Baptism #1

Hey,

This week was amazing! I mean, it had its ups and downs, but it was insane. We had a baptism, Elder Tiebing has the flu, and we found more new investigators this week than the last 2 transfers in Zamora.

1. What was the most spiritual experience this week?

The baptism on Saturday was one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had. Jonathan was just so ready for it. He is married to a member, and all of their kids are members but he wasn't. But after yearsof meeting off and on with the missionaries he just decided one day that he wanted to get married in the temple. So, elder Tiebing taught him a lot before I got here, but in the last 2 weeks we have taught him 8 times. He even takes notes in the lessons. So yeah, the whole ward came to the baptism as well as a lot of investigators and inactive members. And seriously, when he came up out of the water it was amazing. The spirit was so strong. And I was just taking that in for a second, but then when I turned around I saw that a ton of people were just crying. All of the inactive members, all of the investigators, one guy that just showed up from the street. They were all crying. I really feel like that baptism just started something awesome for this ward.

The guy from the street was a miracle. He was someone the la Laguna elders found that afternoon and they set up an appointment for Sunday night, but he got confused and showed up right as we were about to start the baptism. So I actually met him at the door and invited him in and from there it was awesome. He didn't know anything about us or our church other than what the elders told him on the train, but he could obviously feel something because he was one of the people crying after the baptism. He found the other elders after and told them he would wants to meet and that nothing that happened was a coincidence. That is an amazing example of that "divine design" we've been talking about. ("By Divine Design" by Elder Rasband from October 2017 General Conference)

2. What was the most bizarre experience you had this week?

I mentioned that Elder Tiebing has been sick. That has been really weird this week. He sleeps in every morning and usually takes a nap every day, so that leaves me with a lot of time to fill. I found this list of people in the area book that were just uncontacted numbers though, and I just called all of them. We actually found 2 new investigators that way. It's nothing super crazy or bizarre, but I thought it was weird how that worked out. I never would have found that in another situation.

3. How is it being part of a bigger district? Are you still fairly isolated or do you interact more?

It has been so fun having a big district. We see each other a lot during the week, for district meeting, baptisms, correlation, ward counsel, all kinds of things. And then on pday we will always be together.Today is a little weird because elder Tiebing is sick, so we canceled loro parque and they went hiking without us. We have 2 wards in our district too, so that's cool. Our area covers almost half of the island, so at times I guess it could seem isolated becausewe aren't close to them, but the way things work out its all good.

Hopefully my emails aren't as boring this last few weeks. I know they got pretty lame towards the end of my time in Zamora. Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Elder Johnson

Island Life

Hey guys,

Things have changed a lot. This new area actually feels like a new mission. Everything is so different here. Warm weather, members, other missionaries, investigators, palm trees... It's all changed. I like the questions you sent me. It helps to get me thinking about what to write about. I always feel like I'm writing the same things.

#1 Tell us about your new area and companion

I don't even know where to start. I had heard that Puerto had the nicest piso in the misión, so I was pretty excited about that. It's so nice though. I think it's a members vacation house that they let themissionaries use. It's huge and it has a lot of extra things that make it nice, like washer AND DRYER. Also our study view is amazing. The wall on the south side of the piso is just glass and we put our table up against it, so you can see the entire city and the volcano while you study. Then we have a balcony on the other side and you can see the ocean. Pretty cool. 

Pdays will be a little different here. We are planning a lot of hikes and next week we are going to Loro Parque. It's like a fake SeaWorld combined with a zoo. I'm pretty excited for that. Today we are in Santa Cruz, another area, to play soccer. I'll make sure to take a ton of pictures this transfer. I have been slacking on that this week, kind of just taking it all in. 

Elder Tiebing is pretty cool. He is a lot like Elder Jäger. I think he's from Freiburg, Germany. He works really hard. Maybe a little too hard. Our district leader reminded me Saturday night that we need to take time for lunches. We have been running like crazy this week so we just plan in 15 minutes to eat. But we're going to take the full time this week, it's healthier. He's very smart, and with that I think he's a little stubborn sometimes. But I think we're going to have a ton of success this transfer. It's pretty cool being the older companion. I feel like it's pushing me a lot more than anything I've done yet. A lot of times if I don't understand something, or if I don't have an answer in a lesson, there isn't the older companion to look to. It forces me to know things and take the lead. I really like it. Also, I'm like the 2nd or 3rd oldest in our district. We are super young here in Tenerife. 

#2 Tell us how the work is different

So we have a ward here in la Laguna. There are somewhere between 60 to 80 active members. I really have no idea yet. But that changes the work so much. We have a bunch of ward activities planned and last night we had a family home evening with the bishops family, 2 member families, and the family of our soon to be recent convert. It was a ton of fun until we finished eating and the bishop turns to us and says "I don't really have much prepared, do you 2 want to teach tonight." still fun, but a little more stressful since we weren't prepared. I always thought missionaries could just teach anything any time, which to some degree is true, but I've realized how much study and preparation that takes. We might teach a lot, but we always take 2+ hours per day to prepare so it's fun when you're not prepared. Another thing that's different is our choir. We have choir practices every Friday and Sunday. You could imagine how much I like that. We were able to watch the funeral of President Monson on Friday after practice. That was amazing, but really really sad. 

This Saturday we will have a baptism for Jonathan. He is amazing and will be a solid member. You will hear more about him. We taught him 3 times this week. I'll send pictures of that next week. 

#3 Tell us about exchanges before you left zamora

The intercambios last week were amazing. It's funny though, what I liked so much was that I was the older companion. But now it doesn't really matter. I'm living that 24/7. I had fun with those guys back in Zamora though. We ordered dominos at 10 as a going away party. But yeah. I finally wrote a novel again. Talk to you next week. 

Elder Johnson

Transfers :)

Hey guys,

This has been an absolutely insane week. I mentioned transfers last week and I don't want to leave you hanging, so I'm thinking I should probably talk about that first. I did get transfered. I am actually writing this on a train to Madrid. The cool thing is that my travel doesn't stop there. My new area will be Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife. Yes, I am going to the canary islands. So I should arrive in Madrid around 8 am and then my flight leaves at 11:00. So yeah that's super fun. As far as my new companion goes... that's just as interesting. Remember when I said there are only like 4 or 5 European missionaries in the mission? Well I'm on my third straight. I will have another German companion, Elder Tiebing. I have heard that he is awesome and I really can't wait to serve with him. He does have less time than me in the mission though, I will be "greenie breaking" him (I will be hiss first companion after his trainer.) So my Spanish and overall missionary abilities will be tested for sure. I am sure I will learn a ton over the next few weeks. Another cool thing, we will have a car. In the mission we have a car in Zamora, my new area, and the APs/office have cars. Somehow I have been lucky enough to have one for probably near half of my mission. 

As exciting as all of this is, It's been kinda sad too. I sort of said goodbye to people, but I wasn't sure if I was leaving so I couldn't do too much. Sunday I was able to talk to a lot of the members in church or on the phone, but I still missed a lot of people. I will definitely miss Zamora. It's not the biggest city and there isn't much to see, but I will always love it. 

So, I have some pictures from this week. Yesterday it snowed in Salamanca, like actually snowed. Like 3ish inches. So while everyone else was freaking out because it was so cold and wet, I was in heaven. I already knew about the islands so I had no worries. I only had 24 hours of cold left. 

Today I don't have a ton of time to write. Maybe later when I get to the islands. But I wish I could, awesome things happened this week. especially the Intercambios we had. I'll try to write about that later, but If not I'll write a good one next week. 

Love you guys,

Elder Johnson

I hate cars...

Happy new years!

Hey guys. So this last week has been pretty weird. All of Zamora left for the holidays so we've been left alone. We did try some interesting new ways to contact though. Every night we go to the "downtown"area and hangout in and around the bars and just talk to people. We usually grab a pincho or tapa and just wander around for a while. So far it hasn't been much more successful than our other methods, but it's new and we at least got 1 new number this week.

Tuesday was kind of a weird day because we had to do our grocery shopping. There weren't any stores open on Christmas day. So we did that and had to put new windshield wipers on the car, that was the dumbest thing ever. Our car is some weird model and you have to buy special wipers for it. We spent the whole morning trying to figure it out. I can't remember 1 time in the last 5 months where I have actually been angry, but that car did it. I HATE CARS...

That Spanish new years thing you did with Cari sounds pretty fun. Everybody here eats the grapes and everything. that's all we've heard about this week. We were going to do it but then we forgot to actuallybuy the grapes. That lineup sounds pretty fun for the celebration last night. You always say you're boring with with unimportant information, don't worry about that. We have nothing to do on pdays. "unimportant info" is fun. Today everything is closed so we cleaned and took a nap this morning, then we went to Benavente for lunch. That's all. What a day right? Anyway, that's all for this week. I'll let you know what happens with transfers next week. 

Elder Johnson

Pre Christmas

Hi guys,

We tried lots of new things this week. Mission life really is pretty fun even when the work isn't going well.

We went to McDonald's to use the wifi the other day and just messaged random people on Facebook. It was pretty easy. I just looked at people in my area and sent them a friend request. At first it seemed weird, but when you think about it we do the same on the street. We've been trying to find someone to play soccer with, but there isn't ever anybody playing this time of year. So I just messaged the goalie for Zamoras team and asked if we could play sometime... Guess what we did on Tuesday :) We met him and all of his buddies (the team) at a court and played a real game. I got absolutely smoked and it just reminded me that I'm still not really in shape. But it was really fun. It's been a long time since I've played at that intensity. I kinda miss it. So since that worked we tried again and I talked to a guy from California that played basketball in California. He's super cool. He just moved here this week and doesn't speak any Spanish, so I'm hoping we can help him with that. Other than that we're still trying to teach someone. I've only taught 1 lesson with Elder Stulen so far. We had 2 lessons fall through this week so we're hoping this next week we can get something going.

We had intercambios in Salamanca Thursday and Friday. The four of us went to the branch presidents house for dinner Thursday night, wow that was good. They made papusas for us. It was pretty much a Christmas party. We had tons of food and Christmas music and they invited like half the branch. It was awesome to get to know everybody better. The last time we did something like that in Salamanca I couldn't talk to anyone,this time was completely different. Elder Tribett is training right now too, and it's cool cause I was in the same spot as his companion only a few weeks ago. It's fun to see the progress. We are going to Valladolid again for Intercambios with the zone leaders on Wednesday. I'm excited to actually see the city this time. 

I'm really not feeling as motivated to write a ton today since we will talk next week. Umm, yeah. See you soon

Josh

Christmas in Coruña

Hey,

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas here! Zone conference was awesome. It looks like you saw some pictures of the caroling. I can't remember exactly what your post said, but I thought I would mention that we made the front page of the newspaper with that activity. It was a big newspaper, too. La Voz de Galicia (The Voice of Galicia) is really popular all over northern Spain. We only had a 3 hour pday because we had to practice for it, but it was totally worth it. People were completely dumbfounded. I was the one that broke off from the group to go talk to people again, and all of the old people just kept saying they had never seen anything like that in their lives. We had a huge crowd and we even had a bunch of people jump in to sing with us.

I think one of the worst/best parts of the weekend will make you laugh. We stayed in the Marriott AC hotel on Thursday night, and I think that made me more homesick than anything yet. There isn't much that is similar to home here in Zamora, but Marriott never changes. We were in the exact same room me and dad always stay in. It was like I was home. Weird right? (and yeah, I know I sound spoiled right now) Friday we finally had the conference. It was only a few hours long so we could have a Christmas party, but it was really good. We basically studied a talk given by Tad R. Callister that he gave in the provo mtc. It was really good.

The Christmas party was pretty good. The senior couple from up north really took care of us. They cooked an awesome dinner; ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, tons of vegetables, actual rolls, tons of dessert. It was awesome. Then we played minute to win it games and had some Christmas trivia games. The white elephant was actually pretty good too. I got Danish battleship. As far as I can tell it's the same. Since we had both zones it was pretty chaotic though. We had 50+ presents in the pile. After that we opened our letters from the first presidency and our presents from you guys and the Packs.

It was pretty cool having a pile of 3 packages there for me. I set up the tree from the ward in our piso and put all of the wrapped gifts under it. I'm thinking I will wait until Christmas to open anything unless there is something I will want beforehand. Just let me know if there is and how to figure out which one it is. Me and Elder Tribett had fun going through all of the ornaments and reading everything from the ward. And I loved all the letters from the cousins. Oh yeah, since I've been talking about Christmas this whole time, I should let you know. We have been working on the plans for the Skype call. We will have access to the chapel in Benavente and we can use their wifi, or we may go down to Salamanca so we can hang out with the district. If that's the case we would probably call from a members house or burger King.

Quick update on the area. The baptism didn't happen Saturday. We haven't taught her in 2 weeks. It's hard to even text her at this point. We haven't found a new investigator in 4 or 5 weeks. Feels like forever. Every day that we were in Zamora this week we went out and knocked doors or talked to people on the street for 6+ hours straight. That's all I've got for this week. Zamora is tough right now. 

As far as other news goes. I put a bunch of new photos in the Google drive. Hopefully they worked. I went and bought my coat today. It's pretty sweet. I should be warm this winter. It snowed in Zamora while we were up north. It's crazy how cold it got. The week before we left we didn't see the sun at all because it was so foggy. It didn't even get above 30°. I think I will call the guy for the Real Madrid jersey soon. I'm pretty excited for that.

That's all for this week. Love you guys,

Elder Johnson

Vacation

Hey guys,

Its been a week and a half since I last emailed. It feels like we do the exact same thing everyday right now but at the same time a ton has changed this transfer. I had no idea how much could change with a new companion.

So first, we have had some changes with the area. We only have 1 investigator now, it's the one we were supposed to baptize Saturday. She's not ready though, so we pushed it back to the 23. Other than that we spend 4-7 hours everyday out on the street contacting. It's been pretty rough. Zamora isn't super big so we have had a few times where we talk to the same person 2 or 3 times in one day. The other problem is that it hasn't gotten above 30° in a few days so no one is outside. We are basically in the same spot right now as when they opened the area this last spring. It does sound like we're moving to Benavente soon. We will be reopening that area. I'm excited but nervous. We don't really have anything to start with so we'll see how it goes.

We have zone conference tomorrow. So right now we are making the 4 hour drive north to A Coruña. I'm really excited. I've heard that it's actually going to be green up there and they don't have sheep everywhere.We're going to spend our pday together as a zone so I think we're going to play some beach soccer and volleyball and then go caroling tonight. It should be cool cause we have 2 zones together. It should be over 50 missionaries. That's a good sized choir in the street. Oh, we're staying in a Meriott tonight. Yeah, nice huh. Idk what happened there. Last thing, Galicia is beautiful and this feels like a real vacation.

Talk to you soon since I have pday again Monday.

Josh