Dear wonderful people,
Wanna hear something cool? The other day, Elder Reynolds and I were confidently walking down the street when a man sitting on a bench stopped us and started talking to us. Three things about this man, 1.He was Muslim 2. He had a huge beard 3. He wanted to bash with us. He talked at us (not to us) for 15 straight minutes and would not let us get a word in or let us walk away. He thought he knew what we believed in as Latter Day Saints but he didn't really. The points he was using to bash us weren't even what we believed in anyways, so we both just stood there and smiled at this man trying not to cut in and be like, "Yo, homie, we don't believe any of this stuff you are trying to prove us wrong on!" But as we left you could tell he was feeling really good about himself that he "bashed" us. As an Eagle Scout, I figured I would do my good turn for the day and let him keep thinking that.
We did Church Tours again this last week. Usually we get a lot of people that want to come in and use our bathroom or get warm, but this time we met a girl that goes to the college here in the Bronx and she seems legit! During the tour of the church I kept feeling the prompting to bring up prophets. So I asked her, "If there was prophets back in Bible times and God loves all his children the same, wouldn't he give us a prophet to lead and guide us today?" That question basically blew her mind. She was dumbfounded with every point we talked about from then on. We are hopefully going to teach her this next week. I am excited because even with all the people here, not many are "actually" interested in our church, finding legit investigators here is hard to come by.
Our apartment is infested with cockroaches, so Elder Davidson likes to catch them. As missionaries, we aren't supposed to have animals as pets but cockroaches are hardly animals, so we have two of them. Their names are Wall-E and Randall. Well.... Randall is dead. All of a sudden, Randall wasn't moving and had no legs. We examined closer and Wall-E was much, much bigger than before. R.I.P. Randall.
We had the opportunity to help 2 ladies move this last week. Moving people out and into apartments here is a lot more fun because their furniture doesn't fit in the elevator. Moving couches up and down 5 floors of stairs is saaaaweeet!
Our bishop, Bishop Merkley is the coolest. He is a young guy. If we knew each other in high school I'm pretty sure we would have been tight. Last Sunday he shared some profound words that have been in the back of my mind ever since. He talked about how a lot of times we don't realize how dim a room is getting until the light goes out. The power to make the light work is always there but it's up to us to make sure the light bulb is working. In other words, "We put the limitations on ourselves of how much we feel Gods love." God is always pouring out his light upon us but it is up to us to not put "limitations" on ourselves to feel of it.
Sooo we have scriptures people! I hope you're all reading them daily. We also have a Prophet people. I hope you're heeding his words. Scriptures are as true as I am white. God reveals his secrets unto his prophets and the prophets have written the direct words from God down in the scriptures. How do we not make time for reading Gods words during our day? How is feeling of God’s love and being directed in the way we should go by using the scriptures NOT at the top of our to-do list?!
Take care and go out and make some memories.
Wanna hear something cool? The other day, Elder Reynolds and I were confidently walking down the street when a man sitting on a bench stopped us and started talking to us. Three things about this man, 1.He was Muslim 2. He had a huge beard 3. He wanted to bash with us. He talked at us (not to us) for 15 straight minutes and would not let us get a word in or let us walk away. He thought he knew what we believed in as Latter Day Saints but he didn't really. The points he was using to bash us weren't even what we believed in anyways, so we both just stood there and smiled at this man trying not to cut in and be like, "Yo, homie, we don't believe any of this stuff you are trying to prove us wrong on!" But as we left you could tell he was feeling really good about himself that he "bashed" us. As an Eagle Scout, I figured I would do my good turn for the day and let him keep thinking that.
We did Church Tours again this last week. Usually we get a lot of people that want to come in and use our bathroom or get warm, but this time we met a girl that goes to the college here in the Bronx and she seems legit! During the tour of the church I kept feeling the prompting to bring up prophets. So I asked her, "If there was prophets back in Bible times and God loves all his children the same, wouldn't he give us a prophet to lead and guide us today?" That question basically blew her mind. She was dumbfounded with every point we talked about from then on. We are hopefully going to teach her this next week. I am excited because even with all the people here, not many are "actually" interested in our church, finding legit investigators here is hard to come by.
Our apartment is infested with cockroaches, so Elder Davidson likes to catch them. As missionaries, we aren't supposed to have animals as pets but cockroaches are hardly animals, so we have two of them. Their names are Wall-E and Randall. Well.... Randall is dead. All of a sudden, Randall wasn't moving and had no legs. We examined closer and Wall-E was much, much bigger than before. R.I.P. Randall.
We had the opportunity to help 2 ladies move this last week. Moving people out and into apartments here is a lot more fun because their furniture doesn't fit in the elevator. Moving couches up and down 5 floors of stairs is saaaaweeet!
Our bishop, Bishop Merkley is the coolest. He is a young guy. If we knew each other in high school I'm pretty sure we would have been tight. Last Sunday he shared some profound words that have been in the back of my mind ever since. He talked about how a lot of times we don't realize how dim a room is getting until the light goes out. The power to make the light work is always there but it's up to us to make sure the light bulb is working. In other words, "We put the limitations on ourselves of how much we feel Gods love." God is always pouring out his light upon us but it is up to us to not put "limitations" on ourselves to feel of it.
Sooo we have scriptures people! I hope you're all reading them daily. We also have a Prophet people. I hope you're heeding his words. Scriptures are as true as I am white. God reveals his secrets unto his prophets and the prophets have written the direct words from God down in the scriptures. How do we not make time for reading Gods words during our day? How is feeling of God’s love and being directed in the way we should go by using the scriptures NOT at the top of our to-do list?!
Take care and go out and make some memories.
-Elder Tyler J Johanson
P.S. Thank you to all those people that pity write me. I really appreciate any letters I get. Even if I don't respond quickly, thatdoesn't mean I don't cherish them. I love getting letters like a fat kid loves cake.
Here are some ole pics that I should've sent a while ago.
Tyler's MTC District
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Tyler and Elder Reynolds
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Elder Reynolds and Elder Johanson with a member.
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