Address

Elder Eric Johnson
2516 Normandy Dr. SE Apt. 304-C
Grand Rapids, MI 49506


Please send letters or packages by First class or Priority Mail via U.S.P.S. so they can be forwarded to him.

Monday, April 24, 2017

4/24/17

fam and friends,

Last Monday was spent helping some of the people I talked about last week. We spent the whole day outside emailing helping two people who are really struggling in their situations. We had an amazing meal as usual with a member who we found out runs a food service out of her home. She only really does it for money on the weekends but she told us how much she makes, and it's a lot. 

Tuesday was an awesome day, we picked up a bunch of solid investigators and put them all on date and they will probably make it. It was the family that we helped on Monday, and we taught the mom the Saturday before. They were down to get baptized when they were meeting with elders last year, but due to pressure and some things that happened to them from their family, they disappeared. But everything is better now. Like I said they contacted us, and want to come back to church, so that's what we're going to do. 

The same day we had a lesson with German, the other investigator that contacted us out of the blue. This man is a champ. He is so spiritually sensitive and wants to follow Christ with all his heart. During our first visit we gave him a BoM and asked him to read the introduction. The next day, he called us and told us that he read that and the intro and the first 7 chapters. How amazing, he feels that the book really is from God, but is a little timid and worried about baptism. He still accepted a baptismal date. The best part is he is really easy to teach, asks really good and sincere questions, and really studies what we give him. In the lesson after he told us all this he mentioned that he read everything he read twice so he could really understand what he read. He talked about a question he had about some things in the Bible and he found an answer in the Book of Mormon that really touched him. We try to teach, but really the Holly Ghost is the one doing the real work, and I'm so grateful for that. He came to church this week and in the gospel principles class he was asking really great questions. 

Tuesday night we had a dinner with a member, we were standing outside all together about to walk in and this guy walks up to us and from across the street asked if we were "bible bashers." We told him we were just missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We explained what we do, and he was like "that's all good, but do you read the Bible?" I could already see where this was going and the guy was asking us weird questions about the apocrypha. Any way, the funny part was at one point he was talking about some passage in Deuteronomy about slavery and he was like, "what group of people does this make you think of?" I knew where he was trying to go, so all I replied was "how far back are we going, because just about every group of people have been enslaved at one time or another." I forgot to mention this guy was black, but he just paused for a second and pivoted to another point. It was more funny than anything, and the meal we had right after was super good. Props to that guy though, 5 missionaries and he still was confidant enough to try to corner us.

The Suarez family came to church again. They are so awesome. Sadly though they aren't getting baptized this Saturday, but they really want to be. The said they wanted to go to church more before they make set a solid date. The read and pray as a family every night. They really believe everything we say and connect really well with the members we have brought to lessons. Turns out one of the members we had knew the mother-in-law when they lived in El Salvador. That was a little funny. Jose has opened up a lot more and actually stays when we teach. They also ask us about church all the time. Natividad (the father) is also reading from the teachings of the prophets for Gordon B. Hinckley, and we are trying to get him a Gospel Principles book to read from as well. They fed all the missionaries in the branch Saturday and are going to do it again this week. Hilda (the mom) apparently used to own a restaurant and cooks amazing Hispanic food. We'll be having hand made pupusas today. They are going to be really good. 

Also the new restoration video put out by the church is really good. Watch it.

2017 Restoration Video

Prophets of the Restoration Videos

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