Goodbye to Elder W

There you have it, Elder W is finally going home. Well technically he is getting transferred to Revere, MA for two weeks and then going home, but anyway, he is leaving me. Its weird seeing my trainer go home. I'm so glad i got to spend these last 5 months serving with him. He is an awesome missionary and a great friend. I couldn't have asked for a better companion! He actually is having a family reunion this august in ST. George so he is going to be stopping by. I gave him your info and he will contact you. Wont that be fun?! Providence definitely won't be the same without him but life goes on.

My new companion is Elder M and he was in my district back in Revere and I went on exchanges with him a couple of times and he is a really cool guy so im excited to serve with him. Should be an awesome transfer because we have alot of good things on the horizon. For example, we got J and S (the twins whose parents said they can't meet with us) back and all is good between us and the parents. Apparently it was all a big misunderstanding but we went over the other night and I talked to the mom and explained alot plus she saw us and how we had fun with the kids and how the kids really like us and so she told us that she wants them to meet with us and go to church and maybe she will follow. She is definitely down for listening and learning so it should be really good.

Other big things that happened this week, this has been one of the best weeks of my mission. It would take way too long to talk about everything but here is just a bit. First off it has been hot and humid and I love it!!! Second, the evenings are so perfect-temperature wise. Third, Y Hatian and A got baptized!!! Lots of the members showed up to support and the water was CLEAR! *please note that every other baptism here the water in the font is brown and rusty and you can't see the bottom, but for some reason it was clear that day! MIRACLE! A's Dad came and he was the one who a year ago dragged him out of church on the day of his baptism so he wouldn't get baptized (yes we were nervous that would happen again) but everything went well and after the baptism the dad said to me, "Thank you for working so hard to get amos and for working with him so much. I see now that this is the right place for him and I am not worried." We are hoping to start teaching him soon too. Y was so happy when it was all over. We was just glowing. It was a fantastic day.

Funny story: Brother M, one of our members who is hilarious and the most sociable person I've ever met, baptized Y and he is a strong guy but Y is a big man. So after putting him into the water you could see it was a workout to get him back up and when he did, Bro. M flexed his biceps and said, "I knew lifting weights was good for something!" and then gave Y the "good game" butt slap as he was leaving the font. Haha maybe you had to be there but it was the funniest baptism I had ever seen :)

This week was also spent saying goodbye to lots of people cuz Elder W knew he was leaving. It was really cool to be around and just see how much of an impact he made in their lives. I hope that when I leave this area that I can have a similar experience. This really is the best area in the mission and I hope i don't leave it too soon. Well we have lots to do with Elder W leaving and needing to pack and what not so this is short. But I love you all and will write to you shortly! Bye!

Love, Elder Brady Johnson

Another school year gone by

Wow what a fast week. I can't believe another school year has come and gone. I've been graduated from High school for 2 whole years! WOW (imagine me spelling it with my hands in a "w" and and mouth making the "o"-you know how I showed you last week on skype?) That means Brock and Stacy have alot more free time to email/write me :) Hurray! Im super jealous of your fun trip you are going on to North Carolina and Tennessee! Take lots of pictures cuz it makes it more fun! How come no one ever told me my cousin Jessica Johnson is getting married?! I better be invited haha.

 This week was a good one. We did exchanges with the elders in Groton, CT (an hour away) and i stayed down there with Elder S. It rained the entire time but it was fun walking around getting soaked. Groton is home of the major Submarine base for the U.S so that was cool to drive by. We also got to go out with the Stake President, Pres. Hutchins and he is the man!

We had a leadership training, meaning all the zone leaders, district leaders &comps, and sisters came together with Pres and did trainings and roleplays and discussions and one of the major things that came up is that the biggest downfall of the church here in New England is that hardly anyone does home teaching or visiting teaching. I am willing to bet that the church would explode and flourish out here if people started doing thier visits. So everyone who reads this, Please do your home/visiting teaching!!!!!!!!!!!

Y is doing so good these days. We actually bumped up his baptism to this week (the 27th). So he and A will be baptized on the same day! We asked Y in one of our lessons, "Since meeting with us and coming to church, have you noticed a differenece in your life?" He just laughed and with a huge smile he said, "YES! I am 1million and 5% happier these days and my friends and family are noticing it and asking me whats different." How cool is that? He is going to be a great member of the church and a great leader. A is solid too. We taught him 3 nights in a row and had the interview and he's all set! He is excited. 

Lastly, this weekend was stake conference. It was marvelous. Our stake presidency is so focused on missionary work and good things are happening. Our Zone, which covers the stake, is leading the mission in baptisms and baptismal dates. Its pretty awesome.  Pres Coates spoke (we teach alot at his house) and he had alot of good things to say about Elder W and I. Pres and sis Evans also spoke Saturday night. but the best speaker for the adult session and general session was Pres. Hutchins. That man speaks with power and authority but with love. Like i said before, he is the man. He has 10 kids, the oldest on a mission, and has been the stake pres for only a year, and he goes out with the missionaries at least once a month, plus he works for Fizer(sp?) and is pretty high up in the rankings. And he does it all. And he does it really well. He really knows how to inspire peolpe. Another cool part about the conference was a 12yr old recent convert of 2months, this young african/american kid with a Huge fro spoke about the blessings that have come to his life since joining the church. His talk was one of the best given and he gave it professionally, without using any notes. It was so cool!

And now I am sitting at the Boston Public Library, in down town Boston emailing you all. Yup we got up here again and I love this city. I could totally live here and work here. Its just got a really good nice clean feel to it.  I love you all and cant wait to hear about your trip!

Love, Elder Brady Johnson

Happy Mother's Day

That was so much fun to see all of you on the computer yesterday! One of the little boys that was waving to you on skype said to me after the call with the fam, "your mom is pretty." haha and i was like, "yup i have a pretty mom." Then When talking to Karli, Elder W. told Brother Don that i was talking to some babe and he was like, "what?! He can't do that!" but then i explained, that it was my sister and my new nephew. Good stuff. Oh before i forget, an elder in our district told me to tell my mom hi from him, so Hi from elder S!

I forgot to tell you cuz i totally spaced it but we (elder w and i) gave a talk in church yesterday. And it went really well. I don't think i have ever received more praise and compliments from any talk before like we did after those talks. Alot of the members told us to make sure and tell our mothers Thanks for all that they did to make us great and get us here. I talked about the Untold Stories of Mothers-the things we seem to over look. I asked everyone to think of all the great prophets, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Nephi, Mormon, Capn moroni, Mosiah, ect. And then said, "Now think about the mothers of all of these great men and imagine what they were like. I know that their mothers were a huge role in making these men so great because that is exactly what mothers do." And... a whole lot more was said but i don't really feel like writing it all out :) But i love you mom!

I told you my release date has been set and it is December 28. This means I will be able to make it to school in Jan without too much rush (one week is plenty of time.)  Well im gonna go cuz we are making the road trip to Boston today to play some Soccer! Bye! love ya! Write me people:)
Love,
    Elder Brady Johnson

I'm an uncle!

Hurray! I'm an uncle now!!!! It feels good. Congrats to Blake and Karli! and Congrats to Mom and Dad for being old.... i mean for being grandparents! Yay!!!! I can't wait to talk to all of you and see the little guy. I will most likely call on Mother's day around 6-7pm my time so about 4-5 your time? but it could be later. We are going over to our bishop's house and helping with dinner for his wife and then we will call. Should be a good day because Elder W and I got asked to speak in church on Mothers :) So momma I just gotta say, you are amazing! Thanks for everything!

As for the week, it was quite eventful. We had zone leader council so that means breakfast and lunch provided by Sister Evans. But then we got a special treat because that night we met with the Providence Stake Presidency along with Pres. Evans and afterwards he took us out to dinner! It was awesome. Pres. Evans is the Man! I'm really sad to see him leaving in the next month but its ok cuz he lives in Bountiful and so I will get to visit him often. He is such a humble and really funny guy. Meeting with our Stake Presidency was pretty awesome. Every one of them is like a CEO of some big company and so the meeting was very business-like and could've been intimidating but we came prepared and we held our own in there haha it was cool. I've never seen a more missionary minded group of people. And they don't just talk the talk. They are out there working with us missionaries and constantly challenging the wards and members to step it up and share the gospel. Its a great time to be a missionary in the Providence RI stake. Good things are happening and Great things are on the horizon!

Y is the one investigator with the most promise and progress. He is just solid. He is reading the Book of Mormon pretty faithfully and comes to church every week and is loving all of it. We had a lesson with him this week and he told us that he definitely recognizes that the spirit is with us(the missionaries) whenever we come to his house. He feels so good after we come. He also asked a really good question, "Is it ever going to get easier?" He said this because he, on his own, decided he wanted to quit a bad habit and so he did a few months ago. but the temptation is still there. Even when he is now closer to God than ever, he feels a stronger temptation. He is such a good guy and really wants to do the right thing and it is very inspiring. We talked about Enduring to the End and how that word endure lets us know that its not always going to be easy but if we stay faithful to God he will never forsake us. 

We have Zone Conference coming up this week and we as a zone have decided to "Forsake the World", by choosing one thing that we will sacrifice in order to better fulfill our purpose and become better missionaries, to prepare for the Zo Co. Elder W and I decided that we will sacrifice our english. Meaning that we will not talk to each other in English except with other english speaking missionaries or members around. So this is what we do. We talk in spanish with each other and if i don't know how to say a word or don't understand something he says, then we use cambodian. Its pretty awesome. I've already seen the blessings. My spanish has gotten way better-its still very bad but its improving. I prayed in spanish at a members house who is dominican! It is definitely really hard to not speak in english and it gets quite frustrating at time but its all going to be worth it in the end!

So i challenge you to all do the same, that is choose one thing that you will give up, let go, or change in order to become more like Christ. I can promise you that its not easy, but it will be worth it and you will be happier!  I love you all! See you next week! Please think of things that you want to talk to me about and ask me!

Love, Elder Brady Johnson

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