Elder Treyden Johnson Happy 4th!

Well its getting hotter and hotter here in eugene, and it feels great to get a little sun and not be in the rain all the time. This last week has been pretty amazing, and the lord has blessed us so much. My new companion who I am training is Elder Bradham from Atlanta Georgia. He is a really smart guy, out here for the right reasons with his head on straight. He is down to work hard, and have fun like myself. Right from the get go Him and I have been seeing some blessings when it comes to the work. We found two families, the Kellys, and the Freemans, who are less active with unbaptized children. With sister Kelly we have been teaching her and her son Dieter for the past week and they came to church last sunday. Sister Kelly loved being back, and her son Dieter has a baptismal date for July, we cant wait. Sunday was amazing, there were 8 investigators at church and we sure had our hands full. This gentleman John Green who we have been working with for ever finally came to church, and is reading the book of mormon. The whole Washington family came to church, and the mom Katie told her husband at church that she wants to work on getting baptized, we were so stoked! Also the Stapletons came to church, and I had a wonderful talk with Andy Stapleton man to man, and It was way spiritual and we are great friends. Andy is getting re-baptized then we are going to baptize his wife and kid, so we have been teaching them a lot about eternal families and getting them to the temple. Working with each of these individuals has shown me how much God loves each and every one of us. I look at all the people we work with, and try and help, and I realize I have a sincere love for each and everyone of them, and I can't even fathom how much more love God has for us. 
         Ok this was the miracle of the week. The other day, i was thinking of a lot, like honestly and the spirit of the lord hit me so strong. I just realized how lucky i was to have a family, and the knowledge of the gospel. In prayer i started to plead with the lord and I got way emotional. I was asking where to go, how to find more people who need this message. Honestly pleading. I received two distinct answers in my thoughts. I heard the words.. "Just go and do", and then "Marcola".  Marcola is a town twenty minutes out of eugene, that is in our ward boundries. I have been wanting to check it out for a while. So marcola it was, on saturday we set aside some time to run up there and follow the spirit. As we got to marcola we parked on a street, and also we had a map of the town. We prayed and in the prayer i asked god where on the map should we go. Right when the prayer was over, my eyes were drawn to queen street on the edge of the map. We knocked a few doors where we were at, but then headed over there. We knocked everydoor on queen street with much faith and diligence, and nothing. I thought thought we came to that street for a reason so we stuck around. We were about to leave, then right across the main street of queen street we saw a house on stilts by a river? We were thinkin, should we knock it or just leave? We knocked it, and Mom what I tell you is true. We knock, and a little girl answers, but runs around the house. She brings out her mom, and we start chatting a bit about who we were and our message. Another teenage girl came out and said she has been talking to missionaries since she was like 8? As we were trying to pull the pieces together the father came out. I thought he was going to shew us away, but once i brought up that we were known as the mormons, he said hey im mormon too! We were like yeah? thats awesome. this guy's name was jimmey, and he told us he was been trying to find missionaries to come up to marcola. He hasnt been to church in years, and there family doesnt have money to get down to the valley to church. He said, he was like lost? Then he said yeah, my two kids are baptized but my other two are not, and I want them to be baptized, and my wife to be baptized as well so we can go to the temple. I look at my comp with a dropped jaw! We knew we were led to this family. Jimmy went on by telling us he has been trying to teach his wife but couldn't so we set up a time to meet on wednesday! Mom the spirit is real, God doesnt tell us exactly where to go. He doesn't hand things to us, but he leads us, and it is up to us if we want to continue to seek what he has in store for us. Always seek, and find out what god wants you to find. Oh and yesterday haha, there was this really drunk lady who came running up to us, asking us if we were virgins. We tried to revert the conversations to more teaching her about the gospel, and it got way serious. She like started to trust us so much, and told us like everything! I dont know if it was the spirit telling her to tell us or the alcohol talking haha. She told us even though she was drinking she wanted to change, and for us to teach her. We have a lesson with her tonight!
           Things are going great, and I am still loving this area and my companion. Eugene is still radical, and I hope I can stay in this area for ever haha.  Love you all!
           
Elder Treyden Johnson

Elder Estrada

Nick saw Jose at a mission conference. Don't they look great?!



although they both say they've gotten fat

Elder Ward

My very first facial Yay!!


Sister Flora's baptism

  This morning, April 28, I got a call from president Chan.  That always starts your heart beating fast!  He has called me to be the new Distribution Coordinator for the mission.  Tonight I will pack my things and tomorrow morning the APs will come pick me up to go to the mission home so I can start training.  I don't know exactly all it entails, but I do know that form Monday to Friday I will be in the mission home doing office work, Saturday and Sundays I'll be in International proselyting, I get to drive, I will live in the temple and I'll become a District Leader!  I have mixed feelings about this as I will miss the people in Aberdeen, but I'll go where the Lord wants me to go.
   The first week in the office has been pretty crazy!  We had to run all over Hong Kong to get my drivers license and check out some apartments.  On Satuday i did my first day of international missionary work, which is completely different from Chinese work.  Most of the people we talk to are domestic workers from the Phillippines or Indonesia and most all of them are women.  We're speaking English, Cantonese, Tagalog...well some of are speaking those languages!  I stick mostly with English!
   We had a huge youth conference with youth coming from all over for meetings and activities.  An EFY band called National Tribute came all the way from the States to play most of the music we've been listening to on our iPods since we went into the MTC!  But it was cool to have so much going on.  We had dinner with Pres. and Sister Chan in their apartment in the temple...pretty weird to be living across the hall from your mission president!  Got to help orient new missionaries on Wednesday.  It was fun to see how excited and nervous they were and to remember that i was just like that about a year ago.
   This week we've been moving furniture and i've been driving a big white van, on the wrong side of the road!  I've also been getting lots of exercise lifting furniture into and out of tiny elevators.  Office work is a different aspect of missionary work.  instead of spending the majority of our time on the streets sharing the gospel, we are serving the missionaries and doing things behind the scenes.  The Lord is blessing us in all we do, especially on the days we get to go out to proselyte.  We are getting lots of referrals from members and have 4 solid baptismal dates now. 
  Wow - i've been living in Hong Kong for an entire year (May 25).  I used to thing one year was a long time, but it's beginning to seem shorter and shorter.  A lot has happened in that year.  I've gotten used to eating just about anything, whether it swims, or crawls, or flies; whether it has bones, no bones, fat, or cartilage.  I've kind of learned a new language; i'm meeting loads of new people from just as many different countries, and I've done my best to share the Restored Gospel with them.  I've seen miracles; i've received blessings and i've seen the lives of others change because they accepted the gospel.  Sister Flora was baptized last Sunday.  She was so excited and ready.  My companion, Elder Cheong baptized her. 
   Elders Holland and Bednar were in Hong Kong this week.  They each gave some powerful talks and shook hands with all of us.  Elder Bednar even came into our apartment (he was having dinner with Pres and Mrs Chan) and talked with us for a bit.  Pretty cool to meet two Seers and Revelators.  We are pretty lucky, not to mention all the things they taught us in the two days there were here.  We are really blessed.

Elders Johnson and Matesen

Pre-mission photo with Carson

They wrote us Rysers! Here's what they said:

Aaron: "Things are going great for me here in Surprise. I am still in the same area, going on 9 months (my entire mission). I am perfectly fine with staying in this area for so long. I love the wards and the people we are working with." Aaron's own address is 18001 North 79th Ave. Ste C50, Glendale, AZ 85308

Max: "Chile is amazing and the time is flying by in the mission! I'm loving the mission and although it's a daily fight, we're on the winning side and it has been a huge testimony builder."

Elders Estrada and Ryser

Elder Pinnock

Laura combined a few emails to summarize David's Mexican adventures:

I made it! I am finally here in Mexico and I feel good! President Call and his wife are terrific people and I am sure I will learn a lot from them. When I arrived in Mexico we were driving from the airport to the mission home and we got pulled over by the police, it was awesome because President Call said, “How much should I bribe him with?”

My companion is Elder Tun and he's great. He doesn't speak English and is really good with people on the street. I took a shower with a bucket of water (we don't have hot water). I was laughing to myself the entire time because I actually liked doing it. Sometimes we don't even have water in the morning but then I just say, "Who needs baths?". I love the Mexican culture. On Preparation Day we wash our clothes by hand which is also a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I don't mean to brag but I am not too bad at washing clothes with my hands. I think you would loose your mind mom if you saw our home. I love it though, I love everything about this place, Mexico is the best!

I ate fried fish heads yesterday and they were super duper! We have been eating a lot of good food but it is mostly just beans, rice and always tortillas. We always eat with the members here at 2:00 and they are so nice to do it, some of these people have nothing to give but they find some way to get food for us.

This past Sunday I played the piano for the church here (thanks for the simplified hymns mom). I really enjoyed it. Never thought I would enjoy playing the piano.

This past week has been a burner. It is getting hotter and hotter and my sleep has really been suffering. Last Monday I finally lost it and gave myself a buzz and as the picture can testify my companions thought it was a good idea and followed up right behind me to cut their hair. It is kinda funny too, with less hair I have found more strength to work in the sun.

A couple of days ago Elder Tun and I received a referral who lives on the outskirts of town. It took us an hour and a half to walk there, and much to our disappointment they wouldn't answer the door. I guess the referral might have been a bad one. But when we were out there we decided to track a little in the area. I am not going to lie, the area was beautiful, few people and only open fields (without trash). We didn't have much success but I still love talking to people on the street. Later during the week we tried to find one of our investigators that completely fell of the grid. Her name is Ceci and she was coming to church reading a praying and already had an answer to her prayers. She is not at her work, there is no one at her home. It's like she died. I will definitely be praying to find her this week with my companion.

Make sure all you people in America realize that you are all spoiled and that you are also missing out. I wouldn't be anywhere else right now, I love the people, busses, stores, building, I love the dirt! You all are going to have a tuff time getting my back to America in a year and a half. Good luck!

Hang Loose with Elder Menlove

Wow what an amazing week! I don't even know where to begin. First of all, we had a baptism on Saturday! His name is Kiely Kalani Lloyd. It went great! He's a 17 year old and called us last minute wanting to be baptized. We had a beautiful service and he was confirmed on Easter Sunday along with his friend who was baptized 2 weeks ago. I couldn't have asked for a better Easter Weekend.



Saturday night was also the Hanalei Branch Luau! We ate poi, raw fish, kalua turkey, Laulau, Squid Luau, and Coconut cake! One of the branch members, Brother Colburn, is a professional entertainer and he brought his band to play for the event. His daughters did Tahitian and Hula dancing and he did fire-knife dancing as the finale! It was awesome! Easter Sunday was great. We attended the Hanalei Branch and Elder Miller gave a talk. It was an incredible week! We worked our tails off and found 3 new investigators. We have a couple more baptisms scheduled for May so hopefully everything keeps working out well!
Today we woke up at 5 and went fishing. We hiked down to a beautiful area on North Shore Kauai, and caught 10 fish, an octopus, and a sea turtle! The ocotpus was too cool to part with so we put it in the Zone leader's toilet. Hehe.
As a mission, we have been studying the atonement every day this month, and I have learned so much about the Savior's sacrifice. I don't think there is anything else in the world more important for us to have a testimony about. Without it, we have nothing. To me, the atonement is a very personal thing. I love my Savior and i am so grateful for the things that he did for me. It's nice to have a holdiay to celebrate this, even though we should really be celebrating every single day. I have been thinking lately...am i living my life in such a way that i SHOW the Savior my gratitude for it? It's one thing to say we are grateful for the atonement, and another thing to show Him. I am thankful to be on a mission where i can focus on this every single day and strengthen my testimony of Him.