Email From Elder Johnson #6

Group Text: 8-24-20

Addition to the Resume: Jungle Tamer

What is goooooood my friends? I know it seems rhetorical but I'm genuinely curious so feel free to shoot me an email...please i love you...and i miss you...

Anywayyy this week has been a good one! I'm getting the hang of this missionary thing and I'm low key having the time of my life. I seriously love this gospel, this church, and the fetchin people in it. 

So lil fun fact about me is that from age zero to about 6 days ago I had never had Chipotle. Lil did i know the love i would have for a thick Chipotle burrito. They're expensive lil suckers but oooooo baby gimme dems all day everyday. 

This week my comps and i met Amy. She had us come over and do some backyard service for her. She called her backyard, "The Jungle", and called us "The Jungle Tamers." Basically it was just massively overgrown thorny bushes. So after a couple hours and a few drops of blood; the jungle was tamed. Partly because we have to go back cause the people here in Minnesota have huge backyards. (i will provide actions shots below).

To close i would like to mention how thankful i am to have each and every one of you in my life. You all have contributed so much in shaping the person i am today so i love ya'll. 

Take it easy. Don't catch the rona and i'll see ya on the next adventure.

-Elder Johnson

Email from Elder Johnson #5

Group Email: 8-17-20

1000 Bottles of Hot Sauce on the Wall....

What is up partay peopleeeeee? I hope all is well with y'all. Miss ya like crazy but I'll get through it....:( 😂😂 Anyway, sooo remember when I talked about those sick lighting storms? Sooo we had another one...and I got pictures so imma attach dems below so you can understand. 

Anyway! This week's been pretty good! Got some service in, I led a couple of lessons, and had a zoom mission tour so all In all banger week.

We had quite a few zoom lessons which are pretty cool...if you like that sort of thing. Idk I'm pretty neutral on it but sometimes we're like... yo we need to leave this dang apartment or somebody gonna die...not actually die...but I mean never say never. 

Anywayyy mission tour! Basically a mission tour is some higher ups in our church (area 70 if you know what that means;) usually come to the mission and talk to us and train us on what they feel we could be educated more on. This was the same idea but over zoom. It was 4 hours long but it was gooood stuff. Lots of really good training. Just long tbh. Lil quote I liked from it goes like this, "Don't define yourself because of your weakness, we are shown our weaknesses so that we may take them and make them strong and improve ourselves." I love that. A lot of us get down on ourselves for being weak in certain areas but it's meant to help us grow and become better, faster, and stronger then we were before. 

We got some service in as well. We helped 2 peeps move. Super fun actually. One of them was a quick move cause they didn't have a ton of stuff but what she did have shocked us tbh. Bottles on bottles on bottles on bottles of hot sauce. We were just like holy fetch that's soooooo much hot sauce. For numbers sake my comps and I guess roughly 1000 bottles? Probably a little more. I dunno it was a lot. Super nice lady though. She gave us Pepsi which was banger. 

A few more things and then I'll wrap up. My district is seriously the coolest dudes ever. I love'em to death. I gave a talk in church on Sunday on hope. I'd say it went pretty okay. Not the worst experience ever but we're moving forward. I seriously love being a missionary. Loving every minute of it. 

Also I got a pet bird. His name is Dwight. I'll attach some pics of him too. He just shows up in the morning and at night and chills right next to the sliding glass window when I'm sitting next to it on the inside. He came by this morning with his buddy so that was epic. Anyway take care y'all. I love ya. Be safe and don't get the rona and remember... Hope is dope. Catch ya on the flippity flop. 

-Elder Johnson

Email from Elder Johnson #4

Group Text:

Cactus Man!

Whatsss upppp! Another week down and I'm feeling good tbh. How are things? Good? Gooood that's how I like it. Soooooo yeah to be fair this week was pretty mellow so not action packed but nonetheless here I am writing an email about it. 

Minnesota...has great lighting storms like the best I've ever seen. I'm literally a kid on Christmas when it comes to thunder and lighting. Seriously the coolest thing ever. I love it😂 they happen like once a week, it seems like, so it makes for a good time. 

The work's been good I'd say! Nothing too crazy but we have a guy who's just on the edge of getting baptized so hopefully he takes that leap of faith. We did some Facebook work and had quite a few dinners with some awesome members who are seriously very generous to us. We are always walkin away with loads of leftovers. We also had lots of service work this week which leads me to cactus man...

Now cactus man is a guy who has missionaries come over and help him out in his yard. So we, along with, the elders in Eagan (Minnesota) went over there. Lil backstory of cactus man. None of us know his actual name... He goes by cactus man and asks us to refer to him as such. When he left a message for the Eagan elders he said, "Hey, this is cactus man..." Sooooo usually he has the missionaries pull cactus plants out of his front lawn area and put them into pots. His front lawn is allllllllll cacti...I wish I had a picture of it. But instead of picking cacti he had us mow the lawn and do some other yard work so that was pretty exciting.

Anywayyy imma wrap up this email, you guys are the best and I miss you all a ton! Take it easy and don't get the rona. 

Love y'all 

-Elder J

Email from Elder Johnson #3

Group Email:

Stay on Target...Stay on Target

What's up good people? Man this week has flown by fast! How are you guys? I miss y'all big time. Feel free to email me back at times. I do enjoy hearing from you too:) Anywayyy this last week has been pretty good I'd say, lots of good things fell into place. 

I had my first zone conference this week and really got to get to know my mission president more. It was a very cool experience I had a lot of feelings i had been having and questions that I had come across answered through out the conference. It was insane to have just constant answers to everything I had been feeling or thinking being thrown at me😂 God works in mysterious ways! Haha. The main focus was the line, "Stay on target...Stay on target" from Star Wars. Just remembering why we are here and although we have all these distractions going on in the world around us we have to stay on target and we will be blessed for the work we are doing.

We also met Shermicia! She was a referral sent to us from some Salt Lake sisters. She had requested a Book of Mormon and a Bible in big print. So we called her set up a time and we met her and holy fetch she was so excited to see us. She said that she had been praying for someone to reach out and give her the word of God and then we called her just a few minutes after that. We set up times to come visit her twice a week and she wants us to teach her sister, and her grandkids and on top of all that she wants to come to church so we got a big W! She's so awesome and is the most eager person to learn and grow in the gospel of Jesus Christ that all 3 of us have ever seen. It's pretty dang exciting.

Also, at zone conference I finally met Elder Gunnell and Elder Robison in the flesh for a few brief moments. Which was pretty flippin exciting, if I do say so myself, cause we missed each other at the airport by like 10 minutes. So we finally crossed paths. Good times for the red tie gang! 

Anyway sorry for the long email but I'm having a great time in the great state of Minnesota, where they say the mosquito is the true state bird. Boy were they not lying😂 Yikesss! Last I counted I have 10 on just one of my legs but it's all good right? It's alllll gooood pain (or I guess in this case itchiness) It is temporary but the work goes on forever. Take it easy my peeps, be safe, don't get the Rona, and know that I love ya. 

Till next time,

-Elder Johnson

Emails from Elder Johnson #2

Group Email:

My First Week-ish

These first few days have been absolutely amazing! Saying goodbye to the people I love most in this world is hard. Harder then I could have ever imagined but I know that in order to grow and become the man I am to become and the missionary Jesus Christ wants me to be I have to be uncomfortable because that is where we grow. When things are difficult and you want to turn back but you don't you stick to it because you know what it's what you're suppose to do. So I take each step knowing that this is right! Anyway...Minnesota is flat! So dang flat i thought it was North Dakota when I was flying over it! Hahaha but! I digress. It won't ever been Washington, North Idaho or those beautiful Utah mountains so I have to move forward. Haha! But it is hot and humid so I'm a happy camper. 

I landed in Minneapolis got scooped up by my trainers at the airport and went right to work all in the matter of 30 minutes. My trainers are Elder Moses from New Mexico, he's been out for 13 months. He's an absolute party and my other trainer is Elder Taylor from Syracuse, Utah who was originally called to Bolivia/Colombia. He served for 9 months, came home for 2 months, and then got reassigned here 6 weeks before I came. They are the coolest guys and I have already learned so much from them. I live in Oakdale, Minnesota currently. Our area is the only area in the entire mission that has a temple! Too bad I can't go in it. So close and yet so far. I've already met some amazing people and have been apart of some cool lessons as well. 

We're allowed to teach people as long as it's outside or we do it via zoom, Facebook video call, or just a normal phone call. We try to get out as much as possible which is nice. Exercise is keeping us sane😂 the first lesson I taught was about how we have to "look at others not as who they are but rather as who they could become" from a conference talk by President Monson. Just reminding us that we need to embody the love of Christ as much as we can and to be quick to love and slow to judge. I'd say it went pretty swell but I'm still learning and boy do I have a lot to learn! To wrap this up I absolutely love it, I'm having a blast, and I miss you all so dang much!

Talk to ya next week!

Peace, Elder Johnson

Family Email: 

What's up Fam!

Heyo! Man I love you guys so much! I miss you all a freaking ton but lil man kam is hangin in there. So far Minnesota is treating me well! My companions are cool, the weather is nice, lots of mosquitoes tho. But I get to hang around the temple all day which eerily looks exactly like the Spokane temple...hmmm interesting.

Also I got to go back to church for the first time since March. And of course following new missionary standards they had me say the opening prayer for both sessions of sacrament meeting and pass the sacrament. Corona church is wild tbh. The ward is cut in half the meeting is 30 minutes long, 2 speakers and then it's over. The Missionaries (us) sanitize everything and then do it all over again! Passing the sacrament is weird too. For bread we all wear gloves and we go down every other row cause it's taped off cause of distancing and we place the piece of bread in each hand and then with the water they can grab it but they hold on to the cup and dispose of it later. And on the 25th masks became mandatory if you're inside some where so we are all wearing masks. Woot woot. But it felt good to be back.

I haven't been into the city cause that's not our area and we have a mileage limit but when I got picked up we drove by the Vikings stadium and the training facility which was pretty cool to see. Every Friday we meet up with the Spanish elders and have Taco Bell together so that's epic! Gotta get those beefy 5-layers in me somehow. But I got to try a new fast food place called Canes! It's a chicken fingers place. It's got like 4 things on the menu but the line for the drive thru is soooooo longgggggg. It's insane. But it's like a missionary go to for the peeps here so they told me I had to try it and it was pretty good I'm not gonna lie. 

Oakdale is pretty cool but you thought Spokane had bad road construction. Woooooo Minnesota road construction sucks so bad. My companion Elder Moses was telling me that Minnesota has 2 seasons: winter and road construction. He was definitely right. It's horribly confusing. Anyway the members are super cool. The bishop is nice and kinda trying out the hipster haircut but he's like 50? Idk he's interesting.  We've taught some recent converts and taught/met some referrals which is exciting. The work is good but the work is slow. Or I guess average? Idk it's hard to tell what is and what isn't but we are fairly busy so that's good. 

I miss you all so much, it sounds like you guys had fun at the lake which makes me happy. I hope all is well, thanks for getting me that sign I appreciate it. I love you all. I'll call ya sometime tonight so just lemme know on Facebook messenger what time you will all be home! 

I love you!

-Elder Johnson

Emails From Elder Johnson #1

The Tri-panionship...

WHAT IS UP PARTY PEOPLE, comin at ya live from my parents basement or more recently known as "The MTC" (Missionary Training Center). For the most part of the last 3 weeks i have been immersed in the home/online/zoom experience of the MTC. To be fair i was not looking forward to it...but as i accepted my fate of staring at a computer screen for the upper part of 8 hours a day between zoom classes with my district twice a day for 3 hours, workshops which tend to be an hour long, and an 8 am companion study that's 30 minutes spiritual and then 60 minutes absolute chaos with the craziest, goofiest, and most hilarious guys Elder Gunnell and Elder Robison. I have learned so much and cannot wait to get out to Minnesota. My companions or what we like to call or I guess what we have been called by others, "The Trio", "The Tri-panionship", "Elder Gunnells Companions", or most recently "Red Tie Gang" (see picture below). 

Elder Gunnell is a 5'8, 2 time state wrestling champion, professional horse catcher, and literal flaming pistachio eating mad man out of Wellsville, Utah.

Elder Robison is a 6'3, 12 instrument playing, The Beatles loving, Varsity tennis player, and what Elder Gunnell and I like to call "The Mom" of the group out of Bountiful, Utah.

These guys, although as crazy as am I, are some of the most spiritual and profound teachers I've had the opportunity over the last few days to learn, teach, and grow with. These guys are going to do some pretty amazing things I'm sure of it. What's also pretty exciting is they are both going to Minnesota as am i. So, the trio will meet in the real world and boy o boy it's going to be one heck of a reunion. To quote the infamous Barney Stinson, "It's going to be legen-wait for it-dary."

To close this epic email out I would just like to say that my district is the coolest bunch of people and being able to share this MTC experience with them has been an absolute blast and through the crazy companion studies and the hours of staring at a computer I've learned a heck of a lot in the last 18 days. I can already tell a difference in who I was 3 weeks ago and who I am now. What the MTC has taught me the most is how much our savior loves each and every single one of us and that love is unconditional no matter who you are or what you have gone through he will be there for you, always. I love and miss you all! 

See y'all in two,

Elder Johnson

1. Red Tie Gang w/ my district 

2. Elder Gunnell eating a flaming pistachio