23 September 2010

Dear Eric (and all),


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO WILLIAM AND DAD!

How is school? Great job on the high math class and wind ensemble! Study math hard so you can know what is going on! When I was in seventh grade, I didn't study much at all and it was so confusing. If I had studied every day though, it would have been so much better. All classes on the top floor?? That's how you know you are getting old right there!

I was just talking about snowboarding with Elder Stewart! I really wanna go buuut it is going to be two more years until I will be able to! Elder Stewart snowboards as well, but Elder Weaver likes to ski, and expressed his negative opinion of snowboarders. Haha but really I want to go so bad.

So today is the first day of spring here! The end of winter that I got to experience was quite warm, most days were fine to be wearing my short sleeve shirts, tho a couple were to cold to have short sleeves in the morning. I can´t believe I have been here for a whole six weeks! The time is flying past unfortunately quickly. It seems like just four days ago I was eating Coldstone in Provo!

The other day, I was just talking with Elder Silva, and all of a sudden he starting singing Dora the Explorer (explorer just feels like an ER verb). Apparently, in Chile, the same show teaches Chilean children how to speak English!

Elder Silva and I had to teach the other Sunday in our districts again! We taught about the Plan of Salvation and.. wait for it... yes you guessed it! We used the Oscarson Plan of Salvation diagram. Only difference was we added a timescale to show what occured antes y despues [before and after]. Oh and we did it in Spanish.

Part of the crazy time distortions means that starting last night, I am in my THIRD companionship! So for review, Elder Weaver and Elder Cruz were my companions at the MTC and of whom you have heard a lot.

They are great. Then we came here to the CCM after three weeks, and my new companion was Elder Silva of Chile. He taught me so much Spanish and most importantly made it so I can understand at least what the words are when native Spanish speakers talk (their vocabulary towers above mine but I am able to pick out the words I dont know-- which is surprisingly difficult). Now, I am companions with Elder Stewart, one of my district mates from my MTC district, who also was in my first district at the CCM! I am super excited to be his companion. We have already taught several practice lesson together, and we seem to teach well together, he is definitely the strength of the lessons.

Also with this change means we get a new room. Our last room had six people in it, Elder Lowe, Elder Hatch, Elder Lambraño, Elder Leiva, Elder Silva, and I. Quite cramped with something like 100 square feet between all of us. Now we have a bigger room with four people instead of six! Our new room has my companion, Elder Stewart, Elder Weaver, and this Elder Falk character who we are getting to know, who seems great! We have these gigantic closets with I think 32 cubic feet of
pure storage. Alright not soo big but an improvement for sure. The kicker here is that we have our own bathroom! Only two rooms of all those availiable to Elders (we suspect all Sisters apartments are this way) have the shower deal. It is awesome. This morning when all the other Elders were showering in the main bathroom, all the hot water ran out, yet our bathroom was just as warm as ever! We blame our new Zone Leader, Elder Weaver for our good treatment. And the fact that we
four are probably the best, most humble missionaries who have ever been through the CCM.

So now that we are "avanzados" (spanish for advanced), we are the old fogeys around here. Thirty three of us now have three weeks under our belt, and 152 new missionaries will be arriving over the next two days. They are more or less half and half Norte Americanos and Latinos. Part of the avanzados title means we can do the translating from Spanish to English in the meetings we have for all the new Norte Americanos. I could do a fairly good job at this point.

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit us last night! I didnt even wake up... of course... but most people did with the shaking cabinents and stuff.

Your that-was-easy trick sounds ridiculous haha. Did Paul invent it? He would.

Did anyone find an answer to my questions last week? I have another question for this week. Read Doctrina y Convenios 130 all 8 [Doctrine and Covenants 130:1-8] or so verses. It talks about Joseph Smith´s brother in the Celestial Kingdom, having not at the time of the revelation been baptised. The question is... How? Our district has come up with the possible answers: since time for God is a vastly different thing, maybe it didn't matter that the baptism had not occured yet, but that the fact
that Alvin would accept baptism in the future meant he could enter into the Kingdom of God (see also Juan 3:5 [John]). The other possible answer was that it was a vision of the future, since Joseph Smiths mother (we think) was still alive at the time of the revelation. The problem is we dont have many more documents than the scriptures, preach my gospel, and Jesus the Christ here.

Oh and by the way, James E Talmage is quite a celebrity around here. Haha. We are all reading and loving Jesus the Christ. To those who haven´t read it, READ IT! Ok the first couple chapters are admittedly hard, and one must get used to his rhetoric, but it is suuuch a good book.

Thirdly, I have arrived in 2 Ne 3 in the Spanish Book of Mormon. I have been reading out loud for about 30 minutes everyday (time scrounged from my morning prep time and night prep time by getting ready super super fast). Reading out loud helps so much, tho I will admit, I missed some key story points due to imperfect comprehension.

Oh...I am very sad to say that my left to go home. I miss him, his abilitly to cite most important scriptures when we forgot, and his doctrine pop quizes, and I really really regret not trying harder to be a better friend to him.


Love
Elder Mark Johnson

September 15, 2010 Part 3

Dear All,

These have been my thoughts slash experiences that I wrote down to share.

I have a hypothesis about the plumbers who worked on the bathrooms in the MTC and also in the CCM. I think the MTC bathrooms were plumbed by Peruvians, and the CCM bathrooms were plumbed by Norte Americanos. I would always hit my face on the shower heads in Provo at the MTC, yet here, they are high enough!! It is great.

I never understood the phrase "lumpy pillow," which occurs frequently in fiction, until my first night here.

My physics is slowly leaking out, but it isn't all the way gone yet! In the line at the comedria there are several windows. These windows have blinds which can be turned to close or open at the pull of a metal chain. The chain is the ball-rod-ball-rod-ball type that people often use for necklaces. Anyway, it is thicker than those by a milimeter or so, and 2.5 meters long. The tension in the chain increases quickly as you move up the chain because of its weight. As a consequence, when
you tap the bottom of the chain and start a wave, it moves up with increasing speed, decreasing amplitude, and increasing wavelength. The effect is that it looks like the wave disappears soon after you tap the chain. The wave bounces off the top unnoticed, and suddenly and without warning, it shakes the last few centimeters violently. It is really entertaining, and a bunch of other elders started doing it for a few days after I figured it out.

Along with the "spiritually minded is life eternal" scripture, is Acts 10:36 :)

So a question for Grandpa Johnson. Here, the fluorescent tube lights flicker for almost 4 seconds before they turn on, tho the length of the flickering period varies. Sometimes it is 1 second before it is on. Anyway, somehow they turn on, but then turn off. I would think that the On state is stable... doesn't it need increased power to turn on, and then reduced power once enough gas is ionized? Somehow they turn on and off several times before deciding to stay on for good. Also, if you turn them off, and then back on before waiting long, they illuminate with barely any or no flickering.

AAAHHH so the best experience ever. We got on buses on Saturday to go to the world and visit less active members of the church. My group went to the Garden stake center about 45 minutes from the CCM I think. We were to be paired up with members who would accompany us and help us get to the houses and help us teach. There were not enough members tho, so about half of the missionaries had to go knocking doors!!! Me and Elder Silva got to go knock doors! It was mejor [the best]. My first door was so scary, but no one opened, nor the second. But the third, a 15 year old girl bounced out and talked with us for a little bit. I say us, but I mean Elder Silva. I literally understood nothing she said except that she believed in God. Everyone was super willing to talk to us, and we talked to 5 people who wanted missionaries to come back!!! it was sooo sooo cool.

I will never forget one place. These 3 and 4 year old kids answered the gate, and started climbing on the other side (never opened it), smiling at us and offering us their bread. We didnt take any. The 15 year old brother and oldest person home talked to us for about 10 minutes through the gate. He was shy, but happy to see us. behind the gate, were the dirtiest stairs I have ever seen leading up to where they lived. The stairs and the walls looked mas o menos como un [more or less like a]
chimney. So sad, heart-wrenching.

We get translators (the missionaries who have been here for a few weeks longer) for some of the meetings. the Norte Americanos wear the headsets connected to the radio. The translator was translating for us, as the temple president spoke and said he wanted us to have success. The spanish word is Exito I think. He translated to all the Norte Americanos "He wants us all to have sex." Im not sure a funnier slash more out of place freuidian slip has ever occured.

Question: What is difference between the three levels in the Celestial kingdom? We can only find info on the top one.

Eric is taller than almost all women here.

Me and Elder Silva advanced to the second round of the fooseball
tourney yesterday. It was sweet. Fooseball or taca taca as it called
here, it the ccm pasttime....which takes place when we finish a meal
early.

no more time!

Love Elder Mark Johnson

September 8, 2010

Dear Mom, Dad, Eric, William, and Paul,

That is a lot of people on the blog! Holy broccoli! The Taiwan [person] might
be Kirsten´s sister... I know she is somewhere there abouts.


Ok, I'll answer all the questions first. I don´t know who Elder Palaoci
is, but in regards to soccer, he is absolutely right. It was really fun
in the Provo MTC, but it is way better here. First off, there aren´t
nine-finity people playing. We usually have about 12 on each team.
Second, everyone is way better on average. I think it is just cuz
soccer is much more popular among the latinos, and this MTC is about
half latino. Oh and Latino is the term we have been asked to used. As
for us people from up north, we are referred to as norte americanos.
Except for Elder Badzinski, he is still Auzi.

The food is intense. Every meal is alien to us. The tastes are all
different, the ratios are different, and the fact that we have rice
and a meat for every meal is diffferent too. I think we even eat more
rice than I had been eating in my final weeks at home. Sometimes meals
are great, sometimes they are mas o menos [more or less, average], and once I had to
concetrate on lifting my foot off the ground. The juices are so weird
haha. Ok... so different. Every meal we have a choice of two unlabeled
juices, or water. The two juices the first day, were of coloration
bright yellow/orange, and a dull light brown [anyone's guess, but mine is Tamarind]. All of us newbies chose
the bright one, and were sorely suprised. I honestly dont know how
that particular juice could have caught on...it was...er...great.
Luckily the juice changes every day, though I often stick with the
safe choice: water.

One day I went for the juice, and drank it. When I asked my companion
what it was, and after serveral minutes of trying to understand him, I
realized he was saying it was herbal tea. uhhh.. is that even ok?

I have heard no word on where people do dry cleaning, but I haven't
asked either. I suspect we need to arrange it with someone outside the
CCM.

The spanish is exploding. Every day is so much better. And my english
is going out the window. When I'm writing in my journal after a day of
speaking spanish, I tend to accidenatlly use grammatical structures of
Spanish or the english version of a phrase I can say in spanish, so it
makes limited sense. Last night I was trying to ask if we could go to
meals in our P-day clothes (which are just casual wear), and I said,
"Can we go to food in our clothes?" Oh and I memorized the first vision
really well in English in the MTC, but then memorized it in Spanish.
Now, the only way I can say it in English is by translating it
directly. But the result is in a different order than the real English
one. Elder Silva (my compañero) laughed at me for a while after he
asked me to say it in English for him.

My companion is a Chilean who knows his scriptures like nobody's
buisness. He can whip out a scripture on the most diverse topics, and
i have no idea how. He says he learned them all in seminary and
institute. Apparently he wasn't sleeping. So I guess I really need to
work on my at hand bible references. He was in a band before comming
to the CCM and they recorded a CD. I got to see some pictures of him
performing live. He plays keyboard.

Ms. Harber remembered me?? What in the world? thats impressive.

A random story. The second day here, Elder Steward kicked a soccer
ball over the wall in a game. We got to go into the world, which was
super exciting at the time. It took forever to find it [the ball], and while we
were looking, a dog smelled or heard us and started barking from the
other side of one of the homes wall. They all have walls in this
neighborhood and the CCM has a 15 foot wall all the way around. A
man came out to investigate the cause of the barking, and gave us a
quizzical look. Instinctively, Elder Stewart asked, "Have you seen a
ball?" He didnt understand. Why? Oh wait this is PERU! Haha Elder
Stewart rephrased, "¿Pelota?" The man shook his head.

That 50 mile hike story is awesome. [A couple of years ago Mark participated in a

Boy Scout activity to walk 50 miles in 20 hours or less. He was successful and finished it

in about 16.5 hours. Missionaries get to walk a lot, but never 50 miles in a day.

So, he can never complain about walking on his mission, because it will never be as hard

of a walk as the 50 miler was].

Ok, I wrote some things down to get into this email.

Today we went to the temple, and it was awesome. The Lima Temple is
one of those Micro temples, and its it definitely micro. To get
there, we are required to take the bus. We can walk back if we want,
however me and Elder Silva took the bus back. It was quite an
experience. The bus to the temple had about 18 seats, and 38 people
crammed into it! It was incredibly crowded. In addition, the ceiling
was about 5 feet 11 inches off the ground, so I stood with my head
completely sideways and pressing against the ceiling. Everyone here is
quite short, the Peruvians around me were probably 5.5 feet at the tallest.
Only two other people on the bus had my problem, and they were norte
americano missionaries also going to the temple. The driver has an
assistant who collects the money of departing passengers when they
drop them off. He stands right in front of the bus door while in
motion. To give an idea of how crowded the bus was, he just left the
door open on the way to the temple because there wasn't space to close
it, and he held onto the rails, leaning out the side the bus between
stops.

On the way back from the temple, we missed the bus. But another came
about 10 seconds later. There are a lot of buses here. It was not
nearly as crowded though, which is good. But this time, since it was only
me and Elder Silva getting on, the driver started going the instant
both of my feet touched the floor of the bus. Consequently I almost
fell and was able to give people on the bus a good laugh. The driver
did this at every stop, and it caught me off guard every time. So
everything was more or less ok until the bus took a turn off our road
to the CCM! They don't really have routes as far as I can tell, and
there are no bus stops, they just pick you up wherever you are, but they
are more like mass taxies. Someone had to be dropped off a street
over I guess. Elder Silva and I both looked at each other as we turned away
from familiarity and into the wild unknown Lima with nervous looks. We
tried to jump off, but when Elder Silva asked the departing-passenger-money-collector

slash door guard, he said some spanish words that even Elder Silva didn't understand.

I remembered the time when i jumped off the bus sans you all in London. Paul was with me
right? [No, Mark jumped off all alone and the bus took off. He started running; we tried to keep

him in sight, but weren't able to get off until about a block later--it all ended well,

obviously, but, it was very scary.]

So we keep driving who knows what direction, the door guard keeps
telling us no one knows what and we are steadily growing more nervous,
when the bus suddenly stops and he motions for us to leave. It cost 1
nuevo sol to get both of us wherever we were. We looked around, at
each other, and around again. Haha. Ummm... We were by a gas station...
Oh, behind the gas station is a nice fence! Luckily for us we could see
the Regional church headquarters building from where we were, so we
headed there. Remembering that the CCM was right by the headquarters,
we were able to make it back to the CCM alive.

So by the way, I got a hair cut the first day I got here. Which is
odd, cuz I had one two days before leaving Provo. I have not hair
now...they buzzed it way short. But it isn't even a really good chop!
There are uneven hairs all over the place!


We went to tottus (similar to walmart) after the temple today, and
there were odd bottles in the drink aisle. The notable ones were tall
and skinney 1.5 liter bottles, and taller and a little wider 3.3 liter
bottles. They look pretty great for water rockets... I kinda want to
take a few home in 1.9 years.

The area authority came the other day and talked to us (in spanish).
He talked about while we are on our missions, we have similar
responsibility as apostles. It was very cool.. Obviously we lack the
keys and authorities that they have, but we are here to a similar end.
It was cool. I had to listen to the translators. Im not that good yet.
However, I needed no translation in the temple.

and I'll send pictures of stuff next week


Love
Elder Johnson!