Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 5:15 PM | 0 comments  
Elder Perez is from Idaho somewhere way up north. He's been out only one transfer longer than me so we both kinda are still learning. It makes things a little more stressful that way but I think it will be good in the end. I definitely miss elder Black and the people in Crescent City. We had some way sweet investigators there that we became really close too. I would feel a little bit better if there were other missionaries there teaching them but they closed Crescent City :( It's ok though I'm sure I'll see them again some day.
Ok so yeah it's not just me Elder Black thought for sure she had a crush on him too. I don't know if she just like was trying hide it and she ended up overcompensating which made us think she liked Black but yeah that's definitely what it seemed like. What can I say? The ladies just love me! yeah I was pretty mad at Elder Brown. I even called him back and told him I thought it would be a bad idea to do the trade off but I told him that he's the DL so it's up to him and I'll respect his decision whatever it was. It was ok though, we still got to go say bye to Rosa and the Noriegas so it wasn't too bad. He's a great DL though and I love him a lot.
Church was really good, this ward here is awesome! It's like completely opposite of Crescent City! Here the ward is pretty big, the Members are really involved with missionary work, and the bishop really seems to understand the things that President Newman is doing. It's a really really great ward! And yeah, that's my address.
Oh man tell Jill I said congrats! That's so awesome! Dang so when the baby is born I will have been out for a year! That's pretty sweet! You should tell them to name it after their favorite cousin and if it will work if it's a boy Aaron or a girl Erin :)
Well, Orange Park is definitely not Crescent City. The roads here have stoplights and are made of asphalt here it's crazy! And we go tracting at apts. instead of trailer parks here haha. I like it here a lot it feels more normal to me. The thing I don't like is that in Crescent City we were the only missionaries there so we talked to English and Spanish people. Here, we are not supposed to talk to English at all. We just ask them if they know if their neighbors speak Spanish. That would be find except it's really hard to find Hispanics. We can go tracting for like four or five hours and only talk to three people. It's very frustrating at times, but when we do find people it's sweet. And now tracting for me is just meeting a bunch of interesting people because most of the time I don't get to teach them so I just watch how they react when they see the missionaries and laugh, it's pretty entertaining. We just need to find the places where there a lot of Hispanics all together and we just haven't found it yet. We will, we just need to keep looking. Well I'm glad everything at home is going well. Have fun with school and PTC and stuff.
Love you!
Elder Johnson
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Monday, October 19, 2009 at 7:37 PM | 0 comments  
Elders Johnson, Perez, Jackson & Wily
Elder Johnson with his new companion Elder Perez. Isn't Elder Johnson the most handsome missionary you have ever seen?
October 2009
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Sister Noriega told us about that! That's so funny! I'm glad you got to talk to her though, she's awesome!
Ok so Monday night the DL calls me and he's like, "Ok I want to do a trade off with you so me and Elder Black can try to get a few last minute baptisms in." I told him that I thought it would be best if me and Black went and saw these people, not Black and a stranger! Plus this was supposed to be the day when we had dinner with the Noriegas for the last time and try to get the Dad baptized. He told me we were doing the trade off anyway. So all of Tuesday I was so mad because I was up tracting into nobody cool up in Palatka while Elder Brown (the DL) was visiting all my investigators. So we switch back Wed. morning and Elder Black took me back to the Noriega's house because Hermana Noriega wanted to tell me something. She told me about how she talked to you on the phone and yes, she gave me a hug from you it was really funny. But then she told us something else important. She told us this story about a young man who fell in love with her when they were younger but the man never told her that. So he just kinda waited for her. I guess he even tried to wait out her and her husband's marriage for a while. So she says, "I don't want that to happen to my daughter so I have to tell you something. She wouldn't admit it because she knows you guys are missionaries and aren't allowed to, but she likes you Elder Johnson. She says that you think you are ugly but she doesn't think so and you are nice too Elder Black, but she likes Elder Johnson." I felt a little bad but me and Elder Black just started laughing! Hermana Noriega is very blunt and straightforward and we just thought it was hilarious! So I told her, "Well, I am a missionary so I'm not thinking about stuff like that for a very long time." trying to tell her, ya know, don't wait for me! But she's like, "Yeah but maybe when you come back with your family you can go with Venezha out to places or go on walks and just see what happens." Oh man it was really funny but really awkward! Especially when we went back later that night to say bye to the rest of the family (Hermana Noriega was the only one home). Oh it's funny.
Anyway I got transferred to Orange Park South area. It's a lot bigger than Crescent City that's for sure. My companion is Elder Perez. He's a lot different than Elder Black. He's very strict about staying focused and stuff. He won't let me talk about music or movies or anything and Elder Black was like, "Ok I missed this movie what happened in this one?" Haha so it's a little different but it's good. My new adress is
2020 Wells Rd #25G
Orange Park, Fl 32073
So, yeah you should send me stuff. I don't know what but stuff. Oh and you should send me a SD card so I can send you the one I have. I have a lot of pics on there and videos that I want to save on a computer or something. So yeah. Ok I have to go but I'll write more about my area next week. I had to tell you about theNoriegas.
Love,
Elder Johnson
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 7:27 PM | 0 comments  
Oh my don't worry about it. Grandma has told me that everyone is really busy right now with school and everything so I just figured that everyone was busy. Besides, Austin wrote me an email. It's really no big deal I promise.
We did get transfer calls on Saturday. Me and Elder Black are both leaving Crescent City, they call it a white wash when both the Elders in the area leave so Crescent City is getting white washed. I'm really excited to have the opportunity to serve somewhere else (hopefully that is a little bit bigger) and have a new companion and all that stuff. What I did not expect was how hard it was going to be. We went to church and told everyone that we were leaving and there were quite a few people who were really sad. Venezha Noriega was really sad (I think she has a crush on Elder Black which is really funny) and their parents were out of town so I don't know if they know yet but we're going to see them on Tuesday and I'm betting Hermana Noriega is going to be even more sad. We've gotten really close to that family over these two transfers. There's a lot of other investigators that we are going to miss a lot. We went over to Rosa's mom's house for a birthday party for her little baby brother and we played with Rosa's kids Jose and Brittany and Jenny and Antonio and those kids are really cool and they seem to like us a lot. I didn't think it was going to be this sad to get transfered. Rosa was telling us that she's going to wait for us so we can come back after our mission :)
Conference was so awesome! I loved all of the talks! Especially Holland's talk about the Book of Mormon. Holy cow it was so powerful! We watched it in the church by ourselves since everyone else just watched it on tv at home. I'm really gald that you feel better about your calling. I had a very similar experience to you I think. I was up in Palatka to do a tradeoff with the guys up there to someone who spoke Spanish and I got to go with our Zone Leader Elder Lamborne. He could tell I was pretty bugged the last couple of weeks and he really was able to help me. He told me that I was not happy here on my mission and baptisms and "success" would not make me any happier. He told me that I need to find a way to be happy for myself before I can get to work. He said I need to find that fire, that light in myself before I can let the light shine forth to others. So I've really been trying to do that. I am really trying to just have fun and learn stuff for myself right now and then I will be able to share the stuff that makes me happy with others and then I will have more success. I'm not slacking off or anything, I'm still working hard but I'm just not beating myself up and I'm having fun :) Ah man that's another thing that's hard about transfers. I have to leave my whole district! Lambo and Gaisford and Brown dang that stinks. It's ok though I'm still excited.
I'm trying to think of stuff that you could send. How about some pictures? I don't have any pictures of my family and people ask to see all the time. And maybe like a photo album. I have pictures but they're just sitting on my camera right now and I don't know what to do with them or what's the best way to send them home. Oh and I'm hoping I forgot to pack my black jacket that I was going to bring because I don't have it but I need it I guess it actually gets cold here. I don't know but it's always fun to get mail.
Well I'm gonna go but I'm glad to here things are going well. I'm really excited for transfers and going to all of our investigators and saying good bye. It will be hard but exciting at the same time.
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