Writings from West Virginia: 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