By Laurie Frost
He looks more like mild-mannered Clark Kent than Superman, but Alan Johnson has missionary stories that would put ?God?s Army? to shame.
?Yeah, they should have made a movie about me,? Johnson said candidly.
There?s no ?death by boring mission stories? with Johnson. His wild tales from the Thailand Bangkok Mission definitely sound like they?re spun straight out of Hollywood.
However, these yarns are a natural part of Johnson?s steely determination, work ethic and testimony, said Mike DeHoyas, a friend from the mission.
?He was a hard-core missionary,? DeHoyas said. ?You name it, he could get it done. I think that?s why he had all the funny experiences because it was the reward for him after working so hard.?
Weird experiences are common for Bangkok elders, but not all could boast near-shootings and run-ins with the Chinese Mafia as Johnson can ? and these are just a few of his crazy tales.
One of his favorite stories to tell is almost getting arrested for a suspected assassination attempt on the king of Thailand.
The mission president got a special invitation to the king?s birthday party and invited some elders, including Johnson.
?There was this one office elder who had tickets to go into the inner chamber with the mission president, and he asked me if I could hold his camera bag for him,? Johnson said. ?Before I got in, the Thai guard wanted to search through my bag.?
The guard opened the bag, pulled out a gigantic knife, and Johnson panicked.
?My eyes got real big, and I?m like, ?That?s not mine, it?s not my bag? in Thai. Then he looks at me all serious and says, ?Why do you speak Thai so good?? He thought we were some English assassins sent to kill the king with that knife.?
After an hour of interrogation, the guard confiscated the knife and kicked them out.
?We told the office elder what had happened, and he?s like, ?Oh, that?s too bad. Did you get my knife back?? ? Johnson said. ?I was like, ?You?re lucky you got us back!??
Another favorite is the time Johnson saved an old woman from being run over by a train.
?I was at the train station after a zone conference, talking to one of my good friends Elder Ford,? Johnson said. ?As we see the back of the train coming, we see this older woman in her mid-60s holding on to the train with her right hand, and a man trying to help her up into the train.?
By this time the train was rolling at about 10 mph, and the woman lost her balance and fell onto the tracks.
?Elder Ford grabbed her left hand, I grabbed her right hand, and we pulled her off of the tracks right before the wheel rolled over her leg,? Johnson said. ?It was like something off a movie. I was shaking for the next hour.?
Ryan Beauchamp, a former companion, said Johnson almost worked himself to death ? literally ? and contracted dengue fever, a mosquito-transmitted disease.
?It got to the point where he couldn?t work anymore, he was so sick,? Beauchamp said. ?So we spent Christmas Eve in the hospital with a cross-dressing lab technician.?
Johnson?s tenacity also helped him with the news of his parent?s divorce at home, said Beau Keenan, a friend from the mission.
?Any other missionary would have gone home with what happened, but he turned it around and used it,? Keenan said. ?I think it was just pure passion for the gospel.?
This passion is what earned Johnson the reputation as one of the hardest workers in the mission.
?We would just work our brains out,? Beauchamp said. ?From the moment we got out , we were talking to people and teaching and doing everything we could, and the Lord really blessed us.?
Johnson?s crazy stories aren?t what his mission friends remember best ? it was his determination to do the right thing that set him apart from the rest of the missionaries, said David Ensign-Lewis, another friend from the mission.
?We had quite a few amazing missionaries, but what really set him apart was conviction, more than anything,? Ensign-Lewis said. ?With that conviction came the boldness and confidence to tell people why they?re here.?