July 30, 2012

¡Hola Mom How’s everything going? What are you going to do now that Connor and Brock don’t have baseball for a little while? How were the parade and Fiesta Days? Sounds like you had a busy week traveling. This week has been pretty busy for me too. So with the exchanges they closed an area that was part of the Texcoco ward, because there wasn’t enough support from the leaders there. So now that area, Tepetlaoxtoc is now our responsibility too. Our area was already huge, but now it’s even bigger, the biggest in the mission. There are over 1 million people that live my area alone, 7 municipales(i cant remember how to say that word in English exactly) and 40 pueblos. We went to Tepetlaoxtoc on Thursday to try and talk to some of the members there to tell them we’re the new missionaries, but I got us super lost and we ended up wandering for 3 hours, around fields and cows and everything and ended up just finding a bus and going back to Texcoco. We went back on Saturday though and finally found the members we were looking for. One of the members there drove us to another pueblo, Chiautla where we supposedly ate the biggest tortas in Mexico, it was super good, but I honestly don’t know what was in it. That night we went and helped some of my recent converts, the C family, move all of their things to a new house. I’ve gotten super weak on the mission; a gym pass is definitely one of the first things I’m buying when I get home. Anyways after that the bishop bought us some tacos, and we went and saw the last girl we baptized in the hospital, because she had a baby. That night I got super sick, but I deserved it for eating so much greasy food from the street in one day with the torta and the tacos. I did exchanges in Chapingo another day this week with Elder H. We were walking from one pueblo to the other when a crazy rainstorm came, kind of like a flash flood and drenched us. We would have been drier if we just jumped in a pool or something. Anyways we saved some baby puppies from the rain on our way there, so it was pretty cool. While we were there with one of the families we had to lift a 25 year old guy who just had brain surgery from a car to their house that was like 200 yards away because cars can’t fit on the street they live on. We were both super tired after that. Yesterday morning I was with Elder H again at church because his companion had to go to another appointment and they had a baptismal service to do. Elder H doesn’t really speak Spanish all that great so I directed the program, and then while they were changing clothes I grabbed another kid to run with me to a house to bring an investigator to church because my companion still wasn’t back. We then finished the baptismal service then I ran to our own sacrament meeting. Sundays are super crazy here. D wasn’t able to get baptized because he hasn’t been home all week, but we have an appointment with him tomorrow so hopefully we can have a baptismal service this weekend. Now I’ve got to run to a different city, Chicoloapan to go to a meeting. Thanks for everything. Take care, I hope you have a great week, and keep me updated on everything. I love you, Elder Johnson

July 23, 2012

Hey Mom, So I found out last night that I won´t be changing tomorrow, but I´ll be staying in Texcoco with my same companion. I´m actually glad that I´m staying I really like Texcoco, and there’s still lots of work I want to do here. We´ve been working with H´s brother. He´s 19 years old and just got out of drug rehab not too long ago. He was living and selling drugs in Tepito, part of Distrito Federal. Tepito is the scariest part of the city, like Brooklyn or Harlem of New York City but worse. On Saturday he told us he wants to get baptized, so if everything goes as planned he should be able to get baptized on Sunday, I´m pretty excited. We´ve also found a couple other new investigators this week that came to church and are progressing really well. So I was walking underneath a power line the other day and all of a sudden I felt something wet on my neck. At first I thought that somebody had thrown something at me, but I rubbed it and it was freaking bird crap! The streets here are not maintained at all either and I was walking in the road the other day too and stepped in a man hole that wasn’t covered and got my whole leg soaked with muddy water. Today we had to go to the mission office to leave some papers of baptisms and things, and after we went downtown and I bought some cool ties and then we went to McDonald’s. That was definitely the highlight of my day, it was the first time I´ve eaten there since I´ve been in Mexico! I also had a conversation while I was downtown with a Chinese lady, but we both spoke Spanish, now that’s culture!! Thanks for sending me a birthday package, I´ll definitely be able to find somebody to bake the cake for me, I´ve got lots of really good friends here who take care of me. Have you heard anything from Sister K about her sister? When were they coming back to Mexico again? I haven’t heard anything from them but when I do I´ll let you know. That’s crazy Brocks going to jr high and that Connor is gonna be a senior, and I´m also gonna hit my 9 month mark this week, we´re all growing up on you! I hope you have a great week in Park City, let me know how Brockles does. I love you, thanks for everything. Elder Johnson

I went with the Big Mac. The fries taste the same as every other McDonalds. They were pretty much the best thing I have eaten in a while!!

We bought matching ties today in Distrito Federal because two of the missionaries from my district are leaving tomorrow.

July 9, 2012

¡Hooola! Happy late 4th of July! So I celebrated my 4th of July in the hospital with my companion. Elder F started feeling sick this last Sunday, but I thought he was just being a baby. On Tuesday morning the hermana that fed us on Friday called us and asked if we were feeling sick because everybody in her house was sick, and had typhoid fever. They had figured out that if was from some guava juice that she had made us. I started to worry a little because I drank the same juice. My companion called the doctor and he told us he had to go to the hospital to get tested. They took some of his blood and they found that he had salmonella. We had to stay in the hospital that night while they gave him an IV with medicine and watched him closely. It was pretty boring for me, I just slept on this little tiny thing they called a bed that they had in the room. We had no idea we were going to stay in the hospital so we didn’t have any extra clothes or anything. We stayed the whole next day too, and they finally released him at about 7 that night. The reason why I didn’t get sick is that I was already taking antibiotics for my foot, and the doctor told me that those pills protected me. I’m super lucky especially because they gave my comp 5 injections that we’ve had to do every night. The doctor explained to me how to give an injection and ya I just learned how to it that night in my companions butt. The bad thing is that he’s as scared of needles as I am. I started to try and give him the shot at 10 the first night and he didn’t let me do it until midnight. I have some videos of me being Doctor Johnson that I wish the email would let me send to you guys. This week I’ve really wanted to work hard to make up for all the lost time we’ve had with our health issues. We found one really good family of 4 that I thought were golden, but they didn’t come to church because they had to work, so we’ll have to see what we can do to help them. I’ve been a little frustrated lately because my companion doesn’t have very much initiative. He’s a really nice guy though and we get along just fine. Yesterday we went and visited the sister of Sister K. When we got there, they actually had their whole family over and were having a party. They treated us just like family and gave us steak and shrimp and everything. They even offered us brandy and cuban cigars too, but we weren’t able to take those. One of the family members owns a training place for moto x, skateboarding, and bmx and they invited us to it and told us we can go for free whenever we want. We went today and jumped into the foam pit and everything, its super cool. Everything is going really good here, my foot is all better, and I’m really thankful that I was taking the medicine that saved me from salmonella. I’m glad to hear that guys are all doing really good and staying super busy with everything. I hope the baby Sadie gets feeling better, tell her I’m sorry for always picking her up. I got a card from you yesterday that you sent on June 1st. Thank you, it’s always really fun to get mail. I hope you guys have a great week. I love you! Elder Johnson

July 16, 2012

Hey Mom, So this week my companion and I have been healthy, and I finished giving all of the shots in his butt. It has been raining everyday too, and when it rains here, it pours. This week we had interviews with President, and they went good. President Morales doesn’t talk a whole lot so the interviews with everybody went really fast. We only have 1 week left of this exchange and I’m anxious to see if I’ll be leaving Texcoco or getting a new companion. I did exchanges for 2 days this week in another area, Chapingo. I had taught one of their investigators 3 times, and she asked me if I would baptize her. I felt kind of bad she didn’t want the missionaries from her actual ward to baptize her, but they told me it was fine. We were going to have her service on Saturday morning, but her bipolar aunt that she lives with wouldn’t let her, and I got really frustrated but I guess that’s how the mission is sometimes, and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Satan work really hard on somebody right before they take a big step in their lives, like being baptized. The first day I was with a new gringo that doesn’t speak very much Spanish, so I had to teach almost everything. I used to not like to have to teach everything, but now it’s not really a big deal. We also spoke again in sacrament meeting yesterday, and its getting really easy to prepare a talk in about 2 minutes. Today for P day we didn’t really do anything exciting, just went to an investigators house to eat rabbit because she invited us earlier in the week. I can’t really think of anything that I want for my birthday, I’ll be happy with whatever. Here are some pictures from this week. I ate the brother of the rabbit that I’m holding, its been raining a ton here lately, and there’s a cute little puppy.

Mom: Did the rabbit taste like chicken? Elder Johnson: The rabbit actually kind of did taste like chicken, but the meat was pretty tough. Mom: Where is your rain jacket? Elder Johnson: I have my rain jacket, and I use it every now and then, its just hard to carry around with me walking everywhere and in the buses and everything so I usually just get a little wet, and it usually only rains in the afternoon. Mom: Wow, you have eaten some pretty interesting stuff while you have been on your mission! Elder Johnson: Ya, my stomach has been through a real test here! I’m going to be able to eat anything when I get back in the States! Sorry, I don’t have too many stories from this week, and I’m almost out of internet time as well. Take care, thanks for everything, I love you! Elder Johnson