fellowshippers from the Stake.  He wants to be baptized, but his mom won't let him.  Hopefully she will have a change of heart.  Kadyn and his mom are doing good.  We had a lesson this week with them and they said they want to take things slow so we had them pray for a new date for Kadyn.  Investigators are dong good.

We met a Satanic worshipper this week.  That was pretty neat.  He was crazy.  Got a few doors slammed in our faces---that's always a good time.  We walked up to tract this one house and a lady met us at the doorstep and shouted GO AWAY  several times.  It was pretty scary.  With all of the low/discouraging  moments, there's always good ones that make up for it.  Whenever I read Alma 26, I just get so freaking hyped to do missionary work!  I know this church is the only true church on the earth.  This IS Christ's church, restored on the earth today.  I love you all and hope you have a good week.  Pray for missionary opportunities this week and don't be afraid to share the gospel with others!

When you are a Solo Zone Leader and training two elders

Looks like North Korea found Oregon

Reppin good ol' RHS on Friday night

Midnight Release (JK)

Elders from the district trying to fit on a tiny couch

The Trio

Salem 5th Ward Elders

Elder Johnson

Rain and Smoke

Hello everyone!

Good week this week!  Not a whole lot this week, but it was still good.  It has been straight up snowing ash and the air has been super smoky because of all of the fires.  It finally rained here though.  We had Zone Conference down in Albany on Friday.  It was awesome--the Spirit was really strong.  President and Sister Tateoka are so great and I learn so much from them.  We basically learned about using the scriptures while extending commitments.  We also got news that we are now able to go to the Portland Temple to do sessions once every six months!  So, yeah, first Zone Conference was good.  We were combined with the Lebanon Zone so it was good to meet new missionaries and see ones I already knew.

All of our investigators are still doing good.  Kadyn's date may be pushed back because his mom is pretty stressed out.  We have a lesson today with him so we will see what's going on.  Angie is still set.  She is solid.  We had a lesson with her yesterday at a members' home and it was awesome.  The spirit was so strong.  Angie is awesome.  Nothing too much with investigators this week.

We had a cool experience on Saturday.  We were walking and saw these teenagers looking for something in their car.  We walk over there and were like, "what's up?"  They told us that they lost the kids and have been looking for them for an hour or so.  We started to help them and  Elder Chamberlain asked if he could say a prayer.  They were pretty weirded out but said sure.  Not five minutes later, Elder Hunt finds their keys!  They were so shocked, it was awesome.  We gave them all Books of Mormon and it was way cool.  Yesterday, one guy tried telling me that we don't believe in Jesus Christ.  I was like, "aight but read the tag bro!"  He was a mean dude and wouldn't listen to us and told us to leave, ha ha, it was funny!

Not too much happened this week.  Love you all and hope you guys have a good/safe week!

The Trio

The horse at DQ

Otter Pops at Angie's

Stake Conference 9/10/17 Angie, Elder J, Elder Hunt and Elder Chamberlain

The smoky sun

Elder Eldredge at Zone Conference

Elder Johnson

Three Exchanges

Hello everyone!

Hope everyone had a great, safe week!  This week was pretty good.  Went on three exchanges this week.  The first one was with Elder Crandell, my MTC comp.  Me and Elder Hunt went to his area on Tuesday.  His area had nothing to do that day so we tracted all day.  One guy let us in and we taught him the first lesson so that was cool.  On Thursday, Elder Chamberlain had to go to MLC and he went with the ZL of the Lebanon Zone. His companion, which just so happened to be the homie, Elder Eldredge, came with us for the day.  It was a blast!  We didn't have the car though so we walked everywhere, which sucked, but we were able to talk to a ton of people.  Then on Friday, I went with my district leader, Elder Bush.  This was another walking area--again, it sucked, but we were able to talk to a lot of people.  Exchanges were great, it was good to go out with some other missionaries.

As far as our area goes, it is looking pretty nice!  We have lots of lessons this week and lots of potentials we have to go and visit.  Kadyn is still set for the 23rd.  He and his mom (she's less active) came to all three hours of church yesterday!  They are both progressing well.  Angie is doing good also.  She still has some things to do before she is baptized in November.  John--oh man.  He is probably our most progressing investigator but hit us with some bad news this week.  He got in trouble with the law and so now he's on probation for three years.  So, he ain't getting baptized in October.  But, we're gonna keep on working with him.  All of our investigators are doing good and progressing well.

This week we had some funny experiences.  One night, we were just walking around and we went up to this lady sitting on her porch and started talking to her.  This chicks was either high out of her mind on some meth or just really not there in the head.  she was talking about some dark stuff, ha ha.  She kept talking about all of this random stuff.  she told us that she had eight kids at a time but since she was Amish they wouldn't let her have that many kids, so she trained all of her dogs and cats to rip open her stomach and take all of her babies into the wild and raise them ha ha ha ha!  I was dying.  She was also talking about seeing dead people so that was pretty creepy.  Then on Saturday night, we walk by this house and it looked like there was a party going on.  We walked up to this one guy outside and asked what was going on.  He spoke Spanish so he and Elder Chamberlain talked for awhile.  They guy eventually invited us into this party thing.  We found out quickly that it was not a party but it was like a business meeting and all the people there thought we were clients or something.   There were like 30 people there and when we walk in they all applaud for us and have us sit in the front row.  We were so confused.  Some guy just kept rambling about this business plan he had in Spanish for like 20 minutes and we were like what the freak is going on.  Eventually, we got a call from someone so that gave us an excuse to bounce out of there ha ha!

So yeah, good week this week!  I'm loving my mission and I am loving Oregon!  It is awesome and I am ready for it to rain!  I am learning so much every day and I am so glad that I can share this amazing gospel every single day!  Love you all and hope you have a great week!  I'd love to hear form you all so hook it up with an email!  (kpjohnson@myldsmail.net)

Love you guys,

Elder Johnson