Monday, January 4, 2010
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3:52 PM
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Happy New Year! Oh bump day like bump hump and slump. Bump day is cool I guess I need a good bump but hump and slump, that can't happen to me. I'm so scared that it will but I don't want it to. No, I didn't get to burn a tie on the 1st we were really busy but I think I'm going to try and do it tonight. I'll be sure to get a video of it. Um I don't need new shirts desperately I can wait until they get a new shipment. And short sleeve is fine I already have two long sleeves that are still good so yeah short sleeve is good.
As far as when the family goes to the temple I don't know if I can go with them. I guess it depends on where I'm at in a year. I think you have to get permission from President Newman to do stuff like that too. I don't know we'll see what happens I guess. But if we do go we go to the Orlando Temple where we went to do the baptisms for the dead. Did i tell you that happened? I sent a picture of it but I don't know if it got sent.
We are teaching a few other people. Nobody is really cooperating with us though haha. One family is pretty sweet, at least the wife is. The husband told us that he really wants to change and get baptized and all that stuff and he was really excited for our return appointment. His wife told us that all day he was like, " the missionaries are coming over today!" like a little kid but every time we have an appointment with them they aren't there. We come back like the next day and see them when we don't have an appointment with them. It's really weird, we need to be able to sit down and talk with them. Especially with the husband. He told us that he stopped drinking but his wife says otherwise. Like I guess he's really bad, like she thinks he has liver problems because he drinks all the time, passes out when he's supposed to be watching their 17 month old baby and he throws up all the time. It's a good thing that she told us because if she didn't we would have just thought that he was good. It's a really bad situation. He can change but he has to want to first and I'm not sure if he wants to.
So our new goal for the year is really weird. It's 3050 but it's broken up into two parts. 1300 baptisms and 1750 people reactivated. I'm down with the baptisms but the reactivation is weird. We've started doing some reactivation work and it is basically home teaching. We like go and teach them, kinda and it's more like a "oh hi you already got baptized, let's be friends!...so... you should come back to church." I guess I just don't understand why the missionaries are doing this. I need to change my attitude real quick because this is what the Lord told President Newman to do but as of right now, I'm not really converted to it, this seems like the ward's job, not ours. Another thing I'm struggling with is this next transfer coming up. My roommate Elder Zabriskie is getting transferred but Elder Jackson is staying. Also Elder Toney and I are staying together here. It will be good. I'm glad things are going good there. Sorry I'm running out of time but tell Natalie I said hi if you talk to her again and Nan. Have fun at school and stuff.
Love you,
Elder Johnson
Oh crap my debit card is not working. Could you have them send me a new one or something. I think the magnet strip is bad.
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Thursday, December 31, 2009
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2:44 PM
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Elder Kasper, Elder Perez, Elder Johnson and Elder Terry in their sweaters.
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Monday, December 28, 2009
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11:25 AM
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The best Christmas present a mom could ask for, PICTURES!!! President Newman, Elder Perez, Maria, Gerardo and Elder Johnson. Elder Tooney, Enrique, Eugenio and Elder Johnson.
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Talking to everyone was so cool, I thought it was going to be a little weird, I'm not really sure why I just did but it wasn't it was really nice. Oh good I'm so glad that you got called into the young women's! That will be a lot of fun! Michael put in his papers!? That's awesome! I'm so glad for him, a mission will be a very good thing for him, you grow up and mature a lot our here that's for sure. I can't believe Mark is already coming home, that seems so weird to me. I'm really glad that he is enjoying his mission so much. That seems to be the common theme out here, all the guys that are getting ready to go home soon all say that they don't want to haha. I remember when Endemano and Fish (the APs) picked us up from the airport that was Endemano's last transfer and he wouldn't even tell us how long he had been out. He just said, "a while." That's so sweet that he's having that much fun though, you should tell him to email me.
Mindy got baptized yesterday!! Honestly, I was still a little bit nervous about her just because one day she would be super stoked to do it and then the next day she would be really unsure. It always kinda felt like a 50/50 with her. It was for sure a miracle that her son Danny had just turned 8 because I really don't think she would have done it by herself. But she did it! And I know she knows that it was right for sure now! You should have seen her face after the meeting. She was glowing! She was so happy! Her husband Edwin baptized both of them since he has the priesthood now which was a really awesome thing to be able to see. It was so beautiful to be able to complete this family. Now they can prepare all together to go and be sealed in the temple in a year. It's so humbling to be able to see how much these people have all changed and that this change came because of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's so humbling to think that the Lord has allowed me to play a part in his plan for these people. Because he sent me to these people, their lives are changed forever. Now, they can have the fullness of the gospel, they can have the Holy Ghost with them at all times, now they have a chance to live as an eternal family in the Celestial Kingdom, and I will be able to see them there and know that I played a part in it. I freakin love this work!
Remind me again about Stacey's farewell and I want to email her a quick note on the 18th before she leaves. I'm so excited for her.
I love you all so much! Happy New Year! I don't know what Bump Day is!!! Yay!Elder Johnson
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Monday, December 21, 2009
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9:25 PM
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Haha you are a dork! It's Christmas! But I am really excited to talk to you guys too it will be fun! I still don't have any idea what we're doing for Christmas. Nobody that I talk to knows either, none of us have been through a Christmas before so I don't know when or where we do phone calls or anything. I've heard that President said that if we reach our goal of 1050 we can have Christmas off like another P day but I don't know that's just what I've heard. Speaking of our goal, we got it!!!! As of yesterday our mission has 1055 baptisms this year! And me and Elder Toney have possibly three more on the 27th. Ah man it's so exciting, that's so many freakin people that have been converted to the truth. It was a crazy goal and we all have been working so hard for it and we did it! And even me, one of the new guys had a part in it, ah we're all so happy right now! Oh man mission conference was so awesome! We all came to the Orange Park chapel (which is where I am at) and President and Sister Newman. Every single missionary in this mission was there, it was so cool! I saw all the guys from my MTC district and Elder Black and guys from my old district, met a lot of new people, oh and Elder Jensen was there too. Elder Jensen was the AP before Elder Fish and Elder Endamano. He left for home literally like 3 hours before I got there so i had never met him but he is a legend here. He's one of those missionaries that was just awesome and inspired everyone to do and be better, he was a dominator! So he came back out to Florida for the mission conference and President Newman asked him to share his testimony. It was really cool because I had heard all these great stories about how amazing this guy was and I watched him and listened to him and I just thought, he's so normal. He's just like all of us, just a 21 year old kid who was out here serving the lord the best way he knew how. It was inspiring for me just because it made me realize that I have the potential to be like that, I can be amazing and I just have to be me, normal.
Yeah I am definitely using the Spanish book you sent me. It's so cool to be using the same book. And I love being able to talk to people. We'll be sitting in a lesson with someone and we'll be talking and then like 20 minutes in I just stop and realize holy crap I've been talking to someone in Spanish this whole time. I still don't catch 100% of what everyone says but I get most of it. Speaking is easier and easier every day. And I love when I walk up to someone and they say, "uh me no speak English" and I pretend to be really relieved and say, "Oh perfecto! Yo tampoco!" That always makes them laugh and more willing to talk to me. I want to get to the point where people will believe me if I tell them I'm from Cuba or something and I don't speak English, I think that will be easier here because there are people from all over the place, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Chile, Cuba, Costa Rica, a lot of Puerto Ricans and even more New Yoricans. I met one lady from Argentina and I wanted to baptize her really bad but she wasn't cool. Maybe we'll go back in a little while and let the Spirit work with her a little more then she'll be cooler.
I'm sorry I don't have more information about Christmas but I will be calling for sure. I can't wait to talk to you! Merry Christmas! I love you!
Elder Johnson
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Monday, December 14, 2009
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9:19 PM
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We didn't hit 1050 yet. Yeah we have until the end of the month but we were trying really hard to get it this week. I think we're really close though like 14 more or something. The whole mission has been struggling. Ever since the APs Elder Jensen and Endemano left we've just taken a down turn. I never met Jensen, he left just before I came out and Endemano was here for one transfer with me. I think we're struggling a lot just because the mission is filled with so many new people. I think the oldest leadership in our zone has been out for like 9 months. We just don't have the experience yet but it's ok we'll get there eventually. We'll get 1050 before the year is out and hopefully soon we'll all be able to figure it out and get the mission back to where it was. We have a mission conference on Thursday for Christmas so I hope President Newman dominates us on whatever it is we need to fix. I'm really excited. The entire mission is going to be there! Yeah I just use bikes that are up here. I don't know if anyone really buys bikes out here we just use bikes that people leave. Anyway it's dumb for a Spanish elder to buy a bike because in most of our areas we have a car. I think this area we have to share our car because the Sisters needed the other car. But we are getting our own car pretty soon, that will make the work go so much better!
Holy crap Robyn got married!? Duh of course I remember her I don't remember Jeff though. How old is she? Isn't she pretty close to my age? That's crazy, a lot of the guys out here have friends who are getting married and stuff, I so don't feel old enough to have married friends. Tell her I said congrats and I'm sorry I can't remember who Jeff is but I can't wait to meet him again.
What the heck!? You guys are lame get some dang decorations up it's Christmas time! I don't have anything I really need for Christmas. Oh unless you guys want to send me a Garmin GPS system or money so I can go get one, I don't need one right now, Elder Toney has a GPS but I think I'm going to need one eventually. They're kind of expensive though I saw one at WalMart for 200 so yeah, I'm not expecting that. I don't know how Christmas works for missionaries as far as gifts go. Anyway, I hope you have a merry Christmas I can't wait to talk to everyone! Get some frickin decorations up!
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Monday, December 7, 2009
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11:42 AM
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Holy crap with the freakin questions! Elder Toney is from Houston, Texas. He's been out a little bit longer than me in the field but he was in the MTC spanish so he has been a misionary for quite a bit longer than I have. He was one of the missionaries that was in quarantine with swine flu too so that delayed him from coming out here for a while. Yeah Elder Perez and Trott are the Zone Leaders now. It's cool I guess, I don't know, obviously I didn't get along with Elder Perez that much so now that we're not companions I don't really care what he's doing. But he and Elder Trott are great zone leaders, they both have never done it before but they are already pretty good at their job.
We baptized Enrique from Mexico and Eugenio from Cuba. Eugenio is a homeless guy that Fernando, one of the members just picked up off the street and he's lettin him stay at his house and he invited him to church and so we taught him and then he got baptized! It was really cool, a miracle for sure! Yeah we go out to places like that to eat after district meetings and on p days and stuff. My first district we went to Chilis all the time and there's a really good bbq place called Sonnys that we eat at a lot. Oh my gosh and Firehouse! Firehouse is so good! I don't know what I'm going to do when I come home and have to eat at subway again, I might cry. Firehouse subs is amazing! I've never seen any in Utah but if you find one you have to eat there because it's just so good. Sometimes we go out to dinner but not that often. Elder Toney is actually a really good cook. We go in and buy groceries together and he just cooks like fajitas and chili and pasta and all kinds of good stuff, it's pretty awesome. We also really like to go to the Mexican Tiendas and get carne asada tacos. That's really fun because now we can go in there and actually talk to the people that work there.
Orange Park is a little bit bigger than Sandy/Draper. There's a lot more apt complexes and city stuff like that but it's not super huge. There's also quite a few trailer parks that we go to to tract. In this area we have to share the car with the other elders so we get the car Wed. Sat. and Sun. and the rest of the time we ride bikes. We're getting our own car pretty soon though. Oh speaking of which, we just traded in our car because it had 60000 miles or something on it so we traded it in to the mission office and now we are driving a brand new gold 2010 Toyota Corolla. It's way sweet! It's kinda funny though, we feel kinda bad sometimes driving into trailer parks and stuff in our brand new car but it's a Corolla. I guess President Newman actually got a better deal from BMW for the mission cars but he decided to go with Corolla just because BMW would look to nice.
It doesn't really feel like Christmas here either, there's no snow, hardly any decorations anywhere, and it's not even that cold. Plus I'm just working like a normal day every day. It's kinda weird whenever I see someone's tree and think, oh yeah Christmas is coiming up, weird. But it's ok I'll be able to have a normal Christmas in a few years.
So I'm still trying really hard to figure out who I am as a missionary and how to do stuff and how to speak the language, I didn't anticipate how hard this whole mission thing is. I don't think anyone really can until they actually get out here. But I'm having fun while I'm learning and I can't wait to be able to look back some day and see how much I've grown and changed since now. But for right now, it's just a lot of hard work trying to figure out the ways I need to change so in the mean time it kinda feels like I'm not having a lot of "success" as far as numbers go but it's ok I'm still working hard and doing all that I know how to do so the Lord will bless us with that kind of "success" once he molds me into what he needs me to be a little more. This weekend is going to be our 1050 weekend!!!! I know it's going to happen. By this Sunday this mission will have had 1050 baptisms for the year! We are all so excited and we are all working so hard to make it happen we want it so bad! I'll have to email you next week and tell you how it was.
I'm glad everything is good. I can't wait to talk to you all.
Love you.
Elder Johnson
Oh our adress is 6870 103 st #608
Jacksonville, FL 32210
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