Spring Flew By...

May 31, 2015

Transfers still haven't been conformed but from what I heard it looks like I will be leaving Tarawa. If everything stays the same I’m probably going on an adventure to get to my new area. I’ve taken a lot of pictures this week There was a cultural night for the stake and our Branch won all of the dances and took first overall. 

May 24, 2015

So, funny story of the week; a lot of people ask what Utah looks like. The things that they can’t comprehend are: mountains (they can't think of things bigger then coconut trees) and not being able to see the ocean. The funniest thing is that I too am starting to forget what mountains looked like. haha!

Elder Scott Johnson

April 26, 2015

Well I will let you know what I usually do for our schedule. We sleep in ‘til around 2 then when we are hungry we go to the restraint down the road. haha… That's a total joke don't believe a word of it! We wake up at 6.30, we usually don't have time for studies because we are either going to service or going to our lessons that we start at 11:00am. We usually don't get home until 9:30 or 10ish just because of how many lessons we have. Right know we are teaching a lot of resent converts. One of them wasn't happy to take the lessons. Her mom was forcing he to take them. She saw us as enemies at first, so we tried just being friends and asked her to try looking in the Book of Mormon and praying. As soon as the Gospel was something she wanted, she asked to be baptized.

Elder Scott Johnson

April 12, 2015

Mauri,

Well last week was Easter and this week was General Conference so I will make up for lost time.

First off I would like to talk on our awesome Easter. Our branch wanted to do Easter like America, so I help with a lot of the planning. In the end I believe we are the first to ever hold an Easter Egg hunt on Kiribati. Each family got an egg for the family, and the branch made the difference. We painted the eggs with dry erase marker. Then had kids, YSA, them adults look for eggs. We also had ice cream which almost made me cry tears of joy!

General Conference also went really well. It was a hard week of teaching and it felt good to be taught instead of doing the teaching. Elder Oaks gave a great talk on seeing the hand of God in our live. Since then I’ve prayed for that and it’s changed my view a lot.

Favorite Conference Talks: Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Elder Ringwood, Elder Ballard (priesthood session), Elder Holland, and Elder Uchtdorf (on Grace). But this was a really good one.  I was able to listen to all of Saturday. They spoke mainly to families. I would encourage everyone to listen to those talks again.

Well I love you all tons and hope you have great weeks. In other news I am tan. All you that can’t believe it, here is a picture.

Love you all tons and hope you have great weeks.

Elder Johnson

March 29, 2015 

From what I heard, we will hear General Conference after its translated in to Kiribati (the week after conference). I am so happy that I get to hear it. I'm excited for Easter though. I helped to plan the Branch activity. They want to be the first to have an actual egg hunt! We will see how it all turns out.

Love,

Elder Johnson

March 22, 2015

Mauri,

I'm glad to hear spring finally has come to all of you in the states. I was still thinking it was summer. Everything is going well in the sunny islands of Kiribati. We got 34 lessons this week and biked the distance of the Tour de France (that’s not true but we biked a lot.). We also got a baptism in Bikinibeu, and we have another planned for this coming week. I've found in the mission that the week you work the hardest are the best, and the weeks you don't are the worst. Nothing to exciting happened this week. My companion is starting to teach me Fijian so we can have a kind of Kiribiti/Fijian code talk that no one else knows.

Well love you all. Sorry for not writing much.

Love,

Elder Scott Johnson

The food is a little different. Aranuka was an outer island so they didn't use money a lot. They went and got fish out of the ocean or they would get coconuts or pumpkins or what ever else they could grow. Here we get a lot of bagged chicken from Australia or fish from deep sea fishing vessels. 

Elder Scott Johnson

March 15, 2015

Kam ni beni ni mauri,

This has been a crazy week transfers have started and that means thing are getting crazy. Vula and I are working 3 Area's because right know there's no one in the areas. We are working Temwaiku, Abetoa, and Bekinebue 1st Ward. We have lot of people to teach and little time to do it. We leave around 10 every morning and come home around 9pm every night, but it’s far worth the work. I've had some great experiences this week and we have some great investigator, two of which we hope will get baptized this week.

It’s been cloudy all week and raining on and off. Last Monday a huge storm rolled in. Rain was getting blown side ways, but we still played an intense game of soccer.

One cool story this week, we were teaching Nei Tautai about baptism. In the lesson she ask, "What about those that are dead?" We were amazed that someone would wonder about that. We explained about Temple work, and she seemed really excited about it. We are still early in the lessons but she is so excited to get baptized.

Well I hope everything is going good for all y'all.

The Church is true!

Elder Scott Johnson

Feb. 22, 2015 

Maui,

Sorry for writing for so long, but all I will say about my last area is that I’m a grad and I moved. I am now working in Temwaiku. My companion is Elder Nagonevulavula. He is from Fiji and one of the hardest working elder I have had the opportunity of meeting.

The area is really nice too. It’s close to the airport so it’s good to hear airplanes again. Some crazy thing happened this week. The highest tide of the year was one of them. After seeing that, I believe this island is sinking. Roads flooded, sea wall destroyed, and trees washed away; that was a crazy day!

Then we had Zone Conference. The mission president made an announcement. Meet the Mormons would be shown in Kiribati and the missionaries where first to see it. It was a great video and I feel it can do a lot for missionary work here. Well that’s it. Love all of you and hope your days are well. Until the next time l write.

Love,

Elder Scott Johnson

Maui,

I would kill to run through some ice cold water.

Transfers just went down and I am now working in Temwaiku (te.my.kue). My companion is Nagonevulavula from Fiji. He is one of the hardest working missionaries I have had the chance to meet and I feel so blessed to work with him. I haven't gone a single lesson without feeling the spirit. We are also working an outie at the same time. We work there once a week and works is little slow out there. 

Elder Scott Johnson