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!

26 June 2012

Dear Family!

Wow this morning 13 pages of Dear Elders got here. All acumulated from these past weeks or month... its the first time I get Dear Elders here in Tacna. It does take longer to get here. Well the zone Alamenda finished the month with 14 baptisms. We have been in a rut of 12 the past two months so we were excited to go up. This week we also had a significant improvement in investigatores in sacrament meeting. One ward had 11! Now we have to go up again to keep being diligent.

This week we did something really fun. We have been working with the presidency of the stake and we have been planning a training meeting to re-enfocus the ward counsels and put in order a few things and it was so cool! The stake gave my compañion and I 40 minutes! haha that seems like a ton for a reunion like that.

I was just thinking about how there is a little bit of a difference in the relation between the members and the missionaries here and in Arlington... or maybe its just because I wasnt very aware in Arlington, but it seems like the people here love a lot more the missionaries since almost all of them are converts and remember the missionaries who baptized them every time they see us. The member of the high council spoke about missioany work in his talk this sunday and he got very emotional talking about his conversion, the Elders who met and baptized him. That could be true for both here and there but for some reason I think its stronger here. Or maybe just for me, since my conversion had very little to do with missionaries.

Anyway, we planned it to be able to inject some missionary purpose in all the members. Haha at one point, when I was talking about the reuniones we have in the church to satisfy the needs of investigatores and members, I sat down as a video we had quewed up played. I looked over my notes from the planning meeting (which were on a sticky note I had) and put the note to the side. When the video finished, I stood and resumed talking. After a little I was thinking, how can I grab more of their attention, and help the reunion have the council feel that we wanted, not a discourse feel....so....  When I was ready for the next item, I wanted to look at the note again, and looked under my scriptures on the podium, then on my Preach my Gospel, then under that, then all around the podium, then where I was sitting before, but I couldnt find it! The first counselor of the stake said from the seat he was at, "there it is pointing (I thought) to my back. I looked behing to the left raising my left arm to see, and to the right raising my right arm to be able to see, and nothing! Well about 7 seconds had passed by then, so I turned around to get help from all the people there. haha. That grabbed all their attention. Turns out it wasnt on my back, but my left elbow right where I couldnt see. haha. Everyone got laughing, I heard Elder Beletanga whisper something about breaking the ice and I said: "that was a joke to break the ice". haha pretty effective in fix the discourse slash no participation feel. I kept going with lots of questiones so that the council wouldnt get lost in discourse. This meeting had about 150 powerful and dedicated ward leaders. It was very special.

In divisiones this week with Elder Cerrudo, something very cool happened. We knocked a door and the lady said, you knocked at just the right time. Turns out a whole bunch of things had happened, including that her husband had gone with her best friend. Poor lady. She went to church and is preparing herself to be baptised. Another contact was a man who until 3 days ago, hadnt wanted anything do to with God, but he said he saw a movie and realized that in the 12 years he hadnt prayed to God, he had become something he didnt want to be and has been wanting to come closer to the Lord the 3 days before we got to him. the interesting thing is that they had planned to go over by his house the same day that he had seen the video, but couldnt.

We are teaching a family, who are really good, but we arnt sure how to help them go to church. One false doctrine that lots of people think is that there is no need of a church. I think that is one doubt they may have, that they dont know how really important it is to do things like be baptized and take the sacrament every sunday, having a calling and magnifying it. Its vital for our progress and if we dont go to church, then our velocity of comming unto him is at best slower than it could be.

I have a feeling that this week will be a good week. We are going to be able to have lots at church. I think that por fin we are going to get in a really good swing, hopefully we dont have changes!

Love Elder Johnson

26 March 2012

Dear Family,

This week was quite gratifying.

News point: our elders quorum president is called Erni. hahaha.

The Dear Elders I got were very fun to read! I was amazed by what Grandpa said about the studies about the Book of Mormon. Ancient drawings that detail Ether, the legends that remain of the visit of Christ here, and grammatical delicacies not possible to have been made without the inspiration of God.

I got one [DearElder] from Kirsten! That gives me her address again. I shall have to see what to do to finish a series of letters. I’m going particularly slow :( Trying to get it out.

We invited some 300 people to the conference. We are so excited about the coming conference that we are doing all possible to help other people get there. I wish I had words cutting and powerful, like a two bladed sword so all could realize what I'm talking about. One problem that limits the understanding of many is that there is another church that will have some sort of celebration for the "real birthday" of Christ, and they are working pretty hard as a congregation to invite all (the 5th of April....) and many confuse us with them when we invite them. They don't typically have a very happy conception of those misunderstandings. But it is good that their invitations will help some have more faith in Christ.

I was teaching the class of Gospel Principles yesterday in church and the topic that corresponded (I think) was The Priesthood. We had a good discussion and the sister Palomino, who is awesome, said the prayer and asked that the Lord bless us to be able to teach so that she could come to know better the true church. Towards the end she also asked about what are the organizations of the priesthood. That’s next week, but because of the general conference I’m not sure if we will be able to teach it (the bishop said we are going to skip that class), so we explained it yesterday with her question. We talked about the Aaronic Priesthood and Melchezidek Priesthood, about the responsibilities of each, about blessings and ordinances (which went along with the plan of this week) and she asked if she could share a story. Last week she came to church and asked for a blessing for her baby, who was super sick. After receiving the blessing for her baby, she had to go with a family member to get medicine and go to the hospital, but that the really high fever went down. When they got to the hospital they said that they would have to take out a blood sample from her baby to diagnose the problem, but when they did so, he was totally clean [healed]. She said that in that moment, she was so surprised and in awe, and said: "hay tanto poder en las bendiciones." [There is so much power in the (priesthood) blessings]. It was pretty awesome to be in the class at that moment. Santiago 5:14-15, DyC 84:20.

 14 Is any ^asick among you? let him call for the ^belders of the church; and let them ^cpray over him, ^danointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

 15 And the ^aprayer of ^bfaith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be ^cforgiven him.  (James 5:14-15)

Michael Huamani, we visited and his grandpa came in. His grandpa is the source of the problems. I’ve been reading the Old Testament about the blessings of the Lord for the obedient, and the Book of Mormon, which makes the point clearer than the blue sky, and have been feeling how true it is. Anyway, he came and said he was baptized a 8 years ago. And said that when he did so, everything went wrong and he decided to go back to his old ways, and things were better. The old man didn’t realize, but we understood by the few clues that slipped out that he had ceased to keep the commandments. And then everything went wrong, and then he repented and stopped breaking so many commandments, but also left the church of the Lord. For not having success in his enterprises, he says the church isn’t true, and that his grandchild shouldn’t be baptized. He was also a little drunk at the time. It’s frustrating. The word and promise hasn’t changed Alma 36: 1-3 and so many other times in the Book of Mormon.

 1 My ^ason, give ear to my words; for I swear unto you, that inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land.

 2 I would that ye should do as I have done, in remembering the captivity of our fathers; for they were in ^abondage, and none could ^bdeliver them except it was the ^cGod of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he surely did deliver them in their afflictions.

 3 And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their ^atrust in God shall be supported in their ^btrials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be ^clifted up at the last day. (Alma 36: 1-3)

At church, a young man showed up of some 25 years [of age]. He was with his cousin and we got to meet him and tomorrow we are going by. It’s interesting how the last two times we have fasted, someone unexpected came to church all by himself.

Right now the lady of the internet place (who is member) put on Come thou Fount by the Mormon tabernacle! so good.

We had a family home evening with a family. That was great Saturday! The family was obviously converted and when the mom testified about the Book of Mormon, she got all excited explaining how she applies 1 Nephi to her life. The Lord really wrote that book well putting just the right person in the right places so that when he wrote his story it would make a powerful beginning to an immensely powerful book. The investigators there knew us already, since we visited once the husband/ son of the mom. They met us when we looked for him but couldn't find him, and have already gone to church before and have read parts of the Book of Mormon. Anyway it was a highly ideal situation, where the members excitedly present the missionaries and testify in the lesson. Their daughter/grand-daughter was sick and went to the hospital instead of church, but next week I’m pretty sure they shall be there!

What was I going to write....

This morning I woke up with a ton of energy. I have made myself the habit of singing a few lines of "Called to Serve" at the second beep of the alarm every morning as I get off my bunk bed and we go to pray to dedicate our day to the Lord. This morning, I realized I had had a notable dream.

Love Elder Johnson

12 March 2012

Arequipa

Elder Mark Johnson and Elder Ryan Stewart in Arequipa on a p-day

44 es su calzado [referring to shoe insert size] de Elder Lozano.

Dear Family!

Just so y’all can look at how much time it takes for the Dear Elders to get to us, Thursday I got one that was sent Feb 26 it looks like, from Eric, who says he has been really preocupied [worried] with not getting on the water the whole first week of crew. Haha I remember the first time I went on the water, I swam.. I swum.. I went swimming 4 times! But that was in a little skinny single hull. Not like the large 8 person shells... just to invite mockery a little.. hahaha ni modo [it doesn’t matter].

This week I shall write my ecclesiastical endorsement for the President to either sign or throw away and start over on. [required for reentry to BYU].

The way that this week started, was great! First the consejo de lideres de zona [Zone Leader Council], y empezamos miercoles con [and we began Wednesday with] 4 contacts who were basically a few taxi drivers and people who sat by us in the busses to and from the consejo [council] in the morning and night.  Miercoles [Wednesday] was a sacred day.

A member asked us to go to the hospital with her to give a blessing to her brother. It was really impacting going to the hospital. Reminded me a little at first of taking the sacrament to those who couldn’t come to the sacrament meeting. We got to the room of her brother who has been there 4 months. He has a tumor in his brain that makes it that he doesn’t talk or react now. I think it’s a coma. But he breathes by one of those tubes and receives nutrients by a little syrup tube connected to a pump that passes his mouth. We stayed there a little before giving him the blessing; meditating, praying, and accompañing [staying with] the sad sister. I reflected in the infinite love that the Lord has for us, and prayed asking to understand how His plan could possibly include all that I saw around me. In that moment, I began to understand much more the plan of salvation and the way that our creator really is constantly watching over each and every one of us. I opened up to Alma 7: 11-13 and meditated the words a little: 

11. And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13. Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

I understood the Savior´s sacrifice and pain for us on a new level and felt as if I had been with him for that small, small part of His understanding that was of the child and son and man in front of me. In the blessing we felt not alone.

Leaving the hospital, we went to the house of that young person who had come to church last Sunday. We taught him the message of the restoration of the gospel of Christ and while we taught how to gain a testimony by prayer, he looked meditative. We proceeded to invite him to be baptized the 31 of March and he said very affirmatively, “Yes.”  

After we reviewed that he can know of the truthfulness of the restoration by praying and asking God to let him know, and he gave us about the biggest surprise I think I’ve every had teaching. He told us, “I already have prayed.” ¡haha! 

We asked, “When? When you read the pamphlet?” 

And he responded, “No, just now, when you were teaching me about prayer. I asked, and I felt a joy when I asked.”

In church yesterday, Michael expressed that his parents and uncles and aunts and grandparents had all talked to him and told him that he shouldn’t be baptized. The 31 would be really, really soon they said. That is a belief really common here. Yesterday we talked to a lady who said she is about to get baptized in another church, and that she has been preparing herself for the last 6 years. Anyway, today we planned to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that they can know of the importance, and nature of baptism. It’s not to pass some sort of knowledge test, but to enter the door, the first fruits of true repentance (2 Nephi 31:17, Moroni 8:25).

Ivon Apaza, the lady who came about a month ago to church and then had her baby boy and wasn’t let out of the house by her mom, has been getting the papers together to get married so that she can be baptized! It’s looking like mid-April at the latest. She was planning on coming yesterday but she slipped and hurt her ankle in the heavy rain Saturday. We hope she`ll be ok. We just talked on the phone a minute yesterday.

Oh, with our pensioner, we’ve been upping my portions a little... since I’m feeling pretty skinny... I weigh about 72 kilograms (158 pounds) with my suit on. Before the mission how much did I weigh? About 170 pounds no or am I mistaken? [Maybe. . .?]

Anyway, the food is good. Haha, right now I shall finish my extra bread from the morning.

Love Elder Johnson

Birthday Letter to Mom

[From Rene:  I will share parts of the letter Mark sent to me for my birthday.  He wrote this letter completely in spanish.  I will share parts of it in English]

My Dear Mom,

I will take advantage of the opportunity to write in spanish. We will see how good my grammar is.  Sometimes my form of speaking reflects the errors of the people in my area.  For example, my landlady en Camana always said, "Ah, this costs expensive."  Costs expensive is incorrect grammar, but as she always said it, sometimes I say it too.

Happy Birthday!

I hope that dad, Eric and William made you a cake and that it was delicious.

You took a backpacking trip to the city.  Hmmm.  That's new.  D.C. is very beautiful.   I would like to be close to the capital with all those museums.

Thank you for always writing the DearElders.  I just received a group of Dear Elders.  I think that now that I am in Arequipa, it will be more constant and I won't be getting a mountain of letters every three weeks.  Also, thank you to Eric for continuing to write to me every week.

I decided during splits last week what I want to have written on my gravestone.  It will have Mosiah 29:45 with a little modification,"And our father died, at the age of ____, having lived to complete the commandments of the Lord.  There it is, my gravestone epitaph.

At church on Sunday, a member of the high council spoke about the importance of the scriptures and I remembered my primary teachers who taught us that if our house caught fire, and we could only save one thing, it would be good to save your scriptures.  I accepted that as normal, perhaps because the scriptures are not cheap there.  My teachers and other adults learned a lot, but maybe I didn't learn so much.  When I left the house in my first area of my mission, I left my English scriptures in a taxi. I realized that I was beginning to value the scriptures because I felt a little lost without my scriptures in English. The good thing was that I started to understand the scriptures in spanish very quickly.

Anyway, I hope that this year went well. From what I know from Dear Elder, it seems that it did.  I hope that the following months go well for you too, that Paul can prepare himself [for his mission].

Since we are zone leaders in the mission and are in the city of Areuqipa, we have to go to the Centro every Monday to carry baptismal dates, reimbursement requests.  It makes it so that there isn't much time on Mondays, but that's o.k.

I am finishing this letter at the Post Office.  It is a postal service here in Peru and I believe that is a government-owned service since the building is huge and the service is slow.  I believe that I will finish my mission here.  But I am happy.  Elder Stewart is great en every aspect.  He told me that his mom has continued reading my blog since we were companions.

O.k., something cultural from Peru:  En all of the city buses (for example the bus that goes from Camana to Arequipa, people frequently get on the bus and begin to talk about variou health problems.  Then, they show how their product will help you avoid the problems for example, how to avoid cancer, heart problems, or headaches or whatever type of ailment or sickness.  They talk about all they things and they pass out packages of their product to everyone on the bus who wants to see it.  They keep talking, sometimes showing photos and mentioning the sicknesses you can avoid at least 10 times.  Then, they pass through the bus and collect money from people who want to buy their product and collect back the packages if people aren't interested.

In about 70% of the buses between Camana and Arequipa that I have ridden, I have seen this if it was daytime.  It is a little interesting.  I only took the bus one time in the States and that was to New York with Kirsten and her friend and her dad to see Wicked.

[Then Mark drew a panorama of the city]

Love,
Elder Johnson

12 September 2011

Dear Family,

This week we have been thinking and wondering and praying and trying to find out what we have to do to help people. I kind of feel like we have not done anything for anybody here in 3 months. I need to figure out what's up because that's just ridiculous. In a time that we should be doing a lot we are doing nothing. I mean... we find average of 17 new contacts per week, we teach all we can, we invite people to repent and prepare for baptism.... but nobody realizes the hugeness of what we are telling them. We know and are talking to only 2 people who want to change their lives.

One had an interview with the President Rosas, one of the counselers of the mission (who is the best). She left very very happy and is preparing for her baptism pretty rock solid sure the Saturday after this. She is amazing, and has been trying so hard recently to start a new life and prepare for baptism, but faces some pretty intense trials from the family and life. She is a great example. 

The other, last night, when we taught her and her co-habitating father of her children about the Law of Chastity, she had a moment. She and he thought that it is ok if they are a family even if they aren't married, and had a little trouble understanding the difference between temple marriage, civil marriage, and preparing for baptism and everything. She broke down crying when she told us how it's been difficult for her. She goes to church and tries to understand everything with all of her heart but can't get everything in. She is so great. Well she was hoping for a guide and I don't know what happened with Elder Ortiz and me but we didn't know how to help her know that to receive the guide that she needs and wants, she has to live the commandments. I want to help everyone here repent so they can come to know the gospel and stop everyone from being so sad and without hope and everything!

So we are gunna work really, really hard this week and we will do all we can and I pray the Lord will bless us and them so that everyone here can come to Christ. Maybe it's just because we haven't been solving all this or because I am more able to love the people now or because of some other reason but it really worries me, and they need it so bad. 

So well now it's time to go. This week shall be the hardest week of work yet.

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE DEAR ELDERS! I love hearing all the stories, and I love all you'll

Love Elder Johnson

4 April 2011

Dear Familia,

Another week has passed here in Tacna. And I have learned so, so much this week. Being with the added responsibility of District Leader has not been easy, but [it is] really satisfying when things go well.  I've got a lot of goals for the next 5 weeks for me and for our district. [A district is a small group of 8-10 missionaries who work in an area together.   They are led by the District Leader, one of the missionaries in the group.  For now, Mark is a District Leader]  Thank you very much for that insight mom.  I have been feeling that it would have been nice to have more examples before.

[The advice follows:    I remember my District Leaders quite well.  Here are some things I really appreciated from them: 1.  They really seemed to care about my motivation. 2.  They cared about my companionship relationship. 3.  They cared about what happened in my family's life  4.  A couple of times, they gave me blessings of comfort which I very much appreciated. 5.  They were spiritually inspiring and kept the district unified.  We did things together.   I really looked up to the District Leaders and appreciated them.]

Well, this week has been a great week. A little bit harder and I had to rack my brain a little bit more [on topics ranging from ] Conference to learning of a religion that teaches that we are anti-Christs (not at all sure why anyone would teach such blatant falseness= 2 Nephi 25:26 [which reads:
 

And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.

We have had ups and downs of course. I have been worried at the success in our area, and I am not sure if it is a result of the things we are doing or something else, or the evidence of something that was always there. I continue to ask myself why we aren't baptizing every single week. We just don't seem to be finding people who the Lord has prepared, like kind of before and like we really should.

But everthing is ok because HOW GREAT WAS CONFERENCE [Twice a year, there is a general conference that is broadcast to the world.  The prophet and apostles speak to us on a variety of topics  It is a wonderful opportunity in April and November of each year.  You can access the talks in video or printed format at lds.org after 4/9/11]. The best the best. It seemed way short too. After each session and after the afternoon of Sunday I really wanted to be able to go back to the Stake Center [the church building that usually has satellite access for these broadcasts] and listen to the prophets and apostles every day. But now we as a world have 6 months to learn, apply, and implement [the messages] into our lives.

I particularly liked the talks by Elder Oaks, and Elder Bednar, and Elder Christoferson, and President Monson.. o darn this list is getting to be all them. Well, we did struggle a little with the emphasis on marriage [Elder Scott's talk and President Monson as well].  haha. I just started changing the word and idea of wife to Elder Mateus, and the advice on how to have a great companionship, not marriage. It was working great for a little while, but then not so much [You'll just have to read it]. You might be able to recall where I gave up that comparison.

Elder Hunsaker (who goes home in 3 months, and is one of the two Zone Leaders) set a date for his marriage. November 18, which is a Friday. haha

In conference I was taught of hope, faith, and the importance of receiving revelation. Subsequently I realized a few things that I have to do right now.

Yesterday we were contacting, and a 19 year old person answered the door. I looked him in the eye and said, Buenas noches, soy elder johnson y mi companero es Elder Mateus, y somos mensajeros celestiales aqui para bendecir su familia. [ Good evening.  I am Elder Johnson and this is my companion, Elder Mateus and we are heavenly messengers here to bless your family]  He asked to consult with his family and they let us in to be able to hear the message! His family is great. They invited us after the lesson to dine with them. His sister is 21 and is very, very sharp, and well-versed in the scriptures. She was able to explain to her brother why the scripture so often interpreted to say that Pedro [Peter] was the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ and that he would create the church, says not that [It means that the church would be built on revelation]. She also gave me something to think about in relation to who receives the gift of the Holy Ghost in their lives.

I got a bunch of Dear Elders that were great! How interesting they all were. Les doy muchos gracias.[I thank you all very much!] Also a letter from Brother Brooks and from Kimmie. They were also the best. Ive been working on opening my mouth more.

One little boy asked me what a Giraffe is in Spanish. I laughed, but wait I still don't know.

Grandpa Johnson, have you looked for chaiasms in conference talks including within sessions as a whole? I was noticing the correlation just before Elder Holland talked and it made me wonder.

Eric, you could try practicing always the things you do know how to say with mom. She knows Spanish!

A new elder came to our zone. His name is Elder Bautista, or, one who baptizes. That will be funny for the missionaries in all of his areas over the next 2 years. He is great!

Well. That's about it. We talk next week!


Love Elder Johnson

Mark and Elder Mateos.