30 January 2013

Hello!

 

So this has been a roughly normal week. We had our lessons and office work. Elder Winklekotter did have to get everything ready for a Doctor to come in this week. He is a missionary and he takes care of the medical things for ten missions in Europe. So he has been touring the mission and looking at various hospitals in order to get them all on the insurance list for the missionaries. For Whenever they might need any medical help.

 

We got all the new missionaries last Thursday and Saturday and sent them to their areas without a problem, we had to drive quite a bit, and we got to know a few of them. Some of them said that we would be surprised in the way that people spoke Spanish in California.(I really hope that I don´t get a different accent when I get back) (people are finally saying that I have a good Accent! Melissa said that she thought that I was a Spaniard on the phone! [see the paragraph below]). We should be getting 5 more this Monday.

 

So today is p-day, and in the morning we went to the temple. It was great as always. Afterwards we went to visit Melissa in B3 with Elder Wilson and Elder Perkins. Melissa is moving to Bolivia in 2 weeks, so we went to say goodbye to her and we took some pictures with her (below). This move will be great for her.

 

Well, I feel like I don´t really have anything else to say. I almost left to the north for transfers, but in the end President Jackson said that they still needed me in the office. So I´ll be around here for another 6 weeks before I even have to start training someone to be the new clerk/historian.

 

 

Well, I don´t really have much else to say right now.  I am rather tired lately, so I really want to take a nice long nap one day. (As if that is going to happen).

 

 

Well, thanks for everything.

 

Elder Johnson

 

 

23 January 2013

Hello,

 

 

 

So I was actually writing this letter when your second letter came in.

 

 

So this past week we had something really exciting happen, the fifteen year old girl that we are teaching that comes to church every week, and usually she brings a friend with her to the church, or the lessons. Anyway, last Sunday she brought a friend, and as they were sitting in Sacrament Meeting the friend leaned over to her and asked; what do I have to do to get baptized? So that was really exciting, the friend can't meet again until next Sunday, but we are really excited to be able to teach her and start her on the track to baptism. Then afterwards, I really hope that we can help both of their families make the steps. We have planned that the girl will get baptized on the 2 of February, so hopefully she can complete that, though she is pretty nervous, so she´ll need support from her friends and family to do it. Last Friday I went on exchanges with one of the other companionships in our district. But that night we had planned the lesson with the family of five, and when my companion went by, nobody answered, so he though no one was there, but I called the mom on Saturday, and she said that they were there and waiting, and that we just didn´t show up. Soo that was disappointing. However, this Friday we are going to try to get the family to come to a baptism. So I really hope that they can make it to that, because they haven´t made it to church so far.

 

 

So yesterday it snowed!! It only stuck on the cars, but it was really cool. That night my companion said that it was the second time to see snow in Madrid, the first time being that morning...

 

 

So the new missionaries are actually coming in tomorrow and Saturday. Tomorrow we have 10 coming in, so we get to pick them up from the airport in the morning, and then on Saturday .. we still have to figure that part out... But President, Elder Wilson, and Elder Perkins (the other AP) got everything figured out about where they are going and such. Since transfers are in a week and a half, almost all the missionaries are going to be put in trios. A few of them are going to be in companionships of four. But that is only two companionships. So these next few days are going to be really fun to be able to meet all these new missionaries coming in. It won´t be crazy for us, because we only have to drive them around a little and buy a mattress. It´s President and the AP´s that are going to be having the real fun, since the part of transfers that they did have done, just got restarted with these 12 new missionaries. So next Monday, they probably will have an all office day, planning transfers. They haven´t opened any new areas yet, but I am expecting about 3 or so in the next transfer. The Canary Island Zone is doing amazing right now, all the missionaries are really dedicated and so the work there is jumping forward. As of right now they are almost keeping up with the baptisms of Madrid, despite the fact that Madrid has about 10 more companionships. So I can almost assume that they are going to be opening up some areas down there.

 

 

That´s great that Breanna only needed her braces for a year. Also, how long was I supposed to wear my retainer for? I took it off months ago, but if I should still wear it I can put it back on....

 

 

So as a DL, I am in charge of 3 companionships (including mine), though one companionship is also the ZL´s, so I really don´t need to watch out for them that much. So mostly, I just have to take care of the other companionship in the District, and try to find ways to help them become better missionaries. So I take care of the weekly district meetings and go on exchanges to make sure that they are being good missionaries and to see if there is anything that I can help them with. So It´s a great opportunity to learn and grow. I enjoy it kind of.

 

Anyway, thanks for everything!

 

Elder Johnson

16 January 2013

So I stuffed all the pictures into a  compressed folder... and they are still to big to send in an email. So I guess I´ll just have to send them a few at a time.

 

 

Anyway, this last week has been pretty good. So we passed by most of those old investigators, and it turns out that most of them still aren´t that open to changing. Even though they will let us in. However, last Friday we visited with the mother of a family from Ecuador, and it appears that they are golden! The family has been searching for the true church and still hasn´t found it. And two of the daughters recently had dreams that they need to go to the Mormon Church. So we are really excited to start teaching them. They weren´t able to come to church last week because they already had plans, but we fully expect to get most, if not all, of them to church. Hopefully we can have five more baptisms in a few short weeks.

 

 

So it turns out that the baptism of the daughter has gotten moved back. We haven't had a ton of time to be able to teach her, so she still need to know more before she gets baptized. So we moved it to the beginnings of February.

 

 

So this morning we came to the office and had the pleasant surprise of seeing an email that said "Just a Heads up, I got 50 Spain visas approved!" That was a surprise. So only 15 are coming to our mission. However, It will be really exciting (and hectic) to be able to get all of these missionaries by next week,. Elder Winkelkotter, President, and the AP´s are going to be having a ton of fun in organizing where they are going to go, etc. Good Luck! (though at least they came now instead of coming in May with the 30 other missionaries). Anywhere, our week just went from looking like a good proselyting week to a hectic office week. Oh well, maybe in two or three weeks things can settle down.

 

 

Well that´s about the time I have for today.

 

 

Thanks for everything.

 

 

Until Next week

 

 

Elder Johnson

9 January 2013

Hello again!

 

So this week has started out to be pretty eventful, last Sunday we called a bunch of the people in our area book and ended up almost filling our entire week! That was pretty exciting!

 

 

So outside of that today we went and visited an old castle in Segovia, we took a tour of it, which ended up being pretty sweet. I´ll send pictures of that to you all. It was really sweet, I really enjoyed it. Also, There was an old cathedral there, as well as a Roman Aqueduct, and a early artillery school. I thoroughly enjoyed it all, though as a result I don´t have as much time to write. (Segovia is about 1 hour away in car and about 2 in public transportation). I´m sending a few right now, but I want to see if i can find a way to send all of them...

 

 

So we still don´t know when all the missionaries are going to get their visas. Personally, I am hoping that they all come in this week. I don´t know why, but I really want them to all come in. Of course Elder Winkelkotter doesn´t really want that to happen, because he has to find the housing for all of those missionaries. (good luck to him). That´s going to be a torturous week in the office!

 

 

So we set a baptismal date with a fifteen year old girl the other day, we have been teaching her mother lately, who comes to English classes every week. But her mom works Sunday mornings usually, so she can´t come to church that often, so we started focusing on her daughter, who now comes to church every week, and she almost always brings some of her friends with her too. We are going to have to try hard to help her to be able to reach her date, because it is in two weeks, and she takes baptism as something completely serious (which should be the case with more people) so she won´t get baptized if she feels nervous or doesn´t completely agree with the idea. Which is absolutely great to be honest!

 

 

So Lexi met Elder Forsythe at EFY, and I guess that they have still been somewhat in contact. So when she heard that I was coming to Spain she told him to look out for me, And it turns out that we got to be companions!

 

 

So I haven´t used the party stuff yet, maybe for the next birthday of someone in our piso or something like that.

 

 

So for Reyes, they ended up having a parade, and the little kids got presents from the Reyes (It´s kind of like Christmas for them, during the night the 3 Reyes Magos come and give gifts). We ate Roscón, which is kind of like a fruitcake I´ve heard, it was delicious, and each cake has a surprise inside( a small toy)

 

 

So to be perfectly honest, I don´t really know what else to say right now. I hope that you´re all enjoying the snow right now because we aren´t seeing any of it.

 

I hope everyone is still enjoying school. (as always)

 

Good luck with everything, and until next week!

 

Elder Johnson

 

 Sorry, can't get this one to rotate!

 

2 January 2013

Happy New Year!

 

 

So we had an pretty uneventful New Years Eve. We actually were only able to find one lesson, and then for most of the night (and the entire day) we did office work. And then on our way home we bought some Kebab (it´s a rather delicious Turkish style meat that is put into a Turkish style sandwich or burrito). And then we went to sleep well before the year ended to the sound of fireworks and gunshots.

 

 

Anyway, it was great to be able to see you all this past week, it was also pretty great to be able to sit down and talk to Caleb. I haven´t heard a lot from him, so it was great.

 

 

Well, I have actually been a District Leader since December 17.   It could be a mildly challenging calling, thought I really only have 6 people in our district. And two of them are the Zone Leaders. So, some of our district meetings, like yesterday, are just going to be with us two companionships because the Zone Leaders will be visiting the other district in the Zone.

 

 

So about Elder Laubaugh... We had gone to his new area in order to unload some furniture that was going to be used for the new companionship of Hermanas that was going to be in his area. So we had a van with the back door that pulls up when you open it, and I wasn´t paying too much attention, so when all the boxes were out I shut the door, pulling it down straight onto the top of Elder Laubaugh´s head...

 

 

And President is a doctor, he actually was the Medic for the BYU football team (along with his brother(s) and friend(s). He actually had started his own medical thingy[insert what it´s supposed to called here]. (* I think he was going for medical practice.)

 

 

Elder Winkelkotter is from College Station in Texas. But he has actually lived in South Jordan, Utah for the past few years. He has been out for the same amount of time as Elder Wilson, which is now up to 19 months.

 

 

Elder Forsythe is very excited to go home, or better said he is excited to play football. Today is his last day with us, so we are going to be running around everywhere in order to try to get everything done that he wants to get done today.

 

 

 

So this week hasn´t been too bad other than almost full days in the office in order to make sure that Elder Winkelkotter can get the most training in as possible. We want to make sure that the mission doesn´t fall apart when Elder Forsythe leaves, so we are making sure that he can know, at least in theory, all the things that he has to do. Transfers are in February, so we have a whole month off to get ready for them. At least we only have about 4 people scheduled to come in though, so that is pretty nice. Though, we also have 27 that get here the day after their visa gets approved, soo, one of these days we are going to get an awful big surprise.

 

 

 

The people that we just baptized are named Carlos and Diana.

 

 

Well we don´t have a ton of people right now due to the immense amount of time spent in the office lately, but we did just start teaching the father of Diana,who hopefully will accept the messages well, we are also teaching a mother and her fifteen year old daughter, who also brings her friends to come to church and to listen, we are teaching a fifteen year old kid that is into a lot of things right now that he should be in. And we also just started teaching a Spanish lady that has a lot of potential. So those are the ones that we are focusing on right now.

 

 

Well I actually don´t know a whole lot about Reyes, though i think it´s like Christmas, I might be able to tell you more about it next week.

 

 

It´s weird that the family is getting so grown up, by the time I get back Breanna will probably be going to college with me and Ellie will be close to finishing High School.

 

 

 

So you asked me about what I want for my next package, So whenever you send it to me, I thought it it actually might be nice to have goldfish or starburst maybe... And i also need some more vitamins, I am completely out... 

 

 

 

I almost have a year!?!

 

 

Well, that´s about all the time that I have right now,

 

 

Have a good start to the new year!!

 

 

 

Elder Johnson