October 8, 2012

¡Hola Familia! Wow that’s great you got to watch all 4 sections of conference. That’s crazy that Connor can now leave when he’s 18, the first thing I thought was that I might not be seeing him now for almost 4 years! Let me know what he decides with that, and I’ll talk to him more about it too. Mexico was the only country where missionaries could leave at the age of 18 before, so that wasn’t really big news to the people here. With the ages changing to 18 and 19 years old for girls I think there are going to be a lot more missionaries serving everywhere. We watched the conference in the stake center and I was able to watch almost all of it, and in ENGLISH! I can understand it just fine in Español but I like hearing their original voices a lot better. We had our own classroom for all the gringos to watch the conference. Elder Holland’s talk was my favorite I think, when he asked if we really love the Savior. So remember the investigator D? Well we’ve still been working with him a lot still, and he was able leave his addictions and was able to get baptized this week! I baptized my amigo on Friday, and it’s truly amazing to see the changes he’s made in his life. One year ago he was selling illegal drugs in the roughest part of all of Mexico City, (missionaries aren’t even allowed to go into this place for safety reasons), 6 months ago he was in a rehabilitation center for drugs, and then this week he officially left all that behind and made a covenant with the Lord! I love seeing people change and find a happiness in this life that can’t be obtained through other means. So my convert, M that I baptized in April was excited to go to his first General Conference, but about the week before his appendix ruptured and he had surgery. The healthcare isn’t quite the same here as in Dad’s hospital and where they cut him open, opened back up and he had to have another little procedure done to sew it back together on Saturday. We passed by to check on him Sunday morning, and he told us that he was going to go to conference with us. We told him he that he shouldn’t but he insisted that he was going to come so we went together. After the first 2 hours I saw him and he was in a lot of pain. His cut had opened back up and there was blood on his white shirt. Elder F and me grabbed a first aid kit from the office and went into a classroom to see if we could do anything to help him. He took his old bandage off and I almost fainted! I could pretty much see his guts! The Lord gave me strength though, and because Elder F is just like me with blood, I had to clean out his wound first with gauze and medicine, and then patch it back up with more gauze and then we gave him a blessing. I’m getting to be pretty good with the medical stuff now; I’m thinking I might be a doctor now when I get home! The English classes are still going really good. The only thing is that I gave the prayer in English to end our classes the other day, and I’ve realized I’ve completely forgotten how to pray in English. I haven’t said an English prayer out loud or personally since the MTC, it was so weird! My "students" were all laughing after because they recognized a couple of Spanish words mixed in my English prayer. I’m almost sure this is my last week in Texcoco, I’m really going to miss it here. I have no idea where I’ll be going, but I’ll let you guys know as soon as I do. Thanks so much for everything; I’ll let you know when I get the packages. I hope you guys have a great week, and tell dad and Connor to keep sending me hunting pictures, even though they make me jealous. I love you! Elder Johnson

Elder Johnson with his companion Elder F