14 February 2011

Dear Family,

I would really like to go rock climbing too! That sounds really fun. The last time I went [was] with two friends from high school and it was a blast.  [It was] around the place Paul went carting. Pretty intense there.

I changed the resolution of the pictures to be able to send SOMETHING: haha, pretty useless 14 megapixels when you can only really use 3. But it's ok. Ill be able to shoot about 2000 more with my two little 2 gig cards.

So the big news is last night at around 1 I got a call from the District Learder, saying: pack your bags you're going to Tacna! Your companion will be Elder Stewart in the LeGuia area in the Alameda Zone. We are literally the last area in Peru before Chile. I think tomorrow or this week I will catch a glimpse of Chile on the horizon when we travel down to the south of our two ward area.

At 2:30 I finished packing everything (sharp contrast to packing to leave on the mission in August) and tried to catch a couple hours of sleep.. but couldn't. Mind racing.

At 4:30 a.m., I got up and showered, got dressed and ate breakfast. We left to go to the house of the Zone Leaders, and when they were ready, I left to catch the bus for Tacna with Elder Huacaychuco (my old zone leader will still be my Zone leader here).

The bus was super interesting. We were an interesting gaggle of Peruvians, European backpackers, a few high class south American young couples including a member of a band, a few hippies I think, and two missionaries. I briefly thought about the group dynamics if we crashed in the desert, a lasting impact of the little Lost that I watched.

Speaking of the desert, it is really deserty! Some pictures should (better) arrive of a couple scenes we passed. There were several stages of desert as we left Arequipa. First we wound through lots of hills that were very rocky, angular, jutting. Then there started to be white sand between the reddish rocks. The sand concentration increased until we were driving through large dunes, which changed to have hard shells of sand. Finally we began to descend into flat and big valleys. The only sign of life between us and the distant and wavery sand (because of the convection off the sand) was the string of high tension high voltage power lines following the road at a respectful distance.

We passed through several little pueblitos which appeared out of the desert at periodic intervals. Stopping, local women would board the bus and offer us desserts, exotic fruits, calamari shrimp, and soda, while a few passengers deboarded.

We passed Mocegua, where Elder Orihuela is. That's all I'm sure of.

I shall miss Augusto Freyre I think. The last day we did splits, I contacted around 100 people, and Elder Hernandez visited a few families and contacted. In church I described why baptism in any church that doesn't have the authority to do so isn't a covenant with God to an investigator young woman who was doubting a lot the need [to be baptized], and later she told my companion that she wants to be baptized next Saturday. Another investigator too will be baptized next Saturday (Gabriela, and the young woman is Raquel Alejandra). Augustine too might, but it's not sure. So that's what I left.

What I found is my companion from the CCM!!! Elder Stewart is the bomb. Only problem is that we are both gringos and have a year combined, but that's alright. We shall see miracles here in Tacna.

Feel a little like a noob again since I don't know the area at all, but it's kinda invigorating to be new again!

I got a mountain of Dear Elders from y'all. Thanks!!!

Love Elder Johnson 

 

Merry Christmas Picture and a Picture of a meal

Dear Primary!

Thank you so much for the cards! They are awesome! And I am sure when my companion gets on email in a little bit he will appreciate them so much too! Ah christmas :)

It is HOT today. I'm betting it isn't over there on the far side of the equator.

Cultural note: Milk is delivered door to door by lecheros. They walk around carrying two of the classic metal big milk jars to the doors of their clients.

Today I am writing another letter. I wrote one hace quanto tiempo... mucho...[how long ago?] a month and a half [ago]? I also sent my memory card in that letter... so if it hasn't arrived... that's a problem. [If it hasn't yet] I shall ask the leaders. This new letter willl probably get in the mail system Thursday.

Thanks for the advice Dad, I definitely realized that was part of my problem. This week has been great. First I corrected that, then in a meeting of our zone, the Asistantes of the President came and talked a little about Alma 26:22. Just the very beginning of repentance. They invited us to take out a piece of paper and write down everything we are doing wrong, and fix them. I've been doing this. I haven't been apoyando [supporting] my companion, which is one things that lead to the problems I had. Other things that I have changed this week have allowed me to get along with him much, much better.

Also dad, my triple combination has broken. The spine that gets glued to the pages came off.. There is still a sticky flexible layer which will stick shortly, but delaminate also shortly if I open the book. What can I do to fix it? Rubber cement? Seek a book repairer? I have no idea where I'd find one here.

The food pictures goes like this.

Breakfast was bread and eggs. I really like this breakfast. Which is good cuz we have it almost every day. Other times we have it with meat in the bread, or some fruit thing. What you can't see here is that the temperature at 7:30 am when it was taken was PERFECT, refreshingly chilly. Sound: roosters crowing, dogs barking. Smell: that of sunny side up eggs and bread. Feel: er the bread warm, the seat hard.

Lunch: spaghetti. Acutally this meal is really uncommon. We have only had it one other time. It's good, but tastes quite different. Temperature was warm slash hot. Sound: fast eating, dogs barking. Smell: tomato sauce. Feel: rushed, we were running late for an appointment.

Dinner: Rice and potato with some sort of sauce. I like this one... all right. Not a lot. Have no idea how to describe the taste. The rice potato combo is really, really common.  I think I have gone maybe one day since arriving in Peru without eating rice... maaayyybee. Temperature: cool.  Sound: quiet, dogs barking. Smell: of the food.  Feel: relaxed, a little tired.

So what cool has happened this week? We will have a baptism next week! Preparing her has been really, really awesome. We teach her with her mom and sister who are less active members. They really have a passion for learning the gospel, and have returned to go to church with strength, along with our investigator.

I will write more detail in the letter!

Love Elder Johnson

22 November 2010

Dear family and friends,

Yeah, hopefully it [the christmas packages] will get through or something... I have had to dip into my emergency money for two reasons already. And simple [speaking of Christmas gifts] is completely fine and expected. I am way too far [away] to be normal [with Christmas gifts].

Today was transfer day, but neither Elder Orihuela or I are going anywhere this transfer, so we will pass Christmas in a familiar pension [apartment].

In church ages ago, Dad made stickers for us, the 12 to 18 year old group of hombres known as Young Mens. We had talked about how many signs say walk to the nearest exit, and how that for spiritual danger like sin we should always run and not walk from the danger.

Well I was reviewing a short church movie we watched and was sharing a message related to it. While talking I remembered this lesson from Young Mens and shared it with them too. The addition of this memory completed very nicely my message and seemed to impact the family deeply. They have been inactive since before I arrived, but last Sunday they went to church!!!!

Alma 26:22, one of the scriptures we have memorized as directed by the president says that if we repent, exercise faith, produce good work, and pray continually without ceasing, we will be able to find people to teach. I have been striving to do all three, but am not yet perfect. Also, I feel like as a companionship, we could do a lot more to complete the produce buenas obras [good works] part. Really we have done very little productive work. Doctrine and Covenants teaches missionaries that we are called to ... I don't know how to translate it exactly into English... but to find and teach the people who are prepared already to accept the gospel. As we only have 2 years of time, we should not spend time with people who are not ready. In this we need to improve.

I am not sure how i can try to change or improve our works, our diligence, and our obedience. As a greenie of 3 and a half months almost, I feel like I don't know anything compared to Elder Orihuela of 14 months. Yet at the same time I feel like there are definitely things we can do to improve... I guess I am confused why we aren’t doing them and feel like I shouldn't be the one to start it, or that he won’t want the initiative to come from me, junior companion still in my training period.

We as a district moved about 700 kilograms of rocks and sand up a hill comparable in steepness to Big Schloss. Less high, but I estimate we gave the rocks 200,000 joules very inefficiently.

As far as Spanish goes, I have been learning so much. I have started learning a tinsy bit of Quechua. It is weird to learn a language from a language which isn't your birth language. I told an investigator this and she was surprised. She thought I learned Spanish first, and then English! This because of my striving to be obedient.

Love Elder Johnson  

8 November 2010

Q- How are you? 

A- Really good even though it is really hard!

Q- How about a picture of your apartment/house? 

A- O.k. Coming next week.

Q- A typical meal?

A- Sadly there are no tacos here.

Soup and a fruit followed by lots of rice and usually some part of chicken. The other day we had chicken heart, which adds to the normal parts: throat, feet... Oh and I had clam for the first time in the dinner soup on Friday I think. I am learning to tolerate seafood, as fish is not uncommon. Luckily I started being more open before my mission. There are areas where you only eat fish... hopefully I can not go there haha.

Oh and there is this thing called matagringo, which is from the verb matar (to kill) and the noun gringo. They are kind of like olives... and a really sour and basically terrible. At least for us gringos. The Latinos like them. Hence the name.

Q- Who makes your food?  (a picture!) 

A- Oh, coming next week. Sorry only 2 pictures of my surroundings today. One is the son of Clelia, who was baptized my first Saturday. The other is the steeple of one of our two chapels. The chapels are tile floored, hard walls. This makes for a lot of noise reflection, but luckily both have speaker systems to conquer the children´s noises. This chapel is comparatively pretty, the other is a little more reserved.

O.k., some anecdotes.

I got a haircut Wednesday for 3 sol, a little more than a dollar.

I am searching for the best way to mark my scriptures, if there are any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

This week we talked to an investigator who had been taking discussions from missionaries a while ago. She like many people has a child but isn't married. Lots of people here are convivientes, which means living together more or less, without being married. They feel like it is mas o menos the same but as they are unmarried, they are violating the commandment given to us to be chaste, having no sexual relations other than to our legal spouse. She wants to get married. We talked about how the commandments are in reality a blessing. The scriptures say that God does nothing save it is to help his children gain eternal life. Commandments are part of this. They are how we know what we need to do anyway. We receive blessings when we follow the commandments in addition to the eternal reward for being righteous, and avoiding the sadness and despair that can take us when we live contrary to the commandments.

I think she really understood this, and she has a goal to be baptized on the 20th of November.

On Friday, I believe, we had our interview with the mission president.

He interviews us every 3 months I think. His first question was plainly, are you worthy. It is very gratifying to be able to answer this question in the affirmative without any reserve. We talked about how I am doing, how Elder Orihuela and me are doing, what we need to do. In the end, he gave me a spectrum 1 to 10 where 1 is a very bad person and 10 is Christ. I am thinking it must be a logarithmic scale or something. Anyway I am around a 4. He responded, ok, you have a year to be a 10. This is quite a high goal, but I believe I can do it. Today I have a personal goal to work towards realizing this, and tomorrow, and the next I will too. Actually I want to keep having these daily goals basically for the rest of my life, and hopefully I can reach a 10.

We don’t have any flea problems, in answer to your question.

Eric! Sounds like marching band and soccer are being a blast!! Very cool! Your letter made me laugh haha. I was amazed by the blog stats... if each hit was only a second long; it was viewed for a solid hour in October! I shall try to write valuable things. I really do miss trees.. greenery... autumn. 

Sounds like the bike ride to Mount Vernon and the backpacking has been great! I really liked that trail, and that bike ride too!

All right I gotta go. Later we shall play basketball.

Love. 

Elder Johnson

18 October 2010

(This appears to be part of a letter. . .)

Before I left the CCM, Elder Stewart and I started teaching one of the ladies who serves us lunch. We intended to be practicing... and our teacher said that all the staff were expecting to be contacted, but she must not have known. Anyway we taught her a little, and she said she wanted to learn more. So we got her information and sent it to some missionaries who are in the area of her home. Very cool experience.

Also I DID get that package. After I wrote y'all, I went to the secretary and asked if there were any packages for me and she gave me it. SOOO MMUUHCCHH THANKS. I am currently eating the last bits of it, the Sour Patch Kids. They are the best.

Arriving here was kind of crazy. When we landed our 737 (I think), we taxied right up to the small airport building. We were the only airplane there! They pulled up movable stairs and we walked 50 feet to the door. 50 more feet and we were through the airport and getting on busses to take us to the mission president's home. They are so, so cool. We really got a home run on the mission president and his wife. The AP was telling us some stuff in English, was having difficulty with English. I can't wait till I get like that!

Our mission goals for each week are 3 baptisms and confirmations, 90 people with baptismal dates, 45 attending sacrament meeting each week, 30 lessons with members, 540 contacts, 20 references, and 120 new investigators each week. Yea as of this week we have not hit that level yet, but hopefully next.

So I‚ am in Peru! For real, not just in the CCM. It is waaayyy different. First off, no one speaks more than a couple words in English, except the other missionaries, who I see twice a week, but we speak Spanish on those occasions so our companions understand what is happening.

My companion is Elder Orihuela. He has been in Arequipa for almost a year. His Spanish is flawless. I guess he is a native speaker though. He is from Peru, and has been in the Augusto Freire area for the past 6 months.. I think.

Last Saturday, we had a baptism!! Clelia. She has a sister in the church. I really didn't do anything to help her into the church other than talk briefly at her baptism, about the reason we need baptism. At the baptism, we ate cake! It was really good.

I love it here... but it is very difficult. It will be much easier in 2 months or so. Not being able to talk to Spanish really, on top of the fact that my companion is the quiet type. I think he also really misses his family right now. He seems to be in a tough spot.

I saw the first other North American person after 5 days here.

This is really something else.

Love Elder Mark Johnson