It's Not About You (🎵ooh ooh🎵)

 Good morning my friends. We recently received a directive from our mission president that we need to spend less time on the phone on Mondays. So hopefully this email will be less rambly and more focused than some of my past ones. 

This week was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had fun times, spiritual times, and revelation/inspired direction from priesthood leader times. It was great. 

First, the fun times. Last Monday was quite possibly the funnest pday of my mission. We got up, cleaned, washed our clothes, did our 3 hours of proselyting, and then went to Esiama, a neighbouring town like 1.5 hours away, and joined the other Elders in our district there. We went to the most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life and played soccer. This beach was insane. I'm telling you. Like absolutely gorgeous, flat, beautiful, and as far as you can see. And there was no one there! It was so fun. We did have to run into the ocean a few times to save the soccer ball but no one did any swimming/water sports so no rules were broken. After the soccer, we hung out at the zone leaders house, played games, and Elder Guercio and I walked a long ways into town and bought fufu for everyone. It was a great day. The Elders in our district are so good. 

Now for the spiritual times. This week was full of them. We had an awesome lesson with our buddy Fred, a very strong Seventh-Day Adventist who sells men's suits and insurance. We passed by his shop to teach him and he was reading the Book of Mormon. He told us to go and come so he could finish reading his assignment, 2 Nephi chapter 2. We went and taught our friend named Godwin who has a shop nearby, and when we came back, Fred's while demeanor had changed. We felt the Spirit as soon as we entered the room. We sat down in his office and asked how the reading went after offering a prayer. He said, "The reading is getting interesting!" He then taught us 2 Nephi 2, marveling at the insights into the fall of Adam and Eve and what that means for us. It was awesome. He then told us that he believes what we are saying and that the Book of Mormon is true, but he has a big problem with us worshipping on Sunday, not Saturday. We bore testimony that because the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God who receives divine direction from Him, which means we should worship on Sunday, but he wasn't all that convinced. It was still an awesome lesson though and he's ready to learn more so pray for Fred! Also, if you have insights on worshipping on Sunday vs. Saturday, send them to me. We've been studying about it a lot but I'm sure that someone on this email list knows something that would help us. 

This week we also had such a cool experience with Gifty, the wife of the long-time less active I talked about last week. We taught her on Thursday with the help of brother Lehi, the Councillor in the branch presidency, and it was nice. She also came to church again this Sunday with her three kids. We learned about tithing in second hour, and after church she came up to me with an envelope and tithing slip, determined to pay her tithing. I was thrilled but didn't know what to do. I called Elder Streuper, who is over MLS stuff in our mission, and he told me she could go ahead and pay it. It was awesome to see her faith in what she was taught. Me and the branch president are still not sure what to do with the money, because it didn't work to deposit it yesterday because she's not a member, but hopefully we can get it figured out. It was still super cool. Gifty is a faithful lady. 

We also had Mavis, the mother of a recent convert, come to church which was great! We've been focusing on the families of the youth who've been baptized recently, and it was cool to see progress in that department. Mavis was only able to make it to second hour, but she still came. Her only issue with the church is that she loves to sing in her former church and doesn't know/like our hymns. So hopefully we can help her with that. 

This week we also had interviews with our mission president and it helped me a lot. I've been writing down questions since I got to Elubo, and he was able to answer all of them. I've mostly been wondering what we should focus on here because there's so many different things we could be doing. President Morgan helped me understand that our priorities should be bringing the families of recently baptized youth and children into the church and supporting the leaders of the branch. We talked a lot about that and about other stuff, and it helped me so much. That man is called of God. 

I've also learned that you shouldn't judge. This week we had a few late nights helping the branch president do administrative stuff on the church computer at his house, and it's caused us to come home late a few times. We're supposed to be home by 6:30 but two different times this week we got home past eight. On Saturday night, one of the nights we came home late, we also had to buy dinner on our way home and food for the next day. Our normal lady we buy banku from was gone, so we wandered around town looking for food until we found a place that had food. This place was also a bar. On our way out, banku and peanut butter soup in tow, I realized that you can't judge people. What we did probably looked so bad if you didn't know what we were doing. We were out way past when we were supposed to, and we went inside a bar. A passing member or mission president would have been very alarmed. However, we were only guilty of poor planning and time mismanagement. You never know why someone does something so don't judge them for it! 

I've also once again learned something that I've learned many times but quickly forget: IT'S NOT ABOUT ME! My inspired brother-in-law Nikki, who I love despite never having met him in person, sent me the Character of Christ talk by Elder Bednar that talks about that. As a missionary, I'm not serving because that's what my family/church culture expects, or because that's what my future righteous wife demands, or because I know I have to. I'm serving because I love the Lord and His children. I'm here to invite others to come unto Christ and help them make covenants with Him. It's not about me. 

I know the gospel is true. Forgive the length of this email. I was thinking the other day that my mom probably loves me more than anyone else in the world, and I know she is OK with long emails. The church is true! I love you all..

Love, 

Elder Johnson

1-2. Me and the brethren on the beach. 

3. Youth activity night. They made meat pies and I ate meat pies.

4-6. Me and Elder Momoh looking fresh in every situation. The way I love this Elder. 

7. Christie and her daughter Lillie from my former area got baptized yesterday! It was so great.