4 March 2013

Hello,

 

Caleb got his mission call!!!! That´s absolutely awesome, Chile is going to be great, he´s going to love it! Chile is sweet!! He is going to do awesome!

 

So this week has been pretty weird. It´s a lot different since p-day is on Monday, but I still think that it´s a great idea. It´s going to be different but great.

 

So last week we went to a park that had a bunch of famous buildings from different European countries. It was pretty cool, here are a few famous monuments that i´m sure you´ll recognize. 

 

 

 

I am super tired today. It´s terrible.

 

So we had an awesome lesson last week with a lady from Ecuador, miraculously we had a lot of members there to help with the lesson. So they were able to inspire and help her to have a greater desire to get baptized. So she has a baptismal date for the end of the month, hopefully we can also help her to help her daughters make the same day. Her husband might even be open to listening after she gets baptized, he sees a great difference in her after she comes back home from coming to church.

 

Also, we still have the Brazilian young man, he should be getting baptized near the end of the month too, he´s awesome. His only problem would be coming to church...

 

Well, we´re getting another missionary tomorrow, and it looks like all the visas for Spain are finally caught up, so we shouldn't have any big visa problems for a little while now.

 

Well, out of things to share for right now, I hope that everything is going well.

 

Have a great week,

 

Elder Johnson

 

Also, here is a great story that I read this week.

 

A number of years ago a baby boy was born into a Mormon family in Japan, after a few years, the boy and his family moved to New York City. When he turned his mission papers in, he was certain that he would be called to a Japanese mission to teach his own people, just like his father had done. However, when the call came, it was to Colombia. Believing that there must have been a mistake, he called the mission board and asked them to call President Kimball, to find out if there had been some mistake. President Kimball reviewed the call, said that there was no mistakes, that he was called to go to Colombia. The young man spent 8 long weeks in the MTC trying to learn Spanish. At the end of the eighth week he contacted President Kimball´s office again. “I do not wish to be a bother, but as hard as I try I cannot Learn Spanish. Please send me to Japan” President Kimball said “young man, you are to serve in Colombia, this missionary spent 22 months in Colombia as a junior companion, always following, never saying much, and never really learning the language. Then one day, a few weeks before he was to go home, while he and his companion were waiting for a train, an elderly gentleman tapped him on his shoulder, and asked in broken Spanish if they were the Mormon missionaries. The old man talked to the missionary and said in Japanese, that he looked like a person of Japanese descent. The two talked in Japanese for quite a while. After the old man left, the Japanese Elder turned to his companion and said they had an appointment at six forty that evening, and the older man had given him directions to his house. He had also asked if the Elders would talk to some of his family and friends. Upon arriving at the address, the Japanese gentlemen invited them inside with 64 Japanese people who couldn´t speak any English or Spanish waiting for them. Finally the Elder had the opportunity to teach in Japanese, how strange he thought that he had Colombia to do it. He worked furiously teaching the group of investigators. And helping them understand the gospel. The missionary baptized all 64 of these people before he finished his mission including the gentleman from the train station. The old man had been teaching this group about the gospel out of an old Japanese copy of the Book of Mormon. They had had no one to explain the gospel to them before they met the Elders. Thus they had readily accepted the message because they had been well prepared for it. Before the missionary left Colombia they asked him to write his testimony in the Japanese Book of Mormon. After writing his testimony the missionary turned the page of the well-worn book and read one of the deepest and strongest testimonies he had ever read. 25 years earlier another missionary had recorded his testimony in this book while serving in Japan. The inspiring words had been penned by the young Elder´s father.