14 October 2013

Paul OYM'ing with a parrot

. . . a little peck

 Dear Family and Friends,

 

This week we set a Mesa zone record for total teaching lessons at 225. That led the mission. We set a companionship record at 56 lessons taught. Which was a miracle since 30 lessons cancelled this week.

We have a ridiculous amount of work going right now. 

We had a pretty cool teaching opportunity this week. It was on Tuesday, the day after every single lesson on Monday fell through. We OYM'd him in the parking lot. He was in his 20s and the first thing he said was, "I have a MMJ card." Haha, ok. He was smoking but very interested in what he said. He told us his concern was when Christians or Jews or whatever told him that what he did was bad when they would turn around and do bad things as well. He said he didn't like to be told he was wrong.

Who does? We slowly built up the conversation around his faith and how he lives his faith. We eventually introduced prophets to him and he said, "well yeah, if a prophet told me to smoke I probably wouldn't!" We told him, "One has." His eyes got wide and he inhaled the last breath of the joint until it went out. We set up a return appointment with him but he wasn't there. Hopefully we can find him this week - he got really excited about the idea of living prophets. 

Unfortunately the Skype lessons this week with Tracy Watson failed. There was a technical problem on his end and apparently the power in Pakistan was out. Devastating.

Well, it finally happened. I officially had my driving privileges temporarily revoked. Apparently it was supposed to start on September 1st but no one told me until October 5th. As I drove into the mission office the vehicle coordinator said, "whatcha doin drivin?" So, President Toone told me to take a break for the next 1-5 days as he figures out what to do. Hopefully he figures it out soon! Tiwi, the GPS unit that is put into our cars that measures speed and G's pulled in turns, made me "yellow-lighted." I had a good case as I argued my way out of the longer suspension ha. I had been "green lighted," meaning a safe driver, just a few weeks before and the only "aggressive driving violations" that I had gotten in that time were accidentally turning too quick or going over a bump too fast. Nothing purposefully aggressive...

Anyway, that has been fun.

My letter is going to be shorter this week - we've been asked to review everyone's Facebook profiles to make sure they follow the guidelines and we're already short on time as is. 

The highlight of the week was eating Menudo - cow stomach lining soup. We were invited over for dinner and told that we would be eating carne aasada! It was with a single sister so the sister missionaries had to be there for us going inside. 30 minutes before dinner we found out they were sick but they decided to come anyway. We were all excited for carne asada!

As we walked in the door, something spelled...different. It wasn't the smell of grilling steak or lettuce or salsa. No. It was something far different. A smelly smell that I had smelled before. I could never forget that smelly smell that smelled...smelly.

It was menudo.

We all looked at each other in silent fear, knowing what was to come. A prayer to bless the food was said with all of us adding our own silent prayer that the food would stay down. From bowl to mouth went each spoonful of broth, hominy, and cow stomach. The mixture of stomach in my own stomach was not a pleasant one. The battle continued. I attacked the bits of stomach first, thinking that if I could get that down I could get the rest down easier. The first spoonful in and it almost came right back out. In a stroke of ingenuity, I reached for the Coke. Hmm, coke. I don't like coke that much. But that night it was my best friend. Spoon in mouth, fake chew, pour coke, swallow everything. Repeat.

When half the bowl was gone I looked around. Everyone was pale in the face. Full, yet not sure how. All of the sudden we hear, "THE RICE IS READY! How much meat do you want??"

What had we just heard? Not that. Noo, not that! MORE FOOD?? Another plate of rice was delivered to the table and put in the middle. And then pork mixed with egg was put on the table. I don't like eggs. 

Nevertheless between the coke and the rice I won. I left that house victorious. Five minutes later I realized the Menudo had won. Recognizing an emergency, we raced home for some menudicine (toothpaste.) It worked miracles. 

That night reflecting on that day we all agreed that that would be a good experience to look back on. In 50 years.

____

Hahah good times...Mexicans love that stuff, we just can't do it for some reason.

Also, last Monday we went to a member owned bird shop last Monday. I found a new friend then he attacked me and cut my arm!

Yesterday Elder Lanier, I mean Lanier, returned from home to visit us! It was way fun to see him. We had served together for 4.5 months in Yuma. He and I both looked back on those days with a smile on. Good times were had. 

Anyway, I'm about out of time! Thanks so much for the letters John and Aunt Andra and Anika [and Mom and William]! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Love,

eJ

 

 

12 November 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm pretty sure I'm getting transferred out of Yuma this transfer. I still have two more weeks here which I will be sure to enjoy. It's too bad that it is happening now that we have turned Yuma around and miracles are happening. Rumors have me off to Mesa to whitewash in (again...), whitewashing into the Sisters area in Yuma, or off somewhere else. It would be different being in the valley for Christmas time. There's a slim chance I stay but again these are all rumors.

This was kind of an interesting week. As far as work goes, it was awesome. We got seven new investigators this week with 23 teaching opportunities - almost half of the total teaching opportunities for all missionaries in Yuma. Things are going really well and it looks like we could get four more baptisms this month which would be half of all Yuma zones goal for monthly baptisms. It's all falling into place now.

This last week was zone conference. I was going to type up my notes and email them home but I forgot them so this will mostly be from memory. President Howes came down and gave a great training on extending commitments, following up, and addressing concerns. There has been  a lot of emphasis recently on 15-20 minute lessons and stopping by about everyday for a little bit of time. Since Sawyer and I started doing that we have had a lot more success. There was also a training given by the Assistants to the President (APs) on how to do street contacting, or OYMing, better. They emphasized bringing up the restoration asap and focusing it around that and the Book of Mormon. Sawyer and I have changed how we OYM'd too to fit that and we have gotten 7 new investigators from them. 

One of the APs came on exchanges with Sawyer and me this week. We were a trio for the evening and ran into an interesting man right off the bat. His view was that the authority was never lost from the Earth after Christ died and that he was working on finding his own apostles. We tried to get him to understand what we were trying to say but he wouldn't listen. We gave some good apostasy scriptures but he actually had some impressive rebuttals. When we got back in the car, the AP was pretty upset at him for being so stubborn. I chimed in and said that's like what we're like as missionaries; trying to help someone understand a different point of view and getting angry doesn't really accomplish anything in the eternal scheme of things. It also drives away the spirit. That is something I've seen a lot on exchanges that if someone we talk to disagrees the missionary gets angry and calls them anti and whatnot. I put myself in their (the person on the street) and that helps me understand how we seem to them. We come across just as stubborn even if we don't mean to. They say contention is of the devil. Doesn't accomplish much.

I got to go on exchanges with Elder Mackay this week. He's an English missionary here in Yuma - a really good guy. We went over to a dinner appointment the other night and, well, it was interesting to say the least. Elder Mackay said it was the weirdest dinner of his life. We walked in and heard screaming. Really, really, REALLY loud screaming. Turns out they were Mackaws (spelling? The big tropical birds?). She had three of them in a giant cage that was directly adjacent the dinner table. As we walked closer, the wife said, "that may look like Lasagna, but it isn't. It's spaghetti and (something else I don't remember...a weird fruit) and cheese on top. It kind of fell over in the oven so it looks weird." I dished myself a serving first and she said, "oh no, more more!" I said, "I'll start with this then go up." I took about a 3x3" serving which was already a lot. Saying it tasted funky doesn't do it justice. She spent the entire dinner complaining about the election and how she is broke now (two days after the election) and how the country is ruined. I sat silently. But then I got her talking about missionary work and she had a good time there. After some time the Mackaw got out of the cage and started running around on top making one of the loudest sounds I've ever heard. The woman started talking to it and calling it one of her kids. Hm. Well, we got up to carry our dishes over before dessert (you get those in english work) and one of the other Mackaws jumped over to the wall and reached its talon out and grabbed Elder Mackay by the shirt and tried to, from where I was sitting, eat him alive. It was hilarious and he got scared and jumped past. Hilarious.

There has been a ton of dust in the air these last week. I was hoping for a dust storm, like a wall 300 feet high of dust, but it just came in with wind and was spread out enough to make it not impressive, just annoying. Our car is disgusting and our bikes are pretty dirty now. 

We learned this week that an apostle is coming to the mission! Elder Cook is coming on December 7th as well as some other relatively important people. It should be exciting. We're pretty sure he is going to come and bash the mission for not having as good results as we should. We are down 70 baptisms from last year and not living up to our reputation as the highest baptizing in the southwest with the highest retention rate. So I'm bracing myself for getting (more) humbled.

The weather has started to drop in Yuma. It's actually unbelievably nice. It has been in the 60s all week. While I'm in heaven, the 'natives' are starting to bundle up in coats and hats and walk around the house in blankets. We ran into an incredibly drunk man stumbling around and he was going off and off about how cold it was. He called us his angels because we came out of nowhere to him in his time of need. He didn't talk to us anymore because he started running the opposite direction yelling, "no mercy, no mercy, San Antonio!" but it was pretty cool to show up just as someone needed us even if we didn't really do anything other than testify.

We ran into the nicest woman in Yuma this week too. She was ~50 years old and from Mexicali, Mexico. We talked to her on the street for about 15 minutes and she asked how long we had been speaking spanish. Sawyer said 18 months (as of yesterday) and I said more or less 4. She was super nice and complimented my spanish. I could understand almost everything she was saying - she spoke really clearly. That was a cool experience.

One of our ward missionaries, Brother Borgerson, volunteered to drive down to San Luis to pick up an English investigator we have down there. It's about a one hour roundtrip drive. That family is awesome. We taught our recent convert into the Yuma Valley ward at their house every time and they have an amazing spirit in the house. Just a great family.

Elder Sawyer and I started walking into a trailer park this week and found a woman who has since said that she wanted to get baptized. When we walked into her trailer, her daughter was there, about 26 yrs old, and we talked to them about baptism and authority. We found out that the 26 year old works with the above-mentioned recent convert and has noticed her completely change her life around and is so much happier. What are the chances! We find someone in a small spanish trailer park who works with someone who lives 15 minutes away in a house on a farm who has noticed her life change since baptism. It was a cool experience and when we told the recent convert about it she was thrilled. 

Two nights ago at about 5 am a really loud beeping sound went off in the house. It went off about once a minute for an hour and a half and was probably the most annoying thing I've heard in a long time. Neither Sawyer nor I wanted to get out of bed so we just dealt with it. Apparently he fell back to sleep but I couldn't. At 6:30 when we got up, it was still going off and I hadn't slept since it started. Dang I'm lazy in the mornings. Once I got out of bed I went to find what it was and noticed it was the fire alarm. Apparently the battery is running low. So I grabbed a chair and pulled the batter out. but it kept going off.... I tried to unplug the wire but it was glued on for some insane reason so I had Sawyer grab me a knife and we cut around the wire to get it off. Who needs a fire alarm anyway? 

Carne Asada is amazing.

I called the election. How much did he win by?

We were talking to our recent convert into the Rio Colorado branch yesterday and he was telling us about when he went to pick up food stamps from DES and they made him wait 7 hours. He said that when he was called, "I got up, started yelling, and ran over to grab them! It was like I won the lottery!" Hilarious. He's so funny. His daughters and wife are now taking discussions since they've seen him change so much. They're going to pull me out of Yuma before we baptize his family of 5! Bah!! Oh well, I guess it only matters that they get baptized. 

We actually had breakfast with him this morning. It was Menudo. So much for getting through my mission without having it. The LeRoy family invited us over and his family and we went and talked for a bit and ate. It was a great time and the LeRoy's are amazing cooks. I think if I were to have had Menudo anywhere, their house was the place to have it. Cow stomach lining soup with bones and corn and who knows what else. Apparently sucking the bone marrow out gives good flavor too. Let me tell you, it doesn't. The actual cow stomach lining meat(?) has the weirdest most uncomfortable texture in the world. 

That was the last week. For time's sake I'll quit there but it was a great week. Hopefully they'll continue to get this way. The Stake President said he wants to split the stake for the first time since its creation in 1954. I joke that it will be because we baptize an entire spanish stake down here.

Thanks Mom, Eric, Will, Doug, Cami, Jamie, Arlington 2nd ward primary!, Aunt Andra (penne and chocolate milk, they don't sell penne down here), Sister Hines, and Katie! Thank you for the great letters this week! It's fun to hear what's going on in all your lives!

How do copy machines work?

Can someone send me the wikipedia article on Jehovah's Witnesses? We find their literature all over the place and read it. Interesting stuff, I guess. They all hate us.

How specifically were the first 12 apostles martyred?

Love you all, thanks for the support!

Elder Johnson

10 September 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I caught the 3:10 to Yuma!more on that in a bit, though.

Two things: I don't speak Spanish and it is really hot.

My Address:
Elder Paul Johnson
1600 W 12th Street
#3422
Yuma, AZ 85365

What a crazy few days it has been! Left the MTC at 5am, plane left at 8, and landed at 10. On the plane, I fell asleep for the first ~20 or so minutes then woke up to find Elder Jacobsen talking to the guy next to him. I was in the aisle. The guy, named Mark, was a grad student at ASU studying communications. I butted into the conversation and we had a great discussion about communication, our plans for the future, and what missions are. It was a very relaxed conversation and flowed well.

Once we landed, we were quickly scurried up by the mission presidents, assistants, and his wife. We all somehow squished into two MAVs (Mormon Assault Vehicles - long vans) and went on our way towards the mission home. Luckily, it was only a 20 minute drive. Once there, we unpacked some things and threw it into a room in the Church. We had a short brunch where we got to meet people and talked for a bit. They split us up into two groups: one that went and OYM'd (Open Your Mouth, contacting random people on the street) and one that was interviewed and did a short orientation. We were in that second group. Interviews were nice and short. After that, Elder Myler and I were dropped in a random trailer park and told to go pass out some copies of the Book of Mormon and talk to people -- in Spanish. We were still companions because we had not received our companions for the field yet. We walked around and talked to some people. Our first contact...words cannot describe how bad it was. We walked up to a woman cutting Cactus for dinner and tried to talk. Words didn't really come out. She just sat there laughing. It was way too awkward. We opened to a scripture, gave her the book, and just left. After that, they slowly got better.

The rest of the day were meetings with the staff and whatnot. We had dinner at a members house, taco salad, and then we dispersed to spend the night with a member. We all stayed in the Tempe area. The one who Elders Jacobsen, Myler, and I stayed at were awesome and very welcoming. We talked a bit and then fell asleep at 8. It had been a long day. Since they did not tell us where we were going or who our new companions were, we were all dying that night. The next day was the day!

We woke up at 5:45 to get ready and then left to the church to have the transfer meeting at 7:15. Once there, we talked a bit with the misison president and his wife about things I can't remember but were doubtlessly important. You could sense the excitement in the room. They moved us into the chapel after 2 hours of meetings to meet our trainers and learn where we were going. When we walked in, all the trainers (companions that help introduce new missionaries to the area) were sitting on the far left side of the room. We were told to sit on the far right. One by one, President Howes, the mission president, read off a name of the trainer, a name of the trainee (us), and the area they would be serving. Lets see if I can remember: Elder Jacobsen is in Skyline, Elder Myler is in Chandler, and... I can't remember where the Hermanas are. Woops. They read everyone's name off and eventually I was sitting by myself on the right. They had saved me for last. I was dying, but, naturally kept a cool face, yo. I heard my name, my trainers name (Elder Sawyer, 16 months in, form Meridian, ID), and then Yuma! I had been saying that if there was one place I wanted to serve, it was in Yuma. Yuma is the border zone. Then they said we were whitewashing into Yuma.

Whitewashing means that they take both the missionaries who were there out and put two new ones in. They do it to put a breath of fresh air into the area if it is struggling a bit. Whitewashing and training means that both he and I have no idea what we are doing here haha. The first couple days we spent ~6 hours planning and looking through the Area Books. It was hard. Furthermore, when we walked into our apartment, it was a mess. They had had a "party" the night before. Lots of things were on the ground, there were burnt papers (?!), and more. Mom, if you thought MY room was bad... We spent 3 hours a couple days ago cleaning out one room and found 3 garbage bags full worth of trash. We have a lot to do today. There are also cockroaches and bed bugs have come back. I haven't seen any bed bugs yet...Mmhmmmmm

Our apartment is nice, size wise. We have a sweet view (I forgot my camera in our room...I'll have pictures next week..) of a trailer park and then the desert right after it followed by some grande mountains. Ooh, and a small canal/stream/river!

Yuma is hot. Hot. Hot. If you leave a water bottle on the ground it melts. If you leave a CD case on the dashboard, it melts. It is dry, too. Luckily, we've had two days of showers and awesomeeeeeeee thunder storms. Thunder that shakes houses, lightning that is everywhere. Anyway, they give missionaries a car down here (we drive a swagger wagon. Dodge van, can't remember name) a car and give 1000 miles a week. We bike once a week (picked up bike, by the way. thanks!). They say being sent to Yuma is like banishment. We don't get to go to a temple even though we're close to San Diego, we don't get Dear Elders often, we don't get to go to mission meetings, it's really really really hot. It doesn't really feel like the US here. Lots and lots of trailer parks and Mexicans. The city isn't tall and the landscape is quite literally a desert. There are stray dogs, chickens and roosters running around the streets. The poverty is unbelievable yet the people are so welcoming. More on that in a bit... Just real quick, Yuma is large geographically but few people. There are only 4 companionships here, one of which are the Zone Leaders (ZLs).

I made it through the entire MTC without ironing once. On our first day, I started ironing but Elder Sawyer told me that there's a dryer on our balcony. Never ironing my shirt again!

I've joked about how it rains when I leave or go places. It rained for 3 days before we left the MTC, it rained when I got here! Move over Schumacher,there's a new rain master in town. [Schumacher is an F-1 car racer who must have the rain follow him too.]

Food. We eat at a members home 6 nights a week. We've had Pizza, Beans, Shrimp/Cervichi and ALMOST Menudo. I think I'm going to die in Yuma. I eat it but every time it almost comes up. Of everything we've eaten, I'd say Pizza is the best but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it still. Cervichi is the devil. Bane of my existence. It's like shrimp and..other stuff, I don't even know what. We ate at this one members' house. It was a trailer without a table and a tiny couch and two chairs. The Sisters in the area eat with us so we stuffed in. There was room for the two sisters and Elder Sawyer and me sitting near each other, no more. She fed us cold Cervichi. I ate about half and while the host stepped out to grab something, Elder Sawyer, like a boss, switched plates with me. He ended up eating mine, a Sisters, and his own. Como un jefe [like the boss]. Did I mention it was cold? Straight out of the fridge. They didn't have power in their trailer. Their willingness to help out was humbling though. Menudo is what I'm most scared to eat. It is the stomach lining of cow in a soup.

But first, let me explain the last two days. We have given five blessings in 1.5 days. For some reason everyone has been asking recently. Two have been in English, three in Spanish. Elder Sawyer takes those ones. They take a lot of time out of our day since three were at the Hospital (2 year old girl had top lip bitten off by Dog, needs surgery, older less active woman asked, and  third was a woman who wanted one also) Let me preface the story with this: I've been praying a lot for my taste buds to just die for 2 years. On the way out to our dinner apt I was saying a prayer in my heart that the food would be spaghetti or something. As we are driving out, a huge storm comes in. We're talking 40+ mph winds, rain, LOTS of lightning, and sand! (There are lots of dust storms here, like hundreds of feet tall walls of dust coming at you. Waiting to get a picture of one...). Anyway, we're driving there and then we see power go out everywhere. Since the desert is flat, you can see everything. We pull up to the house and they said since the power went out, they couldn't cook the Menudo and instead had to order Pizza. I've never been so happy to eat Pizza in my life. Little blessings like that keep you going. I doubt that will work for two years, but we'll see. I think between my prayers and the willingness to give so many blessings, we got a little one in return.

While we were in the hospital, a nurse asked us to go visit a woman who just got transferred in. As we were walking in, a Border Patrol dude/agent/guy stopped us and said, "Who are you and what are you doing with my convict?" He was pretty intense about it. we told him our business and he let us go. Inside we learned (Or Elder Sawyer did. Remember, I can't speak Spanish) that she had been in a group coming across the border illegally and the coyote left her behind in the desert to die. US Border Patrol found her and saved her. I can't imagine knowing that I am about to die and being alone in 110 degree weather. It's kind of crazy how close we are to all the action. Unfortunately we're not ON the border (That's the San Luis district, we're in Yuma, ~15 miles north) but we see everyone coming through the Yuma hospital.

We cover three wards for our mission area. An English, a Spanish Branch, and a Young Singles Adult. Not sure why that last one since they usually send ZLs  [Zone Leaders] there but we have it. The English branch is pretty large, the YSA [Young Single Adults] has about 25 and the Spanish branch has about 40. It seems dead. I leaned over to Sawyer and mentioned that and he said, "We're here to save it."

In the 6 days we've been here, we've taught 3 lessons, 2 of which were yesterday. Everyone listens but no one follows up. Must be a cultural thing. Most people are really nice.

But some aren't. We were walking around this one trailer park and went up to these guys. Lots of tats, cigarettes. They were angry with us and told us that we were in their gang zone. We mentioned what we were doing and they lightened up. Intense stuff. One group had a shotgun pulled on them. I love Yuma!

Selective poverty is also clear. Nice cars, nice phones, but living in a tiny powerless trailer. Sad.

Lots of homes have solar cells. Makes sense. It's so bright... I'ma need to find me some shades.

For one of our investigators, we're teaching him to read. That officially starts tomorrow. Never taught anyone to read before...especially in a language I barely speak.

I should clarify a bit. I understand about 25% of what people say but since they mumble and talk so quick I can barely get that. I can usually speak relatively well for being so 'young.'

That's all I have time for, expect some sweet pictures of a dust tornado thing, rain storms, a gross spider, desert landscape, and more.

Thanks Tori, Natalia, and Doug for letters and brownies! Quick note on Dear Elders: since I'm in Yuma, I get Dear Elders once every 3-4 weeks. We're 3.5 hours from the mission home which is where they go.

 What causes time to slow near a blackhole? Can someone look up the etymology of Apostle and Apostasy and tell me why the words are so similar?

"It's so hot up in dis club that I ain't got no shoes on"

With love,
Elder Johnson