ALASKA ANCHORAGE MISSION

Elder Brad Johnson is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the ALASKA ANCHORAGE MISSION. This blog will include many of the e-mails Elder Johnson sends to his family each week. It will extend from October 6, 2010 to October, 2012.


Friday, December 31, 2010

Elder Johnson's First Letter from Alaska!!! November 1, 2010

Hi Mom (and family--this is going to be the only e-mail I sent this Monday),
So I was sent to Wasilla, AK as one of two missionaries covering the Colony Ward. This week has been awesome. We, my companion, Elder Luke, my trainer, an Elder 22 mos. old, and myself, were white-washed in the area--meaning, we are both brand new to the area and have no clue what's going on. It's been okay, though, because we immediately started meeting with members, less active members (LAs), recent converts (RCs) and investigators (two of them)--and we used this whole week to meet everybody and get to know them.
The members are amazing, very nice. When we passed out our dinner calendar for the month of Nov. in Relief Society yesterday, they were fighting over who go to feed us. We filled the whole month in a few minutes and some sisters were very disappointed that they couldn't feed us dinner, so we scheduled lunch to appease them.
We were very busy talking to LAs and RCs. Being on a mission gives you a great opportunity to listen to people, their problems, concerns--that's a lot of what we did when we met with them--listen. We taught a lot of lessons, and we have one progressing investigator, whose wife is a member. He's got a ways to go, but no sweat, everytime we meet with him we bring him closer to Christ--that's our purpose, that's what we're supposed to do.
My companion is great. We get along good. We're both focused on the work. He's from St. George, UT. Was a Zone Leader and is now the leader of our district, which gives me an opportunity to see how leadership is done. He's had a lot of success in the mission. He says he doesn't feel like a trainer because he has nothing to train me on, says I'm ready to be a senior companion already. But whatever--I don't care; I'm just working. We've just hit the ground running. We work nicely when giving lessons.
Everything's good. I don't know what else to say. The weather's cold, but it's nothing a jacket can't fix. It's pretty. Had a cool service project on Thurs., where we herded a bunch of Musk-Oxen into a barn to be weighed; yeah, musk-ox, google it, had no idea what they were either. But I later found out that they're big, like tons-of-pounds big, and really dumb and scared of people. The herding process was a matter of walking them in. That was really fun though because the farm land was pretty: mountains, snow, plains, musk-oxen, soft smell of ox patty--it was cool.

Talk to you in a week. I love you. Bye.
Elder Johnson

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