10 October 2011

Dear family,

How is the ward doing? We had a missionary from our zone go to the Lima temple this week. It’s a 1.5 hour plane ride. I would love to go so much. When is the next youth trip to prepare for?

Right now we are passing some high school students running and yelling like soldiers training. I think it’s part of their gym class. That’s cool. They’re running in the street and taking up the whole thing.

The letters get here on a de ves en cuando [every once in a while] basis. But thanks so much all for writing them! They come every few weeks all together every chance that the mission office has to send us packages.

So this week was interesting. We had the monthly zone leader’s conference in which we learned a lot. We are going to implement a new system that will help us teach better. The first week using it was very hard. It’s just a card that has some important points of each lesson and stuff that will help the investigatores [investigators] understand better the lessons. Preach My Gospel says that the better they understand the doctrine, the better the Spirit will be able to testify to them that it is true.

In companionship exchanges I worked in Puchun, and then here. There with Elder Perez and here with Elder Stringham. It was pretty good. The two days were very productive.

Hey, guess what? I know no one’s gunna [going to] believe it, but in our branch, there was a baptism!!!!!!!!!! We have been teaching a small family who live upp upp upp in a place called Paradise. The mom and son we have been teaching. The mom is a member and the son got baptized Saturday! He asked me to baptize him. It was great. Only the water was SOO cold. It might as well have come out of the faucet as ice cubes, and Joel (the son) was terrified of water in the first place, but it was all fine. Our branch mission leader directed the service, the family of Joel was there, quite a few of the young adults were there too, us, and the branch president, and an investigator came with his two teens.

A missionary returned to the branch from his mission in Lima North. Two more talked since they are about to leave tomorrow and in a few weeks. Freaked me out a little since I feel like a month ago I had to talk in our ward.. but I’m more than halfway to returning.

We passed one family Thursday who were taking big wood boards into the house that they use to make the concrete roofs. We offered to help them and they were grateful since there are many, and later we taught all 6 [in the family]. They seem like a great family and I hope we can continue to teach them! In all there are something like 8 people who live there.

I am going to have to get the pictures through the next Monday. And bueno. Las cosas estan bien. [And well, things are well.] I was thinking about how life is often difficult, and reading about Alma teaching the purpose of life in the Book of Mormon and between the chapters 34 and 42 came to understand better that we had to come here, so that we could have the experience of repenting and choosing the good. This is part of the goal, so it was absolutely necessary that Adam and Eve fell since we all needed to go through the process of repentance in order to progress in the grand scheme of things. I dunno [don’t know] exactly how to describe it but a few things just made sense better than before.

Haha this Sunday we tried something. We put the hymn CDs on high volume so that all could sing along Sunday. There is no piano or organ or someone who could play the electric piano, so we put on the CD and it worked GREAT! Definitely were gunna  [going to] continue. I think I’m going to be the new music conductor since the current is going on the mission tomorrow.

Love Elder Johnson