September 13, 2013

Hey Mom! That is so awesome Jayce got baptized, I got the pictures and everything. Tell him congrats for me, I’ll be sure to talk to him myself when I get home. I told President Morales my cousin got baptized and he was really happy for him as well. So sorry for not writing very much last week and for writing late this week as well. We´ve been super busy lately with the transfers coming up next week, the leadership council last Friday, and our area flooded, and we baptized a brother on Sunday as well! So on Friday we had the leadership council. It was really good I learned a lot, my comp and I gave a training about the plan of salvation and it went really well too. It was in another stake about 20 minutes from our area. We grabbed a taxi to go home and the taxi couldn’t get to the colony where we live, he left us about a mile from our house because the traffic was absolutely ridiculous. Anyways, we went walking and noticed there was quite a bit of water on the streets but the sidewalks were still dry, and because we were in our suits we didn’t want to get wet so we were being really careful. After walking about a block, we realized that everything was flooded towards our house, and there was no way we were going to be able to get home dry. We started walking in the water and a little while later the water was up past my knees. I felt like I was duck hunting, wading in water, except the water here is uglier! It was really dirty black water that smelled terrible. We passed by a couple members on the way home and saw that the water was flooding pretty much all of the houses. We hurried and went home and left our backpacks and put on some old clothes to go and help everybody. We were carrying sand bags, blocking off doors, taking water out of the houses with buckets and everything like that until 1 in the morning! I was walking in the street and saw an 8 year old girl walking in the middle of the street, the water up to past her waist all alone. She was barefoot too so I picked her up and carried her to her house, helped her dry off and then gave her a blanket to get warm. It was sad, her parents weren’t negligent, just too busy trying to save the stuff in their house, and I felt bad for them too. Their fridge broke and the all the girls school books and their dressers and everything got wet. It was a really sad scene everywhere in our colony, a guy died really close in a spot where we had been like 30 minutes before because a power line fell and electrocuted him. We were busy cleaning and helping people here from Friday until Sunday, the majority is all cleaned up now though and things are getting back to normal. On Sunday, we just had a 1 hour sacrament meeting and then after all the members went to serve those who had been affected by the floods, it was really cool and ended up being a missionary activity because we got several references from serving people who weren’t members. After all this we still had a baptism on Sunday night. Mariano got baptized in the stake center, and another recent convert actually baptized him. I joked with him before and asked him if he wanted to just get baptized in the street instead of having to all the way to the church. We´ve been helping him and his family a lot since the flood and have really gained their confidence and now we´re teaching his sister and brother in law. Mariano has changed a ton and has been an example to his family as well and his baptism was really special, after getting baptized he came back and hugged his sister for long time and they cried together. They had had lots of family problems but both have felt the peace that comes from the Holy Ghost in the last couple of weeks. Well I got to run, thanks so much mom, can’t believe that in only 7 weeks we´ll be seeing each other! It’s freaking me out I don’t want to stop being a missionary, but it´ll be great to get home and apply everything I’ve learned and I can’t wait to see my family either. I love you mom have a great week!!!!! Love Elder Johnson

The leadership council on Friday, the zone leaders in the back and the sisters and APs in front with President & Sister Morales.

To try to keep dry we put bags on our feet but ya well it didn’t work that good. I called them "poor man’s waders".

These pics are from yesterday (Sunday) we only had 1 hour of church and then went to give service to members and non-members. In one of the pics I’m with a guy from the government, he thought I was the leader of everybody because I was wearing the Mormon helping hands vest and when he found out I’m from the US he wanted to talk to me and asked to take a picture with me!

So the flood happened while we were in another stake center and when we got home the whole colony where we live was flooded and the taxi couldn’t even make it to our house so we got out and had to walk. It stunk because I was in my suit and nice shoes.

These pics are from my cell phone. There were helicopters with spotlights flying around. A guy died 2 blocks from where we were, a power cable fell on him. Pretty ugly stuff...

This is the morning after the big flood.

Our baptism this week, Mariano got baptized. We all did the marshmallow face to be funny.