I guess this is the last real email. I'm sure I'll send one next week, but it's gonna be weird. So this week was great. We had zone conference on Tuesday, but we were in Tenerife from Sunday night to Wednesday morning. It was a crazy few days. Monday we did the hike and played soccer, then that night we went out to the streets of la laguna and contacted with the members of the ward. I went on splits with a few members and we worked together and then for the last 45 minutes we just talked. It was super fun to catch up with them. It was also weird because the last time I talked to them I didn't know Spanish so communication was very limited. After we finished up I was in charge of rounding up all the missionaries and getting them home since I know the area, but it was a mess trying to track down 14 missionaries wandering the streets. Everyone finally made it home around midnight.
Tuesday I had my last zone conference. It was a really good one. I learned a lot, both for the mission and for what comes next. We talked a lot about the importance of doing the small and simple things like reading the book of Mormon daily, saying our prayers, and going to church every week. It was interesting too because the focus was not on getting our investigators to do it, president invited us personally to do it. I really liked it. At the end of the conference right before the final hymn president got up and gave a 5 minute pump up speech. He started by asking me and the 4 other missionaries in the zone that are going home to stand up. He then said that we were losing 30+ missionaries, a lot of mission leadership, and we'll be closing 10 areas in the next 2 months. We then put a PowerPoint up with pictures from the movie "300." We read the story of Gideon in judges, and he said "Gideon only needed 300 to defeat the midianites, Madrid only needs 150. (because that's how many missionaries we have left) Will you be one?" It was super cool and I wish I could be involved with the things that are happening soon in the mission. We then sang the mission hymn and I said the closing prayer. It was a rough time for those of us going home. It's said to think I won't have another zone conference for at least 40 years..
That night after the conference we helped the AP's clean up and then we grabbed a taxi to Puerto de la cruz! Man it was so nice to be back. We did a little exchange so elder Backstein went with elder Maxwell and I went with elder Johnson. We passed by a few members houses but nobody was home. As we were walking down the street we ran into Jonathan and melania though! They invited us to come over and eat with them and it was awesome! We just talked all night. Then at the end of the night they drove us back to our piso in Santa Cruz. It was great to see them again.
The work here in Fuerteventura is picking up fast. We are seeing a ton of miracles. This week we got 24 referrals from members. That's an incredible number...like so good that our district doesn't believe us. We have the branches support and they are excited to work so I think there will be some miracles here soon. It's too bad that I have to leave now that things are going so well.
Today we went up to the northern part of the island to pick up the Elders from Lanzarote. We have exchanges tomorrow. Then José, a member, took us to 8 small villages throughout the island as well as some big sand dunes. It was super pretty. He also works as a tour guide so we learned a lot about the history of the island.
My schedule for the last week is gonna be crazy. I'm flying to Madrid either Saturday night or Sunday after church and then from there I will have Sunday and Monday free to visit members. Then on Tuesday I will have a temple session in the morning, then my interview with President, and then the final celebration in the mission home. I think we'll have dinner and a testimony meeting. Then Wednesday morning we'll have breakfast and go to the airport. Until I leave the islands though, we're gonna be working hard trying to take advantage of the help from the members. I will let you know next week how it goes. Sorry the email is so long, but I had a lot to say and it still didn't all fit.
Love you,
Elder Johnson
