It again sounds like you guys are super busy and up and doing things!

This week has been pretty crazy. We taught 15 lessons and have 0 progressing investigators! It's kinda sad. It IS the most productful week we've had, but so many of our investigators have just stagnated.

Largely because (as I finally put this together yesterday) they were not invited to be baptized during the first lesson. And Elder Johnson just turns all our visits into social ones with maybe a spiritual thought at the end. It's frustrating. He's super good with talking to people....just forgets why he's talking to them. He doesn't accept correction very well, which is understandable, but he needs to be put with someone who has been out for much longer. That's the biggest problem. Just because he knows how long I've been out he doesn't trust me as his trainer. He's got a lot of maturing to do. He is VERY much like Kyle, but I'd say he's more rude and antagonistic. Sometimes he's my favorite companion, but other times I just want to throttle him!

(Figure of speech of course). His training is almost finished, but hopefully, as I said before, he will soon be put with an older missionary so he can learn better. It's kind of weird that you got a letter from President just recently.....I've been training for 5 weeks now.....so maybe I'm going to train again! That would be exciting! But president Taggart is pretty awesome like that!

I spent $400 on bike stuff because at first I was using an old Nike. I had to buy a new rim and tube and straighten some tires out. Then I just got a new one because it was kind of like our old green van. I was just going to spend a lot of money continually fixing it. So I just bought one from another elder. It's better and it came with lights and an odometer. So now I'm going to sell the old one to try to get some money back. My area is about 6 square miles and biking is DEFINITELY better than walking. It's population is similar to that of Burke. The roads are worse (condition wise) and so are the drivers.

One time it rained and one of the officers in our Ward said he was at the scene of at least 2 dozen accidents.

It's awesome that you were able to talk to some people about the Gospel! Unfortunately that is what almost all of our investigators are like. Either that or they are just nice and love the 'spiritual messages' we share. That's one of the concerns I talked about Elder Johnson with last night. Most of our lessons are social visits with a spiritual thought, so we are going to start all over with everyone.

That's why it's important to invite someone to be baptized in the first lesson. If not, you become a support group that comes by to share uplifting messages. For example, last night we tried to teach a guy named Chris, but all Elder Johnson did was talk to him about the Seahawks game and sports. THATS WHY NONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS ARE PROGRESSING!!!!! And that's just the way Johnson is. He's the party animal, so he just wants to 'have fun' and not the sharing the gospel kind of fun. But back to the people that are morons! Wish people like that I take the approach of, 'We're not just going around sharing a feel good message about how Jesus has saved you. We are sharing the message of the restore gospel of Jesus Christ and you will be held accountable for rejecting it.' Or, 'we're not trying to get you to join our church. We're inviting you to join the kingdom of God that has been restored again to the earth.' Or something similar to that.

It makes people very uncomfortable, which I don't really mind at all!

It's incredible how true Helaman 12:19 is! People are so used to following satan that they are uncomfortable feeling the spirit! They are angry when we are bold and have deaf ears when we are not! Your prayers are very much appreciated, but if you could pray for our investigators, that would be awesome. Pray for the Lord to soften their hearts and to change their attitudes. I love you all! I'm going to try to send a late CHRISTMAS package to you guys. I think all of you will love what I'm going to send!

Elder Hunter

P.S. Pictures to come later today! Hopefully.

Do you guys still have those same missionaries in the ward?? Or different ones now? And aaaactually, heads up with what's happening with the iPads for real.....they are having all the families of elders in 'well to do' countries pay for their missionaries 'mobile device'. So we're keeping the iPads in the mission and will get to bring them home too! I'm not sure exactly how it's all supposed to work out because the letter we got from President was really vague. Missionaries definitely should not be just doing that (using the video to teach the lesson), but  I have used videos from time to time when I leave dinner messages. They are extremely helpful for teaching, organization, and are very convenient to carry around. I was extremely skeptical myself of missionaries using iPads, but when used correctly they are very powerful tools. And when I use a video when leaving a message it is 1. When I'm prompted to and 2. Always backed up with an actual spiritual thought and/or scripture. The explanation for expenses from my debit card. I've spent $400 on a bike and repairs. The McDonalds one. There was a homeless guy who turns out, is an inactive YSA. He was sitting on the ground outside a shopping center. Had a broken arm. So I told him to come to McDonalds with us and I bought him a dinner. 

We've dropped a few investigators and have referred a whole bunch that should have been a while ago. Everything is just kind of slow. We haven't done anything noteworthy. We set as many appointments as possible, and more often than not they end up no being there or say they can't meet right then. So then we try to just visit potentials or investigators in the area. And no one is ever home during the day so it is super frustrating! And that's why I haven't written a lot about what we've been doing. I'm not actually teaching any French speaking people right now. I just try to speak to Spanish people and the best I can speak is French...thank you for the spiritual thought! And don't worry about pants burnings, we only do it 4 or 5 times a week! (Just Kidding)

Elder Hunter

Hello everyone!!! I didn't get to sending an email last week, so sorry about that...everything has been pretty crazy!! A had her baptism last Saturday! Well, actually 2 Saturday's ago. I will hopefully have pictures next week! We also went to the Temple today, so i will hopefully be able to have pictures of that next week as well! It's really difficult to get them sent because I usually take them with my ipad and then have to take pictures of the pictures on the ipad with my camera and then hook that up to the computer. It's a pain. But I'll figure it out! Fun things that have happened in the past two weeks are....1. Christmas! except we didn't really do anything. Just sat and wrote letters most of the day and then skyped my family later on! 2. New Years! I got to turn in earlier than usual because of innebriated crazy's driving around at night. Then our District leader and Zone Leaders came over and we had some cider. 3. I'm getting really good at riding bikes. I can wreck, fall off, and jump back on in one fluid motion. 4. Missionaries here go to someone's house with a fire pit when they reach their 6 month, year, 18 month, and 2 year marks, and burn a tie, shirt, pants, then suit respectively. This last week a couple Elders had stuff to burn, so we helped Sister D start a fire and then waited for them to show up (we had dinner with her right before). She was getting rid of her Christmas tree, so we chopped it up into pieces and when we put the pieces on (small 3x2 ft. pieces of a pine tree) we got a MASSIVE flame out of it! The last one we burnt wasn't any bigger than the others, in fact it was a little smaller, but the pillar of fire that shot up from it was a good 20 ft. and I'm not exaggerating at all!!!  5. The biking is killer in this weather! It's nice during the day, so we are fooled, then the temperature plummets towards 5 in the evening so we spend most of it freezing as we're pedaling around. I also got 2 more flat tires. In the same day. The first time there were 2 holes so I patched them up, and when I was blowing it up again another hole appeared!!! YAY FOR FLAT TIRES!!!! So I called our zone leaders and asked for a ride to the bike shop, and they willingly obliged. Cool side story, Elder H, our new Zone Leader, was going to go to the AF Academy, but he just decided he wasn't going to so he might do ROTC with me at BYU which would be AMAZING!!!  6. We went to the Temple! I love going to the Temple. I really can't think of anything else right now because it's been so long since I've thought about what to write. Our area isn't doing the best right now becasue everyone keeps cancelling appointments...Actually I just remembered, we had 2 interesting conversations this past week right after each other. The first guy, P wanted to know why the Book of Mormon is necessary. C, the second guy wanted to know the same thing, except he believed that the book of mormon comes from God and just doesnt' think it's important. I'm not going to answer those questions in this email, but food for thought. Would God just out of the blue, stop giving earth prophets and revelations for the rest of time? If God had books written by the Jews in the "middle east" or where the bible came from, how is it illogical that he would have a remnant of the House of Israel also write stuff in a different continent? If God were God, (and He is btw) wouldn't he have more than one physical document testifying of His reality? And who are we to say, no, God doesn't speak to us anymore? All of y'all have an awesome week!!! Je vous aimez!!!

Elder Hunter

Hey everyone! This week has been crazy and fast and slow all at the same time. I think we taught 10 lessons this week, which is more than last week and especially impressive since this week was Christmas! Biking takes up a lot of time, but I am now intimately familiar with my area.....I know it like the back of my hand! 

Note from Mom:  Here is another letter from Hunter to his Dad.  This is the missionary we know and love!  He now has to go by Elder Hunter because his companion is Elder Johnson.  Saturday the 27th one of his investigators, A, was baptised.  It was a beautiful day!  Sorry we don't have pictures. 

Hey Dad! I definitely enjoyed seeing the Christmas devotional. It was super cool. I especially liked President Eyring's address. Afterwards, my comp and I were talking to a guy that had converted 30ish years ago or something. He told us some really cool stories and gave us some insights to the minds of investigators. Mmmmm, yeah, the burke choir wasn't the best, but the people were!! I miss VA. I still get the monthly emails the Annandale Stake sends out to the missionaries of the stake. That's a really cool quote by Pres. Kimball. There's one guy we're teaching that could use that. He's got huge drug problems. And he doesn't really have a huge desire to stop. He's just about droppable. But we're trying to stick it out. It's so true though. With some sins, they become an addiction, so part of repentance is having the desire to stop, which leads to doing everything in your power to distance yourself from the temptations that you know you are still susceptible to.

I also love that quote by Joseph Smith! It's when a couple guys from church were over at his house and they were talking about the persecutions of the saints and of how many of the persecutors were former members. The Brother Joseph was talking to said that if he left the church he would basically go and live in the mountains all alone and forget about it, which is what inspired Joseph to say what he did. It's so true! There are many Less actives we are trying to re-enlist to serve God, who have just lost their testimonies completely. Our investigators are many. And extremely frustrating. We will hopefully have a baptism this month and at least two next month so far. A is going to be baptized on the 27th of this month. All her older siblings have been baptized, and we are teaching her older sister who is returning to activity. They are going to be awesome!! A is completely ready to get baptized. She and her returning sister came to church yesterday. N is 94 and turns 95 on Jan, 2....her baptismal date!! She wants to join the church to do something more meaningful with...what she has left of her life. She prayed about it and felt it was the right thing to do. She has a hard time hearing and I'm not sure if she completely understands everything because when we ask her a question she mishears it and goes on some tangent. Sigh. But she understands the commandments at least....the only thing we really have to worry about is her understanding the significance of baptism!! that it's not JUST joining the church. Then we have M. She has a date for the 10th of January. She had a son that died a year or two ago. He would be about 18 now, and he was born on Jan, 10. So it's extra special to her. She came to church along with her 6ish month old and her 10 year old and her extremely less active husband/boyfriend. Unclear on that right now. She is so open and willing to do anything to be with her son again. She's gotten over it, but like any mother would, she still aches for him. Those are all the ones I'm going to write about right now b/c they are the only ones with baptism dates. Hopefully we will have many more by next week!!!

We are both better right now...but Elder Y is just a tired guy. He has to take about an hour nap every day. I just have rough mornings. I'm not a morning person as you very well know. and it doesn't help that it takes me at least an hour to fall asleep. So I just don't talk until about 9:00 because that's when our comp. study starts. The best nights I had were when I was sick b/c I was taking some medicine that also made me sleepy. Might get some more today....it's just Niquill.

This fast sunday was awesome!! Some can be questionable...you know because you have people that will go up there and say crazy stuff, so I was a little worried about our investigators there, but it was awesome!! So many testimonies of families and temples, which is what our investigators and returning members needed!!! Fasting works!! As for Skype....yeah sure!! I have no idea what we're doing. It'll probably have to be sometime later in the evening. We still got almost 20 days...but I figure the earliest I could do it would be 6:00 my time/7:00 Justus time/8:00 y'all's time. Lots of love!

Elder Hunter Johnson

Hello everyone! Sorry I didn't email last week! We had transfers, and
I am now finishing training another Elder and we are now on
bike....sooooooo, last week was just a 'hot mess' as Mr. McCarthy
would say! So I have 2 weeks of cool stories and experiences to share!
So first story....when we were shopping 2 weeks ago, as we were
checking out there was a guy buying over 100 watches next to us. It
was just interesting. Just had a cart completely full of 'em! Story 2.
As we were checking out, an awesome Samoan guy from church, who just
stopped smoking and drinking decided to come out ver and pay for our
groceries. A solid $70 when all was said and done. The Lord truly does
look out for His missionaries. That is just a simple example of the
many experiences I've had similar to it. I recently had the
opportunity to play at the Korean Branch Christmas party with elders
Shawcroft and Choi! Elder Choi is an incredible pianist. I gave him
the piano accompaniment part and he sit read it flawlessly. So I gave
him an even harder piano accompaniment to my favorite violin piece
ever (all creatures of our God and King) and he sight read that
flawlessly too. Completely mind blown. In other news....TRANSFERS!!!
Elder Young is no longer my companion. I am staying in good ol' P3 and
have been called to train! Actually to finish the training of.....none
other than ELDER JOHNSON!!! It is quite confusing, so I now have to go
by Elder Hunter. We are on bike, so it is CRAZY! I love it. We have
done a lot of extra loops and stuff because I'm still figuring out the
quickest ways to get places. And where the places are. The first 2
days on bike we had a total of 6 or 7 flat tires. One night I got a
flat tire and an appointment fell through. Our mission leader was
going to come in about half an hour, so instead of waiting we just
went home! Elder Johnson rode his bike and I ran next to my bike! Let
me tell you, running 3 miles in nice clothes while holding a bike is
no fun. My zone leaders saw us and decided my bike either had problems
or I just wanted to run. Some other zone leaders in our same complex
saw us and laughed at us after deciding I had been mugged.

Anyhoo, it's CHRISTMAS!!!!! The best time of the year! Angie, (age 16)
one of the girls we've been teaching is getting baptized on the 27th
of this month! She is super excited about it. Other than that, we are
working ourselves into the ground! Mostly pumping up flat tires, but
still......

I want to wish all of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and remember what
Christmas is really about. Since I can't send everyone a present,
although I'd like to, I will give you all something much more
valuable, and that is my testimony. I want to testify of a number of
things, the first of which is the reality of the divinity of God, our
Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. I know they are both real,
tangible, immortal beings of flesh and bone. I know Jesus Christ is
the greatest gift our Father could ever give us. I know Joseph Smith
was a prophet called directly by God to restore the Kingdom of God on
earth. I know that the Book of Mormon is proof of that. I know our
Father continues to show His love for us by giving us a prophet just
as He has done throughout all time and apostles as he instituted in
Jerusalem. I know these things are true, not only because they make
logical sense to anyone who takes time to think it out, but because
our Father has given me His witness of these things through the power
of the Holy Ghost. I've been called by God and set apart by someone
who has authority to do that, to be a representative of Jesus Christ,
and to testify, as that representative, of these things. And so, this
Christmas, I leave you all with my gift and witness, and do it in the
name of Jesus the Christ, the Greatest gift our Father has given us.
Elder Hunter

Hullo everyone!!! This week has been kind of normal, so I'm just going to write as stuff comes to my head!!! Nothing particularly crazy happened, but....I made some awesome cookies!!! I am getting SUPER good at cooking. I mean, I was alright before but now...jeez, I'm amazing! That's just me being modest. We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday, and it was THE BOMB!! Someone in our ward is a caterer, so whenever we have parties, they are parties. Everyone wanted chocolate cheesecake for dessert though...what's with that? Because we're missionaries and we are obviously starving for want of food, we got about 10 pounds of rice and carrots and green beans from leftovers. So now we don't have to worry about what we're having for breakfast, lunch, or dinner for the next month!! Sooooo many leftovers....we still haven't finished the pumpkin pie... 

I jumped over a bush and got scratched by it when I was on a run...N, the 94 year old we're teaching wants to get baptized on January 2nd. She (and we) hope she lives long enough! R relapsed...again....

I went on splits with one of the guys from the ward and.....2/2 of our teaching appointments fell through!! Just our luck. But it was in Cinnamon Tree, so we had 18 other people to choose from to visit. So we visited the E!! Sister E is super nice. She has 2 kids. Brother E has some drug problems.....He's a great guy. He doesn't like Christmas, birthday parties, celebrations of any kind. He thinks it's all kind of fake. A show. I've never met someone who doesn't like Christmas before. I'm still trying to get over it. A small part of me died when he said that Santa Claus didn't actually exist. Speaking of Christmas!! There is an awesome Christmas video the church made. It's about....(drum roll) you'll have to find out by watching it!!! It's at Christmas.mormon.org. Hopefully we will get to go caroling sometime in the near future......if anyone has any questions or suggestions of things I could elaborate more on, please tell me because I'm not sure what to write about.

Grosses Bisses!!

Elder Hunter Johnson

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! You may now start listening to Christmas music! I don't know what it is with pumpkin pie. Everyone is giving us pumpkin pie. So either it's the only pie anyone buys around here and they just had too much, or no one likes the pumpkin pie so they use us as a food disposal squad. This last week has been uneventful except for the sickness that has plagued my companion. He's been completely out of it for a bit over a week, but is feeling better today!! I forgot to mention in my letter from last week that I was able to ride a motorized bike. It was pretty cool. It did about 25 mph and matched Southern Cali. in it's run down, ghetto demeanor! Interesting things that happened this week....1. we are now teaching a lady that turns 95 on Jan. 2nd!! She asked to join the Mormon church, and she just hopes she lives long enough to. 3. It rained for the first time in forever yesterday!! It's been about a year since this place has had a good rainstorm. So now the temperature has dropped to a frigid 65 degrees!! Better get those winter short sleeve shirts ready...3. A guy gave me a guitar.That's really all that's happened this week. I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I always feel like that. I love you all!!

Elder Hunter Johnson