Happy Birthday Nana!

This week my grandma celebrated her 80th birthday, which I thought was pretty awesome. Today I thought I'd share my memories of Nana.

 
When I was young, I always loved to go to Nana and Papa's house because I knew Nana would play with me. She has always shown her love for her others and would talk to me even though I was only a small child. If there is one thing everyone can tell about Nana, it is how much she loves others. It was also fun to visit her because her house felt like it came from a fantasy novel. There was a closet inside of a closet, a forest, boulders, a bridge, a hammock, and a tire swing outside that let a young mind run wild with imaginations. Nana loves to talk to people. I remember the way she would sincerely compliment me for reading books or solving math problems that made me enjoy them more. She loved her grandkids, and we were always spoiled when we were with her. She has spent her life serving others, and you can see how happy it has made her. I was young at the time, but I remember when she spent almost a year in China teaching English because of how much I missed visiting her. 

Nana and Papa held cousin camp as cousins turned 12, and I absolutely loved it. With my cousins, Katia, Ethan, and Eliza, I got to spend a week with Nana and Papa. We made delicious food and went to exiting places. It was a blast! Far more recently, this last summer we went to Seattle together and had an amazing time enjoying the many sights and activities there. The characteristics of Nana are loving, caring, talkative, compromising, peaceable, and fun. What an amazing grandma!

From all of the Johnson Hearts,
We love you Nana and Happy Birthday!!

Snow!

This made me think of home.

Awesome Week

Lots of cool things happened this week, and here they are.

We had a lesson with Camille who was awesome. She told us she would use the spirit to decide if she needed to change her beliefs and she prayed that "God's servants" (us) would be able to teach by the spirit which was awesome. We also passed off Gareth to the missionaries over his ward because he's too old to be in YSA. We also got someone passed off to our area because she's moving into one of our wards. Her name is Cara and at the pass-off lesson we put her on date to be baptized on October 30th, but we'll have to push that back a little because some family drama kept her from church this week. That being said, she is awesome. She has such a desire to build a stronger relationship with God despite the struggles she has, which is just awesome. Finally, we got to go to a devotional with Elder Christopherson and some of the 70s, which was awesome. 

It snowed last week on Tuesday and it wrecked some trees, which lost tons of branches all over the place. Some areas of Logan lost power(including the campus which got a snow day) and so that was interesting. 

One question Gareth asked in his lesson really struck me, so I'll answer it here like I did there. He asked, "What do you get from being part of the church, beyond just oh we're happier or it brings us joy, what do you get?" I answered that I got the guidance of God's plan, which brings me more blessings than anything I would choose. If I had wanted to do it my way, I would have gone back to Eureka after 8th grade (my parents were the ones holding me in Reno in middle school, and after a lot of complaints, they offered to move back). I had recently been prompted by the spirit in a particular devotional/testimony meeting that I needed to give up on returning to Eureka. That next year, I became part of the McQueen drama family. I got to make many friends including Brother Nash, Mrs. Cann, and Caulin Ross, all of whom are incredibly close to my heart. Additionally I had many learning experiences and was challenged far more academically then I would have been in Eureka. The things I gain by following God's plan are greater things than anything I would gain following my own plan.

1 Nephi 11: 22-23

22 And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.

23 And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul

I bear testimony to the glory of God's plan and his abilities to guide us to paths we would not otherwise follow in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

Love,

Elder Watts

Elder Watts and Elder Corless

Fall Colors

Not a super eventful week, but we should be able to have a return appointment with Camille (the woman we met in the first week), and we have a pass off lesson with Gareth on Thursday. We also got to do zone sports today, which meant all the missionaries between here and Preston Idaho got together and played sports. It was really fun. Below are some pictures of my district all in USU shirts.

A picture of the fall colors. Also winter is coming in Logan. Last week it rained, and tomorrow it's supposed to snow!!! It's pretty cold.

UFO

This week I had the wonderful opportunity to listen to General Conference, with amazing talks. I especially enjoyed Elder Nash's, Elder Uchtdorf's and Elder Renlund's talks.

A fun thing that happened this week, happened just last night as we were heading back to our apartment after meeting with some members. We were stopped outside their apartment by their neighbors who were stargazing saying, "want to see a UFO?" They then pointed to the sky where there was a light that, as we were watching, moved across the sky, turned and started moving in another direction. We had a great conversation, and they showed us these amazing infra-red goggles which allowed me to see the stars incredibly well despite the light pollution and allowed me to watch a satellite cross the sky, which was pretty cool to see. I learned from Scott ( the stargazing neighbor) that they had been able to see a faint diamond-shaped structure around the light he had originally noted as a UFO. If y'all have theories as to what this is, you can email me at daniel.watts@missionary.org. I can only say it was not a plane, satellite or star (at least not a normal one). Was it a comet? Asteroid? Odd outcome of some planets rotation? Was it aliens? Some combination of different Celestial Bodies?

Anyway onto the miracles. We were prompted to talk to a homeless man outside of Walmart, who accepted a Book of Mormon and gave us his phone number. We got to teach Gareth again. We had a very good lesson about prayer. One awesome thing about Gareth is that he is getting his PHD in philosophy, so he is an incredibly deep thinker. It's always interesting to hear what he has to say on various topics. We also got to teach someone named Duncan, who is amazing. Unfortunately, we were passing him off to another group of missionaries because he actually lives outside the area we cover, but it was still a great lesson, and I loved having the opportunity to talk to him about the way the spirit will manifest that the Book of Mormon is true. All in all, a pretty good week.

 
Love you all,
Elder Watts

First Week in the Field

My first week in the field!! The Ogden mission covers all of Northern Utah so I was assigned to the Utah State University (USU) area in a YSA (Young Single Adults) stake, and to a married students stake which is something that basically exists solely in Utah. I spend most of my time meeting with members, but I did get the opportunity to meet with Gareth for his first interaction with the missionaries on my first day out here. I was pretty stressed, especially when I heard that he had texted that he would make this a "fun meeting" which made us worry he just wanted to Bible bash. I also prayed to know what to teach and the spirit told me I wouldn't be teaching that lesson. I was pretty apprehensive. Then at the lesson, we also had a member come (which is apparently a normal thing for lessons here). They struck up a conversation with Gareth that lasted through all the time we could have stayed there, but it was great to see them becoming friends and the spirit was in the room, so I know that was what needed to happen during that meeting. Gareth also agreed to meet again this week.

Another huge miracle happened after we had an appointment in a park (we're only allowed to meet with people of the opposite gender in public places). As we were leaving, my companion was prompted to talk to one person who was sitting at a table by herself, which was weird because there were lots of people at that park and he singled her out. She let us share a message and after talking about prayer I suddenly felt prompted to talk about the Book of Mormon, which was also weird because I didn't have an easy way to transition at that point in the conversation, when Camille (the person who we were teaching) asks, "Is there anything that you believe in that makes you different?" The perfect topic changer. We left her with a Book of Mormon and she said she'd read it. Happy Monday from Ogden!

Love,
Elder Watts

President and Sister Holley with Elder Watts

Elder Corless and Elder Watts

The MTC

Here are some pictures from the MTC. Tomorrow I go into the field. Just want to say that I had an amazing district full of loving people. 

Elder Salas, Elder Watts, Elder Griffin, Elder Bagley, Elder Walters, Elder Thompson, Elder Stevens, Elder Blake
Sister Boyack, Sister Talcott, Sister Hulme, Sister Johnson

The District with Sister Weyland (MTC Teacher)

Elder Watts and Brother Livingstone (MTC Teacher)

Elder Thompson and Elder Watts

Elder Walters and Elder Watts

Elder Griffin and Elder Watts

Elder Watts and Elder Salas

Elder Bagley and Elder Watts

Elder Watts and Elder Stevens

Elder Watts and Elder Blake

First Email from the MTC

This week I had the opportunity to teach (in the strange way of the MTC) an awesome man named Dwayne. He is a hardworking man who has a huge heart. The spirit attended the meeting and Elder Salas and I both felt like a good message was shared. We ended by getting a picture with Dwayne and gave him our emails with an invitation to read 3 Nephi 17 and ask us any questions he had. It was great.