IT'S REAL...He Answers!

FAMILY! 

Hello everyone, thank you soo much for this last email that you sent!  I am so amazed at how awesome my family is and how much the Lord has blessed us in these past couple of years!  I always knew that the mission would bring a lot of great experiences, but I would have never imagined the change that it has made in my personal life and in the lives of those whom I most love!!  I LOVE THIS WORK!  Thank you for everything that you have done for me and all the inspiring words that you have wrote to me to lift me up and make me better...I appreciate it more than you know!! 

Time is going by soo fast it's unbelievable!  With so many things to do, we truly almost don't have time to sleep or eat or anything and it makes the time fly!  This 5-6 weeks have been some of the best weeks of my whole mission, I am learning so much and having the time of my life while doing it!  Sure, I'm stressed like all the time, but I have learned pretty well how to deal with it and to put a smile on and just get to work and enjoy what I am doing!  Also, my companion Elder Hernandez is progressing a TON!  He is so happy all the time..and not to mention tired also...but we are really loving serving together and it has been a really great experience to be together!  He is also helping me a ton in the branch so thats also been really helpful! 

 PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM!! 

There is an experience that I want to share with you,  we are seeing so many awesome miracles happen in this branch and it has been amazing to have these experiences that I'm sure will stay with me for the rest of my life!  One of the experiences we had was with one of our investigators David...don't remember if I told you about him, but he is around 30 years old and his wifes name is Maribel...they have 2 young kids and are just trying to get by right now in life.  They have been struggling these past few months with finding work and everything but somehow, David still seems to be so happy.  Anyway, we found him about a month ago and have taught him just a couple of times, but always saw a great potential in him.  These past couple weeks we have been super busy and he has also, so we hadn't seen each other in about 2 weeks, so we have really been asking our Father in Heaven that when we can't work in the area and when we can't visit with our investigators, that he would take care of them and make sure that they didn't fall off the map.  So this week we finally had time to go visit with David and his family and when we got there he was SUPER stoked to see us!  We sit down and start talking and he goes on to tell us that during this time that we hadn't seen him that he had been doing some reading (we had left the pamphlet of the restoration and the plan of salvation with him).  Then he goes on to basically teach us the restoration and the WHOLE plan of salvation (without peeking at the pamphlets...haha)!  He also said that a couple days before we had got there, he felt the necessity to pray to our Heavenly Father and really make a promise with him that he was going to change his life around and that he was going to do it for his family and for love of God!  WHAT!!!!  I seriously could not believe what I was hearing, I was sooo happy to see that God really did respond to our specific prayer and that he had been helping David this whole time that we hadn't seen him!  IT'S REAL!!

Also, about a week ago, we had a family home evening in the house of some members and we had invited some investigators to come (Lluvia and Martha) and they went and we gave them a Book of Mormon and explained to them a little bit about what it was and why it was soo important...then invited them to read it.  We went back to their house this last week and Martha told us that she hasn't been able to read in the Book of Mormon because Lluvia wouldn't let it out of her hands!!!!!!  hahaha.  Martha had the BIGGEST desire to read in the Book of Mormon it was unbelieveable so we asked her if she would like a copy of her own to read and she could hardly believe that she could have her own....she took that Book of Mormon in her hands with so much carefulness and with so much respect it was awesome!!!  I'm POSITIVE that she is going to read and that she is going to feel the spirit SUPER strong when she does!  We are super stoked for the both of them and for their families!i  Don't have time right now....REMIND ME IN THE PHONE CALL!

Basically, I am loving this time of my mission and I am progressing a ton!  I love being here on the mission and love learning so much about the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  Also, I love my family sooo much, I am grateful every single moment for each and every one of you!  Keep being awesome and never forget to do the simple things....those are what matter most!  I love you all so much!

Oh and about the call, the reason I want to call instead of skype is because I want to be able to call my dad also and I want to have a little more time with the both!  I'll let you know more details later on.

Elder Johnson

p.s. I LOVE YOU!!