29 July 2013

Hello,

 

So this past week has been awesome, we had a lot of miracles every single day. It was truly incredible. I don´t have time to tell them all to you right now because we actually have to catch a train to Madrid in two hours and we still have to go back to the piso in order to pack and we still have to eat. But this past week was really really cool, and we hope that we will be able to help everybody have the same awesome and amazing miracles that we have had.

 

 

So we have the mission leadership meeting tomorrow and then another zone meeting that we have Wednesday, and then I am going to go on intercambios to another city, so I´ll be back to Vigo Thursday night.

 

 

So I tried sending pictures, but my camera doesn´t like the computers for some reason so it runs way to slow and I don´t have time to  wait..... one day .....

 

 

So we have a Baptism this Saturday!! I´m really excited, she still needs a few more things, but she can make it.

 

 

So, the train accident was pretty crazy, it is only the third train accident in the history of Spain, and the last one of this magnitude was in 1940ish.  The Elder was able to leave without a problem, but there was also another member couple that was on that train who aren´t in such good shape. I actually know them from B3. I really hope that they end up being ok, they are an awesome family. We couldn´t really do anything to help because we are too far away, but there were some other elders that were closer that were able to help out a little bit more.

 

 

Other than the one train, everyone else is great, transfers were smooth, and there weren´t any other complications.

 

 

Well, thanks for everything, until next week.

 

Elder Johnson

22 July 2013

Hello,

So we had a baptism on Saturday!! It was really cool, and he was also able to have a lot of his family there as well to share the special moment with him. A lot of them are also members, so they were all really excited for him. Unfortunately his daughter, who is also a member and lives in Arizona, wasn´t able to come (I think it´s because she´s pregnant), but I am sure that she is still absolutely thrilled right now.

So, we are also going to have another baptism in a little less than two weeks of his wife, and then we are going to have another one the week after that for another Spaniard that we are teaching. We also met a really cool family from Peru last night, so I am excited to be able to meet and visit with them.

So we are both staying in Vigo right now. Our district actually doesn´t have a ton of changes, it actually only has one. But the other district is having three missionaries leave, one is coming up from Madrid, and the other two are training new elders from the MTC. And we also get a companionship of Hermanas in the other district.

The zone is doing alright, apart from us, there were two other baptisms yesterday and Saturday. As of right now, we are the only ones that have more planned, but that should hopefully change pretty quick.

We have 18 missionaries in the zone right now, but we are getting another companionship of Hermanas. The zone activities last week went really well, we had the District President, and the ex-District President speak to the missionaries about the members, and we also had the AP´s and the President address us. We only announced the program because this was a zone conference, but next week we are going to have the zone meeting, and that is when we are going to be talking the entire time. It was a really good meeting, we talked a lot about faith and about the members. So I really hope that the missionaries will apply those things now in their mission work.

Well, thats´s all I have for now, I hope the festivus was a festival. Tell Breanna and Bremen happy birthday for me.

One of these day´s I´ll get off my rear and send you guys a package home,  I mostly just need a box right now.

Well, in all honesty that´s about all that I have right now, I also have to go pretty soon,

So until next week.

Elder Johnson.

15 July 2013

Hello,

So I don´t exactly have a whole lot of time right now, so this past week has been pretty good, all of our investigators are doing awesome, it´s also really cool because all of our best investigators are Spaniards. Speaking of which, we have a baptism this Saturday!! It´s for a 60 year old Spaniard man, his daughter is actually a member in Arizona. And his wife is going to be getting baptized in a little less than 3 weeks.

So today we have the whole zone here in Vigo for our zone conference, and today we got to spend our p-day together and tonight we are going to have a fireside with the District President and the ex-district President, and tomorrow President and the AP´s are going to be giving the talks in the Zone Conference tomorrow, it should be pretty exciting, and I hope that it will help out all the missionaries here in Galicia.

So we also have transfers next week! So I don´t really know what is going to happen, but that´s that. It´s amazing how they come around so fast, I feel like this transfer just started two weeks ago.

So I tried sending some pictures, but for some reason the card isn´t coming up on the computer, so maybe I´ll have more luck next week.

Well, I don´t know what else to say for now, so thanks for everything and good luck,

Elder Johnson

8 July 2013

Hello,

I wish that I could say that we have ac in our piso, but unfortunately we don´t.... It leaves us with some pretty warm nights...

So this past week has been pretty good, we had an amazing week set up to start, but at the end we had a lot of people cancel on us. But anyway, the branch here is really excited about the missionary work right now. The church leaders are all really amazing and the don´t want to let us have time to be in the street contacting. It is really cool to be able to be a part of the work here and to be able to be serving at this time. The goal for the branch right now is to have a stake in the city (right now there is only one branch). So it would be cool to be able to be here for awhile and to be able to see the change and growth that is going to happen in the coming months and years.

So I didn´t realize that I knew anyone in the conference that they showed about missionary work. I knew that I had heard Edmond 3rd, but they said the Stillwater Stake, so I didn´t think that that would be right so I figured that I had heard wrong and so I didn´t pay attention much to see if I recognized anyone...

So our 4th of July wasn´t very impressive either. It was however kind of funny because we did have a 4th of July parade and a form of fireworks. There was a strike last week so we saw them parading down the road, and we also saw some smoke from a trash can that had caught on fire. So it was a different kind of 4th for us this year... We did however have pancakes on the 5th to celebrate the 4th though.

Well, we unfortunately weren´t able to find a baptism. Almost all of our investigators are new and we didn´t find anyone that met the other requirements, but I still really like the challenge because it really helped out the faith of myself and of a lot of other missionaries as well.

I´ll try taking more pictures, I really need to do better with that because we have transfers in two weeks.....

So I think that that´s about it for now, I´ll try drinking some more water, but at least I haven´t been dehydrated yet (except for  Fast Sunday I suppose), thanks for everything.

Elder Johnson

1 July 2013

Hello,

So this past week was very good, and also very tiring. We had our meetings, which ended up being great. We were all very inspired at the end of it, and we also were able to share those experiences and inspire the missionaries of our zone. 

This past week we had the goal of finding someone (between Tuesday and Saturday), that met all the baptismal requirements and to get them baptized that Saturday, unfortunately we were not able to find anyone since all our investigators are new and we are still working on finding some old investigators through the area book. But this week we are going to try it again, and see if we can´t find anyone that is ready to get baptized this Saturday. 

So I felt really tired at the end of last week, the heat came in in the last few days, so I was really glad to be able to have p-day today to take a short rest and get ourselves ready for this next week.

So I feel better, I just need to drink more water.

So I don´t know if you watched the First Presidency Message last week on the Work of Salvation. If you haven´t, I would highly recommend it. There were some very inspiring talks and it completely changes the way that missionary work is being done. There is going to be a lot of success if the missionaries and the members can work together. 

Well, I feel like I finally know how to be a missionary, and I still have a ton more to learn. But, these next few months are going to be a blast. I really can´t wait to see all the miracles and the great things that are going to start occurring in the work here in Spain. I expect great changes very shortly here.

I did get the package, Thanks a ton, it has been delicious.

Thanks for everything Mom and Dad, you guys are great.

Elder Johnson

24 June 2013

Hello,

So I feel really tired after working last week. I feel like the week was really long. But, we hopefully found some good potential investigators, so hopefully this week will be better. 

Today we take a train to Madrid, tomorrow we have the leadership council with President, so we´ll be able to learn quite a bit. We won´t get back here to Vigo until Wednesday morning though, which is disappointing because an two hours after getting back we need to take a bus to Santiago to have our zone meeting. It´s more disappointing because usually the zone leaders in Vigo take a plane, and for some reason we are taking the train today, and we are going to be taking a night train to get back here.... I hope that we can sleep well on the train, because if not, Wednesday could be a very long day.

Well. I am probably getting sick right now, I have a headache, a cough, I get really cold sometimes, and I also feel really tired, so, it´s also probably a good thing that I am going to have a lot of time to just sit down and rest. It´s been a little while since I have really taken a good rest. 

So today is a holiday in Vigo, I am actually mildly surprised that we were able to find this locutorio because I honestly expected everything to be closed today. I don´t really know what they are celebrating today, but there aren´t very many people working....

So Vigo is great, it´s a beautiful city and there are a lot of cool things that we can do here. I am excited to see some miracles here. These next few weeks are going to be awesome. 

Hopefully I will be getting that package you sent me tomorrow. I just have to make sure that Elder Berthon remembers to bring it to the leadership council.

Well, thanks for everything, I don´t really know what else to say right now,

Elder Johnson

24 June 2013

Sorry, I didn't realize I didn't send this letter last week!

 

Happy Fathers Day!

 

So Vigo has been great so far, it´s a beautiful city even though it rains quite a bit. This past week was actually dry for almost my entire time there, but yesterday it started raining again. But anyway, Vigo is right on the coast in a bay, with the mountains right behind the coast. IT´s absolutely gorgeous, we have an investigator that said that he is going to take some pictures for us, so when those come in I´ll send them to you so that you can see. I am also learning a little bit of Galician. It´s one of the oldest Latin based languages (older than Spanish and maybe Portuguese too) that exists. It´s pretty similar to Portuguese. So maybe when I come back I can be fluent in three languages. All the people understand Spanish though, so there isn´t the huge need to learn it, so we´ll see.

 

So the Work is going good. I haven´t really seen the difference between the north and Madrid yet, other than the smaller amount of people that there are in the street. We are teaching a lot of great people right now, I think that in a few short week they should be able to get baptized . They are really great, and I am really excited to be able to help them all.

 

So the email you got is from a man named Lino, he is an investigator of the Elders in the district where I was at in B1. He is a really great guy and is extremely observant and is really sensitive. Feel free to respond to his letter, he just asked me for your email to be able to write to you.

 

Elder Miner is awesome, he is a missionary that is in the same group as I am, I actually first met him in the MTC here in Spain. He is really great, and I am happy to be able to work with him. He is from Wyoming, and is the oldest of two, his family is inactive, but recently they have started to look back in to the church.

 

So it is pretty humid here in Vigo, it´s right on the coast. (I actually heard that the best beach in the world is here in Vigo, but I don´t have anyone to confirm that with, so I really don´t know.

 

I haven´t met the branch yet, we had our district conference this past Sunday, so I only know a few members, though the majority seem to be Spaniards, Venezuelans, and Uruguayans.

 

The change was somewhat unexpected, in all honesty Elder Berthon and I suspected that one of us was going to leave, but we didn´t know where or who was going to go. I was actually half starting to think that I was going to stay in Madrid for my entire mission, so it was a surprise when I saw that I was going to be leaving Madrid, and going north. It was a long trip, 7 hours in a train and I traveled by myself because no one else was going up to the same area on that day. There were a few others that took a different train because they went to a different part of the north. I didn´t quite get caught up in my journal because after the first hour the train ride got rather bumpy, but I wrote down most of the things that I wanted to write down at the time.

 

 

So that´s about it for this week, things are going great,

 

until next week,

 

Elder Johnson