Bagyo season here in the Philippines

Family,

It's been a rainy week here in the Philippines. We got hit with a typhoon that lasted all week. Luckily, our work didn't suffer too bad. We still were able to manage a decent week with the work here in Cogeo.

Tuesday, we had our zone training and zone lunch. The training was great. We learned about effective planning and how to focus on the key indicators for conversion. We've applied what the zone leaders shared in our nightly planning and have found our work to be so much more effective. I've realized this week how important it is to set goals and to use our missionary planner to its fullest. 

After the training, I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Ruiz (zone leader). To be honest I was a little nervous at first haha. But that soon went away. We had such a successful exchange! Our day was full, we were comfortable and there was no pressure. It was awesome talaga. Elder Ruiz is super cool and is a stud missionary. I learned a lot from him in our evaluation. I was able to ask him what I can do as a district leader to improve and the advice he gave was, "Be more spiritual.  Call upon Heavenly Father and rely on him to give you inspiration for every elder in your district." Also he told me how when I go on exchanges with my elders, I need to help them in every aspect of the work and especially teach them how to plan and work effectively. I love the verse in the BoM that he shared to me - Mosiah18:21. So that's been on my mind all week, how I can help each elder in my district by figuring out their individual needs and how we can become unified with one purpose as an "Abinadi District."

One of the best things ever happened this week...guess what, we taught Viviet Palomares...the asawa of Brother Oliver!! It was perfect! We BRT'd and HTBT'd and just made her feel comfortable. Our plan is to not rush the lessons and pressure her, but to just have her feel the spirit. I'm so excited for this week and to teach her the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, also they came to church as a family on Sunday! :) I couldn't be more happy and excited for their family!

We have a ton of investigators that we're teaching. The problem is that they just haven't accepted a baptism date. Which is good, it means they understand and realize the commitments they need to keep in order to know the truth. Elder Garcia and I are excited this week to help these people understand why they need to be baptized.  We're expecting them to progress this week, so please pray for them!

Elder Garcia and I had some interesting experiences this week, with the lessons. It's a continual process of progression and practice for sure haha. I continue to help him learn how to teach people not lessons. It's kind of taking him a while, but we're gettin' there!

Being a District leader is stressful. This week I really had some moments of frustration with some of my elders.. especially this morning when our kabahays were blatantly disobedient. I had a moment of weakness and I have learned through my personal study this morning that I need to lead how the Savior did, in all ways! We can all change. Every day we have the chance to become more like Jesus Christ. That's what I am enjoying the most right now at this time of my mission. :)

Mahal ko kayo lahat!

Elder Johnson