So as a district leader i now do reporting with my district and then the zone leaders on wednesday and sunday and then i also do baptismal interviews for the people in my district.  thats what im most excited about.  plus being able to be closer to other missionaries and try to help them.  Our district isn't doing so hot.  Me and Elder G are doing really well and being blessed with alot of success so my goal this transfer is to find a way to bring the other areas up. I've already been blessed with revelation for them and i guess we'll see if what i suggested will have good affects. 

R, M, and V are still on for the 28th of August.  We've been meeting with M separately so that we could really focus on his concerns and it has turned out to be the best idea for his personal progression.  R has had a huge turn around. We have had some solid lessons with her this last week with Bro C (who she absolutely adores) and another brother in the ward.  She also agreed to let us come twice a week to finish teaching her in time.  So really good news with them. 

I wish i could play the piano better becuase, believe it or not, i play the piano every week for district meetings and have been for the last 4 transfers! Im getting pretty good at the same 7  hymns haha. Now i take time before district meeting to practice and learn more hymns. 

School starting already?  I can't believe Brock and Stacy have a class together!  Im so jealous.  I wish i could've had a class with someone in my family.  Brock take good care of our baby sis would ya? thanks!  Sorry to hear that mom got pulled into PTA AGAIN. haha mom you were just made for that you know :)

I have a little shout out for L O so i hope he reads this.  I am so impressed with him.  That is huge that he has stuck with his decision to go on a mission at the expense of his bball scholarships.  I think that is awesome and i know he will be blessed immensely for it. You are a great example to me.  I promise you that the mission will change your life and that you wont have any regrets by serving it.  Im so excited for you to come out here soon and join the ranks of the Army of God.  It really is the most important thing we can be doing at this time of our lives.  It is our Duty as Priesthood brethren as President Monson once said.  I love it.  Im proud of you L, and I can tell you that the Lord is too. 

M was confirmed a member this week so now she is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints aka the kingdom of God on earth.  Sadly, her mom didn't come but we will keep working with her.  She has a testimony deep down.  Our job is to help her find it in herself.

So at district meeting (which went good by the way) we do a prayer roll each week for the investigators that are struggling plus we all put something on it that we want the district to help us personally with.  I know that the lord hears our  prayers.  It is truly amazing that we have the priviledge to communicate with the all powerful all knowing Heavenly Father every day whenever we need him. We are so blessed with the comfort of knowing that He is always there listening.  I challenge you all to try and make your prayers more meaningful this week.

Saturday was not the best day. just to sum it up we had appointments fall thru that we had to pick up members and then take them home and there was really bad traffic all day and it just wasn't our day.  We did make out a really solid appointment with a guy from iraq who is a christian and a refugee who is very interested in what we have to offer.  So ya saturday we used 70miles and were in the car a total of 3 and a half hours! Ya.... we are probably going over our allotted miles this month....

Oh just fyi WATER FESTIVAL is this weekend in Lowell and all of us cambodian elders get to go and we have a booth and everything.  It is a huge Khmae holiday.  I will tell you all about it next week. 

Just as a parting thought, we were talking with a member about 1 Nephi 11:3 i think and the angel asks Nephi, "What desirest thou?".  What do we desire?  When we look inside ourselves and really ponder that question, what do we desire?  Munch on that and ill see you next week.  Love you peeps!

--

Love,

     Elder Brady Johnson

Alright family and friends get ready for some random bits of information, answers to questions and little thoughts that come to my head.  Im just gonna list it all offf in no real order.  Ready, set......GO!

Brock you are a stud!  So glad to here that your soccer team stepped it up a bit in Park City. Mom way to step up and take care of that boy who broke his jaw.  I bet that kid's parents were very grateful for what you did.  My friends all love you cuz of your kindness and generosity and hospitality... well cept towards Adam but he totally deserved what he got hahahaha jk :) Our soccer game last p day went way good.  I was super sore from doing squats a few days before so i wasn;t at full speed but i still scored 2 goals to help our team win :)  I guess i haven't lost all of my soccer skill.  I never really thought about continuing soccer after the mish but last month or so, i just had this feeling that i need to at least try out. So thats what im gonna do.  And yes mom one of my biggest goals is to have a restaurant where i can go to and say, "ill have to Usual." and have them know exactly what i want. haha that would be so awesome.

YAAAYYY Stacy!!! Way to go on making to soccer team! Im so proud of you!  You are such an example of hard work and determination to me.  Good luck with the season.  Thats way cool that Kylie got to stop by and you guys could have a nice chat.  I am still working out with Elder D and now i weigh 190 and most of it is muscle.  Im pretty stoked about it  ha.

Oh by the way, T texts (transfer texts) came this saturday and our apartment still stands!  WE all are staying again and we are all pretty stoked!  I love Elder D, Elder T and Elder G!  We have alot of fun together and are continually learning from each other.  Oh and guess what?  President has assigned me to be the New District leader.  Im pretty excited about it because i will get to interact with other missionaries more and help them when they need it.  It also involves reporting each week and planning district meetings and going to lots of leadership meetings but it should be fun.  Elder N was the district leader but he goes home this week.  Im gonna miss him.  He really taught me a ton and i have some big shoes to fill as district leader.  My first district meeting is friday so we'll see how that goes haha.

Im glad you enjoyed my pictures and videos. And yes i agree with you, they are very weird and random.  Just wait til you see some of the ones we have been filming this last week haha.  We sung "High On a Mountain Top" this morning with the zl's cept i sung in Khmae, Elder D in Spanish, Elder T in English, and Elder G in Chinese.   Haha it was epic.  I also ate the Ghost Pepper, something the ZL's brought home and told me to eat it.  so i did.  yup it was hot.  but did we get an awesome movie out of it.  You betcha!  ..... The things i do for for the entertainment of others.... :)

 So this sunday was a special day if you didn't know.   IT was the day that M got baptized!!!!!!!  So Sweet.  So first, at church, her whole family, that is her 3 brothers that are baptized already, her grandma (of course), her grandpa who is pretty less active recently, and Her MOM ( inactive) came!   and that was huge.  She seemed to  have a really good time at church and really enjoyed the baptism.  K pause on  that and let me rewind to last thursday which was malina's batismal interview.  Elder N. interviewed her and everything went swimmingly.  While the interview was happening we had the chance to talk to her mom.  We had a very good conversation and found out that she has been thinking about coming to church for awhile, she is just scared that she has forgotten everything.  We told her that we can help her and teach her and that the Lord always forgives and that He wants her to come to church.  We challenged her to pray with her kids that night and She did!  The kids were so happy too.  OK now to the baptism.  It went very very very well.  Bishop baptized her and the spirit was very strong.  It was so amazing being apart of all that.  We have been working with M since the End of may.  Its been alot of work and she has been awesome and progressing and opening up each time we met with her. She kept commitments and finally she was baptized.  Such a rewarding experience.  We still plan on working with her and her family because we want to get them all back into church and active and do it as a family.  I realized that one of the reasons, if not the only reason,  i learned Khmae was so i could have the chance to meet this family and help them.  We still have a lot of work to do but we have made the first step.  One of these days i will give you some background of this family, the S family. They have been through a lot and Sis S. has been faithful through it all.  Its truly amazing.

We are having a tough time meeting with our other investigators.  We have a lot, its just that we can't ever meet with them :(  its quite frustrating cuz we look at our board, full of people we should be busy teaching with and yet each day we have 2-4 hours of tracting.  But we have some pretty cool experiences while tracting.  Not anything like people wanting to get baptized right away or even want to hear more, but the Lord shows us tender mercies to let us know He is there.  oh ps alot of the tracting we've done this week was in the rain.  It would be perfectly fine when we start, but once we got far from our car, it would rain haha.  Oh well, it builds character, right?

We had a lesson with G (the blind guy) and we just read 3 Nephi 11. We took turns reading and he read with us using braille. IT is SO COOL!  You guys gotta find a blind guy who reads braille and have him show you cuz it is wicked awesome.  anyways, after we got done reading he really liked it and said that none of it disagrees with the bible. We tried to commit him to baptism but he said no, and that he will make a decision after he learns more. 

R, V, and M are progressing really well.  They are scheduled for the 28th of this month for baptism and things seem to be going well. they came to malina's baptism and really enjoyed it.  M said that it calmed a lot of nerves he had about it.  R said, kind of jokingly, "Maybe ill be the next one..." .  Im excited for them.  We take bro C with us and they all love him.  Im sure i've told you about bro. C before but if not, he is a convert to the church of about 50 years (he is 70), He is very knowledgable about the gospel, he is a temple sealer, him and his wife have us over every two weeks to do our laundry and eat dinner, and He is SUPER deaf!  Hahahha it cracks me up.  He is probably my favorite person i've met out here.  He refuses to use his hearing aids and we were teaching them one of the clayton christensen member missionary lessons and he kept saying, "WHAT?" and so his wife, who always makes hilarious remarks at him says, "put your hearing aids in, stupid." and he says, "But my life would be so dull with my hearing." hahahaha I want to be him when im old haha.

Ok so i think i got everything out that i wanted to say.  Whew.  Hope you guys followed that.  Wow you know how true this church is? wow, it is just so true.  It becomes so apparent to me more and more every day.  It is truely something special.  Thanks for supporting me and helping me get to where i am today.  Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.  He is always there for us.  "Oh sweet the Joy this sentence gives- I know that my Redeemer lives."  We are so lucky to have this hope and foundation to hold onto. Don't ever let it go.  I love you all!  Be good.  Choose the Right. And be a missionary.  Don't be afraid to share the gospel.

--

Love,

     Elder Brady Johnson

August 1, 2011

As you can see by the title of the email, “I gots no time.”  So i probably wont respond to anything people said this week so i can have time to let you in on whats going on here.  Sorry :)

Where to begin?  How about i go day by day: Monday me and elder greer made cookies for the A. family because the mom was sick (and that was why they didn't come to church) We gave them to the kids that night and then came back later that week and Sis. A was praising us like crazy!  She thought it was the nicest thing and that they were homemade and all. (it was just store bought cookie dough but baked with Love :) haha  So that helped her open up to us more.  We haven't been able to meet with her very much but we have an appointment tonight.

Tuesday: We had a good lesson with Bro. B  and he committed to come to church! and he did show up sunday, but ill get to that later.

Wednesday  Was Elder T's Birthday so we, being the best housemates and companions, we woke him up by singing to him and then at lunch we pulled out a ice cream cake we had hid from him and lit a match on it and sang again.  It was pretty epic.  We also got him a sweet card with Belle from beauty and the beast on it.  Let’s just say we made his day!  Then elder G and i hit the streets.  We were having a grand ol time getting doors shut on us and what not but just laughing and loving life (we were definitely having the kinda attitude Elder B taught us), when all of a sudden we knock on a door, a lady answers and is on the phone, thinks about it, and then says, do you want to come in? We of course said YES!  She told us that she had met missionaries 15yrs prior and had lost the book they had given to her.  We taught a great first lesson and at the end we asked her if she believed what we said.  She told us that she really wants to believe, she is just a little skeptical.  WE told her that was ok and that we knew that she could find out for herself through reading and continuing meeting us.  She then told us that when she first opened the door she really wanted to tell us to leave and shut the door. But as she was about to do so she told us that "something" had told her to let us in.  How cool is that? And now she wants to meet with us again!  I’m pretty stoked.  

Thursday, well let me just write what i wrote in my journal for that day:  "Have i mentioned how great it is to be a missionary of the Savior Jesus Christ?! Well it’s amazing! I am loving it.  I love the people- Ward members and investigators.  I love Elder G and Im so grateful for him (Im pretty sure that my mission call is not to the Boston mission but to the Elder G  mission  because we have been together 5 out of 7 months haha)  I love teaching, contacting and tracting. I just love doing this work.  I am especially grateful for Heavenly Father's help in me changing my attitude and becoming more optimistic.  He has definitely opened my eyes to see ONLY the good in things/people.  This is something i will continue throughout my life.  Life really is so much funner and better when you are optimistic!"  Ya things are just going really good.  Try being optimistic.  I dare you :)  You won't be disappointed :)

Friday: We had a way intense district meeting on Goals.  Goals reflect the desires of our hearts-Preach my gospel page 148 i believe.  I encourage you all to read PMG pages148-149 about goals.  If we don't set good specific goals, we will reach a ripe old age only to look back at our life full of regrets.  Have no regrets people.  Oh and M is coming along.  She is getting nervous for her baptism but she is still set to do it next week!  Pray for her please!  PS who among you have read the Clayton Christensen lessons i told you about yet, HUH?  We have taught a few families and we are already some fruits from them.  Our Elders Quorum president, Bro. B aka my favorite person in our ward and also a convert for only 3 years said that "These lessons are what every member of the church needs to learn."

Saturday we were on a role with lessons with several Africans.  We taught E from Cameroon, Ge (blind guy) from Liberia, and I. from Uganda! They are all doing pretty well but none came to church this week. On Sunday we also taught this guy, T, from Africa...we don't remember where exactly.  Africans are where it’s at!  They really know their bible and they are also very humble and willing to learn. 

So ya Sunday Bro. B came and he wore and outrageously ridiculous hawaiin shirt but i loved it! He participated a lot in sunday school when we talked about the good samaritan and service.  Kinda cool.  We have a lesson with him tonight so we will see how he liked church. 

Now today we have another Cambodian planning meeting and then a big soccer game with lots of missionaries and that is where i must run off to.  I love you all and am so grateful for all the letters packages and prayers.  It truly is inspirational and motivational thinking about all the people that are praying for me and all the missionaries.  I Love truly love this work.  The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is So True!  I know it is.  Be Good!  Love yous guys! (pronounced "use guys"-it means y'all in the boston accent)

PS if Chase J. is reading this, I love you man! and im way stoked about you getting your mission call! My only question is, WHY didn't you write me a letter and tell me? Geez :)

--

Love,

     Elder Brady Johnson

July 25, 2011

Here goes another round of my completely random letters.  Im just gonna write stuff as i think about it.  Hope you all can follow along :)

Im sorry Brock's soccer team got worked this weekend, but the thing with soccer is its gotta be the whole team or you got nothing.  Just like in a companionship on a mission. You have to be unified and both at the top of your game if you want to have the spirit with you and have success. And to Sawyer, aka little Lii, i hear you dominated in soccer!  Way to go bro!  Keep it up and make sure you beat up Chunn every once in awhile to keep him humble :) Its good to hear that coach Hunt is still coaching!  Someone that good at coaching needs to keep coaching.  Tell Coach Hunt thanks again for everything!- the opportunity to play soccer and the amazing example from him. 

Dad, the cambodian hymn book only has about 50 songs or so and i don't think any of them are pioneer songs so no i don't know how to sing them.  I do know how to sing other ones tho.  I wrote my own translation of Nearer My God to Thee cuz its one of my favorites and it isn't in our hymn book.

Mom, i'd encourage you to read the talk by Pres. Uchtdorf called Things That Matter Most from october 2010 conference i think.  Your life only fills up and makes you feel caught up with everything if you let it.  Hakuna Matata mom, it means no worries :)  As my good friend Chad Call used to say, Don't sweat the petty, Pet the sweaty! don't ask me what it means cuz i don't know :) haha. It really is easy to let yourself get all worked up and stressed and what not, even as a missionary. But just take a step back and think.  I have learned to do this alot and the lord has blessed me with patience and understanding. 

Speaking of patience, Chapter 6 in preach my gospel is on the Christ-like attributes.  I encourage you all to study from that chapter and especially use it in your family home evenings.  I promise you that as you study these attributes you will begin to have them and you will notice the change in yourselves.

So as you all probably know, this last week was a scorcher here in the east.  Talk about hot!  I felt right at home.  The best part was, We had no appointments from 2-6pm on friday and saturday so guess what we did during the hottest part of the day on the hottest days of the year? Yup, TRACTING!  Elder B (from cambodia) was on tours with me those days so we went tracting in the heat and sweated alot and knocked alot of doors and had a little of success.  But you know what? i didn't complain at all. I was loving it.  It definitely helps when you have a hilarious companion with the best attitude i've ever seen.  I learned alot from him about attitude and i hope i can become like him.  At one point we got rejected and i said "Ah man."  Then i asked Elder B, "how do you say dang or ah man, or something to express disappointment, in cambodian?" and he said something back that was so profound, " i don't know.... I don't really use any of those words cuz i don't ever feel that way."  me: "really, why not?"  Elder B: " well cuz i've already felt disappointed/discouraged/mad once before and its not a good feeling-i don't like it.  So why would i let myself feel that way again?"  How awesome of an attitude is that????!!!! Man the people i learn from here on my mission are just incredible.  I have so many good examples here to learn from just as i had when i was home.  I am so blessed.  My goal is to become like Elder B! and im gonna reach it!

So really cool thing happened this week. We taught a native guy from Liberia...i think, and had the most perfect first lesson ever!  Did i mention he was blind?!  Ya get this, we are talking about Joseph Smith's vision and we ask, "so what do you think about all this?" He said, " well in the bible it says that You can know a prophet by their fruits, So what are the fruits of Joseph Smith?"  We told him about the BOM and he told us that he wants the copy of the BOM in Braille!  Good thing we have one at our church.  Just FYI the braille BOM is 7 or so Huge binders!  And he can't wait to read it all.  He also said a prayer for us at the end and prayed that his whole family would want to listen to us missionaries next time we came. And he has a HUGE family.  so Im way stoked for him.  His name is G.  He is awesome. 

OH last p-day there was a sand sculpting competition at Revere Beach so we got to go see that, and it was incredible.  I'll send pics soon :)

Oh sad news.  We found a new investigator, a 17yr old, taught a lesson, he accepted a baptism date and then we came back a few days later and his step mom told us to never come back again... Well hopefully he finds us when he is 18.

Wednesday President Evans picked me and Elder G. up cuz we were in big trouble, Taa leng (jk).  He picked us up on the way to meet with all the Cambodian elders (7 of us now)  for a preparation meeting for Water Festival aka the huge Khmae holiday that we get to go to and have a booth and be around thousands of cambodians and hopefully get tons of new investigators.  It was way fun getting all of us together.   Elders A and B in the same room was just hilarious.  We discussed things like what we need, what our main focus/theme will be (Families) and lots of stuff.  it was a good solid meeting and we have another one in a few weeks and lets just say im way stoked for Water Festival.  It is August 20th i think, and in Lowell.  It was also fun just riding with President Evans and talking to him and what not.  He is such an awesome, humble and funny man.  I love him so much.  His dad was the apostle Richard L. Evans if you older folks remember him.  Pretty cool.

ok im done :)

PS. if you can't tell, i am in just a great mood! Last week was just awesome. Lots of good things.  I hope it carries over to this week. If not, im not gonna let my attitude change. Keep smiling :)  I LOVE YOU ALL! 

pps you all can write me letters if you want cuz thats always fun! Mom, keep sending those letters from my friends, i love them!  isn't it so awesome how i have so many amazing friends serving amazing missions?  I feel like alma and the sons of mosiah.  I can't wait til we reunite and have the same experience as all of them.  I wonder who will be like ammon and faint? haha probably adam :)

Love,

     Elder Brady Johnson

July 18, 2011

Oh man why did EVERYONE have to write to me about the Harry Potter movie?! I can't wait to see it in 1 and a half years.  I'll probably have to read all the books over again for the 4th or 5th time(?) before i watch it.  A few days ago me and Elder G challenged each other to some harry potter trivia.  I won obviously, but i was quite proud of him for knowing so much :)

Real quick, i don't know if i've told you or not but the roads here in Massachusetts are CRAZY!  Someone just dumped a bowl of spaghetti on a map and then that became the roads.  You guys would not believe how crazy the roads/intersections are.  Plus the rules of driving are just different here than most places.  Crazy crazy crazy.  Ok sorry i just had to let you know how i felt :)

We just started going to the gym every morning at 6am cuz Elder D got special permission from President Evans cuz he will  be playing football at BYU and needs to get back in shape. So we all get to go :)  Anyways this morning i saw the news that said the US women's soccer team lost.  Thats a bummer. 

Thanks dad for your advice about not always knowing at first what the Lord has in store for you but that it will all make sense later.  I had an experience with that yesterday actually.  Allow me to explain: -Sunday at 6pm we found out our 3 appointments with supposedly solid investigators all cancelled on us with in a couple of mins.  My first thought was, "NOOOOO now we have to tract all night."  but then i thought: "ok heavenly father, what do have in store for us? there has to be a reason that you cancelled all our appointments, what is it that we need to do?"  We decided to try to meet a potential investigator that we haven't seen for a few weeks when we met him.  We went to his house and he was there and he set up a time for us to come back next week.  Then we get a call from a less active member who is living with her fiance that is not a member.  We've been trying to meet with them forever and they told us to come over that night.  Bingo!  We went, had an awesome discussion and asked G (the non member) if he would get baptized.  He said he wants to and has gone through the missionary lessons before its just he's not married yet.  Apparently they got engaged a year ago planning to get married but it didn't happen.  So we asked them to pray for a wedding date and then we could set a baptismal date!  It was such a good lesson and i can't wait to see the outcome of their prayers.  That was definitely what the Lord needed us to do that night.

Mom i loved your insight to Pres. Uchtdorf's article in the Ensign this month. I totally made that same connection about jumping into the water with the gainers [back flips] I do when i read that talk earlier this month.  Great minds think alike!  The thing is, most people aren't impressed with what a gainer is until they see someone do one.  And i haven't been able to do one to show an example haha.  But ya there is no middle ground.  There is no going half way.  You have to go all out and accomplish the thing you committed to in order to reap the benefits.  Its like a quote i really love:  "If you are almost willing and almost worthy then you will Almost get the blessing."

i totally feel the same way about what happens to the Nephites in the beginning of 3rd Nephi.  It is how the world is today.  People don't want anything to do with God, and they don't even have a reason for that.  Its just that, like in the days of Ether, Satan has such a great hold on the hearts of the people and the spirit of the lord is starting to cease to abide with them.  We as members and missionaries alike are to bring that spirit back into their lives.  If we don't do something, our brothers and sisters will be lost.

Just fyi me and elder g did absolutely nothing special on our 6th month mark.  It was just another day.  the weather here is way weird.  One day it will be 90 or so with lots of humidity and then the next it is 70 degrees and rainy.  It really isn't too unbearably hot.  For someone who has experienced but the dry and humid heat, i think st. George is hotter in the summer.  but  most people don't believe me.  I did get the cookies from Karli. Thanks Sis!  My companions loved them and so did i.  I don't think i need anything.  there is some things i could use but i will wait til my birthday/christmas in order to ensure that i actually get presents haha :)

But yup things are going good.  M and V are loving church, R still isn't to hot on it.  M came to church and young womens earliar and she is liking it.  We are going to be committing bro B (part member that we have been teaching for the last month) to be baptized so please pray that he will accept it and will be willing to work towards a date (he has many concerns).  I don't know if i said anything about the A family but they are way solid.  They speak spanish and english perfectly and live in Lynn so they could either go to the Lynn spanish branch with the spanish elders or go to our ward.  We don't care who teaches or what not we just want things to work out the best way they can for their own spiritual growth.  Pray that things all go well :)

Thats about it.  We did alot of speaking Khmae with people but no real investigators.  Elder B taught a new way of contacting which is just talking to them about random things.  Apparently its not weird for a couple of strangers to walk up to you and and ask how many kids you have, where they live, how old they are, how many grandkids you have, how long you have been in america, etc... if you are a cambodian that is normal? haha its fun tho.  Im excited for what the new week holds. 

I love you all and im so grateful for your examples.  I love hearing about your insights and experiences so keep sharing them.  Special thanks to Emilee Johnson for her awesome letter i got this week!  Keep Rejoicing :)  and i also got the letters from the Luekenga's and i loved them, especially the pictures! 

You guys are all amazing!

Love,

     Elder Brady Johnson

Hola mi familia!  sorry i have been around spanish people alot today and been working on my spanish ha.  I plan to be fluent in spanish by the end of my mission along with Cambodian.  Anyways, we don't have a whole lot of email time and honestly im just not in the writing mood.  but i will do my best to write something that is worthwhile :)

I loved the emails from everyone. It is so fun hearing about what you are up to and staying involved in your lives. Keep it up :)  Brock it sounds like that soccer camp in Oregon was pretty crazy but alot of good experience. Im so jealous of you!  You are gonna be so much better than me at soccer by the time i get home.  You'll have to teach me how to play again.  Way to be a missionary up there!  That is so awesome you had that experience.  im so proud of you!  Keep being that light and that example. 

Mom, i think that Adam Ott didn't just appreciate you writing to him, he absolutely loved it! He bragged to me about it haha. Oh and about me not using my debit card, i use my mission money credit card for almost everything cuz that is what we are supposed to do. I don't know, im just trying to save my own personal money as much as i can so i will have something to come home to, you know?

That is so cool that Stacy and Brock have Trek! I loved trek so much!  Our stake here just had trek and L (recent convert) went and absolutely loved it!  Oh man speaking of that family, they are so awesome!  I love them so much.  It is like they have been in the church their whole lives.  I wish you could meet them.  Little A (6) is so sassy and has so much attitude. It cracks me up.  They are planning on doing baptisms for the dead in august! 

Things are going really good here in our area.  WE have lots of good investigators with baptismal dates like M, R, M and V.  And we have alot of others that are on the way. The only downer is that nothing cambodian is happening.  I haven't taught a lesson in Khmae in more than a month. I do speak it when i can and im getting quite good but i just want to be immersed.  Thats why im starting to learn spanish cuz 7 out of 10 people we tract into are spanish.  But im really not focusing on espanol yet but just doing bits. I can contact, like say who i am and that im a missionary for the church and that i have friends that speak spanish and i can ask them for their name number and address.  its a start.

So about the plans that the zone leaders have made.  So i talked to you about the Clayton Christensen Member Missionary Lessons. Well we are now trying to go family by family and teach them these lessons.  There are 3 lessons that we plan to teach one lesson per week.  And these lessons are amazing.  I wish i would've known how to be a member missionary before my mission.  I encourage everyone to read and studies those lessons if possible.  For our ward, our ward mission leader announced it in ward council but we have to do a lot of training.  We have to start with one or two families and hopefully it spreads and people will let us teach them.  Clayton Christensen talked to all of us at the mission conference last week and said that most members aren't doing missionary work cuz they just don't know HOW.  So our job as missionaries teaching these lessons is to help them learn how.  So even if you know how, please look into those lessons and see what he says.  So many apostles have told us that the church is not going to keep growing unless the members start getting involved. if you want to know how to get involved, read those lessons. I bet they are on lds.org or something.

This morning we went with the spanish zl's to move a piano for one of their members.  We had to move a piano from their neighbors house to theirs and it was very very difficult and took a long time but we got it!  The lord definitely blessed us with some extra help when two guys hopped in to help us.  so ya thats why i was around spanish people and what not...

I feel like there is more but i can't think of anything. plus we need to go shopping and clean our apartment.  I love you all very very much and am so grateful for your prayers and letters. They really boost me up when im down.  You guys are the Best! have a fabulous week!

Love,  Elder BradyJohnson

PS here is the link to the 3 lessons i talked about in my email.  Please read it and try to be member missionaries.  This is a great tool for Dad as ward mission leader. also the website: missionaryleaders.org by itself is really good.  Love ya

http://missionaryleaders.org/content/mem_miss/teaching_mm_principles_wk1.html

http://missionaryleaders.org/content/mem_miss/teaching_mm_principles_wk2.html
http://missionaryleaders.org/content/mem_miss/teaching_mm_principles_wk3.html

4th of July in Boston

Oh family i have so much to respond to and so much to tell and just soooooo little time.  Here we go! 

Dad i can't believe... well ok i can but still, that is crazy that you are going to all those BYU football games! That will be way fun.  Next year my roommate elder dawe will be on that team that you will be watching. 

Sounds like brock has been dang busy.  I guess that explains why he doesn't write to me.  I expect a long letter one of these days from Brock telling me all about his crazy busy and fun summer. Good luck at the ODP thing.  Do Work bro!

Nikki i got your letter and im kinda confused at how totally random that was.  But I feel like those kids are exactly who me adam, dawson, daniel, and trevor were like when we were that age haha.

Man i just sounds like you guys are all having tons of fun!   Dad, you and i better be going to the world cup in brazil in 2014! That would be soooo awesome.  So start getting your connections so we can go! Knowing you, you will probably find a way for us to go for free haha.  I love all of your connections!

I just gotta say that i REALLY miss are totally random and hilarious moments at the dinner table as a family. haha such good times.  Thanks mom and dad for always stressing having us together for family dinner almost every night.  I look back now and i wouldn't trade those little moments for anything.  I Love you guys so much!  Oh and mom sorry for not telling you that i got your package.  But i did and it was the BEST!  I ate nearly all of the peanut butter bars that day and i ate the banana bread pretty much by myself too haha they were so good.  Thanks mom! 

Ok so now for my side, Transfers happened and connecticut and Rhode island are now part of our mission.  We had a huge mission conference in belmont and got to meet lots of people.  Some good friends from the mtc are now in my mission so that is cool.  Elder B (from Cambodia) is getting trained in the english program but he is in my district so we see him alot! He is hilarious.  I love foreigners haha they are jsut so funny.  We had another zone meeting this week and our zone leaders have been working way hard and we have some sweet new plans to get this area to pick up.  It is gonna take alot of work but i feel like by the end of these next few transfers, this area will be hoping.  Just so you guys know, our mission is known as one of the hardest missions in the world.  Many apostles have said so.  But we are going to change that.  Maybe not this transfer or the next or the next, but we are starting this big change.  It is so awesome to be a part of this mission at this time and be able to make a difference. 

R and her family are doing really well still.  M is solid.  Not a whole lot of updates on them cuz they have been buzy and hard to meet with during this holiday.  We did lots and lots of tracting cuz we just didn't have anything else to do.  Out of all the tracting we did we got a good number of potential investigators that i am really excited about.  we are going to be meeting them this week so ill let you know how it goes.  Still no word from E. 

Ok so now to the 4th of July. We spent most of the day in Boston just walking around.  We were with the Cambodian elders in Lowell plus elder newsome and elder ban so that means both elder ban and elder ang were with us and it was a party.  Man elder A is still just as funny!  Those two cambodians crack me up.  Elder B is a bit more serious than elder A but he is just as witty haha.  We just kinda wandered around for the day and it was just fun being in boston.  later at night like at 8pm we went down town and it was completely empty cuz everyone was gathered by the charles river waiting for the fireworks and watching the Boston Pops. So it was kinda like I Am Legend status.  It was almost creepy walking threw the empty streets.  So some how we had some sweet hookups for our zone and the cambridge south zone to get to watch the fireworks in a skyscraper overlooking the charles river!  So ya we were 32 floors up it a sweet office with an awesome view of boston and the fire works.  It was sooooo cool!  And president gave us permission to be out late so we got to watch it all. I have some good videos and pictures that i will send as soon as you send back my other memory card :)  So with all the traffic and stuff afterwards, we got home at like 1am.  So ya long day but so worth it.  We had a blast and i love Boston soooo much!  I want to serve in the city so bad.  Its just got this awesome feel to it. 

I don't really know what else to say.  im kinda tired from the late night so i can't really think straight haha.  But i was reading  the conference talks again this week and each one has so much for me to learn and do to become a better person.  I love reading the words of the prophets. of the talks i read, Elder Christofferson's really hit me hard.  It definitely applies to me.  It says in there that we need to "willingly accept and even seek correction."  In order to become the best person you can be you need to be constantly refining yourself.  I love his analogy of the gardener with the bush.  The Lord knows what He is doing and knows your potential.  So i encourage you all to accept and seek correction and then apply it in your lives and become who God wants to you become. 

I love you all so very much and i am very grateful for the letters prayers and support you all give.  Keep being such amazing individuals! 

OH MAN HOLD ON A SECOND!  I can't believe i almost forgot!  so when we were tracting this last week some guys told us to come over to talk. So we did.  They started trying to bash with our beliefs and what not and so we jsut bore testimony of what we knew was true and invited them to read the book of Mormon.  They then said how about we invite you to our pentecostal church so we said we'd come! You should've seen the look on their faces right then and when we showed up at their church the next day.  Let me tell you, that pentecostal church was INSANE!!!!!! hahaha  Their was tons of loud music and singing and shaking and just weird stuff. OH and guess what? it was all in spanish hahahahahahaha that was the best part haha.  They tried to have translators but it was so loud in there that we could barely hear ourselves think.  So ya nothing came out of it but it was a good experience :)  Some people are just so confused and lost and they don't even know it. Its sad.

anyways i gotta be going.  Love you bye!

Elder Brady Johnson