He said I am LEGENDARY? Hardly!

well, well, well, another week gone past, and another girl for the cutlers!
Welp, Things are still going well over here! We get transfer news this Saturday!! ITS GONNA BE NUTS! I'm so nervous i've hit the 6 month mark in this area and thats usually the time they start to mix it up. So we shall see.... I told paul to find you all on Facebook, apparently he has! That's sweet. He got a kick out of my pj picture! haha This week we have an uber conference party weekend planned!! COnference starts at 6 o' clock on saturday night sooooo.... we are going to go watch conference then go to our favorite all you can eat sushi place and chow and reminesce on the awesomeness that was the first session of conference. SO we're pretty pumped about that. As far as investigators who will attend we should have around 10 checking it out. We just met these two new guys who stay in the same flat as David, One of our congolese investigators. And the new guys are super pumped to learn more about the gospel and They both said they wanted to come and watch a session of conference. so that will be awesome! On even crazier news... one of our investigator families is GOING TO CONFERENCE. I don't mean to the chapel to watch it on the screen, I mean going to salt lake and being there! haha Unfortunately they are eternal investigators and the dad is a pretty high-ranking guy at SABC and knows Jacob Zuma and what not. So the church is paying for them to go. IT's pretty crazy. So we'll see maybe it will change things for them!
Ya i was just thinking the other day about how it was only a year ago we all went to Conference. And how could i forget the spooning..... legend. haha
CONFERENCE IS GONNA BE SO SWEET THIS YEAR!!! I just can't get over it.
By the way i had my 10 month birthday on saturday! Pretty crazy eh? I'm entering into the "dog days" of mission, It's pretty crazy. I think i have the endurance to plow through though! haha
Oh and speaking of indian food. We went to this indian family's house for dinner on saturday night. it was soooooo good! it blew my mind.
Oh and i can now make bunny chow! which is a south african/indian favorite. So When i get home i shall make them for you all. IT's incredible it's pretty much curry inside of a breadbowl. it rocks.
As far as our other investigators go though... everything is ok thus far. Eve Is still doing well. She is one of two investigators in edenvale. All of our other ones are in Bedfordview.
And Joseph and Gertrude are doing well. Gertrude came to church again and enjoyed it and Joseph is going to come to Conference so i'm pretty pumped about that! :)
And all of the recent converts are rolling along. Siyanda is doing awesome, so is delicate and Paul and frank and mary are kicking it as well. So things are all good. :)
WEll i guess in my final words for this email i would just like to thank Mom for using the word "DOOF" in her last email. It was Legendary. Thank you.
The Church is True.
Have a Good week!
-elder johnson


These are pictures of the recent baptism in Edenvale and Bedfordview. Michael looks so happy! I love the short hair!
Paul and Michelle feed the boy regularly and have recently made contact with me through FB and email. I can't wait to hear of their progress in the gospel.

Elder Johnson is LOVIN the Mission!

Hello family!
I'm writing you for the first time on a wednesday! The internet cafe was giving us fits the last couple of days and we couldn't email so we had to come today and give it a go! So far, so good!
DUDES it sounds like the broncos are kicking some serious booty. IT makes me happy. Hopefully that trend continues!
Just as the broncos are doing well, so are we!
We had 5 confirmations for the 5 baptisms that we had last week. So that was nice! As well we had 2 priesthood ordinations for Paul and Frank! And that was when the awesome experience for this week occurred! So... we ordained paul first. And then After we ordained paul he got an early start in excersizing his priesthood and he got to stand in on the circle when we ordained frank! It was so awesome! Those guys are gonna be awesome priesthood holders! i can already tell! I've said it before and i'll say it again now... I really hope i'll be in Gauteng when those couples get sealed so i can go!! It would be amazing.
As well Eve Continues to do well. It is so great to be in an area where the ward members will fellowship the investigators who come to church. I wasn't so lucky in nelspruit! But the relief society in Edenvale is doing a dyn-o-mite job! Everytime i would go to check to see how she was doing there was another sister in the ward speaking with her. And eve is LOVING church! haha it's great.
As well the new father led family we were teaching (joseph and Gertrude) are doing well! Gertrude came to church and i think she enjoyed it.
As far as tracting goes we asked president about it because we havent been doing it because it's been so ineffective. and he actually told us to just keep doing what we're doing in just focusing on getting the members involved with the Family Mission Plan and stuff like that. Cause that's where we've been finding success! So we are continuing the work with the members!
I AM SO PUMPED FOR THAT PACKAGE! Elder leve got his yesterday and all i could think about was how pumped i was to be getting mine! :)
AND congratulations to Sydnie on her retirement! that is so exciting!
I shall have a small celebration on that day in commemoration!
But mostly i just hope you all know and always remember how great of a blessing it is to have the gospel in our lives, I gave a talk about Prophets and the Restoration and just closed it by giving the Joseph Smith story as if i was teaching an investigator, it was awesome! everytime i tell that story the spirit repeats more and more to me that it is indeed true! :)
So just remember that!
have a great week!
I love you all so much!
-elder johnson
By the way david, you should have your mom remind me again of some of the members she knows out here in case i run into any of them!

FIVE Baptisms!

hello family. Greetings from Bedfodview!
We had the 5 baptisms yesterday! I personally baptized paul & siyanda!
So that was awesome! That "you know you're from south africa" thing was great and sooo true!! i just saw a strike at a store the other day and they were dancing and singing outside of the store. it was hilarious.
Well i'm not too concerned about the bears. i'm just glad that the broncos did awesome! :) And my alma mater! haha
But ya things are still rocking here. We are having an awesome time! we had a killer appointment with eve. I was on exchanges with elder cunningham a s. african from Durban. It was sweet. We dropped a total spirit bomb on her and testified hardcore. The spirit was incredible. She is just soaking it all up like a sponge! it's awesomness.
We also are finding new people to teach all the time. it's great.
The work is just moving along! it's sweet. I'm excited today we are having a zone p-day activity so it will be fun. WE're gonna play games at the church and just hang out. It's gonna be cool.
But ya back to the baptisms.... IT was soooo awesome! Paul has seriously been one of my favorite investigators it was such a priviledge to get to baptize him and he is so happy and so thankful. He is going to be so blessed as he continues to live the gospel. And siyanda is one of the most incredible turnaround stories i've ever had! I don't know if we told you this but she is like 4 months pregnant and used to be quite the party girl. But once we started teaching her she just dropped everything and has totally turned a 180 it's so awesome. She's been great to teach!
And then i've already told you delicates story! and then frank and mary are just awesome. they rock. They are the sweetest, nicest, and most humble people i've ever met. They were sooo ready for the gospel. And it was awesome to get to be part of the baptism of a husband and wife. And they are super pumped to go to the temple in a year!!! :)
SO... overall im on a super high right now. IT's radical. But now we gotta get back to work and find more peeps to keep the momentum going!
And i am so excited for matt westover! that's sweet he's going down south!! But not as south as i am!!!
haha

Welp we gotta get going here pretty soon we need to be at the chapel in 20 minutes. So I'll talk to you all later!
oh and did my package get sent yet?? I'm uber psyched about it. I haven't had post besides a doctors bill from when i got food poisoning!
WElp have a most bodacious week! Cause i know that i will!
love you all, thanks so much for your prayers and support!

-elder johnson

The Work Keeps Rollin!

hello family....
Well, thanks for the financial update. Those one's sound legit. Alot of it is because when i was with elder douglas we got a speeding ticket and they take it from our allotment. That and the fact that we ate out way too much. So i'll work on that. BTW... speaking of de molen and nando's and romans You guys have got to have that stuff.... it's awesome. Nando's is the best chicken in the world and de molen's is a little pancake shop that we hit once a transfer for when people leave the area. The PNP one is a Grocery Store so that was just getting groceries, I also had to take some out today because i'm out of monies and i need to dry clean some ties and slacks. I will certainly do a much better job of managing my funds, When our new alotment comes in this saturday! I'll be sure to budget things out and make it nice. But ya, it's pretty bomb being able to stay here in the B'fordview/edenvale area for a bit longer. Unfortunately david won't be ready for the baptisms in september he's been sick 2 sundays in a row and has missed so we're gonna wait. But The other 5 are still on track! So we'll plan on that! It will double my total amount of baptisms so far! :)
Anyways, this week was pretty interesting... i have just gotten over a cold and now i'm having stomach problems.... pretty sweet eh? It's ok though. It should be better by tomorrow.
HOLY MOLY! The bsu season starts this week!! I think that if they win you should let me know in DETAIL! And if they lose just don't say anything. Because i might get depressed and need to come home so i can personally see to it that bsu salvages their season.... haha jk.
I guess you can tell me. But i will take it quite hard.
As far as the work over here goes.... things are still rolling. We met this awesome lady named Marjorie last week. She's a white lady who for some reason got reffered to the Alexandra Elders. Needless to say she is now ours. White South Africans and Township don't mix too nicely! :)
But she's been really cool so far. IS realy interested in stuff like baptisms for the dead and the plan of salvation. So we're pretty pumped about what lies in store for her!
As well the rest of them are doing great. Paul and Michelle took us out to dinner on thursday to an all you can eat pizza place called pannorattis! It's like R 30 for all you can eat pizza. Which would be like 4 bucks back home! So that was lekker.
And Frank and MAry are doing ok. The only problem is that frank keeps getting jobs so we never get to see him. Hopefully Business will slow down a tad so we can finish up teaching them! We had a fireside this week to help get members pumped about mission work. It actually went really well. We spent a lot of time preparing and working on it. We made a powerpoint and everything. Anyways it will yield results for sure. We have a few people with refferals for us already!
So i'm super excited! If the missionaries are not working with the ward back in boise they need to. That is the only way to get things done. Do the missionaries even come and meet with you(dad) and ask about what they can do and what your expectations are as far as their work goes? In chapter 13 of pmg it talks alot about working with ward and stake leaders and it is seriously the most effective and best way to work in the wealthier areas of the world. In our area we can work our booties off and tract all day long and still not be effective missionaries. However in township they can do the same and have loads of success. That's one thing elders need to start realizing that you need to adjust the work the area that they're in. It's then that you really start to have success. So if they haven't chatted with you and developed some sort of mission plan for the ward then jump on them for it. haha
Welp i think that's about it for me. Have a great week! I love you all a bunch thanks so much for the support and prayers!

-elder johnson