26 December 2011

Elder Johnson and Elder Ortiz.  I'm not sure what they're doing???

Love at first sight.

Querido Familia, [Dear family],

26 December 2011

Someone in this internet place is speaking in Italian with her family on Skype I think. It sounds really interesting, I understand about 50 percent maybe a little more.

Anyway. It was awesome to be able to Skype this year. I too liked it a lot more. Much more interesting I think. This week, SOOO much has happened. It’s been really fun.

Studying spanish in my spanish grammar book, I came across the practice frase [phrase] to translate into Spanish: David is marrying Natalia because he wants to become an American Citizen. Hahaha. Then I found one that I can relate to: Gina pretended to be asleep so that she wouldn’t have to do the household chores. (names have been changed)

With the housing stuff, there is to talk to Roland’s parents and Johnson Moody’s parents.

Thank you sooo much for sending me Christmas gifts to all! I so much enjoyed opening them and sharing them all with Elder Ortiz. After sooo much time together we know each other pretty well and I don’t know how it’s gunna be with a new companion... I hope we can get along a little faster and work into the powerful relation that we will need to Preach the Gospel by the Spirit.

This week we went one morning to a place called Carmen in our area. We got there walking and crossing the 7 minute walk of desert and thrown away dirt (since everyone has to cut the hole out of the hills to make their property flatish, they leave the dirt in the space between Tupac and Carmen) anyway we crossed it, got to a door, knocked and found a guy who seemed pretty cool. We invited his friend to come and we talked in the park a bit and invited them to repent and be baptized. They said of course, they wanted to change their lives, Then we learned they live in Puno... and they were leaving the next day, So we invited them to the church Christmas activity that night. They came! The activity was really fun and funny and my companion was the one directing and making the jokes and all. He is a bit of a clown.

Also there was an activity in the District center that was to be a collaboration between the missionary work and the liders [leaders]. It was gunna be great but they started kind of really late and we had to go RIGHT after it started and we acted out the journey of the three wise kings. We had a family there with us and they LOVED IT. I was one of the inn keepers who rejected Mary and Joseph. I spoke in English when I was rejecting them.

Something we learned this week was that the Doctrine of Christ really can’t be read, seen, heard. It has to be felt. A family came to some Elders in the Zone saying their son was possessed by a demon and asked our advice. They said that he spazzes and vomits when he hears the name of the Savior. We talked with the President and he said to go and give him an idea of what was up. Elder Ortiz went there in divisiones [splits] and when he got there asked the adolescent what his name was. Then who else was in there with him. He said Christ. My companion called the President and the President said, “Don’t worry, there no is a demon there. He just has schizophrenia (he was talking 150 kilometers away us). The President continued, “Tell him you’re gunna hug him and give him a hug.” So my companion did. When he hugged the kid he got the such a clear feeling that there wasn’t any evil in him but that he was going to be able to be ok, that he should go to sacrament meeting, and an overwhelming feeling of love and compassion came over him. Talking again with the President,  he said, “See? Now you know how the Doctrine of Christ is not something that you can see, read, hear.. it’s something you must feel. You need to understand that you are a representative of Christ and that means that no one can harm you. I love you, Merry Christmas.”

This President is so amazing. He gives example of a true disciple of Christ. I hope to be able to give that kind of example. 

So I’m going to write thank you notes right now and they should be getting there pretty,  not sooo soon, but more or less there.

On the note of the mission, it can be life changing, but the best thing to do is to change the life before. There is to leave everything behind of the world NOW so that in the months that come you can have the Spirit constantly with you to teach you all you need to know before you go. The spirit is the supreme and eternal teacher. Make yourself digno [worthy] of His constant companionship long before you go and your mission will be very very distinct.

So Much Love

Elder Johnson

Elder Ortiz

Thanks for the candies!

29 September 2010, Part 3

So since we have been here for so long now, we have gotten to know the

CCM leadership more. Hermana Whetten has eaten with us a couple times!

She is the wife of the CCM President. Hermana Slingerland, wife of

area doctor, teaches a class on how to lead music every three weeks.

We went to both just cuz they are so cool! She is really the most

excited person about leading music I have ever seen. We were loving it

so much, and have adopted her favorite hymn as our own, number 9 in

the spanish hymn book... i dunno about the english one...

In class we were taking turns leading with a little blue plastic

pointer. It has a little hand on the end with index finger pointing

straight, which makes it just about the coolest things around. Our

excitement caught on to all the rest of the class of 50 or so, as the

new and unsure people gradually started singing during practicing, and

having almost as good a time as us. At the end when we went to thank

her she said we set the mood! Hermana Whetten was there, and took note

of the blue pointer.

Two days later we had a Large Group Meeting. Elder Bardzinski, who is

the best and the only Australian here (who was in my first district)

got to to lead the music at the LGM. He used the blue pointer to the

delight of EVERYONE. Hermana Whetten was struggling at not laughing so

bad, Hermano Whetten even smiled, and I could hardly control myself.

Elder Bardzinski is such a character. We are lucky to be his favorite,

he comes into our room every night and shares the most mind blowing

sections of his daily reading in Jesus the Christ in such a thick

accent that we often don't understand his English in the most excited

parts of the summary.

Soccer has been a blast! The new Latinos are very different from the

group of Latinos that we had in our first three weeks. They pass the

ball! I have no idea why it is so different. I would think that with

this many people, it would be more similar than different. They are

all stunned when Elder Stewart dribbles past them all. Oh by the way

Elder Stewart is from Saint George Utah, and is going to Arequipa like

me.

We didn't get to go proselyting last Saturday, and won´t be able to

next. Next Saturday we can´t because of elections and general

conference. Every year on I think the day before elections no one is

allowed to go out on the streets. I believe it is to prevent riots,

chaos, civil unrest... something. We are all super excited to hear it

in English. I´ve never been this excited for conference before!

Oh guess what. All the water fountains here have sheets of instruction

that tell how to use them. I thought that was pretty cool. Also they

have a button for cold water, and another for un-chilled water. It is

pretty odd. Another shocker, I fully averted my first sneeze at 3:30

pm on 9/27/10. I have done so again once since, but never before in my

life. I am learning so much! haha

ummm... the juices the other day were phenomenal. Passionfruit juice

and Watermelon Juice. The latter tastes just like the juice left in

your bowl after eating diced watermelon. It is my favorite here I

think.

I got some Dear Elders!

One from Aunt Carmen, all the news sounds awesome! I think it is one

of my life time goals to cut something with those giant scissors. We

don't seem to have any scissors down here.. it's odd. Were they heavy?

Jared, best of luck haha. I have never heard of such an event. Ryan is

a freshman? That's so cool. It was fun to be in with Paul for two

years. Also I love soccer too. The shoes I brought are ripped up so

bad from playing soccer every day. Hahahaha Andrew's hair!

Did y'all know I volunteered at that Pow Wow the last fall? It was a

lot of fun and I got a sweet shirt out of it for free. Also I learned

about crime prevention! Always good.

Mom sounds like mornings are super chill now. I have changed my

sleeping failitude! We have lights off as per rules at 10:30 every

night, but I am usually in bed at around 9:45. I try to write in my

journal, for fifteen minutes, read the libro de mormon for fifteen of

30, and if I have time, read Jesus the Christ for 15 minutes. Then I

wake up at 6:00 every morning, to be ready before 6:30, to allow for

about 30 minutes of extra study in the morning. We are asked to rise

between 6 and 630...but I am about the only one who gets up at 6. So

there! Elder Stewart and I work in about another hour of extra study

by doing things quickly than we would have if we relaxed and went by

the schedule. It is great.

Mark

First MTC letter 8/16/10

Dear Family,

I feel so loved right now, logging into my email on my first Preparation Day ever, and having two whole automatically generated emails! haha err... I still exist.

I jest. It has been so awesome though. Right now I can't convince myself that I have only been here since Wednesday last. Each day really is a week. This morning I woke a little early (6:00) and did some scripture study after getting showered and dressed and all, then we headed off to the temple for three hours.

Oh wait, I should sum up everything so far.

Aunt Carmen was awesome letting me be around. It isn't super convenient hosting a set apart missionary who doesnt have a real companion around because he can't be alone. But they were good. Ryan was in the bed by me. Jared taught me to drive a manual transmission car before I left! I am so glad I can do that now. Finally feel like I can really drive (that means you definitely can't yet Paul). His truck is "really bad" but I only stalled it once!

So we drove to Provo the next day and I had a delicious last lunch comprised of Coldstone ice cream. SO AWESOME. I miss [having] ice cream whenever I want it. Here, I have to wait for a Wednesday or a Sunday. Once we got here, I realized I left my suit jacket (the blue one) at their house, along with my wallet, and my alarm clock. Smooth I know, they still let me in on the condition that I change into my other suit asap.

Aunt Carmen dropped me off at the curb and straightway a "host" elder came to grab my bags. He carried them while instructing me what to do. We headed to the creatively named 1M building and there I basically got everything I needed in a line going through about 8 stations. Pretty awesome. We dropped off my bags, and the host took me to a small room with about 10 computers and desks. There was a training video and little computerized test to make sure we remembered at least some of it. I got one wrong, but it was a technicality.. so basically 100% in my book.

In the room was this weirdo "Elder Cruz" who was like: "Are you Elder Mark Johnson?" But that was basically it before I was sat down. After finishing I was taken to a room in the basement to meet my district. They are awesome. Elder Cruz was there. He is one of my companions. I have two! And guess what mom?! The other is Elder Weaver! Odds of that were not high.

So let me get  back to what I have been working up to. I entered the MTC August 11 at 1:01 pm and I was in class learning spanish with Hermana Scaife at 2:28. She spoke all spanish and quickly. She is soo nice and so spiritual it's kinda crazy. She said she would pay to teach at the MTC and I actually almost believe it. We can all tell how much she loves it here.

There is this red countdown timer in the top right of the screen that has been counting down from 30 minutes (my computer time for the week) haha so crazy. Anyway it's at 10 minutes cuz i FAILED at logging on for 10 minutes.

Just in case, here is my address..you know..if you want to send me like chocolate or anything..

This needs to replace the address I have on facebook cuz I think they are different. It's in the awkward box right now. [Mail sent to the awkward box apparently isn't addressed properly.]

Elder Mark David Johnson
MTC Mailbox # 253
PER-ARE 1014
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Later the first day we did this super awesome thing where about 40 elders and a few hermanas sat in a half circle around two chairs and a couch. It was a pretend first meeting at the house. There were older guys...WAIT NO WE DONT SAY GUYS, we say, Elders... who pretended to be missionaries who started it off, but after a few minutes they left and we were all supposed to be the missionaries. It was super super awesme! The "investigators" were RMs who were pretending to be somebody from their mission.

All right.  So who is in my district, you ask?

Well, there is Elder Badzinski, who is Australian and really is the character of our district. He is soo funny without really meaning to be. His accent and mannerisms always make us laugh. The other day, he comes back from the bathroom with his companion, and warns Elder Cruz in his Australian way: "Don't use the two toilets on the left, they are, er, blocked up." when Elder Cruz laughed. He said,  "Yea well one was already blocked, and I blocked up the other." I just wish I could send his voice to you all.

Elder Stewart and Bowler play soccer with me and Elder Cruz during Gym. Soccer is the best. We play tagalan speaking vs. spanish speaking, and there are usually around 100 elders playing i think. (i have no idea how to spell tagalan) [I assume he means Tagalog]

We have been blessed and humbled as a district with an hermana three person companionship. I say blessed because every one is more behaved when they are in the room, and humbled cuz it is so apparent how much older they are, and how much more mature they are, and how "elders can never have nearly as much compassion as hermanas."

Speaking of apparent age, the Elders who have been here for about 8 weeks or so seem SOOO MUCH older than us. Even though they are basically the same exact age as us... But I will never be able to make some brand new Provo kid think that because (drum roll)

Our district is being sent to the Lima MTC in 3 or so weeks! And I am the only one who was supprised by that... I have no idea how that happened, but I'm excited. Once we get there, it will really be full language emersion. So where is my spanish now? We have been saying every prayer in espanol for 2 days now, and we had to prepare a talk in spanish yesterday. Though honestly a good portion of mine was to be read out of the Libro de Mormon. We have gone over oso-ing [oso is the spanish word for bear (the animal), by the way] our testimony in spanish and praying in spanish so far. We have done a ton of stuff like practicing approaches and whatnot.

Suprises:

How little eating time there is. We have 45 minutes and I barely get enough food to be full! There are significant lines. The food is a little better than Cannon Center food at Helaman Halls BYU, so I like it! Not to mention, the Chocolate Milk machines are always full!!! I love that liquid.

The amount of space we have: not much. I have about 2 cubic metes of sleeping space, .46 cubic meters of which are used rather inefficiently to make sleep comfortable. The rest is air. I have been waking up every day a few minutes before my alarm because I hear people going to the shower a little earlier than me. What happened to being a heavy sleeper? I have no idea.

How regimented the schedule is. Even Sunday I had stuff I was to be doing literally every 15 minutes of the day if you include sleeping. There are a few minutes throughout the day that cooouuldd be used to take a tiny nap I guess...or laze around... but spending them on scripture study is much better. I have been memorizing a scripture every day btw, today is Alma 29:9, yesterday was my favorite so far, the first vision.

How little (it seems) spanish we do a day. So we learn spanish actively for about 4 hours a day, which doesn't seem like a ton to me, since the other 12 hours are all busy too. But maybe that is just cuz we are still only getting out of the newbie missionary schedule and lessons.

Last night, we decided to go watch LEGACY the mormon movie. It was a truncated version to fit into the amout of time we had, but I have never been so affected by a movie. I've seen it before, but watching with a couple hundred other missionaries was something else. Also, towards the end, I pulled off my missionary name tag, and just stared at the words "Elder Johnson" There are about 1000 Elder Johnsons here, but this one is me, and I finally got here. It was pretty emotional for a bit.

Sorry if this doesnt make so much sense.. my previous attempt probably did, but it got pwned by that red count down timer combined with a failing internet.

Pictures will come next Preparation day I hope! Also, remember to update my facebook mailing address, and also on the blog!

I am having such a great time!

Love

Elder Mark (with a k, yes a k not a c... im the one on the bottom of the stack) Johnson