To everyone-

Hey everyone! What a week! Things are finally getting rolling here. The big news of the week is that we had our first investigators at church. YAY!!! For the first time this week we had back to back appointments! It was thrilling to be able to feel busy in that way. However, there is serious opposition to the work. I've got some pretty crazy stories this week.

Last Tuesday started it all. We were biking around, and a guy pulled up next to us, said he had a Book of Mormon and wanted to talk about it. Of course, we were excited to talk to him, and we headed over to his house. When we sat down with him, things were wierd from the start. All of his answers were perfect. I thought he might be a member messing with us. Afterwards, Elder C. and I decided that he was either a perfect investigator or a prankster. I of course was hoping with all my heart that he was sincere. Now for a back story.

We had been made aware of an infamous investigator by previous missionaries called "the moocher". Apparently he took lessons for months on end, attended church four times, and was going to be baptized years ago. Then he found a bunch of anti-mormon info online. He called up the missionaries and told them he had found "his answer" and pretended to be super excited about it. He told the missionaries to bring pizza and soda. Of course the missionaries were thrilled and rushed over, stopping to buy pizza and soda. They sat down with him, ate, chatted, and then asked about his answer. "The moocher" told them he knew the Book of Mormon was false. He then proceeded to bash the missionaries and tried to anti them. Since then, he has consistantly messed with missionaries. He fakes interest for a while, and then will turn the tables and do and say hateful things. On our phone he is listed as "John, liar, do not answer"

Turns out, this "miracle" investigator was in fact "the moocher". What a dissapointment. Our next appointment we told him that we knew who he was and about his past involvement with missionaries. He made a bunch of excuses, and tried to keep lying to us. We invited him to church, and we decided that we won't teach him again until he starts demonstrating sincerity.

The next crazy story occurred over the weekend. We street contacted a mother named J. She has endured so much, and is in the middle of another incredible struggle. She has had cancer three times, and had just found out (for her fourth time) that she once again had cancer. She was clearly on a lot of medication when we talked to her, but she seemed lucid. We set up a time to come back and teach. We planned on teaching the Plan of Salvation and we arranged to bring bro. P. from the ward with us. We got to the lesson, and it went fine! J. had two young girls who were super excited about church and religion. In fact they answered most of the questions, and ended up dominating the discussion. We invited the family to church and they gladly accepted. Sunday came around and they didn't show up. We gave them a call, but couldn't figure out what happened. Later that night, we got a call from the bishop of the neighboring ward. Apparently J.'s mom was a recent convert! She had talked to J., but J. told her some crazy things. J. told her mom that missionaries came by, without a third man, and were teaching some truly blasphemous things (I'd rather not repeat them). Of course the mother was shocked and concerned, and she called her bishop. Elder C. and I were blown away! We had no Idea what to think, there's no way we taught anything close to the things she said. We called the mother. In the discussion we discovered that J. reported many visits by missionaries over the past few days. We had only been by once. We determined that either J. was seriously confused (perhaps because of the medication) or that there were imposter missionaries going around!

Just goes to show that there is opposition in ALL things.

Anyway. There are many stories from this week but those two are the most dramatic! In fact, it's actually been an incredibly successful week, we've found a couple of great potential investigators, and we look forward to meeting with them. I'm going on exchanges over to Vista Ridge tonight, and It'll be interesting to be in yet another part of Round Rock!

I love you all!

Elder Johnson