Video recording to Ryan. :)

Video Greeting :)

Christmas Photos :)

Hi everyone!

Talking to Kyle! :)

Watching a message from Ryan!

Hanging out with Hank on Skype

Hank kissing Brax goodbye :)

It's Christmas Week!

Another week has gone by! It's Christmas week! Not a whole lot happened this week, so this one will be a little shorter, but I do want to thank you for all of your continued support to me! Thank you all for your prayers in my behalf.

On Monday we had exchanges! I headed to Hillsville with our district leader Elder Davis (Not my previous companion)! We had a lot of fun! I got to meet some of their investigators and Elder Davis and I had a lot of fun joking around. He's a great guy!

On Wednesday, when we exchanged back, we had District Meeting! We talked about our purpose as missionaries (Our Purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.) and how we help others come unto Christ. It was a great meeting!

Well, I've got to get running for this week! Thank you all again! I'm grateful for this Christmas season and what it means. I'd like to invite you all to think about what Christmas actually means. Why we celebrate it. You've all seen the billion Nativity scenes throughout your life, but take a few minutes to sit down and think about what it actually meant. You'll find greater peace as you realize and accept The Savior's birth, Atonement, Death, and Resurrection. I love you all!

Elder Brax Johnson

Service Week = Good Week!

Hello family and friends! I hope your week was as good as mine was!

First off, on Tuesday we had Specialized Training in Pembroke! President and Sister Salisbury, and the Assistants Elders Stechnij and Coligan came down to deliver their Christmas message to us! It was a lot of fun. I'm glad we were able to see them and listen to them speak. We talked a lot about The Work of Salvation and what it actually means. It's mentioned repeatedly in the scriptures, but really doesn't mean squat if the missionaries and members aren't doing their part to share the gospel! Our ward mission leader, Brother W!, he knows how the Work of Salvation works. He always has tons of people for us to go see, and he is a great teacher in and of himself.

After Specialized Training, we headed back to Wytheville to participate in something called Feeding America! Feeding America is a national program dedicated to getting people who aren't poor enough for food stamps, but too poor to provide for themselves, food! It's a wonderful program, and it was great to see all the humble people that we were able to help out. A couple congregations come together to our church in Fort Chiswell (In between Wytheville and the other missionary area Hillsville) to hand out food. They sent leftovers home with us after everyone had left!

We also had dinner that night with the Gw. family! They are a really cool younger family, who have lived in Wytheville for just over 6 months now. He is an eye doctor who works with our Bishop at his clinic and has a really awesome beard. They also invited The F. family, a really cool family I think I told ya'll about last week. We were supposed to get a less active girl there too (that was pretty much the reason for the dinner) but she bailed. Bah. That didn't make the Chicken Casserole taste any less awesome though!

We had a really cool lesson with a girl who's been investigating for a month or two on Wednesday! Her name is S., and we were teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I had the opportunity to set her on date for baptism on December 28th! She just needs to quit smoking (like everyone in this state does), and she'll make it! She's a really cool girl who's had a hard past. I'm grateful for the opportunity to teach her!

Thursday night we had a lesson with the K. family! I've heard they're awesome, but have yet to meet them. we get started on our drive out there (which is apparently pretty far away), and whoops, take a wrong turn onto an interstate headed for Charlotte, North Carolina. Guess what then? Some genius who designed that interstate thought it would be funny to not put another exit for another 15 miles. Yeah, we had to cancel our appointment. Bah humbug. But it was still fun! Good adventures on the mission.

Friday was a fun day too! That morning an investigator named M. called us and asked us if we could do some service for him on his farm for an hour or two. We said certainly! He's a cool guy, and we pulled staples out of cattle post fences for an hour or two, and then lost the phone for a little bit, which was a little freaky.

Right after that, and investigator named R. asked us to come over to help him move some stuff in his yard. We hurried over, moved the hay, cut some wood with a chainsaw, and split some wood with his axe. I accidentally broke one of his axe handles, which I felt quite bad about. I went and got him a new one. I know I didn't have to do that, as he told me, but his family doesn't have a whole lot of money, you can tell, so I figured it was the least I could do.

That night was the long-awaited Ward Christmas Party! Woo hoo! It was a blast! In all my previous areas, parties and ward activities usually had a 20 to 30 person turnout. There were over a 100 people at this party, and at least 20 of them were investigators or just non-members and less-actives! How awesome is that? This ward is great! The food was really good too. We, the missionaries, had to the chance to show "He is the Gift" to everyone while they were there! Despite YouTube having to load a couple times, it went well and I think the point of it got across. It's a powerful video. Share it with everyone you can! Members and Nonmembers alike! Share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, wherever! Share share share! #Sharethegift!

And ending to a great week was Sunday. I had the chance to teach Gospel Principles, chapter 19! It brought back some memories on teaching it back home in Spanish Fork. As I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting, I had a thought pop in to my head for the lesson. It was a question. I thought, "How could I do this differently?" So to do it "differently" I drew the Plan of Salvation diagram on the chalkboard, and asked people how we get from Earth to the Celestial Kingdom, and went from there on repentance. It was a great lesson, but that's really not the point of this paragraph...  I've been thinking about "Doing it differently" since I had that thought yesterday. I feel prompted now to ask you all reading this to ponder about how you can "do it differently." What does that mean? It's up to you! Maybe stop some things you shouldn't be doing and "do it differently." Maybe it has ties to missionary work. How can you "do it differently" with sharing the gospel? You don't have to go out and tract with us missionaries! That's not what we're asking you to do! Just ponder the possibilities. How can you all "do it differently?"

I sure love all ya'll! Thanks for praying for me, I testify that the power of prayer is real! Remember this week to use The Atonement liberally, or, as I once heard someone say it, to, "Apply it liberally." It's here for us all to use!

I love you all! Talk to you all next week!

Elder Braxton Johnson

Gifts from Thailand - Thank you Ryan!!!

Doing my Duck Dynasty impression. :)

The hills of Virginia

The hills of Virginia part 2.

From Ryan!!!

From Ryan!!!

Wearing my Christmas Green and Red!

Virginia is the promised land!

Hi!

I'm in Wytheville, Virginia everybody! I am in the literal promised land of Zion! Well, not really. Utah is still really awesome, but for the WVCM (West Virginia Charleston Mission) this is the promised land!

Transfer day was awesome! For transfers, all the missionaries who are leaving come to the chapel in Charleston, and we all have a big meeting with words from the AP's and President. The new missionaries are then asked to stand, where it is announced where they will be trained and who will be their trainer. That's by far the best part of transfers. I would go to transfers every single time just to see all the newbies. The sisters that came in will be the sisters that go home with me! I can't remember their names. They seemed cool though!

I arrived in Wytheville around 5 o clock, and met Elder Larson! He's a cool, short little guy from Cokeville, Wyoming. He is the 12th of 15 kids! He's a great guy who really loves this area and has a way with little kids and dogs. They love him!

The next couple days were just meeting and seeing people. We have an excuse to go to pretty much everyone's house now so that I can meet them! It's great! I've met some cool people so far! I'm really going to love it here in Wytheville. I feel that some big things are going to happen here for me!

Sunday was an awesome day. We have to get up at 5:45, because a member of the bishopric comes and gets us at 6:45 so we can be to the church by 7 (its a bit of a drive and we dont have miles for that). Correlation starts at 8 with one of the greatest people and best Ward Mission Leader ever! Brother W.W. He's a funny guy in his early fifties. He's been a cop for 30 some years now, and he's just a fireball!

Church was great. Fast and Testimony Meeting is always awesome. After church though, Brother W.W. spends the entire day out with us going and seeing people. It's. So. Awesome. I can tell you that if I'm ever Ward Mission Leader, I will be doing that. It helps the work progress so quickly and so amazingly. This ward has had 22 baptisms in the last year. Are you kidding me? That is unheard of ANYWHERE. It's so awesome. It's because of people like W.W. That is how the work moves forward, because people do missionary work. 

We saw some great people with him, but first, we went to a luncheon at Liberty Hill Penecostal Holiness Church! Yeah baby! We were invited by a less active part member family that sometimes attend the church. They can cook. When we entered, on our left there was a buffet line of two or three tables filled with the best southern cooking you can imagine. on our right, past the seats of people, were 4 or 5 tables of just desserts. Cake, cookies, pudding, EVERYTHING. Oh. My. Gosh. We, along with Brother W, ate so much food. It was so good. So. Good. 

The best part was though, how nice everyone was to us! They were all cordial and excited to see us, and I got to explain a few times who I was, why I was 2200 miles away from home, and what the nametag was all about. It. Was. Awesome. Had a 10 minute conversation with their pastor! I talked about the bible with a pastor who has been preaching for 20+ years! Yeah!

Anyway, that was my week. I love you all! I hope you all have a good week and great Christmas season!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson

Hanging Christmas lights with Brother W!

I'm trustworthy :)

Elder Larson!

Bound for the Promised Land!

Hello hello family and friends!

This is my last week in Pikeville! And what a week is was at that! The big news of the week--- On Saturday The Zone Leaders called us to throw us a curveball! Elder Davis and I are both leaving Pikeville! They are shutting us down. This is way better for the area. There really isn't enough work here for two companionships. We were a little surprised, but hey, some serious mysterious ways going on right now.

On Tuesday we got the call! Transfer doctrine! Elder Davis is going to Martinsville, Virginia, and is with Elder Kamaluu! A Hawaiian whom we've only heard good things about! I am headed to Wytheville, Virginia! That's right! For the next 6 to 24 weeks I get to sound like I have a lisp everytime I tell people where I am! I am with Elder Larsen, whom I do not know, but have also only heard good things about. Exciting times are right ahead!

Thanksgiving! Our first meal appointment was with Brother W! and his sweet wife. Sister W! Brother and Sister in Law were in from Michigan and Brother W.'s Brother and Sister in Law were in from Georgia! Sister W.'s Brother is a big golfer, and he actually golfs 36 holes every DAY. Yeah. He was fun to talk to for a while. Elder Davis was having the time of his life because of how much he loves golf.  They had some amazing food there! I actually ate Sweet Potatoes Mom! (Don't gasp) they were covered in Brown Sugar and were delicious. Everything else was good too. They had some AWESOME Key-Lime Pie.

Our second appointment was with B&C, our landlords! They are an awesome older couple who own the entire hollar that we live in! Mrs. C had made this stuff called Bread Pudding. I was a little skeptical at first... but that first bite.... that's what we will be eating in the celestial kingdom. It was basically melted Cinnamon rolls. IT WAS SO GOOD. We're going over tonight to see if we can #stealimeanask for the recipe.

Our last appointment was with The Wms family in Williamson! We were told by every sister that we talked to that The Wms are amazing, but they live 60 miles away, and we have a 40 mile a day budget, so we were thus far unable to meet them (they don't come to church much apparently) . They are a great family! I wish I would have been able to snag a picture with them. J&V are the parents. They have a great family and great boys and had a lot of questions for us. We had a great three hour conversation with all of them. Great, great family! They just need to start coming to church more!

The rest of the time has just been cleaning and packing and cleaning and packing! They are selling the apartment we are living in currently, so we are purging everything we own. All the food, cleaning supplies, random crap, furniture, our stuff, etc. has to be gone. So that was pretty much my week after Thanksgiving.

Hope you all had a good week! Am I sad to be leaving.... a little. I think I could have done a lot more here if I would have had more time, so I have a little bit of an unfulfilled feeling. But then again it is Eastern Kentucky and the bad taste might be from all the lit cigarettes (haha). All will work out I suppose. More areas means more stories!

I will have lots to talk about next week with new adventures to report about!

Love you all,

Elder Brax

Wild Turkeys!

I love my planner!

We had to buy our drinking water. :)

Packing again!

The Week of Sickness

Hello Family and Friends! 

I hope your week has been great! Mine, well, we'll get into that.

This week has been a great week for bonding and companionship unity between Elder Davis and I. We got the chance to learn about and love each other even more. God given charity is a wonderful thing. The ability to see others as Christ sees them is such a blessing. 

You all remember how I was sick last week? Well, this week was even worse! After being conveniently un-sick for P-day and our dinner appointments on Sunday and Monday, I woke up later unable to get out of bed! Isn't that fantastic? Yeah it sucked. But that's okay though! I don't let it get me down. I watched a lot of church videos to fill the time. 

Something I did want to talk about is a cool study I had this morning for personal study! In one of Elder Bednar's talks (either "Ask In Faith", "Seek Learning by Faith" or a different one that I can't remember right now), he asks us, almost in passing, to someday go through 1 Nephi 11-14 and take a look at the learning process and how the angel encourages Nephi. So that's what I did! and I took a page of notes! .... on verse 1! It was a fantastic study. It was interesting to me to see how The Lord (and the angel) helped Nephi in using his agency even in a vision. 

Verse 1 was particularly cool. I looked at the "Desire, Believe, Ponder" system that Nephi uses to become caught up in the vision. The cool thing that I had never even seen before is that Nephi doesn't even initially want to see the vision! That's not his goal. His goal is to know the things his father knows. He's rewarded with the vision because of his great faith. I encourage you all to delve into the scriptures! There are so many things to learn in there. So. Many. Too much, it can sometimes seem.

Love you all! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers in my behalf. Know that I love this work and love being a missionary!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson

Hello hello everyone!

It is a great day to be alive! The work is hastening!  So, Elder Davis and I were able to go golfing last Monday! A course called StoneCrest. I snagged some good pictures on Elder Davis' camera, so those should be included wherever pictures are kept on my blog. It was a beautiful day, and apparently the last sunny, warmish day of the year, because it has been raining for the past week now. 

Unfortunately I was stuck inside from Tuesday night to Friday because I had a nasty sore throat and a horrible cough, so that was no fun at all! Elder Davis and I read a lot of scriptures. At least something good came about because of it, right? Got to study for a while. I thought that while I was working I just wanted to be able to study for a day. Now that I got that day (3 of them) I just really really wanted to work! It's great to be outside again doing something productive. The cold air also gives a little umph to your day. Wakes you up!

We were able to see an investigator named JS yesterday. He's someone we tracted into, and he's actually interested! I think I talked about him a little bit last week. Unfortunately, he hadn't read out of the Book of Mormon yet, and that was a little disappointing, but we are seeing his whole family next week, and will be talking to them all! Teaching families as a whole is always better. That's the higher law! 

Sorry this is so short, hopefully I won't get sick this week and will be able to report on some more things next Monday. I love you all! Thanks for your continued support. Shout out to Brother Garner and Brother Dedrickson (from my ward at home) who served in the WVCM! 

Photos

My mom isn't happy with this haircut. :)

Elder Davis at Stone Crest

Elder Davis at Stone Crest

Sunset on the golf course 

The sisters made me slippers! They're soft. I love them.
(considering his feet are a size 16 - those sisters deserve a hearty thank you!)

Stone Crest

Stone Crest 2

Stone Crest 3

Stone Crest 4

Hello everyone!

I'm short on time, so this letter might be a little jumbled because I'm not going to read it over before I send it. Bear with me!

We had a pretty fun week! It was a little slow numbers wise, but whatevs. Numbers really don't matter a whole lot. What we did do this week was a TON of finding! Got return appointments up the whazoo! And, get this, 90% of them were all found through tracting! 

I'll tell you guys, if you need any proof The Lord is moving work forward in the mission field, it is found when stuff happens through tracting. Freaking nothing ever happens in tracting! That's just my unfaithfulness showing through. But yeah, President Hinckley said it best. Can't remember the full quote, but he says that there is a better way than knocking on doors. Elder Davis' dad was on his mission in Ireland in the early 80s, right around the time of the Catholic-Protestant war there. He said they (His dad and companion) tracted all day. That was all they did. For two years. That's all they COULD do and freaking nothing happened. 

You know those non members you're friends with? Are they being taught by the missionaries? Have they directly TOLD you that they don't want to be taught by the missionaries? If the answer to those questions are both no, you should send the missionaries to them. A member referral is a heaven-sent blessing. I've currently seen two baptisms on my mission (Well, technically one, but I'm counting Mike as mine. He was baptized 3 days after I left Buckhannon) and BOTH were referrals from members. If you send the missionaries to someone, they will love you forever. Take it from the guy with the name tag on. Also if you feed them (the missionaries). They will love you forever too for that. 

Anyway! On Thursday we had INTERVIEWS WITH PRESIDENT WOOOOOOO! It was great! The whole Zone came down to Paintsville (about half an hour north) and we party'd it up in the Paintsville Chapel with Zone Meeting while people had interviews. My interview was great! That's all you get to know. Personal stuff. :) But President Salisbury is an awesome awesome guy. Such a great man. The Spirit just kind of flows out of him. You can just feel the power. He's a super successful guy too, but super humble about it. Very thankful. He'll totally be a GA someday. Don't tell him I said that. I talked to President at lunch [again] on Thursday (oh yeah, he came to lunch with us!) I said, "You gained 250 children just by stepping off of a plane." and his lips got all thin and he kind of chuckled and nodded.

We had a few lessons this past week! We picked up a new investigator named Rhonda who's pretty cool. The sisters went over there and taught her and her mom, aunts, and kids a lot, but never really got anywhere with them. We're trying a more proactive approach. Hopefully it will work! We want them to be progressing. 

We just found out last night that we have our first progressing investigator (meaning they keep the commitments we give them) in Pikeville woohoo! WS! We are seeing him for an actual lesson on Friday where we will talk about how his prayer is going. He's a really sweet old guy who had heart surgery recently. He's been a cool miner for like 40 years. He's pretty sweet!

We also saw a cool guy we tracted into a few days ago yesterday! JM! He used to be a pretty active religious guy, but in recent years fell out of it and always felt like something was missing. He was super receptive to the Book of Mormon because, "He's always wondered what the difference is" We talked about two witnesses and how the bible and bom are companions. It was a great mini lesson, and we're seeing him and his whole family (wife and two kids) next Sunday. Will return and report then.

That's how the week went! I sure do love all of you! Thanks for your prayers in my behalf. Always remember that you guys can ask me for anything, especially prayers. I'm never too busy to say a prayer for my loved ones. 

Love you all!

Elder Brax Johnson

The Beloved Truck

I told my mom I thought this was an apple. Thoughts?

My knife. Something my mom didn't really need to know about but now does. 

My hillbilly wine glass. Really. That's what it is called.

My hillbilly wine glass and Elder Davis' amazing flag

The most majestic cat I've ever seen. We rolled up to our lesson with J., and he was just chilling
on the rock, being all majestic n' stuff. He was super friendly too. When we got out,
he came trotting over and was all "yo human! Pet. Now!" 

The trailer park we tracted and walk all the time. That's only about 1/3 of it.