February 29th - second call

Talon's Mom again - Yes!!  The phone carrying paid off and we got that second call.  We had a full 20 minutes to say hello, see how Talon was doing, ask about his flights and the MTC and anything else we could think of.  He got a chance to talk to everyone and sounded so great!

I asked what he is most nervous about.  He said the Spanish.  He is concerned that the only real Spanish he has under his belt is "church" Spanish.  He can talk about gospel topics, but anything over basic conversation is out of his realm.  I'm not too worried for him.  He's actually in a better place than I was getting off the plane.  I was sure I did speak Spanish so that first week was a huge blow to the ego as I discovered my complete lack of ability.  Talon is humble enough to know he will need a greater power and will see his improvement each day.  He's going to do just fine.

I asked what he is most excited about.  He said meeting new people and getting to know Spain.  He is ready to get to work and serve and love them.  Yep.  He'll do just fine.

The phrase that will stick with me longest from that conversation -  I asked him if he was happy.  He said, "What do you think, Mom?  I'm a missionary.  Of course I'm happy!"  Just fine.

I'm a little teary, but I couldn't be more pleased with that young man of mine.  Maybe, maybe, with divine intervention, I did something wonderfully right while raising that boy.  So glad to know him!!

I think we will get an email from him tomorrow to let us know he arrived safely.  It's going to be a long day and night for him.  He will arrive in Spain at 9:15am their time, but his brain will think it is 1:15am.  They will keep him up until 7pm to help transition to the time change.  I hope those missionaries get some sleep on the plane.  

Until tomorrow.

February 29th

Talon's Mom here:  Our phone calls have not turned out well.  I carried the two phones with me all morning, knowing he would get to call and not knowing which number he would choose.  I took them to the laundry room, to the bathroom, next to me with the blow dryer going.  Everywhere.  The phone finally rang and I asked him how long we had.  He thought 20 minutes before boarding.  I was going to talk to him, then have him call his dad, so we could both have a turn.  I had asked and he had answered just a few questions, then he paused.

"Um.  Mom.  They are calling us for boarding.  I have to go.  I'll try again from Georgia."

I think I said OK and I love you.  It was less than 4 minutes of conversation.

We tracked his plane across the United States online.

Now I'm carrying those phones around again because he has landed and I have a two hour possible window.  I am NOT going to miss this call.  It's the last one I get from him until Mother's Day.  I hope he calls sooner, rather than later.  Or there might not be dinner.  I'm not getting into the middle of something until I get a decent visit with my son.  I hope.

February 28th - Email #2

So I have my schedule now, I am flying out of Utah at 9:47 and landing in Georgia around 3:30p and then we are leaving Georgia at 6:55p and landing in Spain at 9:15a. So with the time change we will lose almost 24 hours because of the flight.

Elder Johnson

February 28th

Dear Family,

 

So tomorrow I leave for spain! Unfortunately I don't have my schedulee with me at this time, however I know that I will be traveling first to Atlanta Georgia, and then afterwards I will be going to Madrid. I might be able to send another email later, so maybe I can give you my schedule then.

 

So I don't know if there is much to say since I just talked to you yesterday, and tomorrow I will be calling you again. But it is really exciting to be leaving in such a short amount of time. however, at times it can be almost depressing since I know that there is a very high likelyhood that I will never see these people again.

 

 

until later,

 

Love,

 

Elder Johnson

February 26th

We just got a phone call from Elder Johnson!!  We had exactly five minutes with him - oh, so short.  It included a lot of shouting while we tried to gather everyone from the corners of the house, a hasty change of location to collect family members, a "happy birthday" wish from Talon to Miriam, a few blurted questions and answers into the phone on speaker, a recording telling us he has 20 seconds, a group "we love you".  Then he was gone.  He was allowed to call and tell us that he will be flying out on Wednesday from Salt Lake with other missionaries that all got their visas.  His companion is one of them, so he was happy about that.  Talon thinks he will still go to the Madrid MTC for about a week, then off to his first assignment in the field.  We don't know if he will get a p-day this week to prepare or if we won't hear from him again by letter/email until he has his first p-day there.  He did say he could call from the airport, so we will look forward to a few more minutes then.  He sounded great and we can't stop smiling!!  Hurrah for Israel!

PS If you plan to write to Talon this week, use the dearelder.com and make sure to send it by Tuesday at noon.  I will update his mailing address on the left tonight.

February 22nd

Dear, Family

So once again, this week has roughly been the same as every other past week. So I'm not sure if there is anything to tell you beyond what you have already heard. However, earlier today I received a notice that I will be having a meeting with a consult from Spain on Friday. So I may finally be going to Spain, very soon, hopefully. I feel kind of bad for my compainion though, becuase he didn't receive a notice, and I know that he is more excited and would be more disappointed about going or not going to Spain than I would be.

Also, since my Spanish is getting significantly better, my English is getting steadily worse. It won't be too bad once I get to Spain, but I would like to be able to speak English correctly while I still need to use it.

So did you watch the talk that I asked you guys to watch? I really enjoy that talk, and basically all the talks that Elder Bednar gives because of the power of the Spirit in his talks. Also, I find them really inspirational. His talks make me want to step up and be a better person.

Also, thank you for the letters that you have sent me and please thank Julie again for me and tell her that I am doing well. She wanted to know and she sends me packages every week with food. So she may also need to be notified that I might or might not be leaving next week. Unfortunately I don't get to communicate with you until next Wednesday, so it will be a mystery to you until I leave.

Also, Could I get Caleb's email, I would like to write to him.

Love,

Elder Johnson.

February 15th

So this week has generally gone about the same as every other, once again no visa... However, after our weekly fireside on Sunday night we watched a talk that was given by Elder Bednar on Christmas last year. The talk is about the character of Christ and is awesome. It is filled with power, and if it doesn't touch your heart than you have a very hard heart. I think that it would be a great idea if you ewould read it, though it is a litttle over an hour long. It's a great talk and I really enjoyed it. I love listening to talks by Elder Bednar, they are filled with power and he is a very good speaker.

 

So me and my companion are still getting along great, and our district is pretty good too. We get another new district today, and the rest of another left early this morning. our district is the second oldest one in our zone now. And very shortly we will be leaving too. Though I kind of believe that me and my companion will be here for an extra week before going to somewhere in the states for a few weeks until our visa comes.

 

It snowed again this week. and I really enjoy seeing the mountains covered in snow. Wherever I end up living, I hope that I can see mountains at least semi-often. though I am not sure about how I feel about the altitude. I enjoy lower altitudes more, that way I can at least breathe when I am exercising. When I first got here I felt like I couldn't get enough air because of this high altitude.

 

The Spirit here is awesome, and I love learning, and especially reading the scriptures, it's full of principles and truth throughout pretty much all of it. The other day I was reading in Third Nephi, right before Christ died, and it said that because of the faith that Nephi had when he taught, no person could disbelieve the words that he was saying. I hope I can be a missionary like that.

 

So I now have five "investigators" and hopefully six soon. it's pretty exciting and I really enjoy trying to help people and knowing that I can make them happy.

 

Well, I need to have some time to write to Papa,

 

So until next week,

 

Love, Elder Johnson.

February 8th

So this week has been roughly the same. I don't think much has changed. So, none of the missionaries going to Spain have their visas yet. I believe that there are probably around 20-ish. And there may some more that are coming in today. One of my friends from SVU is going to Madrid Spain, and I believe that he willl be coming in today, or in a few weeks.

 

So I just got your letter from January 19 today, for some reason it got sent to a person named Taylor Johnson going to Australia. I'm not quite sure why... Anyway, I have my baptismal pants and the cookies, they were delicious, thank you. I'll see if I can find a way to get those letters, I get some hand written ones, but only a few.

 

 

So since I have been here I decided that it would probably be a good idea to read the Bible since it testifies of Christ, and almost everybody in Spain is Catholic. So I'm almost done with the Acts, and I find the New Testament amazing, I love it, and it is full of doctrine and ideas.

 

 

We got a new district last week and are trying to be friends with them and help them out since the older districts in our zone didn't do that for us, and we don't want them to end up being stranded and not sure of what to do like we were.

 

 

Me and my companion committed one of our "investigators" to baptism. It's pretty neat, and hopefully the next one won't be far behind.Our teaching is getting so much better, I wish that I could restart with the lessons with them since they started off so poorly, and because it would help them so much more if we had started teaching them better at the beginning. I guess that's what the MTC is for though.

 

 

I forgot to take my letters to the computer with me, so unfortunately I don't remember if there was something that you wanted to know...

 

I think that I'll try to send a regular letter to you guys this week. So I can probably answer those questions in those letters.

 

Well, I don't think that there is much left to say...

 

Until next week,

 

love,

Elder Johnson

February 1st

So, this week has gone roughly about the same. Except I ran into a pole on Friday and received a nice puffy lip and two bumps on my head. I ran quite a bit of cold water on them though, so it didn't really show. Also, yesterday we celebrated the 50th year anniversary of missionary training at an mtc. So we were able to have Russell M Nelson and Jeffry R Holland speak to us at our Tuesday devotional last night. It was pretty cool, and since I am in the choir I was able to sing for both of them, though some of the notes were really high, so I'm not sure if I sounded good on those... 

 

Well, our visas haven't come yet, and everyone that is going to Spain is waiting for them. There are actually a lot more than I expected. I thought that there would be very few missionaries going there, however, there are about 15 to 20 that I know of. Hopefully our visas come soon.

 

So the language is coming pretty well, if I tried harder, I could probably speak almost an entire day in Spanish. I think that I might start doing that this week. But other than that, not much is going on. One of the districts in our zone left on Monday and Tuesday night. Some of them were me and my companions original roomates. But other than that, I believe that my days are filled with studying, classes, gym and meals. It's a pretty repetitive schedule. So we always enjoy our p-days when we can do almost nothing during the day. We go to the temple of course, but other than that it's just typing this email and doing laundry, but we also teach a progressing "investigator" in the evening, so we have to prepare a lesson for that.

 

I have been getting some of the letters from Papa, at least two or three of them. Unfortunately I haven't written back yet, I need to get on that...

 

Bremen: I listed the activities that I primarily do above, but concerning my favorite food, it's probably the food at the temple. and after that I have had a chicken chipotle sandwich which I thought was rather delicious. Usually though its almost the same thing every day. eggs, bacon and hash browns for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and dinner, and something else which may or may not be appetizing.

 

 But not much has been going on, the days are pretty much the same schedule every time, so there isn't much to report to you that I'm sure you don't already know. I hope everything is going well at home, I'll be back in two years to find out how it's been. Well, That's basically it.

 

Until next week,

love,

 Elder Johnson