April 28, 2014- 5 month anniversary

April 28, 2014

Dear everyone, I

So It turns out that the only ones leaving the area are Elder Davies, the Australian, and me. Elder Davies is going to be the new Assistant to the President. It has been good serving here and I will miss some of the people here. But I am looking forward to change and new experiences. Transfers is tomorrow.

So we saw Tumelo on Friday. We decided to give him one last chance. He said he would come to church on Sunday and we decided to fast with him about finding an answer. We never saw or heard from him. Tisk tisk... But something good did happen on Sunday. An investigator, Desmond, surprised us and came to church. We were very happy to see him. He liked it and was very grateful that we found him. One of the members took him and went to one of the classes with him which was good. He seems like a very sincere person and I am confident that he will get baptised one day.

Today, Freedom Day is being celebrated. So... happy Freedom Day. I'm sure I will have much to say next week after all of the changes.

- Elder Johnson

Parts of letters to Michael’s parents:

Desmond came to church thankfully. Wow! it sounds like it has been a great week! I am proud of Jessica!

Letter from Michael 4-22-3014- Happy Easter

Letter from Michael 4-22-3014- Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone!

Boy, Easter here lasts a few days. It has be so quiet around because everyone is out of town in the village or something. It has made having people to teach difficult. We have tried harder to find little acts of service which has had some success. We did find some people that we can teach this week. Last week was very good as far as recent convert/less active work though. On Easter Sunday we finally visited Sister Jackina for a 2nd time. She is a recent convert who has been less active but is starting to attend church more often. We had a good lesson with her about being steadfast and immovable and also about Easter of course. We fed her spiritual food and she fed us food food. 

On Sunday we sang in the sacrament meeting in the Seshego chapel. We sang our mission song and they loved it. We went back to our chapel and missed an hour but got to watch the Priesthood session. The DVD stopped working after Elder Oaks talk though. It was a powerful talk about the priesthood. Cynthia had a lot of questions about the priesthood and I think Elder Oaks talk can help a lot. After we got to watch the women session of conference. It is so much different from Priesthood session. It was mostly singing but powerful. I could easily feel the Spirit.

Elder and Sister Winward showed us a great Mormon message called "Because of Him." I loved it! The church is really taking advantage of technology and resources. It was inspiring. Yesterday we had a zone activity. One of the Zone leaders was sick so we got put in charge. We played sports on a field in Westenburg. It was a lot of fun. Last week we went zip-lining which was a blast! Anyway, it is great serving here in Polokwane with Elder Haynes. He has been a great companion. Most likely he will be leaving and I see. We will have to see though.

- Elder Johnson

Parts of his letter to his mom: No, I have not died eggs yet. Perhaps when I can afford them though.  We don't use the bikes so much. I teach sometimes at church.

Parts of his letter to his dad: We have not seen that couple again yet. We will though. I forgot to write that Pheladi and Koena surprisingly came to church on Sunday. Too bad the mother, Frengie, did not come though. Teaching was slow because no one was around for the holidays but it will pick up. By the way, driving a manual has gotten much better. It is fun and I like it. The mission is gradually replacing all of the manuals with automatic. So I will be driving automatics after I have just gotten the hang of manual.

April 14, 2014 (Second Week of April)

April 14, 2014 (Second Week of April)

Still no General Conference. Next Sunday we will have the Priesthood session and the Lady session at the church. As far as the work we are trying to sift the wheat for serious investigators. So most of the old ones we don't have anymore. We still have Tumelo though. He is reading the Book of Mormon but we are struggling to get him to church.

We met some new people to teach. It is an unmarried couple with a friend. We have taught them twice. They made a commitment but they have a lot to be taught and a long ways to go. They were very good lessons and this will bless their lives.

We may go zip-lining today. We will see. Also might get to play sports for the first time since New Year Day. I'm excited! Cynthia is still doing well and is very strong. She was so prepared when we came here. All we had to do with her is give her some truth and light. She is self motivated which is great. We taught her about the priesthood last week.

- Elder Johnson

parts of letter to his mom:  We are trying to find a new set of people to teach though. Tumelo is kinda still hanging in there though. He is the only investigator we still have who is far in the lessons.The pictures of the animals fighting did not turn out.

Parts of letter to his dad: The elephant was heading right towards us. That is great that Calvin cought 8 fish! That is a lot! Tell him I said good job

(the elephant picture from last week)

Cub wearing a hat

Paparazzi and the famous elephant

4-8-2014- Confirmation and Kruger National Park

Letter from Michael 4-8-2014  (Confirmation and Kruger National Park)

This Sunday Cynthia was confirmed a new member of the church. It was nice. Her father did the confirmation and we gave her the "New Member Kit." I forgot to tell you that President Omer gave a challenge for everyone to have at least one baptism in the month of March. Not every companionship got a baptism but there was enough baptisms in the mission for each of them to have them. I think there were 106 baptisms in the mission during March. I thought that was cool and President was quite pleased with the results. This week wasn't super great or bad either. We found a father lead family to teach. We found them when we started tracting in Peninna Park again. We were supposed to see them Sunday night but they got busy and were robbed early in the morning that Sunday. We had a powerful lesson with Johannes about the Book of Mormon. He was excited to start reading it and said he would read 2 hours a day. But he also said he would come to church... Next time we will see what is up.

On April 1st we got pranked by the Seshego Elders in our flat. They put all of our bedroom stuff in the living room and then the living room furniture in our bedroom.I have some pictures of it. Then we gave out flat keys to the Zone Leaders who got Seshego as back for us. All of a sudden pranking was awful from their perspective. Some people can give it but can't take it. It was funny. They also put some goldfish in the flat that we found. One died that night and then the other died in the chlorinated bath tub a few days later. We were going to give the fish to a member named Eddy.

Kruger National Park was amazing. Brother Sekhula paid for snacks, drinks, a ton of food, and the whole works. We saw so many animals and the area is huge. The coolest part was seeing Crocodiles kill and eat a zebra. So so violent but quite the experience. We saw hippos finally. Two of them were fighting to the death. We saw Elephants for the first time. At this place we we're not allowed to get out off the cars. This is a great mission for teaching and Preparation Days.

- Elder Johnson

Part of Michael’s letter to his mom:

Precious was confirmed last week because her boarding school was probably not going to let her come for  a while. We won't watch conference at the church here til 2 week later. We did see some of Sunday session. We saw some of the Prophet, Elder Holland, a lady, and Neil L. Anderson. Great talks!