Dos Hermanas... Week 1

(about 11:00am Spain time, 3:00am here)

Hey,

Well, things are always changing in the mission. My first week in this new area has been very different from my other areas. Like I said last week, we have a ward. It's not like I expected though. This area has been changing a lot recently. Until a few months ago it was 2 good sized wards. They just combined them into one and closed one of the buildings. I guess some people weren't excited about the changes, yesterday we only had 35ish people in church. We have a bunch of work to do getting the members back. The other big change is the area boundaries. The space that I will be working with Elder Birnbaumer had 6 elders last transfer. Now it's just the two of us. We have spent a lot of time this week combining all of the info we have from both areas.

The city is beautiful though. It feels like a big beach town. It's super hot again, and insanely humid. I think I'm gonna go 2 years without winter. That's pretty crazy to think about. This week I will try to take lots of pictures so you guys can see how cool it is here. This is more like what I had pictured Spain looking like. 

I met a bunch of the members this week. I have a goal to have an appointment with all of them by next week. I think they can help us a ton here. The ward is doing a "missionary Sunday" every month. Until now the only difference is that the Elders speak in sacrement meeting, but I talked to the ward mission leader and we're gonna make this thing bomb. We're trying to organize a few ways members can help us with it, and then he asked me to speak in sacrement meeting on Sunday so I can introduce myself and then present the activities. I'm super excited.

Our district is cool. It's kinda weird cause it's so small. I have had big districts for the last year. The hermanas are in Alcalá de Guadaíra, another pueblo outside of Sevilla. Today we are with them and the district from Sevilla for pday. We're going to see the cathedral and other stuff around there. I had less time in Cuenca than I expected and I missed out on seeing some stuff. I'm not making the same mistake again. We're gonna go see it all as soon as possible. I'll upload pictures of today in the drive. I don't have very many from this week though. 

Elder Johnson

later ... (about 6:30pm Spain time, 10:30am here)

The day was not planned very well, so we didn't really do much. Im gonna plan the next one so we dont miss out again. Today we only went to plaza España. It was super cool though. 

A Message from a friend

I received a message on FB from Maria Brenes this week and thought I would share it here. It's always a wonderful surprise when I hear from someone in Spain that has been touched by Josh and his testimony.  Thank you, Maria!

"Greetings and blessing, has a spectacular son, very good boy.

"I sent some photos of Elder Johnson on the basin branch, and I miss him, he's also my son."

Cuenca...

Hey guys,

This last few days were full of surprises. To start, I was transferred. I mentioned last email that I thought it might happen, but I was still super surprised. We hadn't prepared for that, so I didn't say goodbye to anybody. We found out Saturday afternoon, i stayed up all night packing, and then I left Sunday after church. I'm on a train right now headed towards Sevilla. I'll be serving in Dos Hermanas. It's a little area just outside of Sevilla. I'm pretty pumped because I've heard there is a small ward there. That will be cool. 

My new companion is named Elder Birnbaumer. He's from Bolivia. Goodbye English. He has 1 transfer less than me in the mission. I met him a year ago, but I don't really know him. I'm excited though. Our district will be small. Just us and 2 hermanas. I'll be district leader. 

Elder Batty was great. We'll hang out after the mission. We saw a ton of miracles in the last 6 weeks. We both felt like we got jipped with transfers. We were sure we would be together for 2 or 3 transfers. 

I'm not ready to leave Cuenca. 3 months is not enough time for 1 area. I got to know everyone, and then I left. I'm really excited for the new area, but I will definitely miss out on a few things in Cuenca. We had quite a few baptisms lined up for the next 2 months. I'm expecting about 7 or 8. 

My birthday was awesome. We were super busy. We did some service in the morning, then we had 2 lunch citas. Afterwards we helped with the self reliance class and then we had weekly planning. It was pretty chill, but we were still frunning all day. I got lots of emails and facebook notifications. That was awesome. Thanks guys. 

Let me know if you have questions and I might be on again. 

Love you, 

Elder Johnson

Temple Day

Hey, 

This week was great! We have been seeing some crazy miracles this last little while! In the last 2 weeks we have had 4 less active members that we didn't even know before call us to give them blessings. Three of the times they invited non-member friends. We are currently teaching all of the friends and things are looking great for them.

Susi and Steven are doing well, but we will probably push back the date by a week or two. That always happens. Oh well. They are progressing and have huge desires to be baptized. We are also teaching a lady named Vicky. She's got 3 kids that we're teaching as well. I could see her being baptized next transfer. She's learning really fast and is doing well with the Book of Mormon and prayers. We'll see how it goes with her. The big surprise is Valentin and his brother Daniel. I found them on intercambios with Elder Bodhaine 2 months ago. We didn't hear anything forever, but then they just showed up and we were with them 3 days straight. We played soccer with them on Friday and taught them the Restoration, then Saturday they came to the Bday party and we taught the plan of salvation, and then Sunday they came for all 3 hours of church. They will be baptized. They're awesome for the branch too. Two 14 year old troublemakers. 

We have transfers this next Monday, but we'll find out details on my Bday. You asked what my gut feeling is.. Me and Elder Batty both think there is a good chance I'll leave. Idk why, it's just what we're thinking. I hope not though. We're doing really well together. We would be fine if we stayed together until Christmas, which is possible. We're seeing some great miracles in the work together too.

We celebrated my birthday a little this week. The branch threw a party on Saturday. It was a ton of fun. We had pizza, karaoke, and Ping pong. I was forced to sing, so I sang a hyped up version of "Hark, all ye nations." It was pretty nasty. I can't sing. They also sang happy birthday to me in zone conference a few weeks ago. I'll upload pictures of both. 

I have no idea what I want for my birthday. Probably a soccer game.. We found a sushi place that looks good, so we're probably gonna go splurge and get a good lunch on Saturday. The zone leaders will be out here for intercambios so it'll be a party. The only other exciting thing will be finding out transfers Saturday night.

Today we went to the temple at 7:30 am. It was amazing. I wish we could go more often. After that we went bowling with our district and then grabbed subway for lunch. We played 4 games, I played horrible in 3 of them. I bowled a 156 in my third game though, that was fun. At least I never dropped below 100. I wish we had a bowling alley closer to Cuenca. I would be there every Monday. 

Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

We found grass... Almost, it's turf.

Hey,

This week was awesome. We had intercambios Monday and Tuesday with the elders in the sixth ward. I was with Elder Curtis and we saw some crazy miracles. We ran into a few members in the street that haven't been active in years. That was cool. Then we had a lesson with Susi and her son. They are going to be baptized either next week or on the 22. I'm super excited for them and the branch. They will help a lot.

District meeting was weird this week. The zone leaders couldn't come, we have to Skype from Cuenca, and the hermanas were sick and couldn't leave piso. We worked it out though and did a conference video call from 4 different locations. The meeting went pretty smooth. Technology is pretty nice sometimes.

I got a haircut this week. It's pretty bad though. I went to a cheap place we found. It turns out it's a school though. She basically gave me a 3 on top and a 1 on the sides. It's the shortest my hair has been in a long time. Maybe ever. She tried to do my sideburns with the blade looking thing, and she cut me pretty bad like 6 times. She had to use a hot stick thing and burn it to make it stop bleeding. We were laughing pretty hard afterwards. I'm not going cheap ever again though.

Today was the best pday of the mission. Easy.... The game 2 weeks ago got me in the mood, so last week I called up everyone in the surrounding zones that plays, and we put together a good game. We rented out an 11 v 11 turf field by the temple. In the end we had 32 elders show up. I had so much fun. I wore my pumas and I had a few good slide tackles. Don't worry though, I was smart and I came out with zero injuries. I think it helps that I'm getting in better shape with elder Batty. Elder Curtis took a good hit within the first 2 minutes and dislocated his shoulder. He went to the doctor pretty quick so he'll be fine. I uploaded a picture to the drive.

Next pday were going to the temple, so it will be Wednesday. I'm not looking forward to the long gap there, but I am looking forward to the temple. This will be the first time since Provo for elder Batty. He's pretty pumped.

Love you guys, 

Elder Johnson

Cuenca Season 2 - Episode 4

Hey guys,

Last week was absolutely crazy. That pday was super busy. I can't remember if I wrote very much, or anything good, but it's been a good couple of weeks. We had exchanges last Monday and Tuesday with the zone leaders. It was really cool. We had some good lessons. I also figured out why there are no pisos with 6 elders in the mission. It would be way too much fun and nothing would get done. I have a ton of story's just from the weekend that we were there. I wrote them in my journal though. I think they will be better told next summer rather than through email. There's a lot of those stories. 

We went to lunch with a senior couple this week. The Mayberrys came on Friday to do a piso check. They wanted to see if we clean and what we need to replace or fix. We did well. We clean a lot. They took us to an American restaurant though. It was really good, but not American portions. I'll leave it at that. Today the elders from our district are here. We have exchanges tomorrow. The hermanas are coming out in bus and we're all going on a hike today and then I'll show them old Cuenca. I'll send lots of pictures. I am happy to be with missionaries these last 2 weeks. I miss it when I'm in these areas. Sometimes I like speaking English and having a little fun on pdays. 

So we were put in a really sucky situation by the mission office this week. They ordered us a new chair for our piso, but then we had to pay in cash when they delivered it. They called us 15 minutes before to tell us about it, so we ran to an atm to get money. We each had to pull out quite a bit of personal money and mission money to cover it. They are reimbursing it, but we were pretty mad about the situation. We had to skip grocery shopping for a week, but it's all good. I lit up the office. We were on the phone with them a bunch and it ended wellish. I don't think they'll do that again and I'm pretty sure were gonna be spoiled out here for a while. That's what happened with the 60€ though. 

We went to the fair on Saturday night with some members and then we met some investigators there after. It was pretty cool. It felt pretty home-ish. They had lots of attractions and food stands. Unfortunately the food was fair food. I got a baked potato with shredded ham and some weird tomato sauce. I won't get that again. We're gonna go look around more tonight though. Elder Batty wants to snag a few soccer jerseys from the tents there. They have them super cheap, like 5-20€. We'll see what we can find. 

I uploaded pictures of the soccer game last week. Some hermanas took them at some point during the game. I didn't even know about them until this weekend. Today we are with the district here in Cuenca. I'm gonna show everybody old Cuenca and the hike I went on with Elder Jordan. I'll upload pictures later.

Elder Batty is district leader. And the technology thing did affect us, but not our email. I have just been without area book or daily planner for a week. We're making it work though. 

I'll be on later today, we are waiting for the district to get here so I thought I would take advantage and write a little. Talk to you soon, 

Elder Johnson

{I emailed and asked Josh about his shirt as soon as these pictures uploaded. His response: " ..there's some guy here that makes them for all the missionaries. It has my name, soy mormon, Cuenckers, and I've been cuencked. Pretty cool, right?"}

Cuenca Season 2 - Episode 3

Hey guys,

This week was a ton of fun! We had zone conference, zone pday, rain, and a bunch of miracles. We have been traveling a ton this week. It's 3 hours each way everytime we go to madrid and we made the trip twice this week. That's a lot of time on the bus, and not a lot of time in our area, but we still saw some cool things here this week.

Tuesday we didn't have any appointments planned and we were both dreading going to the tree to contact for 6 hours, but it went really well. Right as we left piso his guy ran up to us and asked us why he always saw us in the street. We taught him the Restoration and we have a follow up appointment Wednesday. Then we were exploring a new area and ran into two guys about our age. They were speaking English. The first one is from Botswana and the other is from Ethiopia/South Africa. They were in our area because they had just arrived that day to play soccer for UB Conquense, the pro team from Cuenca. We're gonna teach them Spanish and they're interested in the gospel. Super cool.

Friday we had zone conference. It was a good one. It was our first real one with the Busseys. It was insanely different, but really good. I learned a lot. We talked about a lot of the new rules they have made and other changes in the mission. Then the Busseys talked about repentance and went pretty deep on it. Afterwards I got my packages from the office. Those were awesome. The bag is great, it has a ton of space but isn't too big. They other was really good too. All the candy is awesome. I already ate all of the hi-chews, and that magazine is awesome. I was not expecting it, but it's the coolest thing ever.

This week we did a ton of travel. We went back and forth from Madrid twice, and we're here now. I am starting to hate buses. We're coming up on 18 hours in 1 week. Today for pday we had a zone sports day. We played soccer for a few hours, then basketball for 5 minutes (perks of having a bunch of south Americans here), then volleyball for a few hours. We ordered papa John's pizza somewhere in there too. I really liked it though.

I can't believe summer is over and the girls are back in school. That went by so fast. It looked like a really fun one though. You guys sent tons of good fotos. 

Oh yeah, quick question for dad. I talked to the Ukrainian Hermana for a minute on Friday, she's from cherkassy or something. Did you serve around there? Or do you know the area? Anyways, that's everything. Have a gest week. Love you, 

Elder Johnson