9 May 2011

Paccai

Elder Johnson and Elder Mateus in Tacna

Dear Home,

How is everyone! We are very good here in Tacna. It has been a particularly great day since I got to call y'all! It was such a pleasure. I am going to try to speak with slightly improved grammer also [left uncorrected from a sense of irony].

So this morning I woke up at 6:15 a.m. and did a little bit of cardiovascular and read a little of the scriptures about the 2000 Stripling Warriors to prepare myself to pray with my companion. Next stop was the shower and getting ready really fast to call. EJ phoned home. Later we studied the scriptures. Part of my particular calling is to prepare a District Meeting (meeting of about 6-8 missionaries) in which I usually teach about 45 minutes and we do practices. So this morning I prepared a little for that upcoming weekly meeting, and felt really good doing it. I think it's going to turn out well.

Then Elder Mateus and I studied together a bit and departed to come here! From all of our zone, only one missionary had a transfer, Elder Hunsaker went to Camaná.

I realized, eating the chocolate from the last package I received, that I absolutely love peanut butter cups. I didn't know how good they were but I just really, really enjoyed them. Also my companion [enjoyed them]. I had a possible idea for the upcoming pesky birthday topic, a tripodcito. like the baby tiny 5-inch tall one we have at home. Now that I got my camera back from the repair shop, I am not too keen on placing it on places to leave it on 10 second delay and run to be in the picture, on the other hand, with a little baby tripod, it would be facilito [easy] and segurisimo [very secure].

Oh in the picture there is this weird thing that I'm holding in my hand. That is a Paccai (pakaye). It is a strange looking thing that from the outside looks like a huge bean, but you split it in half and find a soft white material, kind of like a wet cottonish textured fruit. Very interesting and kind of good.

There is a certain part of Preach My Gospel that the President wants us all to know by memory. A little later my companion and I got a gift of a really, really tasty fruitcake from the family Gamboa! We decided (Elder Mateus and I) that as soon as he finished memorizing it, we would eat! Finally after much effort and study, today he finished memorizing all of it! Unfortunately he didn't end up liking the fruit cake... but that is a.o.k. for me!

Yes, so I am thinking that the next few weeks will be great.

Love Elder Johnson

October 6, 2010

Dear Home,

I haven´t seen her [Clarice C.]! I was wondering about that... hmm. Maybe it is in some room here waiting to reach me.

Paul: I wrote this down for you on October 1: Wake up, September ended. Also, the computer I am typing on has an external 216 watt power source. So.. watch out Crysis.

We leave Tuesday for the mission field!!! We are all so excited slash tensions are rising. I think a lot of people are nervous about having the real deal: a companion all day with no one else to talk to except investigators, the companion probably going to be native, and the investigators for sure, and a whole new place, whole new schedule. In my district, we cover a spectrum of speaking ability from quite good, to still iffy. I understand near 80 percent of what the latinos are saying during enseñanzas, which is teaching practice. Granted they are talking about church stuff, and speaking clearly. The people I have met outside the CCM tend to speak quietly, and with non-chuch vocabulary that I am not as used to.

BUT, tho I am a little nervous, I am super archey iper mega extrodanario excited for getting there!

How´d the week go? It was hard, stressful, awesome, spiritual, and megasweet. We had Conference! that was definitely the highlight of the week. I have never enjoyed conference so so much! It was cool to be the missionaries speakers were talking about, especially when President Monson did the state of the church thing at the beginning. I took about 12 pages of notes, and am working on a synopsis of conference with the main thing for me in each talk, and when that main thing is something I need to implement in my life, I am highlighting it. I think I might have to summarize the synopsis tho... there were a lot of talks, which we all enjoyed so much. The two days were all smiles around the CCM.

We were the only people in all of Peru to watch conference live at church. Peru had elections, and there is a law that no one can go to church or any other organized meeting. It is apparently to keep the people under control, but means Peruvians watch conference a week later in a re-broadcast. Luckily, the CCM is somehow not technically an organization that falls under that law through some awesome loophole so we got to watch it live!

Did anyone else see the Sherinians (please correct that spelling haha) on the between conference program after Saturday morning??? The whole world saw them! Also very cool, during Priesthood session, my Chemical Engineering 170 study buddy, Andrew Naylor, got a portrait shot for almost 1.5 seconds! He was in the MTC Choir and I about had a heart attack. I didnt see Elder Ian Christensen unfortunately... did anyone else?

I was wondering if lots of people are having trouble converting to Monson with the huge follow the prophet theme. Especially noticed with the repeated 14 points. My favorite points were the prophet does not need qualifications to talk on a subject, and the prophets words don´t need to follow the knowledge of the time, citing especially Joseph Smith with the Word of Wisdom and translation.

I also really liked Eyring´s talks, and his recounting of how he realized what he was to talk about. In the MTC we watched a talk by Elder Bednar who mentioned how the talks at conference are not collaborated, yet always show trends. It was very cool to see that happen, as speakers would often set up the next speaker, and introduce his topic, and the overall themes of following the prophet, being close to the spirit, honesty and agency, and obedience. Bednar in that talk spoke to those who wonder: how do you know when it is the spirit. His response, was: "Don't worry about it, be a good boy." He cited three examples in his own life where he didn't even know it was a prompting of the spirit.. yes that's right an apostle didnt know... but definitely without question were.

The first, he just gave a large amount of money to a traveling general authority while on his mission in Germany. Thought it was a good idea at the time just to help him out, but didn't know it was a prompting. The Authority later that day got stopped by an east german officer to check his and his wife's identification. His checked out, but his wife's didn't. The authority didn't even realize the severity of the situation, and that they almost arrested and took his wife from him, They had no money but what Elder Bednar had given them. When they handed it to him, he left them alone.

Another was when he was a stake president. His son and the son of one of the Elder's Quorum Presidents´were playing a championship game during some Saturday Stake Conference thing. He struggled with his conscious, thinking that he was just rationalizing leaving, but did leave with that other father. They talked for 2 hours, had a long interview, watched the game, had fun. Six months later the President´s son died in an accident when chopping wood. That game was the only one the dad was able to watch his son play.

The last was when Elder Bednar was an apostle. He just felt like he should change the topic of a conference talk one morning only a few days before conference. He ended up changing it, and to his suprise, found that his new topic meshed perfectly with the speaker before, and the speaker after him.

I am going to continue studying the talks.

Question: Sister Cook in the Sunday morning session mentioned a Carmen Cutler. Are we related through the Cutlerites? That would be sweet!

Question: I was swirling my hot chocolate, and a bubble formed. The bubble moved to the center of the vortex and stayed there. It would happen every time I swirled it. I think this happened because of the inertia of the spinning liquid and the displacement in the surface it takes to float the bubble. So cuz it is bouyant, it got moved out of the way towards the middle kind of like if it was below the surface. Is that right? So that would be why ships would be sucked into a oceanic whirlpool too, right?

Today after going to the temple, we went to Metro and Tottus. I finally gave in and treated myself to a 3.2 sol slice of chocolate cake. I haven't bought anything else tho! except pens I guess. Anyway it was very very very good. Probably helped by the fact that I missed breakfast. Metro had biodegradable plastic bags! Do any stores back home do that or are they just way ahead of the curve here? On the way back we hopped on the bus, but unlike the normal somewhat high g ride, this guy drove more similar to Paul. He was passing busses, slamming the breaks, stealing passengers who were about to board other busses. Not saying Paul does that.

¡Estoy animado para el campo! "Pues he aqui, el campo blaco esta ya para la siega. Y he aqui, quien mete su hoz, con su fuerza, atesora para si, de modo que no parece, sino que trae salvación a su alma." Es muy interesante para veo los cambios en mí vida. En los ultimo dos semanas, cambié mucho mucho, y tambien cambié los semanas antes.. pero en un camino bueno. He aprendido mucho sobre español y el evangelio. Estoy en jacob 6 en mi leyendo en el libro de mormon. Cada dia leo en voz alto para mas o menos trenta menutos. Entonces leo muy rapido en español, y aveces tengo un accento bueno. En dos mes, seré muy bueno en español, y para eso, estoy animable. Ayer, Elder Stewart y yo damos un libro de mormon a un mujer de la comedria. Ella ha leido! En cena hoy, preguntaremos que fue. Bueno, necisito me preparo para cena y nuestro charla fogonera. Me encanto Peru y mi llamamiento misional! Tengo mucho gracias porque estoy en el servicio de dio. Tengo deseos de servir a Dios, y soy llamado a la obra!

[I'm excited for the mission field. "For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul." It is very interesting to see the changes in my life. In the last two weeks, I've changed a lot and I have also changed in the weeks before that. But, in a good way. I have learned much about Spanish and the gospel. I am in Jacob 6 in my reading of the Book of Mormon. Every day I read out loud for more or less thirty minutes. Then, I read really quickly in Spanish and sometimes I have a good accent. In two months, I will be very good at spanish and for this, I am very excited. Yesterday, Elder Stewart and I gave a Book of Mormon to a lady in the cafeteria. She read it. At dinner today, we asked her how it went. I love Peru and my missionary calling! I am very grateful that I am in the service of God. I have desires to serve God and I am called to the work!]

Love Elder Johnson

29 September 2010

Dear home,

Whoa! That sounds super awesome! [I told Mark that a friend of ours will be in Peru and will be able to take him a small package--you can see what he’s missing] What is the occasion? And I can have requests? Chocolate! uh... Snickers or Hersheys kisses or Twix in fun size? qué mas.... oh what would be THE BEST would be to send me a couple of those cheap pens that have the thin little ink thing... I know we have a ton around the house. I bought 15 pens here for 2.9 sols which have identical ink cartridges, but the plastic body is such bad plastic that it starts to crack and fall apart after only a few days. So to be sure, the ink cartridges are a little over a millimeter

in diameter I think, something like five inches long, and at the front they have a plastic piece that covers where the metal tip meets the plastic ink tube. If y’all can send me a few of these pens, I will be able to refill them with the perfectly fine ink cartridges from all those pens I got! I miss food like lasagna and pizza a lot... but that won´t work.

All letters from now on should go to the mission home, I don’t know the address, or the pouch mail address, but could you add both to the page please?

SO the pictures come from our tour of Lima central that went down last Wednesday (after I emailed). It was AWESOME. We got onto a tour bus which took us around town to the center, while Hermana Slingerland (our favorite..ok Hermana Whetten is the best too but in a different

way) was on the mic telling us about all the cool things we were passing.

[.....all the cool stuff we were passing.]

We arrived at...some plaza square thing where the bishop and president live and the Pope speaks at when he comes. It was super super super bueno. I got a Peru jersey for 15 sols and a free little dongle everyone has in some form or another. Necklaces, keychain things, lots have this native human sacrifice knife replica...pretty intense.

We went and tried to get a hamburger, but they don’t exist down here... it was some other form of meat. Tasted alright tho, and was big for about 3.5 dollars. It is really fun to get out there.

Also on the trip we stopped by the beach to watch the surfers slash/torture those of us who surf (a surprising number). Apparently the beach is rather famous world-wide among surfers... There were

parasailers (those are the ones with the parachutes not the gliders right?) getting lift off these imposing cliffs behind us. I wished I had had a sailplane, but then again a crash would make it almost impossible to get your plane back. The cliffs were about 80 feet near straight up. Everyone was super happy to be out and about!

Oh and have the answers to my past questions been found? I’m still curious! The lack of ability to cruise the web looking for answers is killer.

Elder Weaver is the bomb. I was just thinking the other day how glad I am he´s been in all of my districts so far and same room 2 out of the three tri-week periods. We all joke that because of his mannerisms, he is headed straight to the White House. He does seem quite presidential. The phrase around here is presidential potential.

Oh and the Elder Falk character I´ve come to realize is hilarious.Also, the way he is reminds me a lot of James [Hancock].

Teaching has gotten a lot better. We are figuring out Spanish a lot more, we know how to do the lessons a lot better, and everything is just going so great. The other day we got through basically everything in the ridiculously short 15 minute time period for mas o menos [more or less] the first time. We have finished before but not in as elegant a manner as that day. Also the Latino companion we were teaching said I have a good accent! Aw shucks. His companion was so funny the other day tho. We were the "investigators" and they were teaching us. I told them my friends had laughed at me when I told them I was talking to the missionaries, so I didn’t really think I should take any more lessons. He so didn’t understand tho cuz he responded: Bueno bueno, Cree en profetas? Haha that means good, good...do you believe in prophets? We just went with it.

Love,

Elder Johnson