Dear Family and Friends,
Ok, transfer calls are next Sunday night. 50%
chance of me staying but 100% chance of Sawyer going Zone Leader either
here or in Mesa. Also, P-day is weird today only from 10-12. P-day is
continued next week from 1pm-9pm since it's Thanksgiving. As such, I
won't have time to write anyone today.
We had an awesome week this week! As I said last week, we've cut
back on all the little obedience problems we've had and have seen
results. The "big" thing we were doing wrong was a couple days a week doing
the 6:30am nap. That is, roll out of bed, crawl to living room, take 30
minute nap on ground, get up and get ready. We have been going to the
gym every morning which has woken us up quicker and been a good workout
as well.
Why was this week awesome? We baptized one into the
YSA branch which means in the last 3 weeks we have baptized one person
into every unit we cover. But wait, there's more! We found 12 new
investigators in the last 8 days, at least one a day, and 5 of them are
on date. Three of those five are the family members of our recent
convert into the spanish branch. His wife and kids hated us but at the
baptism I felt inspired to promise him that whichever of his family
members attended the baptism would also get baptized. And now every one
of them that attended (wife and 2 of the 3 kids) are on date to get
baptized next week. It will be unreal to see him baptize his family 2
weeks after his baptism. Unreal. It has also been inspiring to see their
hearts change after his baptism. They are amazed at how he has quit
smoking, drinking, and all his other bad habits and has become a family
man. He even got his boss to give him Sundays off at work where he
worked 7 days a week 12-16 hours a day. Ahhh successsssssssssss!
It was good for other reasons as well. We taught 12 member- present
lessons with 8 other lessons (no member present) which equals the
standards of excellence for the mission. We have 7 progressing
investigators and taught a total of 21 lessons last week, one to a
recent convert. Sawyer said this has been the best week of his mission.
Last Monday night we were walking around a sketchy trailer park
looking for people. Usually we don't have to go through trailer parks
since Mexicans own houses down here but that night we did for whatever
reason. We saw this guy in his 20s with a long hoodie and pants way too
big for him walking out of a trailer. I walked over to him and said,
"hi!" He looked really quickly at us and ran really quickly towards a
wall. We were kind of laughing not knowing where he would go when he
jumped the 10 foot wall. When he was on top he briefly looked back at me
and I said, "We are sharing a message about Jesus Ch.." and then he
jumped down the other side and took off running. Classic haha.
That same night we were coming back and ran into some new
neighbors. We introduced ourselves and they asked some questions which
we answered. He advised us to not walk down a certain street because of
some gang activity that had happened. We told him we had just been on
that street. He looked carefully at us and said, "Man, I know you guys
wouldn't ever do anything to hurt someone, but if you ever have someone
bugging you, just tell me." He then proceeded to pull out a giant pistol
from his pants and said, "I'm in the Marines. I'm here for ya'll." Yup.
We also had a fun experience with a potential investigator we have,
or rather, had. We went over to her house and saw her and her daughter
making food in their kitchen. They both looked at us and the mother, our
potential investigator, ran away. The daughter walked over and found
her Dad and brought him to the door. He told us that Maria, our
potential investigator, was out of town. I asked who the other woman was
and he said, "oh, that was Maria...I mean Martha!" Busted. We probably
won't try back there. He was a terrible liar. haha
I went on exchanges this week to do some English work with one of
the zone leaders. English work is a lot different than spanish work. No
wonder there is animosity between the two types of missionaries here.
For the 8 hours I was with him that day, we spent all but 45 minutes
hanging out at members' homes. Those 45 minutes were at a lesson that
evening. I was going crazy sitting in the car all day driving from
members house to members house. The lesson was a good one though. Their
investigator is 15 and going through more than most 15 year olds have or
ever should. But it was a good exchange in the end. Met some crazy
members who think that a secession is needed since Obama was reelected
and one even said we may need a second revolutionary war. I didn't say
anything at those houses. We also had a pretty funny experience with two
lessons cancelling. One of them called us to cancel and while we were
on the phone with him the other lesson left a message cancelling. That
was two lessons cancelled within 60 seconds. At least we got notice
though. In most of the spanish areas they don't even have telephones and
you won't know they've cancelled till after you've arrived.
The Stake Fiesta was a couple of nights ago. There were over 800
people in attendance with dancers and a mariachi band. The dancing group
performed at the worldwide competition in South Korea last year and
were pretty impressive. Sometimes I think that Latino dancing is just
throwing your body in whichever way you can. It's controlled chaos. I
would send a video home but they're probably too big (filesize). They
gave us spanish missionaries some weird bowtie thing to wear but Sawyer
and I just wore it over our shoulders. See pics.
The Marine Corp Air Station is getting F-35's! One landed last week
on the 17th. I'll be keeping my eyes open for when they fly. Apparently
no civilians knew they were coming in until the minute it landed. Our
YSA branch has a lot of people involved in MCAS and it has been fun
talking to them about it. Haha Dad just sent me an article about it.
Our baptism this week was a miracle I think. The person we
baptized, we'll call him John, we found at 8:45 while walking down a
street. Usually OYMs, or street contacts, don't turn into anything.
Although the opposite has been true for us. We're about to get 5
baptisms off OYMing. Anyway, we set up a return appointment and he
wasn't there. We went back 2 weeks later and taught him the worst lesson
in the world. Terrible. Awful. Words cannot express. The spirit just
wasn't there. But 2 weeks later he was ready to get baptized. We ended
up pushing the baptism back another week for other reasons and he was
baptized on Saturday. He was pretty nervous the week before and was
thinking about pulling out. The Yuma Zone did a fast that day and the
next day for our lesson he said he got his answer and was excited to be
baptized. Really cool. There was a big turnout from the YSA branch and
this baptism was the first in the branch since the branch is only 2
months old. Hopefully it jump-starts some missionary work.
The Primary program for the Rio Colorado spanish branch was yesterday too. They used a recording on a CD to play the music for the
kids to sing to haha. Remember the man we
baptized into that branch a few weeks ago? The one whose family is now
taking discussions and getting baptized next week? Yeah, them. Well, the
9 year old daughter decided she wanted to be involved in the primary
program so she walked up when all the kids did and tried her best to
sing the parts. She had never attended the practices. They even gave her
a line to read from the podium. I wish you guys could have seen how
happy her parents were.
Last night we saw a giant meteor fly across the sky. It was
visible for probably 5 seconds, bright white and very slow. We were
teaching a guy on the street and we were all awestruck by it.
We actually saw it in a super sketchy neighborhood. As we were
walking back to the car we saw this guy ~20 years old. He saw us and
started circling around us so we walked towards him. We waved and said
hi and he said, "**** you guys, I thought you were someone else!
Mormons, right?" He was baptized 6 years ago, has been in jail, but
wants to come to Church. What are the chances? He told us that if we
hadn't been missionaries, he would have attacked us. I told him half
jokingly that we could have taken him. He pulled some brass knuckles out
of his pocket and said that we shouldn't be in this neighborhood after
dark. Hm.
Thanks Natalia, Grandpa, Mom, Eric, Will, Ian, and Annie for the
letters this week! I'll be able to write back on Thursday unless we get
signed up for 6 dinners...hopefully that doesn't happen. One is good for
me.
Can someone send me the wiki entry on the holy bible?
Thank you all for all you guys do!
With love,
Elder Johnson
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