16 July 2012

Sister Zoyla's baptism

Sister Zoyla's baptism and members

Sister Zoyla and Elder Jones, Elder Johnson (in back)

Dear Family

How's it all going?? I'm here with Elder Jones in Granados. This morning we got a whole bucket load of letters for the whole zone. The majority of the letters were dear elders for yours truely (weeeel... all but one) Thanks!  It's interesting getting shipments every few weeks.

WOW PAUL'S IN THE MTC! That's sooo cool. I'd love to be his first companion. I was just thinking that this morning how cool that would be.

Saturday Sister Zoyla made her first covenant with the Lord! Shes a little bit of a funny stoy. A few weeks ago Elder Beletanga and I knocked her door looking for some members and to be able to find families to complete, and she opened up. She's got an interesting sense of humor and is pretty funny but I don't think we realized that she was mostly kidding that day. Haha, we talked briefly about coming unto Christ and how we all need to repent to be able to go to His kingdom. Repent and be baptized. She didn't really want to hear about it. We explained how it is vital to be born again to be able to leave behind the sins that we may have. She was a little resistant and so we stopped talking and asked if we could come back. She said no. Haha, but that she would go to church. 

Next Sunday, she didn't go to the sacrament meeting, but she did get there right at the end! So we figured out a day to visit her.

The first Sunday Elder Jones was here, she showed up with her daughter and granddaughter (who are members) and her daughter was all excited that she had brought her mother (after somthing like 10 years of trying) to the sacrament meeting! She introduced Zoyla to the Gospel Principles teacher (Diony Cárdenas) and said:"Look I brought her!"  Zoyla said- "No, I'm not here for anyone more than for me. I want to be baptized. Haha.

That Sunday we invited her to read the Book of Momron and ask if it's true. She said that in the night, she got to reading and started thinking and got confused with the idea that Nephi had gone to get the plates that had the law of moses. She was thinking: "If Moses had them, why would Nephi have gone to Laban to get them... this book must be false... Moses had the records..."

She said that in that moment she wanted to call us but she couldn't so she went back to reading and said at starting "Father, help me understand" (She has an advanced age and says she doesn't understand much of what she reads). So she got reading, and "bam!" everything just seemed to click. She realized that Nephi lived much after Moses, and she felt a huge peace and she forgot her doubts about the Book of Mormon. She also realized that family history really was important, because she saw it in the Book of Mormon when Nephi records that he is a descendant of Joseph of Egypt. We read DyC 6:23-24 with her and she basically said "Yep, now I know this book is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet"

The Lord helps us understand our most small questions or lacks of knowledge when we ask with faith.

Her baptism was very nice. A good crowd of friends showed up to the baptism and shes now got her friends to keep her going in the transition from an investigator to a member. And she's got a GREAT gospel principles class to edify her in the next year.

Cool obedience story. Saturday, we had the baptism in the morning, which took the normal study time, and we were worrying about how to do the rest of the day... every day we must read 30 minutes of the Book of Mormon at least. That's a commandment. And Preach my Gospel 30 minutes too (that one's just for us missionaries) And we were with the temptation to just not study that day now that by the time we had lunched and done all the cleanup, it was the afternoon.... but we sat down and studied. And after studying we dined and went running to teach someone. We knocked a few doors that nobody answered and then we knocked one.  He invited us in and we talked a little. A really cool guy who before was meeting with the missionaries, and one day was waiting for them and they never came... 7 months ago... and now we just found him. Next we knocked a door where a lady was worried about her sick husband. We prayed with her (she didn't want a blesssing for her husband) but we did pray with her and she felt comfort. Next we entered a store and started talking with the man who attends. He was interesting and we are going to return this week. In the store came two young people who we talked with a little, and they mentioned that their family are members who just this week were talking about reactivating themselves. We asked it we could go with them to visit the familiy and they called home to ask, their parents said Yes! So we taught the family. The dad isn't a member, and he said he wants to guide his family back and be a member, and it was true that the rest had already planned activating themselves. Also the neice started investigating with the father.  All that in about 3 hours. 

Love Elder Johnson!

28 May 2012

Dear Family!

28 May 2012

This week has been really interesting. If you want to look up the map, we live in the street San Jose number 3. Right where San Jose begins going towards the North East from Av. Arica. The limits of the area more or less are from Urb. El Morro to the town square, and from Arica to some street that I still don’t know.  Thats awesome to hear that the Leavitt’s are back. 

That will be so cool if Mitt Romney wins. Paul will be able to knock doors and say, We are from the Church of Jesus Christ.They say never heard of it? Paul says: “Oh yes you have! The President is from our Church! They say "Oh come right in!" haha. The birthday package did not get here before. I will be in Arequipa on my birthday in the zone leader council. Feeling the Spirit, making plans, learning a ton, eating good, and a 6 hour bus ride, haha.

Here in Tacna we don't exactly have a pensionista. We rent a room in the house of some members and we eat breakfast there, but all the members put their names in a list and we eat with them for lunch (the biggest and most important meal) here. In Latin American countries, there is something called, over-table. (Sobremesa) The custom of eating and being at the table for a while as a family talking, discussing. Family bonding time. We can talk about the missionary work of each family in the sobre mesa and it’s quite good. Also, since it is rare that the families give us food (about 1 time a month) they give us really, really good food. Peruvian food is great!

We have started a campaign to work super hard with the members.  To that end, the work of finding is all about the members. We shouldn't find the investigators. I mean, it is inevitable that we are walking and pass a person who really needs the gospel, but like President Hinckley said, we need to make a support system. That system is made almost automatically when a member invites the people to hear us and hosts the lesson. That situation is excellent.

A counselor came to us as the reunion [meeting] started and advised us that one would be talking, so I did, since I’m new. I spoke about that system of support and presented myself. It was just of 5 minutes so... really fast. Then we went to the class of Gospel Principles. Wow it was awesome. I don’t know why I never realized it, but that class can be powerful. We’ve got 25 converts from the past year. There were almost 20 in the class! I think a lot of the health of a ward is seen in the strength in its Gospel Principles class. It’s super important to call a teacher of the class and make it a class just as important as the others.

The stake mission plan has a part that asks the missionaries to teach members how to carry out their missionary responsibilities as members each Sunday.--each Sunday to a different organization. Well... that means that someone has to teach the priesthood of the areas of sisters, so we went to Parachico after 2 hours in our ward Granados. Parachico is also powerful. They’ve got a brand new chapel (the majority of the chapels in Tacna have been built in the last 20 years. There are 13 chapels, 3 stakes. It would be interesting to look up the population. There are so many more members here than there are in Virginia. Interesting. The church has been here only 40-50 years, almost all the members are converts, first generation. They marvel when I tell them that all my cousins aunts uncles and grandparents, and great grandparents too I think, are members. A question: how many generations has our family been in the church? [The answer is 5 generations on Rene’s paternal side, probably 6-7 on her maternal side, probably 6-7 on both paternal and maternal sides for Jeff’s family].

So we went there and it was so fun to teach the high priests and the elders priests and teachers and deacons. They were receptive and like the practices and examples that we gave them. We saw a really cool movie that showed church growth by stakes. It’s so true that the growth has been incredible. But we really have just scratched the surface. There is so much space in India, China, Asia where there are not a lot of stakes. . . the Amazons. . . haha. There’s tons of people to find even in the places where the church is strong. I heard that the Salt Lake City mission baptized more than 500 people a few months ago. That’s good working with members. I think they probably find 500 people who aren’t members a month haha... there aren’t that many over there [in Utah].

So they made a promise to give the sisters one reference each every single one of them in the month of June. Their bishop is bateries. That’s a spanish idiom for: he works hard and the ward is getting animated to work hard.

After, he asked us to come back and do something similar with his ward council so they could get animated for missionary work. We did so and it was very cool. The best ward council I’ve ever gone to. We felt the spirit very strongly.

I contacted a man who is from India! He speaks Hindu, another dialect, Spanish, and English. His English and Spanish both are really, really good. I was very impressed. He said he has talked with missionaries before and that he differs a little in the belief of Christ. They believe that he was a great prophet. But not the son of God. They believe that by Him much changed and the world has forever improved, but that God is an identity who can’t be born, can’t die, or have children (or maybe I heard him wrong about the children). Anyway we have an appointment to visit him and teach him about the Book of Mormon. Talking with him I remembered how powerful it is to convince all, Jew or Gentile, that Jesus is the Christ, the Holy of Israel [see Introduction to the Book of Mormon]. It will be great.

Love Elder Johnson