I went for a swim this week

Hey,

We had quite the week. We weren't really able to do much proselyting because we had mission leadership council, zone conference, and Katty's baptism, but we were really blessed this week. So I'll just run you through it in that order. Leadership council was awesome. It was probably my favorite one yet. We had some really good discussions and it's really cool to be a part of. President had some stuff happening that he had to take care of, but even though he wasn't there for part of it the council just kept going.

Zone conference was a really, really good one. We made some changes based on the suggestions president Johnson gave us. They also gave us a lot more time for our training than they have in the past. We had about an hour to teach the zone whatever we wanted and I loved it. I'm not kidding, public speaking is one of my favorite things I have learned on the mission. It's so much fun. Our part went well and everybody liked it so I think it was a success.

 I'm debating whether or not I want to explain Katty's baptism to you in a voice recording or if I want to take the time to write it out... First of all, it was nice to get in the water. That was really cool. The baptism started off well. She came on time. We had all the clothes ready. The font was full. Then we found out the ward we share the building with was having a party to celebrate the anniversary of the Relief Society. They planned on using the entire building. They had different activities planned in each room. We talked to them for like 20 minutes and eventually got a room to do the talks and stuff. About 5 minutes in they started blasting music on the intercom and refused to turn it off, so we listened to Muse, Greenday, ACDC, and Maroon 5 during the baptism. After the talks we were supposed to do the baptism, but when I got in the font the water only reached mid-shin. The drain wasn't plugged all the way. So everybody went back to the other room and sang hymns while our ward mission leader and I waited in the font. We finally filled it up and she came back in 20 minutes later. Right before I dunked her the Bruno Mars song ended and it went quiet. Right as she came up the Black Eyed Peas came on. It was the weirdest thing ever. She was confirmed yesterday by Elder Koppe and she is officially a member!

Also, we met this guy Juan last week and he's gonna get baptized next week. He's from Peru and has been investigating for 8 years. His whole family are members. After moving here he decided it was time to make the change and take the step. It's gonna be awesome.

Love you guys,

Elder Johnson 

Week 1 - Elder Goodman

Hey, 

This week was crazy, but it was super fun. We are going to start an even crazier week tomorrow. So Tuesday morning we got up early and went to the big train station in Southern Madrid to drop off elder Johnson. It was kinda sad. He's another one of my favorite companions. We saw a lot of success together and we had a ton of fun. After he left I got pretty busy. I was constantly on the phone with somebody that was lost or had a problem. Being travel coordinator is not fun. I bounced around a bunch making sure everyone had a companion until about 2:00 and then elder Hamilton and I went to the other big train station in Northern Madrid to grab our new companions. Élder Goodman came in around 2:30 and we grabbed some lunch. From there we headed back to B6 and life continued like normal.

 

Our week was pretty full of meetings, just like the beginning of every transfer. Élder Goodman seems a little tired. It's gonna take a minute to adjust to the lifestyle of a zone leader in temple Square. That being said I am a little more tired than normal since I'm doing a little extra. This coming week we have leadership council and zone conference. I'm super excited for our portion of zone conference. We always have about 30 minutes to an hour to do a zone training and I love it. I have loved public speaking situations lately.

 

Katty passed her baptismal interview with flying colors on Saturday night. She is so awesome. We started by asking her how to make ceviche and her telling us she's catholic and not changing, but now she goes to institute 2x per week, 2 FHEs, and we meet with her 2x every week. She's in the church 6 or 7 times a week. I can't wait for Saturday. Milagros will have her interview tomorrow night. She should be fine :)

Lunch with Katty and Milagros

Also, we found our next baptism! During the transfer chaos on Tuesday I got a call from the elders quorum president. There is a guy that just moved here from Peru about 3 weeks ago and he's asking if the missionaries can baptize him. His wife has been a member for like 20 years and his kids are also baptized. He just never wanted to do it even though he goes to church every Sunday. I'll keep you updated on the progress, but things are looking good. 

Today we are playing basketball with all the zone leaders and APs since we have the council tomorrow. I haven't changed, I still don't like basketball, but I feel bad if my companion can't play so we always come. Idk what else were gonna do today, but we'll see. We might go get our suits tailored. Oh yeah, I made my decision and I told President this morning. I'm not going to extend. I've thought about it a lot and I feel like that's the right option. But yeah, it's a longer email. I'll be on for a minute today. Let me know if you want to talk.

Love,

Elder Johnson 

The District
(with Elder Johnson before transfers)

Lots of Changes...

Hey,

Sorry you had a hard week. Hopefully everyone starts feeling better soon. We were dying when we read about the Jonas Brothers.. 😂 Are they still with Disney? We had a busy week as well. In fact, we have Transfers tomorrow.

Katty and Milagros are doing super well! We had an appointment with Katty on Friday night. She has kinda stalled for the last few weeks, so we decided not to talk about baptism, but focus more on temples. So we taught a lesson about eternal families and temples and she was super into it. In the end she asked how she could go to the temple, and we told her baptism is the first step. Her feelings towards baptism changed a lot in that lesson and she asked us if we would baptize her. We planned the baptism for the 16. The next day we ate with them in Elder Koppe's apartment. Milagros was there this time and we invited her to be baptized with her daughter. They will both be baptized next Saturday. I'm super excited for them.

Yesterday was nuts. We had 4 eating citas so Elder Johnson could say goodbye to everyone. He leaves tomorrow to go to Sevilla. He's gonna be Zone Leader down there. My new companion is Elder Goodman. He was in the MTC with me and he's another redhead. I'll be training him as a Zone Leader. We took a lot of pictures yesterday though. I'm really gonna miss this ward when I leave. The people here are awesome.

We aren't doing much today. We're gonna go eat with some members at 2:30, but other than that we have no plans. Tonight we're gonna play soccer with some friends and members and then we'll have a family home evening. I'm sure we'll talk later today.

Love,

Elder Johnson

(Josh has been sick for a couple of months and found out this week that he has asthma. The doctor he saw said it could be allergy related or adult onset asthma. Either way, he is being treated and feeling much better.)

These are pictures of some people from the ward in Barrio 6 that Josh LOVES and spends a lot of time with. They took a lot of pictures this week of friends from the ward since Elder Johnson is being transferred. 

Padilla Family selphie

The Jóvenes Family

With Adriana

With Daniel

With Rebecca

With the Benítez Family 

With the Garcìa Family

With the Padilla Family

With the Yucra Family

with Valentina and Adriana

with Santi

Temple Day.....

Hey, 

Sorry I didn't write on Monday! We had temple pday today. It's been super fun. We were in the temple until about 10:30, and then we ran over to the old mtc building. While we were there president Bussey gave me a blessing. That was super cool. Hermana Bussey called yesterday morning and offered it. I've just been a little sick for a while and that should Help. They're saying I have conjunctivitis and bronchitis (I think that's what they're called). After that we had the mission goal setting meeting. It was a 2 hour meeting, kinda long for a pday, but that's OK. Then we played soccer for about 3 hours. The funniest part of the day was a food throwing activity. We told the zone that if everyone reached their goals they could throw whatever food they wanted at us. We got destroyed. 

It was a pretty normal work week. We did have an intercambio in Cuenca. I enjoyed it a lot. Cuenca is a ton of fun. I think my favorite part is that whenever I'm there it's like I never left. The members haven't forgotten me at all. 

Transfers are coming up this week. I'm hoping elder Johnson doesn't leave, but it's pretty likely though. We'll find out Saturday morning. I'm actually not looking forward to organizing the Travel for the zone. It's probably my least favorite part of bring zone leader. We will be doing that from about 10 to 3 on Saturday.

I sent in all of my information to the mission this week so they can buy my flight home. I should receive that within the next month I think. But yeah, that's all I can think about from this week. 

Love you,

Elder Johnson

Elder Johnson ¤ Elder Johnson ¤ Yaiza

Elder Johnson ¤ Elder Johnson ¤ Gabriella

At the bar in the train on the way to Cuenca

We ate with a Filipino family.

Wow, It's like Christmas everyday...

Hey,

Soo um... Some things changed this week. We'll talk about that in a minute. We had Mission leadership council on Wednesday. It was awesome! Elder Paul V. Johnson was there. He is the president of the Europe area. He was pretty impressed with the council and gave us some great tips on how we can improve. Then on Thursday we had Zone Conference with him. It was combined with 5 zones, including the islands. It was super good and I learned a lot. They focused a lot on missionaries that go home in the next 6 months and what we will do with our lives after we finish. It was kind of a weird topic that surprised everybody. It was good though. Sister Johnson asked a question that was pretty deep, but really good. "How will the new me fit into my old world?" It's a super good question. You change a lot in the mission.

 

We are in Cuenca today. We went on a hike and we got sushi. We're gonna be doing Intercambios here until tomorrow night. We're planning on meeting a lot of the members so I'm super excited. I'm gonna be with Elder Driggs. We also had Intercambios with the elders from the 8th ward last week. We had 8 elders in our piso everyday of the week because of all of the conferences. That sucked super bad. They ate all of our food.

Katty and Milagros are doing great. We had an amazing lesson with them on Thursday night. I am certain they will get baptized. They have already received their answers. But at the same time, they are both super stubborn catholics. Oh yeah, Milagros made us some stuffed avocados this week. She just cut an avacado in half and put chicken salad inside. My allergies went nuts and it was amazing. 

 

The rule change.. I still don't know how I feel about it. It's super cool. I think it will be awesome talking to you guys more often, but I also feel like that takes away from the mission a little. I do think it's cool that the changes just keep coming, and I like be involved so directly in the changes. I probably won't go crazy with calls, but we can test it out because they obviously did it for a reason. This is an inspired change.

 

I received my package. Thank you so much. You are the best. I also talked to President more about extending. I think talking to him made my decision even harder. It turns out transfers are the 21st of August, not the 14th. He gave me 3 weeks to decide, and I'm gonna take advantage of that. 

Love you,

Elder Johnson

Cuenca - I miss this place

Cuenca Hike

Mission Leadership 

The Johnsons

Me and the kid (Elder Rogers) 

Mission Complete

Hey,

This week was nuts! We had a ton of exchanges, so elder Johnson and I weren't even together from Tuesday to Friday night. I was with Elder Jarvies for the first exchange and Elder Rasmussen for the second one. They're both good kids, but man they are different from me and Elder Johnson. Neither one of them really gets my sense of humor. I think it's too dry and sarcastic. That made it kinda awkward, but it was fun. We saw lots of miracles. 

 

We also tried multiple times to baptize Daniel. That man caused a lot of chaos for us this week. We had his baptism scheduled for Monday, but then he found work so we moved it to Tuesday. Tuesday morning he got his schedule for the week and we weren't able to do the baptism until Friday. Friday night came and he was supposed to be baptized at 8:00pm. He called us at 7:30pm to tell us he wouldnt get off work until 10:00pm, so we called President Bussey and we got permission to do the baptism at 11:00pm... We had 30 members in the church that late waiting for him, and he never showed up. We finally got ahold of him and it turns out his replacement never showed up so he had to work until 8:00am the next day. It was a 22 hour shift... He really wanted to be baptized asap though, so we did it Saturday at 1:00pm. The baptism went well. After so many failed attempts the members didn't want to come again, so there were only 5 of us there. It was good though.

 

After his baptism we went back to piso to eat lunch, but as soon as we started cooking we got a call from a member from another ward. He had a friend that lives in our area that wants to meet with us. We ran over to the church and the lesson was awesome. Her name is Wendy. She has met with the missionaries before, and we invited her to be baptized and she accepted the invitation. She was a little hesitant, but we planned March 9 for her date. She came to church on Sunday and we have an appointment with her tonight. I'm excited for her.

My favorite part of the week was going to the temple this morning for the sealing of Jonathan and Melania. We started the day at 9:00am. We were able to do an endowment session with them, and then we went with to do the sealing. We had the whole squad there today. Elder Johnson, Elder Hinckley, Elder Rogers, Elder Tiebing and I were all able to go. We all served there at the same time almost a year ago. I've got to be honest, that experience this morning just made the mission for me. We were able to see him all the way, baptism to sealing. When we were in the celestial room he grabbed us all and pretty much gave us a little pep talk. He basically just told us that everything we do in the mission, all the street contacting, all the long hours and things that we don't like, are worth it because we are helping people get to this point. I feel really lucky to be able to have this experience in my mission. Not many people have this. 

They loved the package you sent for them. I actually used the copy of The Family: a Proclamation to the World that you sent for a spiritual thought after lunch. Jonathan asked me if I could share something, so I figured there was nothing better than that to talk about. He started crying when I told him that was a gift from my family to his family. 

That's a long email, but it was a good week. We were busy. This next week will be similar. We have mission leadership council with President Johnson, zone conference, 2 exchanges, and another baptismal interview. We're also hoping to get Katty and Milagros back on track for their baptism next week. We had to push it back because of their work. Also, did you get an email from the mission this week? 

Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

Me, Daniel, Elder Johnson 

FHE with Katty and Milagros

¡Bautisimos por miles habrá!

Hey!

So you asked if this was a busy week... Yeah. We're always busy. We had intercambios, 2 district councils, the mission goal setting meeting, a baptismal interview, and a failed baptism. We'll get to that in a second. It's a good busy though. For the most part we are managing it, we're just tired. 

I have to tell you about Daniel. He is the one that failed his baptism. We had everything set up at 9:00 am on Saturday, and he never came! We were calling him all morning and we had a bunch of friends come, but we just couldn't find him. He eventually answered around 2:00 pm. He had gotten food poisoning or an allergic reaction and was on the hospital. He came to church yesterday though and apologized. After we talked about it, he asked if he could be baptized right there and then instead of going to Sunday school. We hesitated a little, but in the end we decided it would be better on Tuesday. So he's getting baptized tomorrow night at 8:00 pm. 

Milagros and Katty are doing well. We had 3 lessons with them this week, and they made us breakfast in the last one. Milagros is getting baptized for sure. Our second lesson with her this week was amazing. We taught about how we can recieve an answer from the spirit. She has recieved her answer, that was very clear. Katty, her daughter, has also received her answer, but she hasn't realized it yet. She is expecting something crazy like an angel appearing, but that's not normally how it works. We've already taught them everything, so as soon as she says yes, we're gonna do the interview and baptism pretty fast. The goal is to do the baptism on Friday. We'll see how it works out. 

My pday next week will be Tuesday. We're gonna do something special....... Like a temple sealing! Jonathan and Melania are coming with their family to be sealed! We got permission from president to go with them. I've never done a sealing before, so this will be something new. I'm super excited. We also decided that on our normal temple day we're going to try to get permission to do more than just an endowment session. We want to stay afterwards and do initiatories and sealings as well. That will be an awesome temple pday. 

We're going bowling today, so I might have more time later. Love you,

Elder Johnson