27 June 2012

Hola,

So this past week has been relatively normal. We have been doing the same thing that we normally have been doing. Today we helped someone move to a different piso, one that is almost right next to our recently converted family. So we probably will be able to get the family to help them get baptized. The family that just moved aren´t members, but they seem like they could be really good, so I think that we can probably help them. I really hope that they are willing to listen to us so that we can. That is actually the problem here. If people would just do it to try it they could achieve salvation and eternal life with God. However, they aren´t willing to give half an hour to reach salvation. Hopefully you guys are.

So also this Sunday we received a call from one of the counselers in the bishopric that the husband of one of the members said that he wants to get baptized! It´s really exciting!  He looks like he could really progress. It´s super exciting. He also taught us the difference between Persian and Arabic, so now I can roughly disinguish the two (if I am listening to them, They have the same alphabet, so the words are a little harder to distinguish.)

We have actually been finding a lot of people that could get baptized, however all of them are going to take at least 3 weeks becuase they have to come to three sessions of church before we can baptize them. However, we have transfers in a week and a half. And, Elder Wilson and I are kind of sure that one of us are going to leave. So one of us might not be able to see all the baptisms that we are about to get, which will be a little dissapointing, but at the same time, it is kind of exciting.

So I don´t know what much else to say, I was thinking the other day that people always say that people don't ever come up to you in the street saying that they want to get baptized, but it is definately not true, people still somehow have a spiritual experience and then the find us and tell us that they want to get baptized. Now there probably aren´t as many as there are in South America, but I feel like if they come to you in Europe it is soo much more exciting because baptisms aren´t that frequent.

Well, while I am here in Europe I really get to see the benefits of following the commandments. There are soo many people here that are unhappy and miserable and could be really happpy if they would just follow the commandments. Also, I get to see the struggles that some people have because they don´t do the small things to keep up their faith. It is absolutely necessary to keep your faith up.

I have included some pictures of inner Spain (not my area) and also a picture of a surprise that we found on our desks last Sunday.

Also, I am going to start sending you guys almost all the pictures that I have, little by little, so I might be sending you some of the one´s that I have already sent before, so sorry about that.

 

Next week I´ll be celebrating six months, just 18 more, and I'll be back, and Bremen will have someone to be with, for a little bit ....

until next week

ciao

Elder Johnson

20 June 2012

Hola,

So this week has been pretty normal, relatively. We have been finding a lot of new investigators lately now that the ward has divided. Also, we have a family that we are teaching that consists of six people. At first only the father and son were interested, and the mother didn´t want to have anything to do with the church. But now, the mother has been reading the book of mormon and praying every night, and she has changed a lot! Now she is happy to see us and talk to us. It´s really cool to see the changes the people go through as they do the things that they should, unfortunately I can´t really explain it very well, but it is an awesome feeling when you can see that you are helping people change their lives for the better.

So we also helped ( a tiny bit) with an activity that the ward adjacent to ours did. It was an american barbeque and the members were asked to bring friends of theirs. It was pretty cool, they had a bunch of water balloon activiyies, and hamburgers and hot dogs to eat. Also, we hleped with a tour of the church.We brought some of our investigators, and they really liked it. We are also going to try to have one of our own pretty soon.

So we also are teaching someone named Christian who we recently found, and he is doing really good right now. He came to church last week even though it was the first week that we taught him. Hopefully he is still willing to change and grow so the he can make it to baptism.

So all the people we are teaching are still South Americans. There aren´t a whole lot of Spaniards that aer interested in hearing what we have to say. Unfortunately almost the entire culture of Spain is centered around the Catholic church. So it is rather hard to get them to accept an invitation to listen to another church. Even if they know that the Catholic church isn´t right.

Spain is nice and warm right now, it still has yet to hit August, so I kind of hope that I can get sent up north for the summer. But we´ll see. Madrid wouldn´t be too bad either, though I might like a different view.

We also went to a museum today, but I have to talk more about that later.

So also, I have been out for about 5 and a half months already. it´s gone by super fast! I almost can´t believe that I am really close to a quarter of the way done with my mission. I am going to be coming home before I know it.

For your questions.

 

I don´t know what kind of good American food I miss. Good pizza, but you can´t really send a pizza. I don't remember much right now that I miss. If you can remember something that I like, you could send that. The peanut butter isn´t that good here so you could send that. I can by chinese ramen here, so I am not in a lack of that either. Maybe mac and cheese if you want. And a snickers bar wouldn´t be too bad.

 

until next week,

I love you guys.

Elder Johnson

13 June 2012

Hola,

So this past week we have been able to find a lot of people here. Unfortunately they probably won´t get baptized for 3 or 4 weeks, but in about 3 or 4 weeks we are going to start having a lot of baptisms, or so I believe. It will be right in time for me to get transferred and miss all of the baptisms, maybe. Anyway, something that I have found as I teach people, is that when the people do the commitments that we leave with them, read the scriptures, pray, and go to church, they really change. They start to get more receptive to the message, and they trust in us more. So I just want to make sure that you guys are all doing the small things. Because if you are not, the exact opposite is going to happen. An example that I like that I have been giving out here, that came from dad I think, is that your faith is like riding a bike uphill, you are either moving forwards or going backwards. So where are you going?

So I don´t really know what else to say... this week has been somewhat normal other than the fact that we have been finding a ton of people to teach. Most of our investigators are relatively new. Which is why we probably won´t have a baptism for a little while. But it´s fine. So all of our investigators, except maybe two, are all still South Americans. It´s not too bad, but I really want to baptize some Spaniards. Which will be a little difficult for now, because almost all the Spaniards that live in our area aren´t interested in hearing anything. Or they want to argue with you. Soo... maybe I´ll get to go north and talk with more Spaniards there. But we´ll see.

 

So, if you can, it would be helpful if you could send me some recipes that I can make and eat in about half an hour, unfortunately we normally don´t have very much time to cook, at all. and if you decide to send them in a package, I am running low on deodorant, but I could find some European brand if I need to.

 

Well, I don't know what much else to say, just keep doing the small things.

Our investigators are progressing and changing. Hopefully they can make it to the gate and then endure to the end.

Tell the kids to send questions already. I've given a few hints that I would appreciate it, but tell them to get it done. : ) I want to hear from them how they are.

Love

Elder Johnson

6 June 2012

Hello,

So this week has been relatively normal. We haven´t had anything new or super exciting happen lately except that we are finding a lot of families to teach. It´s really cool because finding and teaching families is awesome. We believe that we have been finding so many because recently there was the ward boundary change, and we lost about 20 active members. So now with these new families that we are finding we will be able to help the ward grow back to how it was before.

So also today we finally went to buy some new ties, because unfortunately I have gotten about 3 of mine dirty so I was down to a selection of about 4. Which after 5 months can get a little bit tiring, so we went to a cheap clothing store and I bough 4 more for 10 euros. (about 13 dollars).

So the weather here has been pretty consistent lately, almost every day it has been in the 80´s or higher, usually higher. So it has been rather warm lately, almost perfect swimming weather, if I swam.

So my camera is fine right now, it is a kind of old camera, so the pictures are a little blurry, but they have been turning out OK. I might get a better one later, but for right now it works just fine. So I also sent you a picture of my district in Provo, with the hermanas, A shot of Spain from the Madrid mtc, the miracle that we found when he got baptized, a noche de hogar with the Armenian family and a Russian "eternal investigator". They all left with the boundary changes. A noche de hogar with the family that we just set a baptismal date with and a lot of people from the ward. And a shot of our "living room" or at least most of it.

So I am still in barrio 3 with Elder Wilson, nothing changed since this past companionship changes. Only that one of the hermanas in each of the wards in our district left. So we got two new hermanas in our district. Other than that, nothing else really has changed that really affects us as a district. One of the AP´s left so we have a new one of them. But that´s basically it.

So also to prepare for our new mission president, the zone leaders at least are having to do a rather lot of planning. They (and Elder Wilson) have to have goals for every companionship and for the entire zone and the have to do some other things as well. It makes me somewhat glad that I am not someone that has a lot of responsibility right now. However, I still would like to be a zl or a dl or an ap. Though that may partially because I don´t yet know exactly how much they really have to do.

So the names of the people who got baptized in last week's fotos are:

Dakota, the 9 year old that we baptized. She is a ball of energy, and is a little bit crazy. At times I wonder if it is possible for her to physically sit still outside of sleeping. She is in a musical play of the jungle book right now, and either plays as Mowgli or one of the wolves. She is pretty funny, because she is a little bit crazy.

Melissa, the 20 year old that we baptized.

Martha, Giovanny, Christopher; the mother, father and son in the family that we baptized. The daughter´s name is Giovana but she is only five years old, so she couldn´t be baptized

Well, that´s pretty much my time.

Hasta la proxima semana,

 

Elder Johnson

 

*Here are the pictures:

 

30 May 2012

Well so unfortunately I didn´t exactly use my time well last week so I didn´t get a letter off to you guys. So now I need to make up for both of those weeks now, or at least try to. So the week before this one we had the baptism of the family. It went really well, It was really exciting to see the family all together in white. We had 5 people in the font at once, (the other three were standing off to the side). I remember that we unfortunately had to do the program right before the baptism was supposed to begin. But everything else went really well. We started a little late, but the Spirit was really strong. It felt great to have all those people changing their lives. After the baptism we had each of them give their testimonies about how they felt about the church. They were pretty standard, but it was really cool to hear it coming from people that maybe a month ago didn´t exactly want anything to do with us. I really love to see people change and change their lives for the better. I hope that they can all stay as active and faithful as they are right now after their baptism. Unfortunately that is the hardest part for almost everyone. Unfortunately they don´t always do the small things that keep up their faith so then they fall.

So something spiritual that we had this week was of course in a lesson that we had with another family. The mother and son were waiting for the father to return before they got baptized and now that he is back we are teaching them the lessons and we set a date with them yesterday. I really hope that the change and make the right decisions. At least two of them have either received direct answers or know that the church is true. So if they don´t do it it will be rather upsetting. Something in the scriptures that I really like is how straightforward and direct it is. And also how much spirit it has. When reading the scriptures I can learn a lot. I also really like how there are great examples in the Book of Mormon, and also that it states directly how we can be like them. That way we can focus on what we need to do and we can change.

So the spring here is full of the 5 minute rain followed by 20 minutes of cloudy or clear skies. And it follows a pattern during almost the entire day. Already though it is summer, which means that I am in the 90´s for the weather right now, and clear skies all day every day. It´s rather tiring to be out in the sun so much. So hopefully we can get a lot of appointments during the middle day time so we can avoid the heat. Luckily there are a few trees and parks every so often so at least it isn´t a complete concrete jungle. There are also some red flowers that look pretty cool. But they are only in some parks every now and then.

So something else that will happen tomorrow is that the ward boundaries are about to change. We will lose about half of our area in travel time. It wouldn´t be that bad except we are also losing some good families. Including an awesome Armenian family. They are some of the only ward members that actually love us I think. So it is a little disappointing to be losing them.

So I am also going to try to send some pictures, you´ll have to tell me if it works or not. It should include our baptisms, a picture of the hermanas in our ward, some shots of Spain, my companion in Provo and Madrid MTC´s and my companion right now, and the Gate to Narnia. The elders in my district in Provo, the Madrid temple, and our district here, at least before the changes this week.

Well ciao,

Elder Johnson

 Provo MTC district

 Provo MTC companion

 Madrid MTC

 Madrid MTC companion

 Madrid Temple from MTC window

 Elder Johnson, Elder Wilson and new members!

 The Family!

 Scene of Madrid

 The Gate to Narnia

Madrid District