Teide

Hey guys,

Its the last week of the transfer! Every week is always so busy and chaotic, yet I still don't know what to write about. This weekend will be lots of fun though. Saturday and Sunday we will watch general conference, Sunday is Easter, and Monday is when one of us will leave the islands. I'm pretty sure that won't be me, but we'll see. I hope not. We are still making plans, but we should be able to watch all of conference again.

We started the Easter initiative #siempreahí this week. It's super cool the way they do it. We all got these super fancy, super secret pdf's that were instructions especially for full-time missionaries last week. It's been a huge help and we are seeing a lot of success with it. I'm going to try to get more involved with Facebook this week. I want to use it, but I still never know what to post. Some things never change... 

So grandpa asked what I mean when I say that we "drop" investigators. Normally we have between 10 and 20 investigators at a time, and can be tough to organize the appointments and split the time as needed, so when we have someone that isn't progressing towards baptism we usually stop teaching them for a while. Normally we just set a reminder and get in contact in a few weeks or months when they are more prepared. But in the end we just need to use the time the best and focus on the people the lord has prepared. Good news though, this week we found more new investigators than any other week in my mission, and one of them has a baptismal date on April 28. We also have an interview scheduled for Saturday so that we can have a baptism next Saturday, the 7th.

We finally climbed Teide today! It was amazing how we went from the beach this morning to 2,500 feet in a few hours. Before noon we saw the ocean, a forest, a desert, and snow. We went with a huge group, between the members and the missionaries we had 15 people, pretty fun. We ate lunch in a place called the siete Cañadas. Also, that picture you sent me a while back of the observatory... We went there. Today is a little shorter pday because we scheduled some appointments early, but the schedules changed again. Now we wake up at 7:30 and go to bed at 11:30. We're back to the summer schedule. It's crazy how fast time is going, I feel like we just did this. 

There was a miracle this week. The zone leaders went to Madrid for a meeting and they grabbed a few packages. Luckily mine was one of them. Then on Monday our district leader flew to their island for Intercambios and brought it back here. So I got your package on Wednesday. That was a awesome one. I love the ties (I have way too many now) and the socks are awesome. The treats will be amazing for general conference as well. Thank you guys for that. I'll upload some pictures today, and I'll write you a good email next week about conference and transfers. 

Love you guys! 

Elder Johnson

Conferences

Hey,

This week flew by again. It was weird because we lost a day and a half for zone conference. Which was a good one, but other than that it was a pretty boring week. Not much else to write about.

We were supposed to fly out Wednesday night at 8:30, but we got a call at 7 saying that the flight had been canceled and the only other option was a flight that left at 7:30. Luckily we were already in La Laguna for meetings, so we just grabbed our bags and sprinted across town to grab a taxi. We made it just on time to the airport and flew through security. And then we got to our gate and the flight was delayed an hour. All of that work and it left at the normal time. But that's OK, it was an adventure. It was the smallest plane I have been on. It only had 16 rows of seats and it had propellers. Pretty cool though.

We stayed the night in the zone leaders piso. There were 14 of us, I was lucky to get an air mattress. Most of the guys just put couch cushions on the floor. Then the conference was amazing. President and Hermana Pack started by sharing their testimonies. That was emotional since they will be leaving soon. It's really hitting Hermana Pack. Then Elder Sabin had the rest of the time. He talked about just about everything possible. He covered every part of teaching, finding investigators, doctrine, common questions and doubts, we did practices, everything. I have pages and pages of notes. He is awesome. I don't know if you guys have read his conference talk, but you should check it out. It's a good one. Sadly with the chaos of the mission tour they weren't able to bring down packages. So it will be 6 weeks until I get that one you just sent me.

Yesterday we had stake conference. Unfortunately we weren't able to go to the adult session on Saturday. I guess President and Hermana Pack gave some really good talks. But then yesterday Elder Boom, an area 70 and a senior couple from the temple spoke. It was really good, the topic applied really well to our ward and investigators. They all spoke on eternal families and the blessings of the temple.

Well, we aren't climbing Teide today. The member that was gonna drive us got the flu, so we are going to do that next week. We are on a bus headed to Santa Cruz right now. We are going shopping, so I'll let you know what I end up with. This will be my first time in Primark. Afterwards we're going to play risk with the district. 

Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

Gran Canaria 🇮🇨

Hey,

Time is going way too fast here. This week flew by and we just realized we're already halfway through the transfer. We were super busy this week. We had 4 or 5 appointments scheduled every day. Only about half of them actually happened, but that's normal. Tuesday and Wednesday I was super sick from my sunburn. That was a bad one. Our investigator with a baptismal date is progressing really well, and I can totally see him being ready soon. We changed his date to April 7. It turns out we havestake conference and general conference so we couldn't do it over the top of those. I'm excited for him though. We also found an investigator from Leeds, England. He is awesome. We are going to eat with him on Wednesday. He thinks my american accent is super funny. There was one sad thing this week, we had to drop 9 investigators. 9.... So we are back down to a smaller group and ready to find a TON of people to teach. 

So I think almost all of your questions were about zone conference and the general authority, so I'll answer that first. Zone conference is this Thursday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. I just got my tickets, we're going to fly over thereWednesday night and then fly back Thursday night after conference. It should be an adventure. We came up with a pretty tricky plan to get the packages back here. The general authority that is coming is Elder Sabin. He spoke in general conference recently. They are doing conference with him and all of the missionaries in the peninsula on Wednesday, and then he will come down and talk to us on Thursday. I should also get to meet the Bakers at conference. They're serving in gran canaria. 

Cool experience of the week: I have been messaging Cari's old investigators this week. They are super cool and knew exactly who I was when I sent the friend request. I would love to teach them, and it's possible with the mission changes I could end up in Burgos anyway. How crazy would that be?

So we had Chinese twice this week.  There is a delivery place with legit American Chinese. I got sesame chicken, orange chicken, fried rice, chow mein, and spring rolls. I want to get Bahn mi next week. 

We are hiking Teide next week with a member. Love you guys. Thank you for sending the package this week and helping me with everything. Keep me updated on the busy week. 😀👍

Elder Johnson

We hiked Toborno and now I look like a tomato

Hey guys,

Another busy P-day. We went on a hike today that was absolutely insane. That has to be one of the sketchiest, most adventurous things I've done. I think we took some pretty good pictures so I can win theisland photo competition. I'll upload those to the drive. But, I'm running short on time again for emails.

So earlier this week we had President and Hermana Pack in our piso. They were in a rush so we only did interviews, not piso check. But that's OK. It was clean anyway. The interviews were awesome and we tookan awesome selfie with them right outside our doorway. That might be the best picture of the week, or mission.

President and Hermana Pack
Elder Johnson and Elder Tiebing

I'm definitely enjoying the weather here. It's been mid to high 70s all week with sun. And I totally got fried on the hike today. I am so sunburned right now. But I still kinda miss the snow. Im a little jealous of you guys. I completely skipped winter this year and it feels weird.

Our district is still killing it. We have continued finding investigators, but now we are seeing the fruits from that. There are a lot of investigators coming to church now and we have a couple with baptismaldates. It's still crazy to me because none of us know what we're doing. I'm the most experienced one here somehow. That's mostly what I talked about with President. We also had intercambios on friday. I was with Elder Johnson in La Laguna. Intercambios arealways fun and you always see so many miracles.

I still use the recipes you have sent me. If you guys think of any simple Asian meals, let me know. I don't have a ton of access to ingredients but I really, really, really miss Asian food. I need to find a way to get it here. 

That's all I've got for this week. I'm gonna go find some aloe vera and find a way not to die. Talk to you next week.

Love you, 

Elder Johnson