16 April 2012

Noooooooo my whole email got deleted.

Dear Family,

16 April 2012

Well, what i was saying... was that this week was sweet. The first week with Elder Erhard. I really enjoyed the week. Mari Diaz is with the struggle that she didn't make it to church! I don't know why we haven't been able to see her, but in the week we went by and we checked up on her and she was good but not reading every day the scriptures. Like Preach my Gospel says in chapter 2, to be able to preserver to the end and be faithful in the Gospel, we must develop the habit of reading the scriptures. We are gonna try to help her get that habit super well put.

Last night we were in the bunks, and at 10:35, we heard a little rustling. Elder Erhard shone his light on the trash can and nothing. So we returned to sleeping. And then we heard more... and then we looked, but nothing. The third time, we looked and a little mouse crawled out of the trash and ran away. Throughout the night we heard more but could never get him. At least it isn't a cockroach problem.

Yesterday, we felt the prompting to talk to two people who were passing us, and we didn't act immediately, since it was past dinner time and we were late. But we finally gave case right after they passed (1 Nephi 4) and talked to them. They were so cool! They were children of a member who was baptized 8 years ago. They knew just about everything and just need to know how to gain a testimony. 

I’m sad for losing everything, I can’t write more.

Love Elder Johnson

9 April 2012

Haha still? Eric did it [the Easter egg hunt] with the brace and crutches?

Dear Family,

This week we worked so hard. Well better said, we worked better.

Monday and Tuesday was the council of zone leaders. We talked about a bunch of things. Among them were the themes of standing on the Lord’s side of the line (a theme from the conference) and making sure we are able to receive the inspiration we need to be able to teach by the Spirit. We talked about the power and authority that has been given us, and we talked about focusing on all our missionary purpose and not just focusing on baptizing, but really the invitation to all to follow Christ. That’s what everyone needs to hear, and they all need to make a decision. We hope that those who choose (usually just by their actions not words) to not [follow Christ], can feel the Spirit while we teach them so that later they can make the right decisions by their actions.

Wednesday we went to do companion interchanges with Palacio (Elder Child y Elder Bastidas) and we realized that we would have interviews with the President in the night. The assistants had called us at 11 p.m. the night right before, but we were so asleep that we didn’t remember until studying with the Elders in Palacio (Palacio is spanish for Palace- their area has some of the biggest areas in the whole world-- well, in all of Arequipa)

In our interview with the president we both went in first, Elder Stewart y yo [I]. We talked a little about the zone and what the zone is facing and doing, the plans. Next he looked at our goal for April. He had us sign and commit ourselves to really do it. We ARE GOING TO. Well... I am. There were changes and sadly Elder Stewart was changed to the Umacollo zone in the same city of Arequipa.

In that moment, he asked if we can do the goal we put ourselves. We basically said, help us have the faith so big that we can do it, and he said, it isn’t the faith that you need, rather power in the teaching. We have been set apart and given divine authority to preach. This authority gives us the right to have power, but it doesn’t come automatically. We read DyC 11:21. Emphasis in if you desire.

 21 Seek not to ^adeclare my word, but first seek to ^bobtain my ^cword, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my ^dSpirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the ^econvincing of men.

Then we talked about DyC 33:1 

. . .open ye your ears and hearken to the voice of the Lord your God . . . [who] is a discerner of the thoughts and ^cintents of the heart.

Then Alma 8:18.

 Now it came to pass that after Alma had received his message from the angel of the Lord he returned speedily to the land of Ammonihah. And he entered the city by another way, yea, by the way which is on the south of the city of Ammonihah.

He opened his cuad that he has in English (the church instructs all members of the church here to learn English and he knows English pretty well!) and he talked about what Alma did. Speedily, and, through another way.

So he charged us to go speedily and just do it.

We focused and prayed so much every time we could teach in the week, and we taught all our investigators.  We found 21 new investigators and ran basically everywhere. In the contacts we focused on following the spirit to know what doors to knock and it worked!

A little bit of a disappointment Sunday when the tons and tons that we had committed to come didn’t come to sacrament meeting! But Mari Diaz and her daughter Helen came to church! Teaching Mari Diaz, who has come a while, we talked about how is the eternal life. We talked about how to be able to have it. The class Elder Stewart taught on Gospel Principles was on the covenant people and the church. She was thinking about all this. The Spirit prompted us to open DyC 76:50-52. 

 50 And again we bear record—for we ^asaw and heard, and this is the ^btestimony of the ^cgospel of Christ concerning them who shall come forth in the resurrection of the ^djust—

 51 They are they who received the ^atestimony of Jesus, and ^bbelieved on his name and were ^cbaptized after the ^dmanner of his burial, being ^eburied in the water in his name, and this according to the commandment which he has given—

She read it and we analyzed a little. She had my triple combination in hand and kept reading a little as we explained a little. She read 53 and 54. She told us: And here it says that to go there, we have to conquer by faith (is that correctly translated?). I have to conquer by the faith and be baptized.

Wow that was a moment where she listened to and followed the dictates of the Spirit.

She told us that she will be baptized next week (after this Saturday that’s coming). She said she doesn’t know that everything is perfect, but she feels like she needs to do it so she will (Alma 32:16). 

16 Therefore, blessed are they who ^ahumble themselves without being ^bcompelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without ^cstubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe.

We shall work with her so she can feel certainty in these days but that is so awesome!!!

Sunday, we got the changes. Elder Stewart went to Umacollo :(.

Elder Erhard came from the same area and is the same with which I was in Tacna! This will be great.

Love Elder Johnson

Anyway, we started to work and work and concentrar. [concentrate]

19 March 2012

WHOHOOO! That’s great about the missionaries going out in the field. Saludos [greetings to] James Pope for me.

Dear Family,

RIght now we are finishing those invitations for the conference. The sister who owns the internet place said she could print them out at .25 soles per page, with both sides printed! And that was the same as the one side color copy and one side black and white place in the center that a member was going to help us out with. Now we will have 2 weeks to try to invite all the area to the conference. This will be fun.

Quote from Elder Stewart (we were walking and I hear: sniff, sniff,..sniff.)

"Is that dutch oven potatoes?? donde, cúal casa? me invito!"  [Where is that house?  I’m inviting myself.] haha. I don’t know what those would be, but we didn't find the potatoes. We didn't have time to look either but all good - we got to smell.

This week has been pretty fun.

Michael is still with some [having some] issues from his family. They caused his great faith to be highly troubled telling him that better would be [it would be better] to not think about God much but focus on studying, doing that sort of stuff. The struggle is helping him read. He really has so much homework. He is taking 19 classes right now. Each one is one time a week for 2 hours.

One of the members is being awesome. She is visiting the two Ivons that we are teaching and helping them to feel good and all. She is really loving with all and fulfilling just about all she possibly can. THAT’s some good help with the missionary work. Help the missionaries!!!

Ana Palomino came to church again! We talked to her this week and she is all animated [excited] to get married and to be baptized and go to church forever. She bought some church clothes this week.. She was the one who went all by herself last week. She lives in another ward.. but is moving here at the end of this month we hope. Since her husband works in the mine (lots of people work in the mine. there are places where 20,000 people live, and 15,000 work in the mine of said city). There are lots of mines here in Peru, see the end of 1 Nephi 18:25.

 [25 And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were ^abeasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ^bore, both of ^cgold, and of silver, and of copper.] 

I’ve been reading the beginning of the book of Mormon again in the past days, and it really impressed me the predictions of the great apostasy and the restoration in first and second Nephi. They are very clear. Nephi even saw Christopher Columbus.

Family Ojeda is a family who has the desire to learn from us. The parents are worried about their oldest son who is in those years [must be teenage years!]. We invited them to start reading every morning the scriptures, and Saturday they did! We don’t know about Sunday, but they couldn't go to church for some reason. The mom wants the youngest child to lead them all to the way, basically. But we are trying to help her see how the family would be able to be if they follow what King Benjamin, in Mosiah 4:15, councils about the role of parents (also 14). But we have to go about that well.

[ 14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

 15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another. ]

Mari Diaz, who has gone to church over the past 2 years, needs us to read Mosiah 2-6 with her today. Thats what we planned in the companionship study.

Yesterday we met two people who are a little different. One started telling all types of things that aren’t true... and it was interesting how I could feel that he was lying, even though I had no way of proving it. The next one started out the conversation telling us: I’ve talked to all sorts of people and I’ve asked them what they think of my experience, people and missionaries from every church but yours. He said: When I was five years old I was in front of the house and was looking off into the distance, and from the corner of my eyes I saw a tall, white, beautiful man pass. I wiped my eyes to see better because he was bright, and when I opened them again, he was taking up into a whirlwind. I told my mom and she said it was the devil, and my nose started to bleed.

So at the end of telling us that, he asked us what we thought, what explanation there would be. And at the same time that he explained a little more about some weird stuff, I just felt very clearly that he had never seen such thing. We told him, and he resisted a little, and we repeated that, and he gave up on that attempt. While he talked and spoke about how hell doesn't exist and how we are just a circle and will be born again and have been born before and before and before and how there aren’t really consequences of sin, I remembered Alma 30 and Jacob 7. Those doctrines are not from the Lord. This morning I read 2 Nephi 2:10-14 which is a part that Lehi talks about the nature of the opposition in all things which gives us a good way to know how He [Christ] works and is, and lets us understand His [Christ’s] love. What struck me about the both experiences was how what was true and right was easily distinguished from what was heard, and around me.

Love Elder Johnson