June 24, 2013

Rosaura's Baptism

Father's Day Activity

I've walked holes in my shoes!

Hey Mom! So this letter is going to be a little short this week because I have changes tomorrow. I don’t know where I’m going; if I’ll stay in this mission or if I’ll be going to the new Chalco mission but I’ll let you know next week. My comp/son Elder Torres is going to be staying in the area and he´ll be training a new elder. I´m so proud of him I’m going to be a grandpa! This week Rosaura got baptized. She´s really cool, and we actually baptized her sister and brother in law 2 weeks ago and they all 3 got confirmed together yesterday. The brother that baptized her and his wife had helped us with being her fellow shippers and bringing her to church and everything. It was way cool because it was the first baptism he´s ever done and he was pretty nervous but had practiced a ton and he baptized her perfectly. The members in this ward are honestly so awesome. I´m really going to miss the Perla. Yesterday I was sitting in the back of the sacrament hall and was seeing that the amount of people in the sacrament meeting has doubled from what it was when I was here in December. The ward is growing so much and the members and converts here are really united and everything it’s been great. It´ll be fun to get a new area though and be able to work there as well. I love this great work and will keeping working my hardest in whatever area or mission I’m in. Camping looks like it was super fun, I can’t wait to go with you guys when I get back. I can’t believe I’ve almost hit 20 months it’s freaking me out! Mom, I loved your letter this week. It’s always great to hear about everything that’s going on. Sorry I don’t have time to respond to everything but keep writing me long letters like this and telling me everything. I love it! Here are some pics of my shoes, I’ll let you guys decide which pics are best to show to the people at Missionary Mall. Try to see if you can get the same ones, I love these shoes; it’s just that I almost roll my ankle when I walk in them now and they look really bad with all the holes in them. I stopped wearing them about 6 weeks ago. I hope you have a great week mom I love you! Elder Johnson

June 17, 2013

My Comp and Me in a MotoTaxi

Service Project at the Stake Center

Baptism of Jonathan

Dearest Mother of Mine, It sounds you guys had a fun weekend, baseball in Richfield, Elder Cook and Father’s Day all sound awesome. That’s great Brocks team won the tournament, I’m sure they were happy. It’s amazing how fast missionary work is growing, an Area 70, Elder Abraham Martinez came to our Stake Conference yesterday and he talked about missionary work and called all the mission age people to the front and talked about how we should all help them to get on a mission as well and then we all sang Called to Serve. It was really neat, and it sounds like Elder Cook talked about missionary work as well, I love it! This week Jonathan, who´s 11, got baptized. He´s really cool and actually lived in the US for a couple years and likes to speak English with me. We had the 1st counselor of the bishopric baptize him it was really cool because it was the first person he´s ever baptized he was really excited and thankful for the opportunity. The work is still going great, the Lord is blessing us so much. I think I might have changes next week, but they don’t tell us for sure until Sunday. I love the area I’m in and everything is going so well here right now, but I’m not going to lie I’m kind of ready for a change of scenery, so either way will be fine if I have changes or not. On Saturday night I was lying in bed, not asleep just lying there, and I heard a weird sound, something like a drum. I realized it was my bed banging against the wall. After I felt really dizzy and all of sudden I realized it was an earthquake. I jumped and hurried and got dressed and yelled at my companion who had just gotten done showering to get dressed too. We went outside and soon after the sister we live with came outside too. We saw on the news that it was a 6.0 earthquake, not giant but pretty big. It was the biggest one I’ve ever felt, even bigger than the one last March. Nothing happened here, no buildings fell or anything, everything’s fine. It was kind of cool to feel another earthquake though! Okay everybody so I forgot to tell you guys last week, but we´re going to do the D & C countdown. What happens is, we all read one section of the Doctrine and Covenants every day, and when we get done, I´ll be home! So I did the math and today we should all read section 4, it started on Friday so we´ll have to all catch up a little bit. So every day we all read one section, for example tomorrow we should all read section 5, Wednesday, section 6 and so on. And when everybody finishes Doctrine and Covenants, I’ll get home the next day. Sound good? Ok and as missionaries we always make commitments with the people so, family do you all commit to reading one section of the Doctrine and Covenants every day? Thanks family, I love you! Thanks so much for everything mom I love you and have been praying for you. How has your jaw been feeling? I hope you have a great week, keep me updated with everything and I want to hear about the picnic/ fishing trip tonight! Love Elder Johnson

June 10, 2013

Baptism of Cesar and Juan

Trying to stay on a crowded bus!

Hey mom! How’s everything going? Wow it sounds like it’s super-hot there right now so I’m glad here to avoid the heat. It hasn’t rained too much this week but it’s been overcast a lot of days and we´ve really loved the weather. A baseball tournament in Richfield Utah? That sounds so tight I wish I could go! Where are you guys going to stay at? Well here’s the scoop on La Perla this week... This week Cesar and Juan got baptized. Cesar is 12 years and Juan is 10, they´re grandkids of an active member of our ward and their dad is actually a member too but hasn´t been to church in years. I first met them the first time I was here in La Perla, like last November. We´ve been working with them for a long time, and it was such a great experience to see them get baptized yesterday. Their uncle who’s an ex missionary came from another state to baptize them and told us he was super grateful for the work we have done with his family. The baptismal service was so big that we did it in the sacrament room and my companion and their uncle did a special musical number it was really cool. I was thinking about singing in the musical number too but I wanted to be humble and not steal the show with my angel voice so I just let them do it... Ya some things never change I still can’t sing worth beans but ya the baptism was really cool. Lately we´ve had a goal as a mission that each companionship should be helping to activate 2 less active members that are mission aged and help them to prepare to serve a mission. It’s been really cool; one of the members we´ve been helping has reactivated and is going to church every week and took his earrings out and everything. He´s been talking with the bishop about how to start his mission papers and everything. One of the ways we´ve been working with them is doing divisions and actually going out and teaching with them. I love doing divisions with them its way fun to really get to know them and work with them and we as missionaries can put 2 appointments at every hour and as a result we can visit more people and have more lessons. There are 3 members from our ward that we have been working with that are getting their papers and going to the doctor and everything. It´s so cool to know that they´ll be able to help so many more people as well. I hope you get feeling all the way better soon mom, I’m sorry I’ll be praying for you this week. Thanks so much for all that you do for me, I know that if it wasn´t for all your help I wouldn’t be here right now doing what I love. Have a fantastic week I love you! Elder Johnson

June 3, 2013

Baptism of Jesus and Catya Taco Guy! We got locked out of our house! Saying Good Bye to Elder Harrison! Rainy season in Mexico ¡Buenas noches mama! What’s new in Utah? I`m so glad you`re mouth is starting to feel better, I hope you get feeling 100% soon. That’s still so hard for me to believe that schools out, I miss summer! Summer here means lots and lots of rain, and it’s definitely been that way this week. On Saturday night it rained harder than I’ve ever seen in my life, and we happened to be quite a long way away from our house when it really started. We decided to just go running through it instead of waiting and we were honestly the only people in the streets, I’m sure everybody else was just thinking "crazy Mormons". We got super super soaked, actually I think I would have been drier if I would have just jumped into a swimming pool. It was really cool though when we were on the way to an appointment during the crazy rain storm a lady stopped by in a car and gave us a ride. She wasn`t even a member but has 2 kids that are members in another ward. She was super nice and gave us a towel and an umbrella. It was such a tender mercy of the Lord to have her pass by us at that time. So this week we didn’t have a baptism for the first time in 8 weeks, it was kind of sad. We`ve really been spoiled with having baptisms every week and it was weird this week to not have one. We worked super super hard though, and we`ll be having 2 baptisms on Sunday and then the Saturday after that as well. The kids that we`re teaching right now that are supposed to get baptized next Saturday are really cool. They lived in Texas with their dad before but now they live with their grandma and have been here in Mexico only since January. I was on divisions with another gringo Saturday morning and we gave them a tour of the church in English. It was so weird and incredibly hard for me to do. They speak Spanish perfectly too so I think I’m just going to speak that to them. It’s so much easier for me to talk about the Gospel and everything else in Spanish than in English. Mom, I hope you have a great week. Time is honestly going by so so fast I can’t believe it. Thanks for sending all the pics of everybody and for always writing me and keeping me updated with everything. I love you and hope you have a great week and get feeling better! Love Elder Johnson