New things that have happened this week....my companion got hit by a car again. On Wednesday. Wrecked my bike. So thank heavens for insurance! Julliet is fine, but Bob (my first bike) is not. We went to the ER and were there from 6:00-10:30. I was companion less than an entire 3.5 hours! It was great. I found a less active family in the ER whose nephew (he was almost 30) had had a reeeealy bad seizure and was expected to die. He is now completely brain dead and I think they took him off of life support yesterday. I was able to just be with them and talk with them for about 2 of the 3.5 hours. There's a reason M was hit by a car! They hadn't been in contact with missionaries for years, and I was talking to their youngest son about baptism. He had wanted to know for so long what it was and how to do it, and he really wanted to be baptized. Some of the other kids had been baptized but didn't remember a lot, so I was able to talk to them too. It was great. A day, seemingly wasted, turned out to be incredibly productful. And then they asked me to give him a blessing, so we did that on Thursday. It felt so good to be able to help and comfort this family in their time of need! It almost makes me want to wish that bad things would happen so I could help people out, but that wouldn't be nice. I love you all!

Elder Hunter

Other letters:

Sorry I haven't been answering your questions, I don't know how much information you want so I keep it as short and succinct as possible.

Mom, did you call my mission office? In any case, sister Jameson is sending you a picture of me with elder Safsten and me with elder Meyers.

To answer your questions....I am in a different zone now. There are ten zones in my mission. My companion doesn't trust me as much as he should, which is frustrating, but not the end of the world. I guess that's really how I was when I came out. He is just convinced he knows what is going on, but he actually doesn't. The investigators we are teaching....there is a girl that is on date that we have not been able to meet with yet, and we got a referral for this guy that turned out to be a potential investigator. He was dropped a long time ago. We met with him last night with bishop Kimbrell, who is by the way, amaaaaazing. He is a motivational speaker for Disney. Guess how much they charge people who want him to come speak for stuff? $17,500/HOUR!  That's right. $17,500/hour. Anyway, he (the investigator) was saying how he's going to be baptized by default and I corrected him, in a joking way, that we are the default. He is completely nuts. He won't stop talking. He waaaay over complicates everything. If you said, Are you sitting in front of me, yes or no, he would say, well it depends on......dhjskssirojr. At a point in our meeting I said, "you need to let us talk. You need to let us teach you. If you don't this won't go anywhere and you won't get baptized." But anyway, bishop is a champ. Those are our investigators right now. To find people to teach we use the area book.

Literally, tracting is useless and a waste of time. So we go visit existing people in the area book that are potentials. And we have a big long list of those. We rely so much on members to. If members don't bring us to people to teach we are stuck bringing crazies like L to church for the Ward to fellowship. Then the Ward complains.

Well, to bad, it's their problem! So if you (the whole family here) want to have normal people get baptized instead of having crazies that the missionaries find and bring to church that freak everyone out that end up being a waste of time, ask your friends to consider learning about the church from the missionaries! And that's what the Ward is really struggling in. They won't do missionary work. So we are trying to strengthen less actives and part members BY finding people to teach through them, not doing it after. It needs to happen now. Pray for our members to find the people that need to be taught. Not us. Because they are the ones that need the help finding. They don't get that it's their job.

The girl from meet the Mormons doesn't live here. She lives in Utah I think. She was just here for a fireside. I appreciate those thoughts and quotes dad, the spirit revealed some things to me as I read them that will help in the work in our area. Love you all!

Elder Hunter

P.S. Dad could you email me that talk by Jeffrey R. Holland again? The one that he gave in one of the MTC's? I lost it somehow.

A note to family:

Ok we won't say anything to Connor about Stockton. That is really sad.

I'm glad you had a fun time with unka mike and Jeff and Krista!

Continue to do fun things this week! I will write more in response to your other email. Mickey Mouse has already been baptized actually, so we missed that boat....we just didn't get a lot done the first week partly because we had a ton of meetings. We didn't have any info on any members or investigators either. So unfortunately we did end up wasting some time tracting. There are loooots of meetings for new elders here because of the iPads and everything.

What is green? Plant a beautiful garden! And you planted the star fruit tree seed, right? I haven't read that talk, I'm reading in 1972 right now. But I like the thought! The ward I'm in right now is really struggling. It would be doing a lot better if many of the ward members would have stayed in the boat. There are about 60 active ward members. We had about 200 people at church this Sunday, so about 150 million of them were visitors. There are almost no active youth, so I will get the chance to pass, prepare, and bless the sacrament much more often. We ran out of water during it, and had to go fill up another tray and bless it again. It was really funny, but I didn't laugh. Promise. I laughed afterwards. (After church) When exactly are you going to be able to send the package out for the cop couple? Love youuuuu

Talmage, I'm glad you had a fun camping! Food always tastes good on campouts. 

Ammon, keep doing things with Michael, he's a cool kid. He'll be baptized in a few years. :)

Zenock that's so cool that you got to run the stations for your field day! That sounds like a lot of fun. That was always the funniest part of elementary school for me.

Kumen, that dog sounds amazing. There are few awesome dogs like that out here, but I cling to those that are awesome. I also like your choice of 'holy hedge' to convey surprise and shock.  

In other news, I got to meet and take a picture with the girl from meet the Mormons! The comedian one that interviews people. She is super cool. We had an investigator that came who is kinda crazy and as soon as the closing prayer was done he ran up to the pulpit to talk to her. He was halfway up when the benediction said 'amen.' That's my short story for this week! Don't have a lot of time today. Love you all!

Hunter

A letter from Hunter to the Seminary students:

Sister Hunter,

Thanks so much for all the letters from the class!  I’m happy to be adoptedJ!  And I absolutely loved the talk!  I love Elder McConkie!  It is impossible to listen to or read one of his talks and not feel the Spirit testify of what he says and that he was an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

I’ts good to hear that everything’s going well!  I loved reading everyone’s letters…so here’s a letter back for everyone!  And one that’s long overdue at that…

Hey everyone!  I loved getting your letters!  Keep going to Seminary (for those of you that come) and if others are not coming, get them to come!  So now for the good stuff…

Southern California has got to be in the top 10 hardest places in the world to serve.  There are 3 possibilities when you knock on a door.  They are:  A. Catholic, B. Not Interested or C. Not  Home.   Everyone finds time for everything BUT the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is why I keep on telling everyone to go to Seminary.

One of the things that make it way difficult to serve here is answer choice C.  The ward I’ve been serving in for the past 6 months is incredible.  There’s only one thing they could do better and now as a missionary I am sooooo sad and very disappointed with myself for not doing this before my mission.  That is aggressively doing missionary work.  I always carried a Book of Mormon around ready to share it and ready to answer any question thrown at me, but that’s not enough.  It’s not enough to tell the missionaries when they come by, “Oh, I’m working with people!  I invited them to the ward activity.”  Now don’t get me wrong, that is AWESOME!  But it needs to go further.  Here missionary work goes nowhere without members.  We need members to say “I shared a Book of Mormon with a friend and told them about how it’s proof of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I asked when I could come by with some friends (missionaries) and tell them more about it, and they said Sunday Afternoon works.  Can you come?  So make a missionaries day and do that.  You guys are what will make the church grow.  We have to find and teach the needle in the haystack.  If members don’t help sift through the hay, the missionaries are left doing it all by themselves.  And I promise you that doesn’t work.

I know this church is the church of Jesus Christ, which is more than just a church.  It is the Kingdom of God on Earth.  It contains all the authority, power and truth necessary for conducting the work of salvation on Earth, I know the fullness of the Gospel has been restored.  I know we are all here at this specific time for a reason.  I know Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  He is our Elder Brother.  He was born, and He died, but that was not His beginning and End.  It was all part of the plan laid before the foundation of the world in order for us to obtain exaltation.  It is up to all of us to accept this gift or reject it.  I know the way to fully accept it is through the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know Joseph Smith was the Prophet fore-ordained to usher in that gift and power of God.  I know these things not only because they make sense, but because God has revealed the truth of these things to me by the Power of the Holy Ghost.  I promise you all that “Dad” is watching out for us.  He is there for us, and we only have to turn to Him for help, and He will give it.  Although perhaps not in the way we want it.  I love you all and leave you with my testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Hunter Johnson

PS “Vision without effort is day dreaming, effort without vision is drudgery; but vision coupled with effort will obtain the prize.”  --Thomas S. Monson

Dad I hope you had a safe flight back! I like the thoughts of spending time in the wilderness. That's one of the reasons I like to go mountain biking (running for me) on PDay. That's awesome that you were able to have a cool experience! Thanks for not going onto my fb account. I didn't post that. I posted it, but only so mom could see it. Like, no one could see it but mom. Or at least that's what was supposed to happen. My new area is Disneyland. Like the entire Disneyland is IN MY AREA!!! It's pretty cool. We can hear and see the fireworks when they go off at night. My companion is Elder Meyers. He is 6'4 and was playing football as a defensive end for Southern Utah University. He is a big guy, so I'm glad to finally have someone to work out with in the mission. He is a lot like me when I first came out. Just full of greenie Fire and ready to go. He is just like me in wanting to not do studies and go out and tract. Which is kinda a waste of time. So it's a good thing we finally got our area book! So now we have numbers to call and people to visit that have spoken with missionaries before. We try to contact people when we're out biking around too. The problem here is that no one wants to talk about religion at all. They are so stubborn and "normal nice Christian people" will yell at you and curse you and tell you they're not interested. I was very skeptical about using Facebook at first too, but the vision for using it is so much more than simply proselyting on a mission. The vision for giving missionaries iPads is to make it easier for missionaries to stay in contact with investigators and new members, and to continue their missionary efforts after their missions. Every time a group of 10,000 missionaries goes home and a group of 10,000 comes out it'll hopefully just be an increase in 10,000 missionaries. You can't see people on Facebook, unless you FaceTime them, which is allowed, but it is easier to have well thought out explanations, and time to think of thought provoking questions. It is certainly better to teach people face to face, but try it. Try talking to a nonmember friend on Facebook about the gospel. Or just a random person. 

I did not hear about the sister missionary that died. That is really sad. But the Lord definitely is increasing the work on the other side of the veil! I hope you have a fun time with Jeff and Krista! What is grandpa and grandmas email again? I lost it and didn't have time to write last week. Love you all!!

Elder Hunter

Hey everyone! This week was pretty low key  like last week, but there were a few interresting things that happened! First and foremost was C. We just started talking to him as he was sitting outside waiting for his apartment to be clear from the poison spray. Lemme tell you, I don't think I have ever been asked questions so deep in my life! It was super fun answering them, and by the time we finished talking with him, he was 1. Satisfied with the answers we gave him, and 2. intent on reading the Book of Mormon from cover to cover. Just that made this week awesome. Then on Thursday I was able to go listen to Jeffrey R. Holland at Chapman University!!!!! I was sitting 30 feet away from him! For those of you who don't know who that is, he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. He is an incredible speaker and he teaches with the power and authority that only an apostle can have. One of my favorite quotes was, "People are not better off when they are given maximum freedom to do whatever they want." I'll let you all think about that one. It's good. It was amazing listening to him talk about faith, family, and religious freedom. That is about all the cool stuff worth mentioning this week!

So sorry I didn't send this last week, here's the updates for this most recent week!

This week was a week to remember! First off.....we had our I-pad exchange and I-pad meeting on Tuesday, so now we have the iPad's that we are going to be keeping! There was a lot of interesting things talked about. First and foremost, the area 70 that came to talk to us spoke extensively about (and I am paraphrasing) how part of getting iPads and being trained on how to use them was inoculating ourselves against pornography. We are developing skills of responsibly using technology while on a mission in order to retain those acquired skills and apply them when we complete our missions. Something I learned, that the Spirit told me during this meeting, when we were talking about Agency, was that, "Satan try's to take away our agency by changing us from divine beings, created to act, to objects to be acted upon." To many people allow themselves to be changed into objects to be acted upon, by video games, cell phones, iPads, movies, etc....we can do better than that. Another cool story, about agency, that this seventy told us was about Elder Bednar, another Apostle. In a meeting with some people, a man stood up and said something along the lines of, I have my agency, so I can choose weather or not to pay my tithing, or fulfill my calling, or go to church, etc...Elder Bednar asked this person if he was a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. He said yes. Bednar then asked him, "Could you now raise your hand and tell me that you're a covenant breaker?" When we make covenants with God, hat is when we use our agency. We are choosing then to do what God wants us to. So when that comes up in the future, we are not necessarily using our agency to make a choice. We are using our agency to break a sacred covenant. If we choose to break our covenants, we do not understand agency.

Continuing with the week in chronological order, Tuesday night, Johnson was in bed with his eye cover on, and I was at my bedside.

Suddenly we heard BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM and saw flashes of light. I dived into our closet so fast that an Olympic sprinter would have been impressed at how fast I moved. Elder J almost didn't see me. In the meantime, he stood up and wildly looked around. After the noise stopped, I carefully crept out of the closet, grabbed a knife, and we went out to the balcony to kill the gunman. And that's when we found the firecracker. We learned from this that in a life or death situation, I would leave Johnson to die, and he would get gunned down before he realized what was happening. We had so much adrenaline going through us that he didn't get to sleep until midnight and I was up until 1:00!

On Thursday night, I got a call from the AP's telling me that I would be training! So tomorrow I'm getting a brand spankin' new missionary!

On Saturday, in anticipation of getting together with the zone for transfer calls, we were heading back to the apartment after a few appointments around 7:30 so we could get picked up. I was going down a road under construction at 32 mph, when all of a sudden there were orange traffic construction sticks in front of me! I blew through 4 of them and then the world turned upside-down and all over the place! My shoe flew off, my tail light broke off, my helmet was fractured (big

cracks) in 10 different places and my backpack and shirt had some holes in them. The only injuries I got were scratched elbows, and a nastier scratch on my shoulder, along with quite a bit of difficulty in raising and rotating it. But now I am ok. 😄 if I hadn't been wearing my helmet, I would be very dead or very much in a coma, because I hit the asphalt reeeeallly hard. My backpack saved my back, and it was more full of stuff than usual at the time, so there was some extra cushioning. My bike tires look like Dr. Seuss tires now, so I'm gonna get new ones soon. It was probably the most epic crash ever.

And then an hour and a half later, I got a call telling me I was going from Placentia to Anaheim! Disneyland is IN MY AREA!!! Pretty cool. So I am sadly no longer in good ol' P3, but good things are gonna start happening in A4 east-side! I love you all! Pictures will hopefully come next week!

Elder Hunter

From a letter Hunter sent to Seminary Class in San Antonio:

I know this church is the church of Jesus Christ, which is more than just a church.  It is the Kingdom of God on Earth.  It contains all the authority, power and truth necessary for conducting the work of salvation on Earth.  I know that fulness of the Gospel has been restored.  I know we are all here at this specific time for a reason.  I know Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  He is our Elder Brother.  He was born and He died, but that was not His beginning and End.  It was all part of the plan laid before the foundation of the world in order for us to obtain exaltation.  It is up to all of us to accept this gift or reject it.  I know the way to fully accept it is through the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know Joseph Smith was the Prophet fore-ordained to usher in that Restoration.  i know he translated the Book of Mormon through the gift and power of God.  I know these things not only because they make sense, but because God has revealed the truth of these things to me by the Power of the Holy Ghost.  I promise you all that "DAD" is watching out for us.  He is there for us, and we only have to turn to Him for help, and He will give it, though perhaps not in the way we want it.  I love you all and leave you with my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Hunter Johnson

"Vision without effort is daydreaming, effort without vision is drudgery but vision coupled with effort will obtain the prize."

-Thomas S. Monson

Well, sounds  like San Francisco is  like my mission! I understand your disappointment in people not bearing their testimonies. Elder Holland came to Chapman University to speak on Thursday and I had the opportunity to go to that. I was sitting 30 feet away from him! You could definitely recognize the spirit in him, but since it was a multi-faith event he didn't share his testimony at the end the way he does in general conference. That was a little disappointing, but it was still cool to be able to go and listen to him. I was praying one night this last week, (I prayed every night, and spent more time quite a few nights, but this night was special) just trying to figure out what to do with our area, and the spirit told me, "Never underestimate the power of your testimony." So it seems  like the Spirit has been telling us the same things!

Sorry I emailed past 6:30 on Monday, I wasn't really thinking, and it's kinda hard to send pictures, but I'll do better with not sending super late emails. Monday evenings are actually not very good for proselyting.....we usually only have time for 1 appointment, and if that falls through we try to contact one or two people then go home. I live at 3530 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim California. My area goes up to Yorba Linda Blvd and is bordered on the sides by Kraemer and Jefferson Ave. Orangethorpe is all destroyed for construction so it is really difficult to get around to visit people. So that's why getting around is so tough. And then there are lights. And the lights are horrible here. I'll try to get a picture of my district this week, but no promises. Last week was really tough. The momentum just died down with so many of our investigators. They hear what we believe and are  like, ok, cool, well now I know what you believe.... And like I've told so many people, there are three things that can happen when you knock on a door. They are A. Catholic, B. Not interested or C. Not home. 😕I'm

glad you enjoyed all the books! I told mom, but I get them from the library. There's a shelf of free books, so when I notice one you guys would  like, I grab it. Love you!

Elder Hunter

Mommy, I'm so glad you guys enjoyed everything I sent. I'm going to try and send another box soon. I didn't spend any money except the money it took to send it. In the library there is a shelf of free books, so when I walk by if I see something you guys would  like, I snatch it up! So I might get a book every other week or so. I'm glad you are taking care of the starfruit seeds! I might send some more with the next box. I did get the music! Thank you sooooo much! I love most of the songs on there! And your thought on testimony and stuff,me ell that's how I feel about a whole bunch of things to! Listening to Elder Holland on Thursday for example. But I'll tell about that later. And thank you for sharing that about our own light and computer light. I definitely agree. Thank heavens for tv's though so we don't have to watch movies on the computers! 😄 and it is really sad how many people go on the Internet for answers. I was actually trying to teach a hardcore anti guy on facebook. He was a member, served a mission, and then let his testimony be dashed by little things  like black people and the priesthood, marriage rights, etc....it just made me sad that he ended up  like that, but hey, being nice pays off! He was extremely appreciative of how nice I was because apparently members that message are always full of hellfire and damnation. But anyhow, M and L are going to have a baby boy! My testimony of priesthood blessings was strengthened a lot. The baby's blood work came back positive for Down syndrome. The blessing Bro, R gave said everything would be alright and it was! It would be awesome if you sent something. It would be cool to surprise them with something  like that. Love you!

Elder Hunter

 (I was able to catch Hunter online and asked about service opportunities, this is his response)

Hahahaha, mommy I love you so much! Service is something we are constantly trying to do. Every time we visit members, we ask them, in addition to asking for friends to teach, what we can do to serve them or what opportunities of service they know of. We try to do soooooo much service. This week on Tuesday we are going, after our iPad training meeting, to help a divorced sister in our ward, who is one of my absolute favoritest, make cookies and do yard work. She always has tons of cookies in her freezer so she can throw them into the oven at a moments notice for any missionaries that come by. If it is within your means, do everything you can to be the ward member that ALL missionaries in the mission know, love, and want to visit before the ends of their missions. But anyhoo, thank you for your prayers and fasting. We definitely need them. And a quick update of the exciting news from this week......we had 6 whole lessons! One guy, (he remembers being baptized as a kid, and never went to church again) had a ton of intriguing questions that I wish people would ask us more. Who is God? Why are there black people? (That was a hard one to answer, and I did a very good job of explaining it without skating around anything. That's what the spirit does!) That was a super good lesson. We brought a member, J. She is quite the hoot, and loved C, just because he's kind of crazy. That was the most exciting thing that happened this week. Love you!

Hunter