Training Week 12 - We're done!

Hey guys,

I have a lot to tell you about this week, but I don't really have time. I was transferred to Cuenca. It's a small town about 2.5 hours from Madrid on bus. I left the islands around 6 this morning and I'm still on a bus right now. We spent our entire day in the metro. Like 3 or 4 hours. It was way too much. We will arrive around 10:00 tonight. It's gonna be a long day. 

We will be a little more isolated than we were in Zamora. The area is about the same size, but we don't have a car. We will Skype in for district meeting every week. This week I will have a ton of contact with missionaries though. We are going to the temple on Wednesday! I can't wait for that. It's been so long. After that we have zone conference in Madrid on Saturday. I will finally get to know some other missionaries. I'll see Elder Jäger as well. 

This week was pretty hard for me, but it was probably the best of my mission. There was a lot of emotion. Our week was just packed with citas, back to back to back. We had 14 member citas and we ate almost every time. It was hard for me to say goodbye to everyone. I don't like those things, you guys know that. It was probably harder leaving Puerto than home though. I made some really good friends there, and I think the relationships better because they are based completely on the gospel. It's cool looking back and seeing that I actually left a mark on this area and these people.

I want to write more about it, but I'll share more next week when I have more time. Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

Training Week 11 - 100 Ways and goodbyes

This week went by so fast. I hate that time goes by fast when you're enjoying it. I am certain that I'm leaving this week. I'm not even fighting it. I'm just gonna enjoy every minute I have left here.

About a month ago a training video was released where Elder Uchtdorf talked about working with members. In that video he talked about making a list of 100 Ways a member could help the work. Then once you have the list, you teach a perfect lesson in under 5 minutes and have them find something on the list that fits their personality and skills. We really liked the idea. So this week we finished the list. We made it as a district and on friday we sent it to the mission. It's pretty cool. We have already seen a few miracles from it. We have received a few references, a few members have given books of Mormon to friends, we have more members in lessons. It's really cool and we're just starting. We'll see what we can accomplish this week. We had our bishop announce it in sacrament meeting yesterday. 

Rosi is doing well. We met 3 times this week. Here's the cool part though... She came to church yesterday. We never have anybody come. It's such a big commitment. We figured out it's about 15 euros, and a 7 hour day with all of the travel. After figuring that out I understand why nobody comes. She did it though, and she is serious about baptism. We will be teaching the commandments this week. She is on pace for her date of July 28. 

I wanted to meet with everyone before I go, so we went crazy at church yesterday talking to everybody. Now that I have figured out Spanish I have devoloped some really good relationships with the members. It's been really fun getting to know everyone. I definitely have a lot of friends here. So far, we have 11 goodbye citas scheduled for this week just with members. I can't wait! At least 6 of them are lunch/dinner citas. I will have TONS of pictures to send you next week. 

We went down to Los Cristianos this week. It was about 1.5 hours each way. Beautiful drive though. We're supposed to sell the car down there this week, but we're too busy already. Everyday is booked so Elder Rogers will probably have to do it after I leave. 

I volunteered our companionship to be in charge of a ward activity this Saturday. I kinda wanted it to be a cool goodbye thing. So I'm supposed to make pancakes for the whole ward. They don't have those here. Quick question though... Do you have an easy pancake recipe? I'm also supposed to make a scripture trivia game, but it's harder than I thought it would be. Im gonna be working hard on that. 

Thank you for the world cup updates! We're in heaven here. It's not distracting either, don't worry about that. We live above a bar. I hear the games all the time. Keep them coming. I hope you guys are enjoying it. It sounds like there have been some great games and upsets so far. Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

Training Week 10

Hey guys, 

This was a Huge week. Before I say anything though, I should tell you guys I am receiving everyone's emails. I have received a bunch this last 2 weeks and I haven't replied to any. I realized I only have today and next pday left here so we haven't really been leaving time to write. I'm going to try next week, but if that doesn't work I will write everyone in 2 weeks. 

So like I mentioned before, this was a big week. It might have been the coolest week yet. (except for the week of Jonathan's baptism) It all started with last week's hike in Gran Canaria. We went to a place called Roque Nublo. The hike was beautiful, but I think my favorite part was hiking it and then seeing the Rock from the airplane. I still loving flying everytime. It's become a little more normal, but the effect still hasn't worn off. 

Right after I emailed you last week I had my last interview with President Pack. It was really good. We talked a lot about the area, how I'm doing, how Elder Rogers is doing, how training has been, and then he gave me some advice for the rest of my mission as well as some advice for afterwards. I always love our interviews. It was pretty sad to think thats the last one. 

Tuesday I had my last zone conference with the Packs. It was definitely a special one. During the morning session we talked about obedience. I think President wanted to crack down on a few things before going. But he made some big changes, too. As of Tuesday the "Law of Moses" has been lifted. We can listen to music now!! Sort of... We aren't going crazy. But it's been nice to change it up with something besides hymns. I have some David Archuleta and Alex Boyé that's pretty good. So that's cool. Then the afternoon session was a Q&A with the Packs. No rules, anything goes. It was just great advice for life. We talked about everything. My favorite thing they said was that we should put the most important things first in life, not the most gupressing things. Sometimes the pressing things, like work or school, take priority when what really matters is our relationship with God and our family. If we give priority to the important things, the pressing things will be taken care of. I really liked that. I think it's very common/easy to make that mistake. 

Update on the investigators: we had a great week with Rosi. We met Tuesday and we were planning on teaching about the Restoration, but she told us about some family issues so we taught the plan of salvation. It's always cool when we both just know and we can change plans without talking about it. Long story short, it was a great lesson and at the end I really felt like we should talk about baptism. Normally I like to teach more about it before inviting someone to do it, but I just went for it. It worked out. We are working towards July 28 for her baptism. The rest of our investigators have really slowed down. A big part of it is that we were on another island half of the week and couldn't meet. I will keep you updated though. I would love to leave this area set up for a baptism or two. 

THE CAR...... I HATE THE CAR........ We have had to put a lot of time into the car lately. We took it in this week to get an estimate on the repairs. Let's just say it's gonna cost a lot more than my car was worth at home. (That's prolly not saying much 😂) We have an appointment tomorrow to see if we can just sell it. The goal now is to see if we can get a decent amount without fixing it. So we have to get a written offer and send it to the office, then we will sell it. The headquarters in Germany decided not to replace it so we are losing the car. It's the first time in my mission so that will suck. I'm kinda ready though. Idk how many times I have said I hate cars. 

We recieved a Ministering assignment this week. On one hand I think it's super cool. I'm excited to be a part of it. On the other hand I think it's weird because we're full-time ministers. Why do we need this assignment. It has taken a lot of time in interviews and meeting. We'll see how it goes though. It might be really cool. 

Today was amazing. We did another Puerto pday. We hung out on the wall by the ocean for a while, then we grabbed lunch at a really nice restaurant, then we played spikeball forever. That was so much fun. You guys need to look up the restaurant. I uploaded the name in the Google drive. There is a pic of the sign. It's right on the ocean and the mist kept hitting us as we ate. I saved up and got cordon bleu. It was totally worth it. It wasn't missionary food. That's for sure. Idk if you guys know what spikeball is, but you have to look up videos. Elder Rogers got it from his family, and it's sooo fun. We played it for hours. 

That's all I've got this week. It was a long one. This week deserved it though. Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

(This is a building I told Josh about when he very first got transferred to tenerife. I wanted him to find it and send me a picture because I kept seeing it all over Instagram as a tourist spot. He finally found it!)

Gran Canaria

Hey guys,

Today has been CRAZY!! We got up at 5 am to go to La Laguna, when we got there we parked in a free area and grabbed a taxi to the airport, and then ran to get to security. We made it on time though. The bad news is that I left my passport in the piso, so we missed our flight. I had to call the mission office and I ended up getting another flight 2 hours later. After we rescheduled the flight we drove back to Puerto and did it all over again. The good news is we will make it to zone conference tomorrow. The bad news is it was chaotic and there is a 50/50 chance it cost me 40€.

So tomorrow is zone conference in Gran Canaria. It's gonna be a big one. It's our last one with the Packs. (bright side of the flight situation is that they will probably pick us up when we land.) They had us do a lot to prepare. We had to read all of the handbooks and rule books we have. It took us about 6ish hours in total over the last 4 days. We learned a lot though and I'm excited to see how it goes tomorrow.

We found a few really solid investigators this week. Kind of a lot actually. In the last week and a half we found 10 investigators. One of them is named Rosi. She is really cool. She lived in the U.S. for a while and her cousin is a member. I have high hopes for her. The other one I'm really excited about is Orlando. He's the Disneyworld guy. I think I talked about him last week. He is progressing well and we want to give him a baptismal date this week.

I like the questions. They always make it fun.

1. Did you ever try the Mio drink to make diy Mountain Dew? (just curious)

I did. I bought some mineral water last week and we had Mountain Dew and Root Beer! That was gooooood. 

2. Did you get your car back?

We still haven't taken it in. We have an appointment Wednesday to get an estimate on the costs of the repairs. This has been a lot of work that just doesn't seem like missionary work. I still hate cars. :) 

3. What did you do for pday fun today?

We went on a hike in Gran Canaria today. It was a ton of fun. We had the whole zone there and the Packs came too. It was cool to get a few extra minutes with them before they leave. I uploaded a ton of pictures today. 

4. Any new news on the homefront about mission changes and Mission President changes?

Nothing new...

5. Did you get your Jersey you ordered yet? 

It should come tomorrow at zone conference. 

6. Tell us about the lady that has a mansion that you help out. 

She's awesome! She does so much for us. We eat with her once or twice per week. She moved here from South London like 30 years ago, so we speak both languages with her. Her husband has Alzheimers so she really enjoys it when we come over. 

7. How are your new shoes working out? Feel okay?

The new shoes are awesome. They will easily last me the whole mission. I should have started with them. 

8. Are there mosquitoes in Tenerife? You never complain about them but it seems like there would be. 

Tenerife is heaven. You guys know that. We are on the only island that doesn't have mosquitos.... Amazing right? 

9. Can you believe that one year ago you graduated from HS and we were packing our house up to move?

We were talking about that this week. It definitely doesn't feel like that was a year ago. 

10. Fathers Day is coming up here. You already had Fathers Day, right? 

We had it a few weeks or months ago. What day is it exactly in the U. S.? It feels like it was more than a year ago that me and Erin went to Lowes to buy the grill stuff. That was fun. 

A few quick things... This week we had Canary Days. It is like the independence day of the islands. So we got together with the ward and ate paella. The other cool thing is corpus cristi. We took some coolpictures in la Orotava. I uploaded them too.

That's all I've got today. Talk to you next week, 

Elder Johnson