We had our temple trip on Thursday. On Monday the 4th we party hopped to a few different bbq's the ward members were having. It's always hard to write on p-day because I can only send emails when I have wifi. And I can't write in the car because I'm driving. The firework show was at a local high school, and we were on the pyro crew! Although we couldn't actually help set them up, but it was cool anyways! Both the exams were pretty much the same exact thing. The eye doctor was his very nice Asian lady! It was the best eye exam I've ever had! Those burritos sound like California! Everything here has hot sauce and spices in it, it's crazy! I'm pretty used to it by now......Hispanic people put hot sauce on everything and deep fry everything, it's crazy! Your description of not knowing what you were doing is how some of my days and weeks feel. We're not really teaching anyone solid, but we may have someone that was referred by a recent convert in the ward above us whose baptism I was able to play at! We're meeting with her tomorrow, so hopefully it goes well! 

I was able to go to Hamilton pools with the family! It was pretty fun, but I think things like Priest lake in Idaho was more fun. I'm glad Talmage's court of Honor went well, it's too bad the young men didn't really participate. I heard a story recently about one of the apostles a number of years ago at a fireside for priesthood holders I think. He invited them to come closer. Then he did again, and the second time a couple came closer. He waited for a bit, then announced that the meeting was cancelled and if they wondered why their children didn't obey, it was because of the examples of their parents that they had to look to. Then he walked away. Epic!! Maybe obedience isn't in the question, but devoting time and energy to something good absolutely is. Could you try to find that story for me and email it to me when you do? I will keep praying that someone will make a good offer on the house. The ward I'm serving in is about 2.5x1.5 miles and has regular ward membership, but a lot of less actives. We never really get referrals, so we just find by our lonesomes! I love it! We tract a ton and talk to everyone and don't waste a second talking to people that don't want anything to do with it. Today my comp wanted to play soccer with some other missionaries, so when we were walking onto the field, there was a small group of people with a bunch of dogs and I stopped to talk with them all and without realizing it ended up talking about how we were all missionaries and it was great! They weren't interested but it left a good impression on them and it boosted myself knowing that I really am doing my best to talk with everyone.please keep praying for us to find someone to teach! I got the pants from Elder S. Thank you so much for the quote, I'll probably use it in a lesson!

The most exciting thing this week was finally being able to teach some of that family (the family of S) that we've been trying to for so long. The spirit was there and it was awesome!

 Love you tons!

Elder Johnson

So what classes have I been signed up for? And how many credits are they all worth? Do you think I'll be able to handle that load? I don't want to crash and burn......what kind of job opportunities are available in Provo? How much are utilities?!?! That is all a super amount t of stuff going on! I had no idea the V family was getting baptized, thats awesome!! 

Haha, the hike/camping thing makes me think of the mission! I look at all the ridiculous things new missionaries do and I'm like, why are you doing that?! And then I realized I used to do or not do that thing. Life is just such a learning process! Let me tell you about some of the miracles that have happened! We found this awesome lady named J. Just knocked into her right before dinner and she'd just gotten home and she said come back tomorrow at 5:00, so we did! She's looking for a Christian church and wants to raise her two kids to learn about Christ. And she is so solid! She said no to the baptismal invitation, but she doesn't understand the priesthood or anything yet. We also found this guy named C

  He said we could try back on Sunday and we Tracted into him on Saturday. We went back and said come on in! Usually they aren't there or say to try back another time. We taught the restoration and he believes it but thinks any church is fine. Things are hopping! We're going to bring that other family cookies this week! A talk I read this week that I really liked was 'Love takes time' from October 1975 I think. I thought of you and mom. :)  thanks for your thoughts on testimony, as well as your testimony! Love you tons!
Hunter
pictures:
making one of the stories in the Book of Mormon more visual (Ammon)
A Hot Day 112 degrees
Bag of cold cereal at the bottom of a pole (typical crazy thing to see in 
aneheim
boy at church who looks like Hunter's brother Talmage
Zone at the temple

They ended up texting us and basically saying they weren't interested. :/ it was sad, but we left them with a good impression and the Book of Mormon. I hope they read it! We found another family though! They had been taught by the elders in one Ward, then moved, and we found them in their new place and they asked, how did you find us? And we were like, what are you talking about? Then we talked with them for 30 minutes. It was fantastic! 

I can't wait to help everyone pack, and I'll definitely keep all of you in my prayers, but should I pray that we'll find someone to rent the house or buy it? Also, do you think maybe you could find someone for me to teach and then we can just eat after we visit President Freckleton? 

I'm glad the car didn't get towed at Kumens graduation, I started reading that part and the first thought that came to my head was, "I wonder if the car got towed...." 

Thank you for sharing those quotes with me dad, I really like them! I think that's a good way to describe one of the things I've learned. Not to toss the importance of planning a lesson, but lessons I've taught have gone much better when I've been spiritually prepared and been doing well with the 'righteous routines' and not prepared an actual lesson plan than when I have prepared a lesson plan and haven't been spiritually prepared. Spiritual preparation doesn't just come during the personal study in the morning either! It's in the weeks and months you spend constantly striving to do what you're supposed to. 

My personal opinion on why the Lord wants us to move to Colorado is this. There is a person or persons there that are ready for the gospel, or ready to come back to it, and our family is the Lords way of making it happen. I think it's interesting that you found out you were leaving practically immediately after Sarah and Kate got baptized. There's a Sarah and a Kate and maybe even a Rachel or Mallory or Makenna in Colorado waiting for our family!

News for the week......everything fell through and almost no one was home the whole week. But we did find a lady that when we asked her if she was religious and she said no and we asked why and she said I don't know! Then we gave her a Book of Mormon, explained a little of the restoration, and she asked us if we were going to co e back to pick it up and we were like no, and she got super excited and asked if we were going to come follow up with her to see if she'd been able to read and we were like, uh, yeaaaahhhhhh!!! That was really awesome. In other news.........Thursday night, President called to release me as a Zone Leader, and Saturday night I got the call to go to La Habra, Love you Dad!

Hunter

P.S. Can you ask the family to please not write anything about me going home in their letters? I know it's probably hard, but in these last few weeks, I don't want it to be any harder than it needs to be. :)

Wow, that's nuts! Why were you selected? Do you know why yet? Weren't you going to be there for 4-5 years? Well this was quite a surprise! We can totally drive 4 vehicles up and then have three people drive back down that would be a blast! It is sad to be leaving Texas when we were expecting to be there a while. The thought that I had is that the Lord wants our family in Colorado Springs! I love our family so much, and I know the Lords hand has been in all of our moves. I can't wait to help you pack up! I guess I can joke with President that I'm getting transferred to Colorado! Will you find some non-members for me to teach when I get back before I get released? That would be fantastic. I'll be more careful on my bike, I was just taking a golden opportunity! I'm the first person to stop and talk to people, but these hills were so steep that not even people were walking on them! It was crazy! I love the lyrics to the song, I think that's one of the simplest ways to be a missionary! 

So the family!! Not yesterday, but last Sunday, we were visiting a former, and they weren't there so we knocked on 2 doors around them in a complex. The mom came to the door and said they were Catholic and one of the daughters yelled that from behind as well. Then we said something and they ended up accepting a Book of Mormon and inviting us in and giving us brownies and we set up a return appointment for yesterday! Woohoooooo!!!!! So we went back yesterday with some brownies we had made and just talked with them about a mission and prophets and revelation, and ended up teaching a big part of the restoration and it was awesome and they had awesome questions and they brought up stuff like they have problems with some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church  and it was just incredible!!! We spent a lot of time emphasizing the Book of Mormon and invited them to is presentation called Christ in the Americas where brother Linford presents all this artifact y'all and historical evidences that support the things that the Book of Mormon talks about and he has the most powerful testimony of the savior and its incredible. And ye said ye would come to it!!! So I am super duper excited for that. I'm so excited for where that is going to go. :) 

Love you so much!

Hunter

So glad you enjoyed Sarah's baptism, that sounds like an absolutely incredible experience. I did read the talk by Packer, and I'm still reading it over again, there's so much in it, I love it! Thank you so much! The one standing around wasn't watching it, it had been his companion. He just said, well, I'm not even going to bother trying to hide it." He's such a good guy, but good guys do dumb things. We didn't really even reprimand them. We told them they knew what they were doing was wrong and talked about being on a mission and how it's the only chance we have to serve the Lord like this. The one elder that was standing brushing his teeth has had a bunch of bad comp and is just completely unmotivated. He has a rough background and is basically the only active member in his family and he just wants to be done. We just talked to him about how he was doing and then helped them take their tv out to the dump. In southern Cali, everyone gets rid of everything by putting it by the dump. Couches, tv's, fridges, cabinets, beds, bikes, you name it. All the kids would love it! It's so easy to be disobedient here. Everything is just given to you. I told president, not the details, and told him we had taken care of it. 

Hahaha, this week we got Quran bashed! It was funny. We Tracted a lot, and are just trying as hard as we can to find people. Lots of tracting. Yay! I love it! It's so much fun. Last night we knocked on a door and the mom pulled the 'we're Catholic' card and was about to shut the door, then we said something and we ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and went in and talked with their family for 15 minutes or so and they gave us brownies (not weed brownies) and said we could come back on Sunday. It was awesome! That's about all that happened this week. I'll try to think of some other things. Love you!

Hunter 

PS  Ooh! On Tuesday we went on bike again. We went 46 miles including some of the steepest hills in the mission! I was accelerating super fast down a hill and when I hit 45 mph I chickened out and hit my brakes because it was really fast. I would've gone 60 easy. It was really fun!

This week was alright. We continued to have crazy bible bashers everywhere.  All the prom stuff and concerts sound fun and exciting! You're looking good dad! And mom just looks the same as always! Thanks for the talk! I can't wait to read through it and all the things you outlined and stuff! The rest of my week was basically exchanges. We went on three and this week we're doing three. It's pretty exhausting. We dropped nearly everyone in our teaching pool. We have 6 investigators now. C, who is going to Denmark for 9 weeks, S who we haven't met, but have an appointment for next Friday, C and L, two sisters we are going to pass to the family Ward b/c one has a kid and it just makes sense for them to be together, D who is a nut case, and M

who we are pretty sure has problems with his, um, orientation, and isn't interested in our view on the law of chastity. So we are working hard to just find people! I love finding people! I'll send you a video of a finding method we tried out a couple days ago. I've also started talking in an Australian accent in door approaches and 2/2 times I've been invited into the house and left after having given them book of Mormons! Someone driving a truck tried to run me over. Also we walked into a missionaries apartment to drop off cookies and found them watching Rocky on a big TV at 11:30 in the morning. One elder was in the shower and the other was half dressed brushing his teeth and both their beds were in front of the tv. So we had a talk with them, it was actually very spiritually uplifting and helped them to remove the tv. So that's all the fun and exciting stuff that happened this week! Love you!

Hunter

Hey all, this week was pretty hum drum except that we had people wanting to bible bash with us all the live long day, it was ridiculous. It's all well and fine to disagree with someone else's beliefs but jeez, please. Stoooooooop! So if anyone has any questions about what Mormons believe or think that something we believe is freaky or something, please ask me about it! Most things are twisted or blown out of proportion and I love clarifying things. Here's some pictures for the week!

We biked a lot. :) There was this one hill (that's the last picture) I hit 40 mph going down, it was great! Talk about a thrill.......