Send a Knee Mail

K. 

I had the unique and delightful opportunity to go on a split with my current district leader Elder Burton who also happens to be the same chap that I trained that one time. It was awesome being able to spend 24 hours with him. He has grown so much (not necessarily physically. He is still shorter than my shoulders.) in the last year and has gained a lot of confidence as a missionary. 

It was a proud day. We worked super hard running from appointment to appointment in the hot humidity. For some reason nobody here has air conditioning.... How do you live in apartment with no a/c in New York City? So yeah I was sweating bullets the whole day. He spent the day working me into the ground. I guess it's payback for what I did to him last summer haha.  I have gained a lot of appreciation and respect for Elder Burton. I love that guy. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures so I can't prove we went on this split but you will just have to trust me.

Words can't adequately describe this picture.
I just imagine Terio from those YouTube videos
 ninja kicking a hole in the wall haha #OohKillEm

You know you is in da Bronx when people go out

and break the fire hydrants so their kids can play in the water. 

We see this all the time.

I have the blessing of meeting the most interesting people in the world. Unfortunately sometimes you judge the most interesting people in the world. There is a homeless woman by the name of Carol that begs for money and sleeps on the ground in the streets near our chapel. Having people beg us for money here is something that we have on the daily. After a while it kind of gets annoying. Sometimes when I have seen her begging for money I have been annoyed or whatever thinking that she is "just another homeless person in New York City". That was terrible of me. 

This week our church hosted a free clothing drive. Carol came to get some clothes. While there us missionaries talked to her more and got to know her. She shared with us her past and how she used to have a fancy job working in a hotel. The last few years have been rough on her. Hearing her story and finding out about who she really is caused me to have sympathy for her. I had no other choice but to change my view of this woman. Now whenever we see her, which is almost everyday we shout "Hello Carol!" And she smiles back at us and says "Hello Elders! God Bless You!" Carol is truly a wonderful lady. Don't judge guys it's not good. It made me think of the line from that one jam, "Should You Feel Inclined To Censure" when it says, "those of whom we thought unkindly oft become our warmest friends." 

Now that we are back on Facebook there has been talk that people are scared to get back on Facebook. At first I was somewhat scared to get it back because it has been partially nice not to have it the last few months. However, from the time that Elder Wallace and I have first logged on again we have seen some pretty cool stuff happen. There is this phenomenon that often happens in The Bronx that has to do with people switching phones frequently and/or their phones getting shut off. That's where Facebook comes in handy. We have met some legit new potential investigators but none of them have phones that work right now but of course everybody has a Facebook so we have been able to contact them that way. Another thing with Facebook is that some missionaries think that creating posts is a waste of time and doesn't accomplish anything. I enjoy creating posts and I think it does good. Plus if God thought Facebook was a waste of time as missionaries then He probably wouldn't have given Thomas S. Monson the thumbs up that it was kosher. 

We try to target posts at specific people we are working with that way there is more purpose behind it as opposed to us just throwing something up and hoping it inspires someone. This week I was praying to know what I could post to help one of our fleek investigators out. I couldn't help but thinking of the topic of prayer even though I hadn't originally thought that was what he needed. Anyway, I spent personal study studying about prayer so I could pen a post. Later that night after I posted we got a text from the investigator I made it for thanking us for the posts we made. He said that it gave him a lot to think about and it inspired him. Chalk one point up for social media. As I was studying for the post I read a sick talk by Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy called "Improving Your Personal Prayers" it's the cats pajamas. You should all look it up. There is a quote that goes a little like this:

"Prayer is not a negotiation process. It is an alignment process. We don’t move God to our point of view. Prayer is less about changing our circumstances and more about changing us. It is about seeking His will and asking for His help to do what we need to do. When we align our will with Heavenly Father’s will, answers and spiritual power will flow more freely. Following this pattern allows us to pray with faith."

After reading that it made me realize how a good 90% of the prayers over my life have been asking God for stuff, almost as if I was trying to convince God to bless me with stuff. If you are trying to change Gods mind with your prayers you are going to be disappointed. No wonder I didn't always feel like the answers were coming. I was doing it wrong. This talk changed my whole outlook on prayer. It really is a time for us to talk to our Heavenly Father and find out what we can do to align our will with His. God is going to bless us with our needs not always our wants. Prayer is a time for us to change our wants to our needs. We need to align our will with Gods. #LineItUpBoyz

-Elder Tyler J Johanson

This Cat food isn't just for normal felines.
This food is only for your cat if it's a straight up G!
 - (plz say in your best Mr. T voice.)