E-mail from Neal - Received 11-19-08

Hello to All!!!!!!

Well, another week has flown by. Each week seems to be getting faster and faster! Christmas is coming, and you can tell. Piccadilly Gardens (Manchester Town Center) is full of lights and decorations and its really cool at night. It has nothing on Temple Square, but its still cool!

So this week has been crazy to say the least. Trying to talk to everyone, and to do these QGC’s is fun, but it can be tough. Is the QGC program a world wide thing???? I am quite curious? There have been some amazing things that have come from it! I have talked to so many more people, and shared so much more truth with them, and it is really really great. People are listening and wanting to know more. The Assistants have told us that the most popular comment by people after talking about the Book Of Mormon is…. “How much is this book, I WANT ONE!!!!!” How cool is that? The best part is, THE GOSPEL IS FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HA HA HA I love it! So yea I am doing good in that respect, but on the flip side, the QGC has opened up another can of worms. I got into two “bible bashing” sessions on Saturday. That was rough…. Really rough! One was with a Hindu, and that really didn’t bother me because his views were so far out in left field that it really didn’t get to me. I just had to go home for lunch and cool off a bit. The second one however got to me. I got into war with a Born Again.

We were going to Piccadilly to GC for like 2 hours, and I was really excited. This was the first real chance to go hardcore with the QGC’s and to really have a large amount of time to hit it hard. Well guess what, I guess Satan caught wind of that plan and that desire, because the first guy that I talked to decided to talk to me for an hour! He would not let me go, and he was trying to indoctrinate me the whole time. I like the letter that you sent mom, cause it talked about contention and how it is of the devil. I CAN TESTIFY THAT IT IS!!!!!!!! Nothing came from that conversation, and what is worse is that I could not talk to all the people that I wanted to. It was tough and it kinda set my whole day in a bad cloud. I guess that’s what I get for being a worthy messenger of the lord. I am in the army of the stripling warriors and Satan knows that! I learned from that conversation, and I am not going to do that ever again. It was a tough day, but we got through it. I should have learned from my previous experiences with bad days, and known that there was something good coming.

Elder Davis’ opinion about hard days and weeks was that we must be doing something right if we are getting all the opposition. It proved itself last transfer when we had the worst week of my mission, followed by finding about 6 investigators in a week. This time, we had about the best Sunday of my mission. We had 3 investigators at church. One of them, we had virtually dropped, but he showed up on his own!!!! That night we went out with the assistants, and we taught some amazing lessons. Andrew (from Tanzania) has been struggling with the Book of Mormon (accepting it), and we taught him an amazing lesson, and I think that he will do much better now. John Glespen (middle age guy) now has a baptism date for Dec. 13th!!!!!!! The day was way cool, and totally made up for the previous one! The Lord does bless his servants, and I am so grateful for that! The hard day was there, but like E. Davis said, “We must have been doing something right!”

Elder Lloyd is really starting to come along well. He is talking with everyone, and has no fear about it. We are still struggling with bus contacting, but we are really starting to make goals on how to get over that! We are doing some really good things, and we are starting to see the blessings! He is getting sick right now, so I don’t know exactly what is going to happen in the next few days, but no worries, whatever happens happens.

Have a good week!!!!
I love you all!!!!!!
Elder Johnson