Elder Johnson's Mission

Monday, January 23, 2012

Our church tour this last week.. we have problems just getting 1 person to church.....30 people turned out for this. Pictures coming soon.

I wasn't finished

Dear Everyone,

So first and for most I would like to thank my beloved mother again for being the only one who wrote this week (slackers!!!) Also before I get killed by perhaps a few of you, I did take into consideration everything and everyone and well, long story short its not going to work out. :S I'm SOOOO sorry taleya!!! I hope you can come! I really want you to be able to come, and I understand with this whole Idea of Spring Break I totally get if you can't come... I think it would be really cool though to see you if you could do it. So... yeah my date has been re changed to March 8th, 2012. It seems that is going to work out the best as of now. I am soo sorry for the inconvenience. Dont worry it will not be changing again, Sister Humphrys already knows the airports and will be buying the tickets today. (dad please dont mess with the seats because I would like to sit next to my district

) I'm sorry for changing the schedule, it seems that all we really do here. We found out that the 15 new Missionairies that are suppose to be coming in on wednesday are not coming because of political problems... so now come march we will be getting 26 new missionaries lol yikes!

So I don't know why it just randomly sent the last email but I wasn't finished! this last week we went out to L'viv and then on to Lutsk for our exchanges. I went on exchanges with my MTC companion there. It was cool to see how far he has come on his mission. We recently combined the branches in L'viv and the missionaries down there are power houses! L'viv is going to be rocking soon! the members would call president telling him how grateful they are for what has happened. This last Monday we had to re due transfers because of the whole problem which really was a shot in the foot... but honestly considering last transfers we should not have been surprised. so yeah.. mom I have been trying to take lots of pictures and I will be doing it alot at home too. President has kind of inspired most to really start keeping those kinds of records. I have some 30 gigs of pictures and videos... so we will have lots to share. This week has been a real eye opener for me.. Its interesting how the closer you get to know the Lord the more your understand and find out who you really are. I've got a great companion (poor guy) that has to deal with me for at least another 6 weeks. So I have really enjoyed the weather, ever since the "old new year" (Jan 14th) it has not let up, I sent some pictures of this morning on our way to the office... pretty cool stuff. I'm coming up on a really weird chapter of my mission, one that i'm not quite sure how to think about.. because its like I need to think about certain things but I feel bad for doing it considering the last 20 some odd months I have exerted myself to ignore such things.

I am really happy that ... mom is doing well! I hope you are all doing the same. Yes mom I have thought about BYU, I really like the religious programs they have there and plus they can give me credit for the languages I know now.. up to 18 credits which is pretty sweet! not many schools have Ukrainian classes, and as much as I want to keep up the Russian I really want to keep up the Ukrainian. By the way, how is Christopher's Russian coming? lol it would be a mean joke I suppose to come home and teach him Ukrainian haha that would be a funny first day at the MTC.."NO.. My Brother just got back and told me it was said like THIS!" lol no biggy bro, but I will be wanting to help you prep .. but my advice would be to jump on it now.. I mean dont go out and buy programs but just keep your eye's and ears open. Use the Sisters there to help you if you need to! I'm way proud of you brot! I say it proudly when people ask me about my family. Its pretty cool! I hope I get more emails today but we will see. love you all and I hope everything goes and is going well. Hello to all the others that I added on to this email... we just got permission now to email anyone. long time to talkin! :D

З Любовою

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Старійшина Джонсон

Surprise

Dear Everyone,

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Старійшина Джонсон

Monday, January 16, 2012

Hello Everyone

Dear Everyone!

Thank you for your emails... mom, you seem to be the only one loves me this week

My week went well for the most part. We were on two different exchanges, helping out elders in their area's. Yeah mom we have a holiday called "the old new year" on the 14 of January. Then there is Christmas that happened on the 7th of January... there is ALOT of holidays (reasons to drink) in this country. Church was awesome! one of the talks was on trust and how when we have a hard time trusting other people we should think of the trust Heavenly Father has given us here on the earth with the promise that we would come back... she said we should think about how trustworthy we are being with Him. Are we going to church, reading the scriptures everyday, magnifying our calling. She said so the next time you have doubts about trusting someone... think about Heavenly Father and how He has complete trust in us, and what we are doing with it. It was a really cool talk and I really liked how she put things. Also on a more random note there was one of our members sitting in front of us with his wife. They will be expecting a baby soon, anyway I don't know if I have ever commented on the really cool things they do with their hair here but on Sunday my companion and I saw the coolest one yet! lol as they sat in front of us we were just baffled. It was this brade that started on one side of the front of the head went around the front and down the back where it met ANOTHER brade that was done backwards haha I dont know how to expain it but we complemented and commended her for her efforts. Because of our exchanges we had to put everything on sunday so we were VERY busy yesterday. Hmm lets see, oh yeah we also made Borsch again, that was good... but we did it wrong so we are going to do it again next week. On a note more closer to home I need your help. I have to get an ACT test done if I want to apply to any colleges because I dont think I ever got it done. I'm sad that I will not be able to do any study for it so I will totally be leaning on Heavenly Father. My question is though that it costs money to do it, I can do it here in Kyiv but I have to register by March 9th. I believe it is a $40 fee and then the test would be taken right before I went home on the 14 of April sooo yeah could you get back to me on that ASAP? This week we had our Baptismal Date guy pop back up on the map! he had a family emergency and had to leave to go to take care of his mom in another city who is now I guess in the hospital. it was really nice to hear from him and know that he just didn't ditch us. I really love ALL of our members here! they are sooo cool! and I'm finally getting around to knowing them all.. (there is alot.. 200-250 in one ward and 700 on the ward list :S) Its been a great week and I hope this next week will be just as good. This next week I'm going to head to L'viv and then on to Lutsk and then back again.. we wont get back till thursday morning. We are taking a train to get out here because mother nature decided to wake up and bring in the snow which we have been waiting for for forever, so its pounding us right now and wont allow ... er well we just dont feel comfotable flying there... the train will just bust on through no matter the weather. so yeah! I hope everyone else is doing well.. hope you enjoyed the pictures aswell. We also just found out our new missionaries coming in this next week are not coming in... all 15 of them and we are losing 9.. so we had to completley redo trasfers this morning... I actually just barely got back from it. I really enjoy serving next to him.. and considering when the new guys come in President really likes the idea of sending on of his assistants out to Train so I might do that my last transfer :D that would be fun! ;D well I love you all and hope everything is going well... just so you know Utah State right now is screaming my name.. you should see there flight program! its way cool so I'm looking into it.

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Старійшина Джонсон

Monday, January 9, 2012

Merry Christmas AGAIN!!!

Dear family!

So this week was really good! we started off by heading to Odessa for Zone meeting and our Exchanges with the Zone leaders. President did not come with us, his calling had him off on the other side of the country. The meeting was awesome! Elder Muir (zone leader) directed the meeting and we talked alot about goal setting and accountability. I think with not have the presence of president everybody was alot more open about there comments and concerns and we really got down to the bedrock of Odessa. It was really cool. After that we rode our way home on a train that took us out of our mission boundaries lol we didn't figure that out until about 5 in the morning when we should have been in Kyiv. The train eventually got there but not till 10.. found out we were in the Donetsk mission! lol cool! The train smelled like a toilet so it was nice to get off of it. the train we took there was really nice and aside from the fact that we had to get woken up early I still got a good nights rest. Odessa was really fun for me specifically because I had to speak Russian the hold time. well... OK I didn't have to but I chose to. It was really fun to push myself to talk to people. honestly it made it twice as nerve racking. One lesson we were on we were talking to this awesome guy Serhie about baptism and I SLIPPED! I said one word IN Russian but I used Ukrainian Grammatics lol... so he stops the conversation and repeats what I said and asks... I hear Ukrainian, where are you from? I responded in Ukrainian if he knew Ukrainian. He started laughing and said yes of course but I never speak it because nobody does in Odessa. Way solid guy and ended up getting a bap. date for the 21 of Jan. as we were walking back I was talking to him freely now in Ukrainian and at one point he stopped and just started laughing pointing out the fact that "you are an American, IN Odessa, Speaking Ukrainian!". It was like a busted a whole in the Ukrainian, Russian space time continuem! When we got back we had to get to the office to do our office work. Lots of stuff to do. we had a huge turn out for our sports night. 25 people! we had a bunch of Russians come in for the temple. oh Christ by the way, Moscow says " Привет!!!" I told them that they will have to find you when you come and pass a hi from me :D it was weird because when we got on the bus to go to the temple 2 guys and woman got on board and as I was sitting in front of them trying to talk to this guy I heard them behind me "oh look an american" " I wonder what language he speaks" ... honeslty we dont get that second statement alot so I thought it was way weird. the Woman who's name turns out to be annessa, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to come sit with them..."for what?" I asked.. she replied "dont be scared.." haha that just wierded me out and then they said they were going to the temple which obviously helped me put two and two together. Ihor, Ihor and Annessa. Way cool members! they in fact came to sports night as well. Oh hey here is a funny little note. The members here call me "Старійшина льотчик" haha meaning Elder Flyboy! I like it! granted I know its not my name, but I respond. um... yeah so we had a concert this week as well. I dont know if many of you know but I get two christmases a year :D the 7th of January is their christmas and the 14 is their new year. so we had a concert this week and we sang in it. REALLY cool! Fast sunday was awesome! which is weird! I'm usually scared to death to bring our investigators to sacrament meetings on fast sunday, but it was really good! yeah I'm starting to lose my train of thought because the office is getting a little more busy. .. oh yeah by the way! so do you remember in the begining of my mission when I lost my bible and Preach my gospel? well bishop come in last night .. about 16 17 months later and asks me what my first name is/ AUG! so I have my bible from 8 years old back and my preach my gospel lol yeah well anyway! I 'm sorry my focus is gone I'm having a hard time concentrating on the email... so I will finish with LOVE YOU GUYS! i'm excited to hear of everything going down there. I"m sending alot of pictures so enjoy! :D

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Старійшина Джонсон

Dear family!

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Старійшина Джонсон
Dear family!

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Старійшина Джонсон

Dear family!

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Старійшина Джонсон

Monday, January 2, 2012

News Letter

2 January 2012

President’s Letter

“Nothing is too hard for the Lord. Seek after and live for these blessings and you will save your own souls in the process.”

The Kyiv Quest

Dear Elders and Sisters,

Frohes Neues Jahr! That is Adamic for “Happy New Year”!

My hope and prayer for 2012 is that individually and as a mission we will rise to our potential and through our faith, diligence, and consecration allow Heavenly Father to bless us to reach our goals. A common theme from your letters last week was „President, I don’t know what else to do, I (or my district) am doing all I know how, but we are still not finding one family a day/baptizing one a month” etc.

Well, bless you! Let me share two thoughts on this:

First, consider Elder Hales’ perspective from the latest General Conference:

“I have often pondered, Why is it that the Son of God and His holy prophets and all the faithful Saints [missionaries] have trials and tribulations, even when they are trying to do Heavenly Father’s will? Why is it so hard [...]?

As we ask these questions, we realize that the purpose of our life on earth [our missions] is to grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? The scriptures give us an answer in one simple phrase: we “wait upon the Lord.” Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, “all these things shall [be for our] experience, and [...our] good” (Robert D. Hales, October 2011 General Conference).

My dear Elders and Sisters, please remember to not only pray that His will be done, but also that ‘His timing’ be done. And here comes the teaching which I ask you to embrace with your whole heart and soul:

Maintain your diligence, hope, exact obedience, being missionaries, praying with people on the street, and faith REGARDLESS of the outcome, day after day, week after week, and month after month. When seen in the eternal perspective you are doing these things not primarily to thereby find people to teach and baptize, but because it is the right thing to do, because you love Heavenly Father enough to want to be obedient. More important than simply doing the right things every day is becoming the right son or daughter of God in the process.

From Orson F. Whitney we have this perspective:

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God […] and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father [...] in heaven.”

Undergoing a time of testing is hard. It hurts. It is unpleasant. Heaven seems far away at times. Why me, why now? What am I being punished for? Does He even hear my prayers? Does anything I do even make a difference? Well, I have walked in your shoes my dear Elders and Sisters! Infinitely more important, however, is that Christ has walked in your shoes and the question is, “Art thou greater than he?” (D&C 122:8). Brigham Young said:

“If the Saints [missionaries] could realize things as they are when they are called to pass through trials, and to suffer what they call sacrifices, they would acknowledge them to be the greatest blessings that could be bestowed upon them” (DBY p. 345).

Secondly - and blessed is the missionary who understands this – just keep expecting the Lord to bless you every day to meet the mission standards. Experiencing periods of trial is not an excuse to think nothing will ever happen. When Heavenly Father sees that your offering is motivated primarily by your love for Him and His son Jesus Christ, and that you will hold the course regardless of the outcome over time, the law of the harvest will become operational in your life! Asking yourself whether “I am doing all I can” is really all you can give. Have you placed or are you willing to place your all on the altar? Is there nothing left in the secret chambers of your soul to sacrifice? Remember that this is a life-long process for which there is really no substitute and that this soul-stretching experience refers to the things you DO, the things you THINK ABOUT and the missionary you are BECOMING.

While you should always review whether what you are doing is effective or not, there are things you should not question: the underlying reasons for being exactly obedient, the Lord’s expectation for you to have a constant sense of urgency, that the Lord will bless you to find people to teach and baptize. That never changes.

I close with the words of Elder Maxwell:

“Next, as we confront our own lesser trials and tribulations, we too can plead with the Father, just as Jesus did, that we “might not […] shrink”—meaning to retreat or to recoil (D&C 19:18). Not shrinking is much more important than surviving! Moreover, partaking of a bitter cup without becoming bitter is likewise part of the emulation of Jesus.” (Elder Maxwell, Applying the atoning blood of Christ, Oct. 1997)

I know that each of you can find one new family each day and have at least one baptism per companionship per month. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. Seek after and live for these blessings and you will save your own souls in the process.

Smile!

With love,

President Klebingat

D&C 93:12 grace for grace

“Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you.”

The Savior

Tanya

~Zhytomyr

Baptismal Rundown:

This year: 0

2012 Baptism Goal: 250

Mission Highlight

9 Baptismal Dates!

“…Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day…”

~ The Master

Mission Totals for the Week
Baptismal Dates:	9
Investigators at Sacrament Meeting:	18
Member Present Lessons	34
New Families:	56
Referrals:	36
Number of Companionships:	42

“If you will respond to the invitation to share your beliefs and feelings about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, a spirit of love and a spirit of courage will be your constant companion.” –L. Tom Perry

There is a holiday for a holiday, Ukrainian Rule of Thumb

Dear Everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope it went well for you all and your not to tired. As for us on the 31st we were in by 4 o clock but we didn't let the schedule stop us. That morning we were about 30 min away from the temple contacting around our apartment when the temple front desk calls and says "hey! there is a man here that wants to get baptized". If there were ever more perfect words for a missionary to hear I do not know of them. We stopped what we were doing immediantly and booked it to the bus stop almost considering just taking a taxi. The bus finally dropped us off and we ran as fast as we could to the temple (it had been about 20 min driving there, we only hoped he was still there) so we are running and running... honestly a lot more than I'm usually used to. In fact I became very aware of the geography of the Temple grounds as the pitch in the ground ever so slightly started rising up and up as I paralleled it getting more and more tired... aug! we finally got to the doors of the temple breathing as if somebody just tried to drown us. "good (breath,breath) morning (breath breath breath) where is (breath) he?. The gentleman was waiting patiently in the temple waiting room (go figure). Apparently he had been taught before earlier this last year and wasn't ready to get baptized at the time. Now he felt ready and wanted to do it.. we didn't know anything about him and as much as we had already decided in our minds to baptized him on the spot something told us to give him a week or two. It was way cool! and an awesome start to the day and end of the year. His name is Ihor and will be getting baptized on the 18 of Jan if all goes well. After we went out and tried to find some of our lost sheep (innactives) we looked forever for this one guy. We finally found his street and he happened to live at the other end of. To our surprise we were met with the ruins of a burnt down house. lol as much as we should have been sad for he mans loss our first thoughts were... REALLY?? all this way for a few pieces of burnt wood!? lol we spoke with the neighbors and ended finding this guy who not only knew the man who had the burnt down house but bought him a new Apartment to live in after the catastrophe. Way nice guy who helped us figure out where to go and then gave us a ride there.. it was way cool! then next part of the New Year was honestly really boring. Elder Saltmarsh and I tried to keep busy and entertained. it was way hard. I'm going to send you a picture of our doings. So that night we are sleeping and we already planned on getting woken up because of the Fireworks... however we heard them in the distance so everything was fine. And suddenly they were right next to our house! BIG ones! I thought world war 3 had just started! it was nuts! woke me up and I realized that my stomach was killing me!!! so I get up to run to the restroom. meanwhile as I'm leaving we get a call from a crazy drunk guy wanting to talk to me wishing people a happy new year. just alot of different sensations all at once! lol those few minutes were all a blur to me. and so here I sit! tonight we are headed to Odessa to start our exchanges. Hopefully we will plan part of the mission tour with president today but who knows. So yeah Chris about your Visa stuff! you have to get that sent in Yesterday!!! because they have to register you not only for your passport, but they use the passport to apply for the visa. so you have to hurry up and get it done or there going to reassign you for a while! and believe me! staying at the MTC after 12 weeks you will be chomping at the bit to get and finally do something. so get er done! and the acceptance letter and all of that is way easy, you give them your testimony kind of, tell them you want to go and have bishop sign it! vuala! easy! anyway keep me posted on all that stuff! keep sending pictures to! The office staff thought paisley was so darn cute! lol I love you all and am greatfull for everything you all do! keep your head in the scriptures!

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Старійшина Джонсон