Johnson, Ethan

A Questionable Sabbath Day. The day began with many questions, a multitude of which were directed at specific phrasing within the Bible and the Book of Mormon, as well as both texts as a whole–but that is to be disclosed at a later time. I became obsessed with the wording and ownership of the Fall of Eve and Adam. I was extremely hurt with the phrasing of the event, of which I have subsequently rephrased without notice in my prior sentence, because it reflected an abhorrent sexism within the tenants of my faith. The source of my annoyance came from the fact that Adam gets all the credit for something Eve achieved; it was her transgression, not his, and yet it is hailed as Adam’s Transgression. 2 Nephi 2:25: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy.” If Eve transgressed before Adam, why does he get all the credit for mortal life? Within the same chapter, only a couple verses prior, “And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out...

This email marks the halfway point of my missionary training experience. I have been in Hell (reference, not reality) for three of the four weeks I’ve been a missionary, which is also crazy, but Heaven is just on the horizon. I literally cannot wait to get out into the world of Houston and meet people and have experiences I’ll never, ever forget for the rest of my life. But for now, I stay within the gated confines of a Provo missionary wonderland, filled to the brim with a schedule neither agreed upon nor loved. And, I love it.  Deep down my MTC experience has been nothing short of spectacular, and although I may have ranted/complained/judged somewhat in my prior correspondence, I truly love it here (yes, I love all the missionaries here) and everyday I look back on my decision to serve fondly. While trekking up the hill and towards the halfway point of my training, I had a few notable viewpoints that I’d like to share (specifically for those of you that are joining me on my missi...

To me, miracles happen all the time. Although they may seem to be only occurring within the Bible or Book of Mormon as extraordinary feats of divine power that have ceased since the emergence of the earliest centuries that saw human improvement whether philosophically or technologically, I still believe that miracles are all around us, they're just more difficult to observe. More than a couple miracles happened this week that I'd like to highlight within this email.  Firstly, I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my entire life on Sunday. I have struggled with forgiving myself for all of my life, and on Sunday I received one of the most powerful answers to my prayers. While I was exploring the topic of prophetic conversion (essentially when prophets of the scriptures get converted), I found myself reading the talk, “Have I Truly Been Forgiven?” by K. Brett Nattress. The talk may be one of my favorites as it references Alma chapter 36 and 3 Nephi 17 and the conversion o...

EDIT: I was originally going to not explain the subject line until the very end of this email or even not at all, but I decided that some of you probably will only read this far into my beautifully crafted prose and life-changing experiences, so, no the MTC is not Hell on Earth, but I did think so on my first day here. This week was crazy. I spent Saturday wrapping up online MTC classes which was kinda sad. We had to say goodbye to our teachers that we’ve had ever since we got set apart as missionaries, Hermano Reeve and Aina (look at the photos link if you’re curious as to how much we were crying and balling our eyes out). Then, I spent the entire night stressing about my film release, as well as my farewell talk, as well as my missionary packing. In other words, a crazy wonderful day. Sunday was spent equally crazy, as I shuttled from farewell to farewell and then back to my own luncheon sendoff. I had the opportunity to see Paige after what felt like years of not seeing her after ge...