A Fast MIRACLE, A Phat TORTISE

 

Hey guys how's it going? Welcome to probably the fastest email I've scrawled yet hahaaaa! I didn't think I would have time to write one today but I felt like I really needed to make time to put this one out fast.

FASTING AND PRAYER WORK GUYS. Fasting is this thing people sometimes do, it's kind of like a prayer except you don't eat for a period of time too. Honestly up to now I still didn't totally understand how not eating somehow made your prayer stronger or like, what exactly fasting was supposed to do as opposed to a regular ol' heartfelt prayer. But this week I was feeling pretty down about the work because we weren't teaching anyone new and gosh dangit when you're a missionary with a gospel as awesome as this you just want to share it with EVERYONE man and when you aren't teaching lessons to new people it feels like a big hole in your life. At least to me, that's how I felt. So on Sunday I fasted for our work and wrote down some specific things I wanted help accomplishing this week. I fasted for a new person to teach. I fasted for help being more patient and loving even with people who don't reciprocate that. I fasted for a lot of other things too, mostly involved with progressing the work in our area and just general self-improvement type stuff in areas I felt I was lacking in. But I wrote them all down and got serious with it, all right.

And then things started happening. Monday night Elder Cattani and I came home at 8:30 and instead of winding down or eating our dinner we got on facebook and started messaging random people. And on a jeep group my companion was in, he found someone who wanted to meet us in person. We were freaking out!! It's literally the last 5 minutes of our proselyting hours by this time, time which would have been easy to spend doing something else but when we chose to use it to do the Lord's work he blessed us. Boom. We set up a time to meet him at the church on Friday and THIS GUY WAS SO COOL!!

When we met with him I thought we would just talk to gauge his interest and then setup another time to actually teach him a lesson but our conversation just naturally turned into a deep discussion about the nature of our Heavenly Father, Christ's church, the purpose of baptism... And then we started talking about the restoration. And then when we got to the part where we usually share the First Vision Elder Cattani looked at me and stopped talking.

I was like a deer in headlights man, I have NEVER shared the first vision account in English with someone else before. For those of you confused right now, the "First Vision" thing I'm talking about is this account which Joseph Smith wrote, where in his own words he describes the experience he had seeing God and Jesus Christ appear to him. Us missionaries like to memorize a passage from his account word for word because it's more powerful to say, "this is what he said in HIS words" than to try and paraphrase such an incident on our own.

And when I needed it most, I suddenly couldn't remember a single word. I couldn't even remember how it started. I just sat there and tried to hide the panic I felt inside for what felt like an eternity. I thought a silent prayer in my mind at the top of my brain lungs, 

"HELPMEOHMYGOSHLORDHELPMEPLEASEILITERALLYCANTREMEMBERANYTHING I'M GOING TO OPEN MY MOUTH NOW PLEASE PUT SOMETHING IN IT."

So I did. I opened my mouth and started speaking.

And as I spoke, the words came to me.

"I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other, 'This is my beloved son. Hear him!'"

There really is nothing quite like what I experienced then. All the air seemed to get sucked from the room into a single point between us and everything became very still. The person we were talking to held my gaze and I saw his eyes gradually get more and more shiny. I felt the Spirit like a warm hug in my chest. Like he was gently wrapping his arms around my heart.

We continued to tell him about the Book of Mormon and how it's a witness that God still speaks to us today. He asked if he could see it, and we gave him a copy (which he was shocked by, like seriously you guys are just GIVING this to me?!). And the dude wound up coming to church the next day. We will be meeting with him again this week.

I know I still have so much to learn but man it just amazes me how God makes every lesson we give. It really isn't about us, we are only vessels for His spirit and when we're honestly fixing our best effort there is nothing I nor my companion can do to frustrate the work of the Lord.

It's incredible.

I love you and your Heavenly Father REALLY loves you. Completely, absolutely, with his whole immortal heart.

Keep on praying because there's so much you two have to catch up on.

Love,

Elder Johnson

1. On our way to wreck some nerds in volleyball with my onesie on p-day

2. Some kind of african tortise named Raf. His owner says he came from the internet.

3. Cattani turned 20!

4. Getting vaxed

5. Elder Dunn is left for his OG assignment in Chile so I made this tribute vid for him. The music is original, sung mostly by him as we were making up tunes on the piano in the church after a heated district nerf war.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15MKJkjFW5MeBt6lRcnmMQqI4Ql4C5UT2/view?usp=drivesdk

English is so dumb and Satan is too

We are coming up on 3 whole days since the last time my companion pooped. Please pray for him. We're starting to get a little worried. 🙏

LIL JUAN'S SCOOP ON THE PAST MONTH OR SO

We started teaching English lessons to Spanish speakers every week and I've learned that there's a ton about my native language which makes absolutely no freaking sense.

For example: read and lead rhyme and read and lead rhyme but read and lead don't rhyme and neither do read and lead.

I was trying to explain how to sound out vowels in English. I quickly learned that this is actually impossible to teach since all our rules about when vowels say their names only work half the time so frankly I'm not sure how any of us figured out how to read in the first place.

The Portuguese branch had a dance in the church's gym at the same time we were trying to have a baptism, so I was slightly mortified to hear music thumping faintly in the background during the entire thing. When the guy getting baptized was immersed in the water, everyone at the dance started cheering almost on cue. It suddenly felt like angels were cheering this guy on and welcoming him in and that is when I decided that every baptism needs a Portuguese dance party next door.

I accidentally told a man at church that he was looking very sexy with his new tie instead of very good and it's been all uphill from there guys people love us in our Spanish ward.

I copped a Nampa Bulldogs shirt from Walmart for 5 bucks and wore it bowling with our district and some YSA members who mocked me ruthlessly for posing as one of the high schoolers. It is now my favorite shirt.

We met a guy named Isaac by randomly calling people and he turned out to be the coolest guy ever. He's this jacked dude from Nicaragua, didn't speak a LICK of English when we met, but he's one of our best friends now. He called us the other night and said he wanted to get us domino's, so we said okay thinking he would just drop it off like everybody else does. But the guy pulls up to our house in his black car at like 8:30, parks underneath this flickery street lamp and rolls the tinted window down. We walk over and his face is all shadowy and spooky looking, gold chain glinting in the light and he looks around with his "cool face" on, not cracking a smile and says in his deep, thick accent, "Elderes." Then holds out his fist. We bump him.

"Entra. Vamos."

So we get in his car and he drives us to Domino's to buy some pizza and Fanta like true south-American gangsters. Definitely felt like one of the coolest missionaries in the area then.

….

As a missionary, I spend a lot of time talking about Christ and his Gospel because they truly are incredible. I love the light and warmth that comes when such things are discussed.

But in learning more about the goodness and glory of our greatest advocate, our Savior Jesus Christ, I have also picked up a few new insights into the mind of our greatest adversary. I don't usually talk about him, but I found this note scrawled in my journal and for some reason I felt like including it in this email for you.

"Satan's greatest lie is to make you think that what you do right now doesn't matter. What you do today or for the next hour or the next ten minutes is of no importance. You can work hard and do good just not right now because of A B C and D. Satan doesn't wait until you die to claim you his, he carefully robs you of your life one minute at a time."

The people you could be serving, the relationship you could be building with your Heavenly Father – Satan can't force you to forget about them entirely, he doesn't have to. He only needs to get you to keep them one line below something else on your list of priorities.

And wow how much more obvious can the power of distraction get? How easy is it to unconsciously surrender irreplaceable hours of your time to push notifications, news articles and videos about stuff that doesn't even concern your immediate physical or spiritual well-being? On a daily basis the adversary is attacking the identity of every single person in the world, coaxing us to turn inward and become so preoccupied with ourselves that we isolate ourselves from God and each other.

Satan's greatest victory is won when you're so worried about life that you forget why you're even living at all.

2 Nephi 2:27 puts it best.

"Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh... And they are free 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; for he seeketh that all men might bemiserable like unto himself."

There is a better way, my friends. You don't have to "find yourself" to be happy. You are not on this earth to chase down your identity as if it's some elusive secret buried deep inside of you.

You are a child of God and yes it really is as simple as that. His admiration, love and inheritance for you lasts forever. If you tap into that power every single morning and align yourself with the will of your Father you will find every facet of your life to be more rewarding. As a result of forgetting yourself you will discover and develop more unique talents you were blessed with, your sincere love for and patience with other people will come more naturally and you'll make so many happy memories that when you die someday you will go to rest with the biggest smile on your face knowing you're the wealthiest sonofagun in the world. You will have lived a life a thousand times better than anything you could've come up with on your own and the joy you'll have in the next life will be beyond anything you could describe as you're welcomed with open arms by the throngs of individuals you helped bless and the Master himself, your Creator and friend, even Jesus Christ.

I love all of you with my whole kidney! I can happily testify that Christ's doctrine works. It's working in me and millions of others right now, changing their lives and making them happier, better people.

Just try it bro.

Your mejor amigo en Nampa Idaho,

Elder Juanhijo

1. Johnny boi and Lowdski

2. Elder Barron (writes like a founding father) attacking McLawhorn

3. Vork's sheep in English lessons

4. The meme I connect with most rn

5. Video shoot at the school which I forgot to talk about but it was SO SICK I spent like 6 hours scheming a shot list one night and with the help of creative geniuses like Elder Despain and Webb we shot the first take LIVE to get genuine reactions from the students and it was so fun I felt like a real director and everything we all had a blast man ya had to be there the video will be edited in a week or so.

6. Mine and Cattani's genius incentive system to keep goals

7. Salvation exchanges with Elder BECK himself

8. One last volleyball game with the bois before transfers 😥

9. The Spanish Elders and Sisters on our way to a sick lesson

10. Camera dude

11. Another meme

12. Surprise b-day for our zone leader – The mini taco pinata was my idea

13. How facebook finding is going

14. A half-birthed music video to a song Elder Lowder and Moss wrote about Nampa we tried to shoot but decided to scrap after a day of shooting cuz it was way too much to do before transfers but we had fun while it was a thing 🙌

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s6Fz8Iz0kMFBTioIlmsTPl19bibeuac2/view?usp=drivesdk

UPDATE: By the time I finished writing this email my companion successfully pooped. Don't worry about him anymore, we all good now.