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

Johnson & Johnson

Alright this week was super good! Elder Johnson and I have been working super well together and have been able to see some super cool miracles. But there were some awesome things that happened this week...

1. So today we were driving around with the AP's looking for some nice sales on suits and we were stopped at a red light and then we looked around and realized we were completely surrounded by taxis.... and when the light turned green nobody moved... and that's when we realized that all the taxi drivers are on strike😂 we just sat there surrounded by taxis for like 20 minutes until the cops came and started giving out tickets. Then they all got out of there super fast!

2. So we got a reference from the hermanas named Daniel and he's pretty great! He should be getting baptized this Saturday so we are hyped! He's 42 and from Peru. We are praying a lot and he's a beast.

3. So we are teaching a girl named Katya and she is really Adventist and loves to fight with us even though she already knows our message is true. But we had a lesson with her yesterday and we were prepared for her to just start trying to destroy us but it actually went really well! We were able to help her realize that all her questions relate to whether Joseph Smith was a prophet or not! So that went really well😎

4. We went to the temple on Friday. We got to participate in the recent convert day. Yaiza was baptized a few months ago, so we went and did baptisms for the dead with her. Elder Johnson and I were witnesses and I did confirmations. It was really cool. I did a bunch of confirmations with Yaiza, and then a few more for Elder Johnson. I uploaded some pictures, and I wore the fancy suit.

But yeah, this week was super fun. I had more bad luck with clothes, it's fine though. I got that new suit with intentions of not touching it until I get home.... But then I put on my old suit to go to church yesterday and it tore........ I was super mad. That's what I get for having a piso find suit. My last watch battery died as well, so I went and put a new battery in one of them so I'll have a watch until the end of the mission. As far as the suit goes, I went to 3 shops and it looks like my Grey one is dead, and my American ones are between 40 and 50 euros to alter because they're just gonna be massive changes. They will have to change the suit entirely. That not worth it, so I'm just gonna leave it. I'm gonna see if I can find a piso find suit this week, but if not I would just need to wear my new suit. It's OK though. Thank you so much for sending that package! You're the best. That's the last one you need to send. After this I can wait, I'll be home soon enough. Anyways, love you! 

Elder Johnson

Elder Johnson ¤ Yaiza ¤ Elder Johnson 

Elder Johnson ¤ Yaiza ¤ Elder Johnson 

Trio part 2 and Transfers

Hey, 

We had a really good week! It was our last week with Elder Koppe as our "official" companion. He is super fun. I really enjoyed having two companions. Elder Johnson and I talk a lot anyways, but wth Elder Koppe it's been out of control. I love it. 

We met with Milagros and Katty this week. We planned on setting the baptismal date with them, but right as we started the lesson Katty told us she liked listening to us but she promised her grandma (who died about 20 years ago) that she will never leave the catholic church. Elder Koppe got super scared when he heard that and looked at me and elder johnson as if he was asking if we should still teach about baptism. Elder Johnson kinda paused, so he looked at me and I just nodded my head. We continued, and we invited both of them to be baptized on Feb. 8. With a little persistence they accepted. They came to church yesterday and we are doing a family home evening tonight, so they are doing well. 👍

We also had transfers this week. That was probably the most stressful part of being a zone leader yet. We were organizing travel plans and sleeping assignments from about 10:30 on Saturday until 4:00. We ended up missing our lunch appointment, but it was all good. Me and Elder Johnson are staying together for at least 6 more weeks. I'm super pumped. It's been a while since I've done 2 transfers with a companion and more than 2 in an area. It's almost certain I'll be here at least until April. 

We played sand volleyball for a few hours. I'm probably not gonna do that again for awhile. We played barefoot and now my feet hurt cause they're frozen. We also went to a mall so Elder Johnson could find a suit. He didn't though, so we're gonna keep searching. We also ate at a place called Rodilla, it's like Rodizio Grill. Unlimited meat. It was expensive, but worth it. 

How is Come, Follow Me going? We don't get time to study it in the mission. We're using it with friends, but I don't know a ton about it yet. Let me know.. 

This week will be busy. We will have more Intercambios, 4 meetings, and a training for zone leaders. We will still do some missionary work, I promise. But yeah, we'll talk more next week. Sorry I don't have as much time to write anymore. 

Love you. Bye

Elder Johnson

P.S.

I forgot to mention that the area president, Elder Johnson, is coming to do a mission tour in a month. He's also coming to Concilio (mission leadership council). It's gonna be cool to get to know him a little.

Elder Johnson

Trio...Cuenca...Suit...

Hey,

I have a ton to write about this week, but not much time. I'm sitting in Sol, the main square in Madrid. It's super cool here. I love the big city feel and all the stores here. Shopping is definitely an addiction of mine. I'll get to that later though.

The first big thing is that we are in a trio right now. Elder Koppe from the Netherlands is my second companion here. He's doing a pilot mission in the temple right now. He applied for a normal, full time proselyting mission and they called him there. Since the temple is closed right now, he is with us though. He's a good missionary. It's kinda weird though. It's hard to teach with three people. It just throws off the rythm. It's also awkward sometimes cause we have to take a phone call or do something zone leader related and he can't be involved. He always has to leave the room.

We had a family home evening in the house of some members on Monday. We invited a few friends, and our friends brought their wives and kids with them. We ended up with about 25 people there. It went really well, and afterwards we had the parents of both families tell us they want to be baptized. We are all really excited for them! The closest to baptism so far are Milagros and her daughter Katty. They're awesome. They are actually the ones that taught us how to make ceviche a few weeks ago.

We had exchanges in Cuenca this week! I was in heaven. I haven't been home sick in a long time, but I was really Area sick. We met with almost all of the members there, so about 3 families. It was a good thing too, the current missionaries aren't meeting with them. It was fun though.

Today we did our zone pday. We had to plan a lot for it. We went all out. It was worth it though, everyone had a good time and we didn't have any injuries. We did a zone Olympics. The highlight was some nasty shakes we made. We put hot dogs, mustard, chocolate milk, tomatoes, and gummy bears in the blender and then everybody had to drink it. 3 people threw up... It was awesome. We also went to Sol today. I bought a super fancy, good looking, tailored, European, slim fit, blue with a funky pattern suit!! It looks super good. We cleaned up on the sales. It's a two pant suit as well so it should last longer. All for 80€. 😊 I am proud. My companions bought shoes, belts and ties as well. I controlled myself. Jaja

So yeah, that's my week. There was more to write about, but those are the highlights. Love you! 

Elder Johnson