Writings from West Virginia: A Baptism and Goodbyes!

No, don't worry, I'm staying, I'll explain more in a bit.

Hello everyone! :D This week has been a great one. We've seen some pretty cool things happen. After emailing and Preparation Day last Monday, we headed over to the D. house!for dinner and to start teaching their foster son (soon to be adopted) C.! He's an awesome little kid, so we started teaching him! Once the adoption goes through (hopefully the end of the school-year) he will be able to get baptized.

On Tuesday we were able to teach L.! The lesson before we had left him Mosiah 18 and this Tuesday we asked him to teach us! He did a great job. It's amazing to talk about the gospel with different people and get their view on what they see in a scripture that you may not see. He also showed us his jumping stilts! That was awesome. I might have to get a pair of those someday. I was also able to meet a member of the church who doesn't come anymore, J.! He loves the Elders even though he doesn't come to church. He's a very energetic, hyper guy. He took us out to dinner at an awesome pizza place named Colasessannos which was really nice of him.

On Wednesday not a whole lot happened, but we did get a new car!! That was awesome. It's a brand new 2016 Toyota Corolla. #blessed.

Thursday we were able to see M., a man who has been investigating the gospel for a long while now, but has been so busy these last few weeks we haven't been able to see him. He is a Methodist Minister who starting meeting with the missionaries probably 4 or so years ago. He knows more about the church than most members do, and he's been through pretty much EVERY MANUAL EVER. He gets the Ensign every month (and sometimes preaches about it), he has the Howard W Hunter book, he has the Sunday School Manual, Preach My Gospel, his own Quad, etc etc. He wants to join the church, eventually though. We're working on that. We brought President Hunter with us and after that we went over to see a less-active brother, R., who is now a Baptist Minister (Protestant turned Mormon and then a Mormon turned Protestant, haha). We had a nice visit with him, but unfortunately there are just some people that aren't willing to change their views. Later that day, L. texted us asking us to come over and read some scriptures with him. We quickly called Brother C. and he came with us. He was just having a hard day, but it helped my testimony of missionary work, that L. can recognize the Spirit that we take with us and knows when he needs it for his own life.

Friday we were on exchanges! Our District Leader Elder Carter came down to Fairmont with me! That morning we had Zone Meeting up in Morgantown, and that was a really great meeting. Learned a lot about prayer and how to teach it. It's also a lot more fun to be on the sitting side of the table in Zone Meeting. :) We taught L. AGAIN on Friday and just wrapped everything up on the teaching side. That was a good meeting. We were also at the end of the day taken out to Cracker Barrel by Brother M.! That was fun. It was very nice of him to take us out there. We invited him to the fireside on March 20th and invited him to invite someone else, too!

On Saturday we had a BAPTISM!! WOO HOO! L. entered the waters of baptism on the 5th of March, 2016! What a great day it was. It was still awesome. Brother H., our Ward Mission Leader, baptized him. While he was getting changed, we had everyone write a congrats/testimony on a little white card and we're going to put it in a photo album today and give it to him when we see him on Friday. Also the pictures of his baptism. :) We also saw two less-active families, the P.'s (who came to church on Sunday!) and M., who said she'd come this week. We also saw and taught the C.'s' about the importance of reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. That night, we got the 1st half of transfer calls! Elder Jolley is leaving Fairmont! We kinda expected it. More on that later!

The Glorious Sabbath! We had 4 Less-actives, 3 investigators, and 1 Recent Convert at church!! L. was also confirmed by Elder Jolley and it was an awesome blessing. It was a great church meeting. We were very blessed. Sister F. also invited us over to their house for Sunday dinner which was wonderfully awesome. They are from Gunnison, Utah, but Brother F. is a miner who came out here for mining. They made an awesome Utah meal of Baked Honey Ham and Funeral Potatoes. It was so good. That night, as we were walking back to our apartment, President Salisbury gave us a call! He asked me to train a brand-new missionary. I'm pretty excited! I hope I do a good job, the way Heavenly Father and the Lord wants me to do it.

So, this week now. I'm running out of time so I'm going to run through everyone we saw real quick. Mostly (every time actually haha) it was Elder Jolley saying goodbye. If I don't spend a lot of time on their names, just know that we were still teaching them even if it was a quick visit and we aren't THAT bad of a missionaries. ;D Here we go!

Monday we saw Brother M., the L.'s, whom we invited to prepare for the temple; that was a good visit. After that we saw the H.'s and had dinner with the C.'s. We also had a 2nd dinner with the D.'s and taught C. the 2nd half of the Restoration! We ended the night by inviting Brother K. to the fireside and Elder Jolley said goodbye to D.

On Tuesday we had a District Meeting! The last district meeting in this district with these people. Elder Jolley and Sister Kirkby will be moving on. We said goodbye and taught the Th.s, L., R., and the H.'s who made an awesome dinner. We also saw L., an awesome investigator who works for the FBI. We haven't seen him in a while, and we honestly aren't sure what to do with him. He said he wants to know if the church is true and he's willing to get baptized once he has his "Ah-ha" Moment. We're just not sure how to help him have that. We ended the night with the C.'s and D.! That was a fun lesson. They are some absolutely amazing people. We also found out that Elder Jolley will be going to Roanoke Walk with Elder Brenchley, my former companion! Woo hoo! Lucky guy.

I love you all! Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. Have a wonderful day! Make this week the best ever!

Love,

Elder Brax Johnson