Writings from West Virginia: Farewell Zion, I'm Facing My Tent Toward Babylon!

Farewell Zion (Buena Vista)

Hello everyone! As you can probably see, I am leaving Buena Vista! After 7 1/2 months, I am heading back to West Virginia, to a city called Fairmont! It is about 15 minutes away from Morgantown, WV, which happens to house West Virginia University, commonly known in our mission as Babylon! So, hence my title, I'm facing Babylon! I'll be with Elder Jolley, a relatively new missionary who's been in Fairmont his whole mission so far.

I don't have a lot of time, and not a whole lot happened this week, so sorry if this is short!

We had a ton of exchanges this week! It started on Tuesday, when I was with Elder Curtis here in Buena Vista. We had a great time! Elder Curtis is from Mesa, AZ, and he is AWESOME. He's been out for 3 months now, but he is a really mature, great guy. He broke both his legs two summers ago, which halted him from coming on a mission for 4 months while he recovered. We had a blast together!

We met back up with Elder Wasden and Elder Hugentobler on Wednesday for a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast. The theme was "We teach repentance and baptize converts." We also got to hear from some amazing people! Specifically Elder Andersen and Elder Bednar were my favorites, but we also got to hear from Sister Oscarson, Elder Clayton, and Elder Nielson. It was fantastic! They talked a lot about working with Less-Active and Part Member Families. I am excited to use my new gained knowledge to move forward the work! Right after that, Elder Wasden and I parted ways again to go on an exchange with the Covington Tripanionship Elders, Elder Norman, Goold, and Higgins! I was with Elder Higgins down here in BV. He's a great guy, and we had a lot of fun together.

On Thursday, we received a text from President Salisbury about the impending storm. He wanted to make sure we were all safe and ready, because we weren't sure exactly how big the storm was actually going to be. We spent most of the day inside planning.

Friday Snowstorm Jonas hit! We were stuck inside for both Friday and Saturday because, "if it's unsafe to drive it is likely unsafe to walk." Which was totally true. The roads were HORRIBLE because apparently BV only has 1 Snowplow for the entire town! Luckily most of it is cleared now. We watched a lot of church movies, studied, slept, played some Ping Pong, etc. Yeah it got boring, but it was alright! We made the best of it. I was excited to get back out and work.

Church was cancelled Sunday because of the snow and ice, which was lame, because that was my last Sunday! We went to church with the YSA Elders, and apparently because of the storm they only had sacrament meeting, and just 1 meeting, instead of 6 for each ward, so basically it was the entire YSA Stake taking the sacrament at the same time. That was pretty cool. It was a really good meeting too.

Monday I was on exchanges with Elder Malin from Amherst up here in BV! He is a fantastic Elder too, he'll be high in leadership, I know it. He's solid and amazing. I'll miss him!

Thank you all for your support of me! I love you all! Have a GREAT WEEK!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson