Writings from West Virginia: New soles and new souls

Hello friends and family!

This week was a slower one, but still a lot of fun! After emailing we met up with the missionaries in Hillsville and went to the rec center here in Wytheville! It was built a few years ago, so it's pretty new and happenin'. We played some Raquetball, but my favorite part was the Rock Wall. It brought back memories of completely failing at the rock wall in Salt Lake when Kyle, Ryan, and I went with Stewart. Fun times! We got a good workout with the raquetball, too.

The next day, Thursday, we headed up to Princeton, a 40 mileish drive to see everyone off at transfers! Our whole district was staying the same, but we said goodbye to one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Hadfield, who was actually my first Zone Leader! A couple other people passed through, and I got to say hi to them too.

Inbetween the van going to Charleston, and the van coming back from transfer meeting, Elder Larson and I went to Bluefield to "blitz" the sisters area. We just ended up walking around the downtown area of Bluefield. It was a little sketchy, but we had fun. We went back to Princeton around 2 and got to see all the new people coming in! It was a blast! I saw a couple friends from earlier in my mission, and got to meet the two trainees coming into our stake! A missionary I came out with, Elder Bingham, is training for the 2nd time! He trained right after he was trained, then greenie-broke (meaning you're the companion after your new companion's trainer. Sawyer was my greenie-breaker) and now he is training again! He's an awesome guy.

The next day we had a lesson with JE, a man we've been teaching for quite some time now. Basically everything fell apart in this lesson. He claims that the biggest problem he has is believing that Joseph Smith is a prophet, because it's not in the bible, despite the scriptures that we've showed him. All we are going to do now is just read the Book of Mormon with him, because that is all we can do. Hopefully he starts praying and reading by himself. He is too focused on the Bible. But we will see what our next lesson has in store for us.

After going over there, we went to see a girl named PE, a recent convert whom I've probably written about before. We just got to chat with her and her friend who was over at her house. She found out that our dinner appointment had cancelled, so she jumped up and made us an awesome dinner! Steak and Gravy with Mash Potatoes and Green Beans. Some real southern cooking! It was awesome. She sure knows how to cook!

On Saturday, we had a combined dinner and lesson with S&J at our weekly dinner appointment with SB! We had a great Restoration lesson with S&J. S. had already heard it, but J. hadn't. We had a great lesson with her, and Sister B., C., and The Gr's all contributed to make it awesome! We set J. on date for February 8th. She is praying and reading to learn if it is true, so be praying for her! She can make her date, we believe it!

Sunday we did our usual thing and went out with Brother W! He took us to see two new people. The first was SA. His wife and boy were both there, and we had a good old time letting them reminisce. He is a good guy.

After that, we went down the road a little bit and saw W., S's brother. He graduated with Brother W. They hadn't seen each other in years, so we spent a long time at that house. W. was in the military, and has some pretty severe PTSD. He was in Iraq in 2003. He's a good man, and invited us back anytime. We really didn't get a whole lot of gospel discussed though. Wade and him were too busy telling old war stories from their time as a marine.

That was my week. I hope you all had a fantastic week! I love you all and am so grateful for your support. Have a fantastic day today! Thank you again for all your prayers and support in my behalf.

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson