Wet Noodle

Hey, 

I love being a missionary right now! I just have to say I love my companion Elder Judd. It's so nice when you have a companion that's more than just a stranger that you're asked to work with. I consider Elder Judd not just a companion but a friend. I consider him a homie. 

Elder Judd and I steady mobbin on our Mormon Mobiles

Don't even think about stepping into the bowling rink
when we are in our matching bowling jersey hustle 

Transfers are next week. This Saturday is when we get "Shot Calls" to find out who is going and staying. I'm expected to stay with Elder Judd, but you never know.

Sunday was the primary program. The kids of the ward did unreal! Since our ward is English/Spanish the kids would sing one verse in English and the next in Spanish. It takes skills to sing in different languages, just ask Josh Groban or Enrique Iglesias. If Randy Jackson from American Idol were in attendance he would say," S/O to all those primary kids steady mobbin in the Middletown Ward. That was the best program of ALL TIME! Yo, yo, yo, I say one billion quadrillion triceratoptillion percent YES. You dawgs are going to Hollywood!" Seriously tho, these primary kids are good.

Saturday was the ward temple trip and we got permission to go. Elder Judd and I rode down with a member named Brother Hearn. Once at the temple we got to feel of the peacefulness of The Lord’s House. It's been 6 months since I've been able to go (which is a decent amount in this mission). I was hoping to do an Endowment Session. Instead, we helped do confirmations which was a good experience too. Of all the things I've experienced in New York, the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, the bums on the street... The temple is without a doubt my favorite thing about the city. Covenants >>>City Life

Zone conference was this last weekend. There was four zones that attended our conference. The whole conference was great. We started out talking about Jesus. Then President did a Q&A, oh my word he is going to be a general authority. I swear by it. President Morgan was able to give some of the most Spirit inducing answers I've ever heard. The bad news is during the zone conference he switched the rule for music, now we can only listen to EFY and Motab.... :( it's going to be so hard. I thought the rule before was already hard enough. It will be ok tho because EFY has been stepping up its music game the last couple of years.

In the afternoon part of conference we were split up into 10 groups. They gave each group the assignment to create a 5 minute video on the IPads about why we believe in Christ. We were given 2 hours to create the video. Most of them turned out pretty good. It was an innovative way to declare why we believe in Christ. Zone conferences are always the cat’s pajamas. 

Elder Judd and I teach a member in the ward that has been inactive for many many years. Missionaries have gone over there for months and will share with him a quick message about Jesus, or a rundown of what they talked about in church. He has appreciated it but more than anything I think he has just liked the company and the missionaries have liked his company so he doesn't really progress. We love the guy but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. We decided to start teaching him the lessons like he was a new investigator that new nothing about the church. We taught him about The Restoration. The spirit was strong as we testified. We asked if he remembered praying about Joseph smith when he met with missionaries 15 or so years ago and he said he hadn't. This man was baptized and never had a testimony of Joseph Smith! No wonder he is inactive. We invited him to pray about Joseph Smith and last night we met with him again. He explained how he felt so good and peaceful when he prayed. We explained that the feelings he had were The Spirit. He said that he had never felt anything like it. It was awesome to help this guy who we love meeting with feel the spirit for the first time. Btw, he offered us coffee and we had to tell him that it was against the word of wisdom. He had never felt the spirit, didn't know if Joseph Smith was a prophet, and thought it wasn't against God’s commandments to drink coffee. I wanna slap whatever missionaries baptized him with a wet noodle. Anyway, next lesson we are going to give it on the Book of Mormon. I will keep you updated. 

Remember how I told you we were meeting with a Buddhist guy that is in training to become a monk? Yeah? Well we went back there to the monastery again and we had another good lesson with him. The first time we met with him we went on a walk through the woods and had one of the deepest discussions about faith. This time when we met with him we talked about how to get in tune spiritually. Our conversations are interesting.  He will explain how he gets in tune spiritually. He said that it is through meditation then he proceeded to teach us how to meditate. Then we taught him about how we pray, which is a practice he was somewhat familiar with because he grew up in a Christian household. Whenever we talk, we have the coolest conversations. It always gets really deep. I'm not talking that we get deep into doctrine or anything like that but we get deep in the basic doctrine like faith, or prayer. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, gave him a copy, and invited him to read it. We are pretty confident that he will because finding out the way of life is basically his only way of life at the monastery. Haha. When we were conversing he said something that I thought was sick/poetic, he said," God isn't something to be believed in or not believed in. God is something to be experienced." I will end my letter right now and let that one bake your noodle.

Have a good week.

Elder Tyler J Johanson