July 11, 2016

Hi all!!

It has been another great week here in DC! We officially welcomed the Johnsons here to the mission. I thought that it would take a little bit of time for me to get adjusted to them and everything, but nope. I miss the Cookes, but I love the Johnsons so much. They are amazing!!  I'm glad to have both mission Presidents because I know they both will help me out so much. I'm glad you were able to meet the Cookes! Thank you for the recording, we listened to a little bit of it. They are so great. So President Cooke had a lengthy investigation of the church when he was at school at Utah State. Then it was in the army he finally converted.

The 4th we went to the DC Young Adult center to hang out with a ton of elders. We had our own bbq, played ping pong, card games and just hung out. After that we went to a HS that we could see tons of fireworks across the city. We had a later curfew, 10:30, so we got to see quite a bit of the fireworks then jet back home.

Wednesday we had the Johnsons mission tour and got to meet them. They wanted to shake all of our hands and talk to us a little bit. When I talked to President I told him that I was the Elder that the Morgan's knew, he just grabbed me into the biggest hug and was so excited that we had that connection. After they showed an intro video their kids had made to let us get to know them more. Then they both gave some pretty good talks. I'm really excited to have President and Sister Johnson for the second year of my mission.

Friday was our hi-light for work in our area. We stopped by to see Kirk, one of our investigators. He was home and we had a great lesson with him. We are starting the 12 step program with him to help him with some word of wisdom issues he is trying to overcome. He is a great guy with an amazing heart that wants to change. His two kids, Kortez and Kemistry love us tons. They are so much fun to go see and get to play with them in the yard a little bit. Kortez kept asking me if I would come by next week again and throw the baseball with him more. They are the cutest kids! After we were driving home we were on the street passing our other investigator Chico. I had a quick impression to go see him, and then we looked over and he was out on his porch and so of course we stopped by to see him too. We rescheduled his baptism for July 24th. He is so excited to be baptized but it is just a big struggle with his health problems to get him to church.

Saturday was super awesome. The Johnsons called for a mid transfer leadership meeting so they could get to know us and the mission better. It was awesome, they had us over to the mission home for breakfast and then the meeting. I had to laugh, in a year with Pres Cooke I never saw him in anything but a suit. But it took less than a week to see Pres Johnson out of his suit. We got there early and went to see if we could help get breakfast ready. President came to the door in a tee shirt, shorts and a hat. Said he didn't think we would get there that early and we went in to help him cook some bacon before he went up to change. The breakfast was super good! Then we had a really good meeting. We met the new Annapolis ZLs which was good for them to learn more about the mission. We talked about our responsibilities in each calling to bring the Johnsons up to speed. After they opened the floor for any concerns us or the other missionaries may have, which was a really cool to see them want to know how to help us out. Especially in a big transition time that can be stressful and hard for some missionaries.

Sunday was another good day in the crazy DC3rd Ward. I had to laugh at Pres Cookes comment about a DC3rd Ward Fast Sunday. It's so true.. It is always interesting here haha. The life of an inner city ward haha. If we get to come back and visit you guys will see how different this is then our classic white Mormon ward back home haha

I hope you all have a great week camping! I wish I could be there! I miss you all and love you tons!!

Love,
Austin

Kortez and Kemistry

Johnson's Mission Tour-DC Zone