Hello Everyone!

This week has been great! We are still trudging along. Last Monday while we were emailing we received a media referral (someone who requested something on mormon.org)! We don't get those very often, so it was AWESOME! We were super excited. More about her later. That was a great way to start a week.

On Tuesday we were finally able to contact T., the media referral. She lives OUT THERE. Seriously, it's a 25 minute drive into the sticks. She has an awesome house though. We dropped off the Bible she requested and also left her a Book of Mormon and Restoration pamphlet, which she accepted! Apparently she's met with missionaries before and was more than happy to have us back. She is a really strong and tough girl. A couple years ago she had 6 strokes in 3 months, between September and November of 2013. As a result, it's challenged her speech and mobility a little bit, but it didn't get rid of her fire and desire to work and do something with her time. On Tuesday we were also able to teach L. again, as well as V. and P.! We had a pretty frank discussion with V. and P. about what their concerns are. They came up with a few, but we know there are deeper things. We invited them to pray and ponder about their resistance to the commandments of God and said that we would discuss them next visit. :D

On Wednesday we had exchanges right after we did service at the Soup Opera! Elder Furrows came down to Fairmont with me. We were able to see W. & B., which was awesome! On a whim I decided to go try them, and lo and behold they were home! They started asking us questions about the Word of Wisdom and what the church's stance on Marijuana is, so we explained the Restoration to them and why the Word of Wisdom exists and what protection it offers. Later that night we taught Sister D. the Gospel of Jesus Christ! She unfortunately was going to Ohio this week so she wasn't able to attend church, but she will next week! We ended the night with The C.s', teaching younger C. about the three Kingdoms of Glory, trying to repair the horrible teaching job we did last Sunday, haha. Mistakes happen! It went well this time though, thankfully.

Thursday we had Zone Conference with the Clarksburg Stake and President & Sister Salisbury! It was a blast, I took a few pages of notes. I also got to say hi to Sister Willis and Sister Robinson, both of whom I went to High School with. #MMHSPride. And it's always a fun time to see my buds from other areas. This weekend we have Stake Conference, so not only will I get to see all my missionary friends, but everyone from BUCKHANNON WILL BE THERE TOO!!!!! I'm so excited. R., the B.'s, all the C.'s... etc. This is going to be an awesome weekend. In Zone Conference we learned a lot about finding and teaching effectively. In conjunction and taking the Spirit of the meeting, the Marion County missionaries (the Fairmont sisters, Mannington Elders, and us) have decided to do a Fireside! It's going to be HUGE! We're really excited.

Over the weekend we got to see some cool stuff! Namely Saturday, we were able to teach L., S. and K., the T.s, and The C.s'! It was a pretty good day. :) S. & K. are a cool Part member family. Elder Jolley tells me that when he first got here Brother S. wasn't super open, but this visit was really cool. He pulled out his Dad's scriptures that he received after he passed away and got really sentimental about it. K. also talked about how she likes learning about the church, so there is definitely some potential there! They are great people. Brother S., at 59 years old, is going for breaking the National Record for Squats in his age group (55-59) which is 560-some pounds. HOLY CRAP. He's awesome. 

Sacrament Meeting on the Sabbath was wonderful! L. came to church! Not sure where the C.s' were, seeing as we committed them to come the night before. :(. Bishop B. and Sister P. spoke, both amazing talks! Sister P. spoke on the Book of Mormon, and she could freaking be a General Authority she's so awesome at speaking. Bishop gave a heartfelt testimony about following the Spirit. We were also able to go visit T. again with Brother C.! We taught the first half of the Restoration, and Brother C. gave a great testimony about modern prophets and how they've blessed his life.

Thank you all for your support of me! I appreciate it. I recently read a scripture that I thought I'd share with you all, because it will help everyone, no matter their situation, out in life. It comes from the book of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, chapter 4, verses 9 and 10.

9 Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

 10 And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them.

I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true, that it is the word of God. I would invite you all to seek God in prayer and ask him to help you come to Him. The Savior will give you strength. 

Have a wonderful week, and I will talk to you all next week!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson

My Mom's recipe :)

plus a few other things :)

Fairmont, WV!

It's warm enough for short sleeves!

Fairmont!

Fairmont!

Zone Conference!

Zone Conference!

A Cold Week of Teaching, and Unexpected Snow Storms!

Hello everyone! Happy belated Valentine's Day! Happy President's Day! Happy other random holiday in February! :) We had a pretty great week this week! Saw a lot of awesome things.

On Monday, we were able to teach a less-active member, L., and his girlfriend K. They had been homeless for a time, but they finally got another trailer, in the sister's area! We talked with the sisters about how to go about the switch, and they asked us to go over there one time, teach them a lesson, invite K. to learn, and then hand them off to the sisters. That's what we did, and K. is now on date for baptism! We ended the night by getting ready for our 6 appointments on Tuesday! 

AND THEN IT SNOWED ALL DAY AND WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING BECAUSE IT WASN'T SAFE TO DRIVE! What the heck nature. We were so excited for Tuesday. Freaking snow, man! We thankfully rescheduled all our appointments (or at least most of them) to a different day, but we were so bummed out. Brother C. did come rescue us that evening after we dug ourselves out, and he took us out to see a few people. We gave a blessing to Sister J., in the sister's area, and invited her to the Friday Valentine's Day Activity at the church, and went and visited his friends, T. and J. and their kids. T. lost her dad a month or so ago, and we went to drop off a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. Hopefully she reads it! We'll have to go follow-up here pretty soon. So, in the end, Tuesday wasn't a total bust, but we were still super mad.

And then the cold hit after the storm. Oh. My. Goodness. It was so cold on Wednesday!! And it only got worse as the week went on. We thought we were tough enough and had the brilliant idea to go walking! Bad idea. Very bad idea. we spent close to 2 hours outside and it was HORRIBLE. We were frozen. That evening though, after we ran inside to get warm (hiding in CVS Pharmacy for a few minutes to warm up may have been part of recovery), President H. came to pick us up to take us to a few lessons. He took us out to dinner at Fazoli's first, because he's awesome, and then we went to see V. and P.! Unfortunately, P. was in bed, having just come back from Dialysis, so she didn't get to participate in the lesson, but V. did! We had a really good Restoration lesson with him and set him on date for April 2nd! Yay! He said he's willing to "try again." So here's hoping! We believe in miracles! We also saw Sister D. with President H. on Wednesday. We taught her the Restoration, and committed her to come to church! Stuff started coming back to her, and she is on FIRE! We ended the night with C, C. & D. We answered some of C.'s questions about the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and it was great! We are praying for miracles from them.

On Thursday I finished the Book of Mormon! Woo hoo! I love the Book of Mormon. Can I just bear my testimony on that book real quick? The Book of Mormon changed my life. I love it!

Alrighty, now let's keep going. :D We taught L. on Thursday! We taught him Missionary Work and Service. He is so ready to get baptized. It's going to be awesome! March 5th is the big date. Everyone be excited! We were also able to teach a neat lady named C. on Thursday! She's a really funny lady who they started teaching a month or two ago, but because of her schedule she wasn't able to meet until now! She invited her friend M. over and we taught them the Restoration. M. wasn't super interested, but we still had a great conversation! C. agreed to be baptized when she knows it is true! Next lesson we'll have a specific date for her, haha.

We started Friday off with a great District Meeting, taught by the one and only Elder Carter, our District Leader. We had a really great meeting about putting all your Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength into the work. We also taught L. again! This time we brought Brother H. and taught about Priesthood quorums, Teaching & Learning in the church, and Enduring to the end. That evening, the ward had the Valentine's dance. We were invited at the beginning to eat some food, and we were about to leave, but C. came! We were with him for a little while, waiting for his dad to come, but unfortunately C. couldn't make it, so we put C. in with the teenagers who were babysitting the little kids, and ran off to our lesson with W. That actually went really really well! We taught about the importance of the Book of Mormon, and set him on date for April 2nd! After that we rushed back to the church because we felt bad for leaving little C. alone without knowing anybody, and ended the night by teaching him about prayer and committing him to pray every day. He's a great kid.

On Sunday we had a wonderful Sacrament Meeting! L. and D. also came, making it SUPER AWESOME! I was so happy they were able to attend. Our youth speaker, T., spoke about his experience doing hard things at the Hill Cumorah Pageant, and then Sister H. spoke on the importance of the temple. I can't wait to go back, I'll tell you what! Brother F. was the closing speaker with an awesome talk about his personal experiences with the temple. It was a powerful testimony! We took L. into the Family History center right after church ended, and had a cool little family history lesson where he actually found some ancestors of his to take to the temple soon! We are planning on getting him to the temple within 30 days of his baptism! We ended the night with President H., going to see D. and teach her the Plan of Salvation! She really wants to quit smoking and get to the temple. We know it's possible, and so does she.

That was my week! I love you all! Thank you all for your support of me! Have a wonderful week!!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson

Shout out to my cousin and Brother Kyle!

Baby it's cold outside!!!

Creepy old abandoned church

Elder Bean and I at Zone Meeting!

More snow! Boooo

More snow...

Beautiful West Virginia!

A Week's Worth of Miracles

Hello friends and family! I hope your week has been as good as ours was! We saw some serious miracles this week, it was awesome! We are also set up for a slam-dunk of a week this week, with almost 10 appointments set up! I love it here in Fairmont. :) Here is a run down of this past week:

On Monday we went and saw the referrals that we contacted last Sunday, W., to teach him a little more. It just so happened that his wife, B., was there too! We were able to teach them both as a family and invite them to be baptized. It was a powerful lesson, and they are some really awesome and humble people who are ready for the gospel. We are seeing them this Wednesday, where we will invite them to be baptized on a specific date, and it's going to be great!

We were able to find two more new investigators on Tuesday! V.&P. have investigated before, but nothing had ever really gone anywhere. We talked to them on Tuesday and they told us that they feel that the Book of Mormon is true. Probably the reason why nothing ever went anywhere is because missionaries have been too afraid to ask them to do hard things. Our next appointment with them we are going to invite them to do some changing (repenting) and invite them to "walk with us" into the true church. I also had the chance on Tuesday to meet P., a man who has been investigating for a while who is slowly but surely progressing! He is awesome. He works for the FBI and has a sweet New York/Italian accent.

On Wednesdays we do service at a place called The Soup Opera, a kind of Salvation Army-esque food kitchen where we serve less-fortunate people a hot meal. I got to meet everyone that we work with there, and they are all HILARIOUS. We have a good time, and it always feels good to give service to people who can't provide for themselves. We were also able to see P. on Wednesday! We taught him about the covenant that he will make when he is baptized, and during the closing prayer, he actually prayed that he will be able to be baptized on his date! It was awesome. He is slowly recovering, but he has a will of Iron! We also were able to teach the C.'s, pretty much the most solid family ever, Tuesday night. It's amazing to me how much they really want to be baptized. C. wasn't able to come on Sunday, but 16 year old C. came all by himself to church! It was great. I was so proud of him. He even talked about serving a mission in a couple years after I testified to what a great and life changing experience it is. We are praying mightily for a miracle to happen with them so that their unique situation can be resolved and they can enter into the waters of baptism. I also made some bomb.com chili for like $6 on Wednesday night, too. That's now like my go-to meal haha.

Thursday night we were able to pick up another new investigator just by talking to him on the street, as well as find a less-active member, D., who wants to come back to church! It's amazing what success you can find when you just open your eyes and look for the possibilities. We have appointments with both of these wonderful people this week. 

Friday was Zone Meeting! The first Zone Meeting since JUNE that I got to sit with everyone else, and it was WONDERFUL. I enjoyed every second of it. I also got to see a TON of people that I love up there! We have an AWESOME zone! Elder Bean, who I trained, is in our zone and I got to see him! As is Elders Vai and Tunnell, who were in my zone in BV for a little while. Elder Millard, one of my best friends, is my zone leader, and even the Assistants, Elder Williams and Elder Jacklin, were there! It was a great day. We learned about teaching skills especially for beginning teaching investigators and less-actives. We got to role-play a little bit on "How to Begin Teaching" which was a lot of fun.

Saturday we saw P. and the C's again! D. was with the C.' this time, too! We taught P. about prayer and the proper method of it, and we restarted the lessons for CCD (hah) so C.'s son in case you forgot) can get caught up. He had a TON of questions about the Book of Mormon, and it was awesome! We didn't even get a chance to answer them all because it got too late, haha. We're going back tomorrow to answer the rest. 

The Sabbath was a wonderful day! 3 nice families fed us! I think that kinda defeated the purpose of Fast Sunday, but it was still super nice of them! Brother & Sister F., whom we take the sacrament to, gave us some awesome ribs, the M.'s gave us lasagna, and the H.'s made some awesome stuffed shells. People take real good care of us here. We also met the P.'s, a less-active family who run their own embroidery company. It's pretty sweet! They are planning on being at church on Sunday! 

This area is great. Miracles are pouring forth! Thank you all for your support of me. Huge shout out to my best friend Ryan who completed his two year service this past week. Love you buddy!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson

Fairmont, WV

Fairmont, WV

Hello Mother!

My Journal Cover

#JSquad #FairmontOnFire

Hello everyone! After seven and a half months, I am out of BV and back in good ol' West Virginia! I LOVE it here! It's awesome. If seven and a half months taught me anything, it was how to work effectively with whatever you have, and now that I actually have big (ger) area, we are ROCKING it! Fairmont is going to EXPLODE with the work here, I can feel it. It's just waiting, hence the hashtag in the title, #FairmontOnFire, because it's going to be on FIRE before the end of this transfer.

I'm here with Elder Jolley, who is fantastic! We are having a lot of fun together. He's from Idaho Falls, Idaho, he's been out around Four and a half months, I'm his second companion, and he's one heck of a worker! He really enjoys learning about how to do things differently and different perspectives, which I think really helps the Fairmont area. We've already tried some cool new things, and seen some awesome success because of it! 

My last day in Buena Vista last Wednesday was hard, it kind of sunk in finally how much BV meant to me and how much I loved it and all the people there. I really did! Buena Vista changed my life, and I enjoyed every second of it there, even the hard parts. I can hardly believe that I actually spent seven and a half months there! It was all a blur, a wonderful, amazing, blessing filled blur! 

Brother A. took us out to The Original Italian Restaurant on Wednesday for dinner, so that I could say goodbye. I also got to say goodbye to so many good friends including:  B. and D., B.D; Brother A., Brother T and A, B.P., the Ca. family, the Lo. family, Sister Bu., the An. family, The Ba. family and the Bo. family!, the Ca. and Ut. family, my other Ca. family and the Cl. family, the Fl. family, the Fue. family, the Fur. family, the Go. family, the Ha. family, The Hi. family, the Ho. family, the Hu. family, the Ja., family, the Jo. family, the La. family, the Mi. family, the Mo. family, the Po., family, the Se. family, the Shi., family, the Th. family., the Tr. family, and the Wh. and the Ta. families!!!  All these pictures are forthcoming*. :) I'm sorry if I missed anyone! I love you all! 

I miss them, but I'm excited to be here. 

With all the packing and writing stuff and getting ready, I didn't get to bed on Wednesday until around 1, then I got up at 3:00! It was a nice two hours of sleep, haha. 4:30 in the morning was my last goodbye with Elder French and Elder Harris, the YSA Elders. We snuck into their apartment and woke them up so I could say goodbye. I also wrote Elder French a letter and put it on his desk. I'll miss him a ton. 

Most of the day was spent in a van/car driving! I rode with Elder Bingham and Elder Williams to Blacksburg in a Jeep Compass that the church is selling, and then there we picked up Elder Price and Elder Lopez, who are HILARIOUS. We drove with all 5 of us up to Charleston. The Charleston Depot was great (We aren't supposed to have transfer meetings anymore, so we don't, but Charleston is still the place where we switch luggage around, have a little message, and then head out, so we call in the Depot now, haha)! I got to see a lot of my buddies and have some fun there. 

On the train ride to Clarksburg (one 15 passenger van towing a little uHaul trailer) the van broke down a couple times! Gotta love those West Virginian hills! We finally made it to Clarksburg after two break downs, and eating lunch at this cool little place called The Custard Stand in a TINY town called Sutton, WV. They had good chili dogs though. That was a great way to reintroduce me to WV, a good old fashioned Chili Dog. It had been too long! :P In Clarksburg, I got to see Elder Millard, one of my best friends, who is now my ZONE LEADER! Woo hoo! That will be a party. They call and I call every once in a while just to chat with them because they are awesome. Finally got to Flatwoods and met Elder Jolley! Like I said before, he's awesome. I also got to meet my District Leader, Elder Carter, and his companion, Elder Furrows. We are in a district together with the Fairmont Sisters, Sister Kirkby and Sister Marsh, who are the Sister Training Leaders, so I knew them from my time at MLC. I also got to see Sister Robinson and say hi to her! I went to high school with her, so that was fun. This is a great zone! 

On Friday Elder Jolley took me to meet some cool people! We got to meet R., a member who needs some help staying active sometimes, so we go over once a week or so and share a message with him and help him along his path to the kingdom. He's a really funny, older guy who LOVES Mormon Messages, so that's normally what we watch with him, haha. We also had dinner with the N.  family! C. N. got back from a mission around 7 months ago, and her sister O., who is an awesome less-active with a little boy, made us "Buffalo Mac & Cheese," which is basically Mac & Cheese with hot sauce in it, and it was actually really good, haha! It was like, baked or something, which just made it awesome. C.'s boyfriend, B., from Morgantown who goes to the YSA ward, was there too, along with their non-member friend N.! We tried to teach him, but he didn't seem too interested. We got his number and told him we'd call him, which seemed to be a good compromise for him, haha.

Saturday I got to meet L., an AWESOME man who was going to get baptized a couple weeks ago, but his White Blood Cell count was "critical" so they immediately told him he couldn't go outside or be near people. :( Luckily though, it's gone back up, and now it's just "low" instead of "critical" so now he is getting healthier, woo hoo! He talks a TON, so you really have to kind of guide the lesson, but he is converted and ready for baptism. We went over the baptismal interview questions with him, and he's ready! He didn't come to church yesterday because his health is preventing him, but he really really wants to come this week and thinks that he'll be up for it. 

We took our Ward Mission Leader, Brother H., over there with us. He did a great job teaching, too. I also go too meet the T. family, some great members who struggle getting to church on time, and we also went and saw R. with Brother H. He is a less-active member who pastors at other churches now. We had a really good conversation with him about some common protestant questions about our church, like how the bible says no one has seen God (Moses, Stephen, John), Priesthood restrictions (Levites), etc. Stuff like that. It felt really good to be able to expound the scriptures to and reason with someone again. I haven't done that for a long time. It's not Contention, but a tension of views that makes for a good discussion. :)

Sunday was great! I got to meet the ward, who are all AWESOME! We especially have a great Bishop, Bishop B. He's awesome. He's only been Bishop for 3ish months now, but he does a really good job, and I think he knows where he wants to take the ward in the future. We get the opportunity on Sundays to go and take the sacrament to the F. family! They served a mission in Oakland, CA about a decade ago, but now they are homebound because of her declining health, so we take them the sacrament. He made some really good steak for lunch. They are great and super nice! 

We contacted a media referral that we received on Sunday night, too! W. requested a Book of Mormon. We went over there, he answered the door right away, so we started teaching him! Ended up having a really quick, good lesson about the Book of Mormon and a really brief overview of the Restoration, committed him to read the Introduction of the Book of Mormon, and he invited us back the next day (today)! It should be a good lesson today, we're excited. 

Also on Sunday I got to meet C., his girlfriend D., and his son C. D. is a less-active returning member, and C. and C. are investigators. They are the BEST. C. is HILARIOUS and they are SO CLOSE to baptism. The only thing holding them back is getting married, which is a more complicated situation I hear than we wish it was, but we believe in miracles in this church, and so help me I will see them enter the waters of baptism before I'm done here! We taught them the law of tithing last night, which they committed wholeheartedly to live by, because they are awesome. Something else I love about C. is he isn't afraid to ask questions. He really wants to know and understand the gospel, and so he is not afraid to let you know what he is thinking, and it is GREAT. In the middle of tithing, he goes, "So where does the money go?" The way he said it could have been construed as "attacking" or something, but he just asks because he really wants to know. We explained it and it made perfect sense to him and he is excited to live it after his baptism! They are awesome.

So that was the last 5 days, haha! I love it here in Fairmont, it is going to be a great place that I will always remember, I know it! Thank you all for reading this, I love you all and thank you for your support. Have a GREAT WEEK!

Also a shoutout to my best friend who completes his two-year service in 5 days. You are the best Ryan!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson

Also, shoutout to Elder Hugentobler!

*Note from Braxton's mom:

I have all the photos of the wonderful BV families, but since I don't have permission from each family to post them on the web, I will hold on to them for him. If you would like a copy, just email Braxton and he will let me know. I would be happy to send it to you! His email is: johnson.braxton@myldsmail.net

Greetings from the transfer train. Elder Johnson and Elder Johnson

Hi MOM! You are the best!

We got even.

Hahahahaha.

My amazing friend Elder French!

Sporting a new haircut!

Handsome Elders. :)

The amazing BV zone!

The snow fort!

The amazing Elder Jolley!