Invite All to Come

Momma thanks for telling me all the funny things that happened at the wedding. I love hearing about all the little details cuz it makes it feel like i was there. I look forward to the pictures. Tell Kristine Im so happy for her!

Life here is sooooo good! We did work this week. Like the title says, we invite all to come. And that is just what we did. We now have 9 people with a baptismal date and 5 of them came just this week. We invite people to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority of God on the very first lesson that we teach them. Its what the Prophet and our leaders have told us to do and so we do it. And its not weird or awkward at all. Its just flows naturally into what we are talking about. so ya we are working with alot of people and it is amazing. here are some details about each.

S and J are twins. Their cousins just got baptized and they want to learn more. They are way cool and very funny kids with good social skills and manners. The first time we taught them they took the time to ask all about us and our families and what we did before our missions, etc. Most adult investigators never do that ha. They are way solid but the only bummer is that they didn't make it to church yesterday. But we will be meeting with them alot this week and will set up a ride for them. Their date for baptism is June 3rd

V and C are cousins to A, (our investigator). They have come to church a few times and then all of a sudden they got our number and have been calling us about once a day until we finally had time to go to their house to teach them. They want to learn and they want to be baptized. They love church, especially primary. Its way fun teaching them. Their mom, just like A's mom really likes the church and would come but has to work every sunday :( but she is very supportive so we will see what happens. They will be baptized June 17th or so.

Lastly is Y - french cuz he is Haitian. He is good friends with one of the members in our ward. He has been coming to church and church ball for the last 6 weeks straight but we never knew he was interested. Its kinda cuz no one knew if he was a member or not.... anyway, we had dinner at the friends house with him and i straight up asked him if he wanted to learn more and take the lessons that we teach. It was as easy as that. We taught our first lesson and invited him to be baptized and boom done. He is way solid. Just super prepared. We set his date for June 3rd but will probably move it up cuz he is that ready. The reason we set these dates so far in advance is because in our mission, we like to see the investigators come to church for a couple weeks so they can get to know people and so the ward members can get to know them. And our ward helps a ton. We have a couple unemployed members that don't have anything to do and so they love coming out with us for a couple hours at a time. We have a lot of fun with them.

The other ones with baptismal dates are A, T and C.  As you can see, the Lord is really blessing us here in Providence. There are tons of people out there ready to hear the gospel, we just have to invite them. Thats all. Just invite. Give them the opportunity "to choose liberty and eternal life through the great Mediator of all men or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil." I love this gospel and everything it teaches me.

I just want to leave you with a quote from Dallin H. Oaks in 2008 conference... i think april... it says, "Knowledge encourages obedience and obedience enhances knowledge." I testify that this is true. Think about it and try it out. Love ya!
Love,
Elder Brady Johnson

Well I'm am going to keep this one quite a bit shorter than usual. But thank you for the pictures from last weekend and I look forward to many more! Chan's Mullet is sooooo DOPE! i want one! Can I mom? Are mullets allowed at BYU? haha I can't believe Nikki is Pregnant! Ha well i can, but its just that i haven't seen a pic of her with a big belly until now and it totally tripped me out! Can you believe i will be talking to you in just 3 weeks?! Crazy! What time is church for you/ what time should i call?

Ok so some highlights of the week is that I drove 400miles in 4 days, and that is alot! We drove to Boston for the Temple then again for Transfer meeting (we had to take some other missionaries in our zone who don't have a car) and then we drove to Ashford, CT for District meeting. Fun stuff tho. I love road trips. I think I'm going to drive cross country within the next 20 years of my life :)

J is officially a member of the church. Bishop confirmed her and gave an awesome blessing. J is so happy these days. She is always smiling now! Her brother in law tells us thanks for everything we've done for her, every time we see him. So that makes us feel pretty good. Its going to be a good transfer. We have 3 more people planned for baptism this month and possibly more. As' parents have finally given the ok that he can be baptized and so we will be doing that the end of May. Our other investigator, A, is still progressing well but hasn't been to church for the last two weeks because things come up.  She is the most solid investigator and yet she has the most random things come up and stop her from getting to church. But her baptism is planned for early May!

So my theme for this transfer, #12 of 17, is Remembering, Repenting, and Changing. I have that on my daily planner and it is what I am going to be focusing on. Remembering the Savior always, which leads me to repenting daily, and by so doing, I will change and be molded into the person God wants me to be. I challenge you to do the same. Another quote i found in one of the ensigns i recently read was, "I urge you to examine your life. Determine where you are and what you need to do to be the kind of person you want to be." I urge you to do the same thing.

I love you all and I am so grateful for everything you do for me. Mom and Dad especially, thank you so much for the way you raised us kids. I know i didn't always understand it at times but you knew what you were doing and pushed up to be what we needed to be. Have fun at the wedding this week! take me up with you!(the cut out) :)

Love,

Elder Brady Johnson

Well Im staying in Providence for another transfer with Elder W which means that I will be killing him (term we use for going home is dying and so the last companion to serve with them "kills" them haha). Its pretty awesome because we were with each other a year ago when i was starting my mission and now together when he is finishing his mission. Its been awesome to serve with him so much. I can't wait until you will be able to meet him some day. Its also crazy to think that after this transfer I will have been out 18 months and have served with only 3 companions, each for 6 months. Crazy stuff huh?

Congrats to Brock for winning a spot on the Exec Council at Desert Hills for next year! Send me some pictures of the posters he had and send pictures from the fun spring break! Looks like next week with the Butler wedding and baptisms will be busy. Make sure to take lots of pictures and send those to me. As you can tell, I love getting pictures.

So once again I don't have much time but let me try to fill you in on whats has happened. Here is the top 3 of my week:

1) J was baptized! She is the woman from Sierra Leone, Africa and a sister of one of the members.  She was so so so Happy when she came out of the water. The baptism service was one of the best that we've had and the speakers did a great job. Lots of members were there to support so that was nice. Its too bad that this was the one week that our other investigators decided not to show up. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. 

2) I got to go on an exchange with Elder F in Scituate, RI and it was a ton of fun. I had the opportunity of interviewing this man from Guatemala who has been waiting for 3 years for his divorcement to go through so that he could then get married to the woman he has been living with. They both have been going to church faithfully all this time and now his divorcement has gone through and so they will get married and then baptized right after on this saturday (the 21st)! And we are going :) Also on the exchange we went to Newport Creamery with one of the young men in the ward who is preparing for a mission and I decided to pay for everyone. Thanks Mom and Dad :) They say thanks too!

3) Monday we got an extra special P-day. P day is today because of transfers but Monday was patriots day (the holiday only celebrated in Massachusetts) celebrating the start of the Revolution.  So the temple was open from 8-1pm for mostly missionaries! And because we live kinda close (about an hour away) we were able to go. We were able to do an endowment session and lots of baptisms and confirmations. Sis S was in my endowment session and so I got to talk to her for a bit and catch up. Also the C's were there and happy to see me. They just had their 50th wedding anniversary! And I saw lots of missionary friends that I haven't seen in a long time so it was way fun! Afterwards we went with about 20 missionaries to the park to play soccer. We chose teams and it ended up being all the brazilians (our Portuguese speaking missionaries) on one team and then me and other white kids on the other. But guess who one? :) yup i still got it. We won 8-7 and played for about an hour. Oh and did i mention it was 92 degrees outside and we were on a terf field? Yup I felt right at home and loved it!

Yup everything is going GRRREEAAAAT! Im loving Providence and all the good stuff happening. Mission life is where its at! Thanks for all the prayers and support. I'm so grateful to be out here and serving our Lord. I have come to see that the gospel truly blesses individuals but more importantly, it blesses families. I have also learned the importance of following what we know to be true, and following with all our might mind and strength. In one of our lessons this week with a new investigator, I asked him, "What would you be willing to do, if you found out that all this that we've talked about was true?" And he replied with such a simple yet powerful statement and that was, "I would follow it and do whatever I need to." This is the attitude we all need to have. We know that these things are true. Now go about doing all that you are supposed to. Changed what needs to be changed. Serve others. Be an Example.

Love yall! 
Elder Brady Johnson

I Love Spring!

Isn't spring just so lovely?! I love it. there is just so much more energy and excitement in the world during this time of year. Its still a bit chilly and windy but otherwise, things are great.  A. still hasn't talked to his mom and we can't ever seem to catch her at home, but he still continues to come to church. No second lesson with T yet because he has been out of town, but hopefully soon. J is getting interviewed today for baptism but things look like she will be ready to go on Sunday. A. had us over for dinner and it was AMAZING! She made salmon and lots of fruits and vegetables and limeade. She is so legit. She also got interviewed for baptism. She is someone who was very much prepared for us. Every time we talked about a commandment she would say," Oh ya I already follow that. I've always thought that was a good way to live my life and now I'm happy that there are other people that agree with me." hahaha Isn't that awesome! So I will keep you updated.

Im jealous of all your Easter Sunday programs that were so great. I guess our bishopric didn't get the memo that they should do something for an easter program, which is a bit disappointing seeing as we had a full house! So many people showed up that don't usually show up. So instead we had two speakers. Alot of people were disappointed. Oh and Elder W and I sang in the ward choir.... but we were pretty much the whole choir haha there were others of course but they couldn't really sing :( so that was kinda a disaster but us two sounded good.

We had zone leader council on wednesday and I got to see all of my good friends like Elder P and Elder P and lots of others so that was fun. We also went to the mission office to pick up some supplies. Later we did exchanges with the Elders in Groton so we did about 400 miles of traveling in 3 days :) I love driving tho so its all good.

Glad to hear all is well. Sounds like you had fun with the cousins. No fair you got to go 4-wheeling and you heated the pool! You never heated the pool for us - we always had to jump in with ice cold water in the spring. I love you all! Good luck Brock with the school elections!






Love,
Elder Brady Johnson

Conference was great!

Way to go Brock and Dhills soccer team! Wow, a 5-4 win.  That must have been a great game to watch with all that scoring.  I wish i could play soccer :( I miss it so much. Im curious if any of you caught all the hints in conference about writing LETTERS to people *cough* your missionaries... I don't know about you but that was a major theme that I saw in General Conference. And send pictures too :) oh and an easter package would be nice. ok ok i'll stop now.

Anyways.... Sounds like you all enjoyed conference as much as I did. I honestly loved every single speaker and really learned something from each one of them. Thats what I love about conference, is that every single talk has something in it that we can learn and apply to our lives to be more like the savior and be a better person. i wish i could share with you in detail all of the things that i learned but that would take to long and probably bore you. But my favorite thing I think was in President Uchtdorf's talk when he said that all we have to do is "Stop It". Stop the anger, the contention, the sinning, the gossiping the envy, and bad attitude, and all that is leading us away from the savior. Just stop it. So simple and yet so profound. I only got to watch the last 10 mins of Music and the Spoken Word but it brought back so many good memories of Mom turning it on every sunday morning and blasting it throughout the house. And i saw uncle Craig's name in the credits so that was cool.

J came to one of the sessions of Conference and we also got to teach her. She is all set to go for the interview which will be this week and then she will be baptized on  April 15th. Its going to be cool.

* This just in, it has been brought to our attention that the local TV show we did a few weeks ago aired today and a member texted us saying she saw us on TV! Haha awesome. So now we are going to go over to their house and watch it. Don't worry, I will get a copy of it and send it to you! [New picture on top of blog is the TV show]

Now we return to our featured program. So A also came to conference and paid attention to most of it. He still doesn't have permission to get baptized but hopefully soon.

Im way jealous that you guys had waffles in between sessions on sunday. No one invited us to come over so Elder W and I sat at the church alone and brought cereal and milk and watched the shows in between the
sessions ha. But good news was that we had a nice HUGE mexican dinner that night after conference.

We got a new investigator this week from a member referral! Some members invited us over for dinner and brought their friend who has come to church a couple of times and is interested in learning. He is looking for "something more" in his life. He feels like its God that he is missing and wants to find Him. It was really cool. The lesson went perfectly-like straight out of preach my gospel with the setting, the members helping answer questions, and the questions tyler was asking. Plus the spirit was very strong. He said he would get baptized on May 6th if he came to know that these things are true. Nice! (Yes, we invite people to be baptized the very first time we teach them. If not, no later then the 2nd time we teach them.)

Well i hope everyone has a wonderful week! Make sure to review your notes or listen to conference talks again and start applying the principles and eternal truths into your lives. If you do so, I promise that you will be blessed and be more happy. I love you all! Take Care!

Love,
Elder Brady Johnson