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]

6 February 2012

Querido Familia!

Wow this week was pretty AWESOME. First we played soccer with the president and the other zone leaders Monday and had a barbeque in his house later in preparation for the zone leaders conference. So goood. haha.

Then Tuesday, we had a meeting with him between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and talked about a ton, most importantly about consecrating ourselves as missionaries. One of my favorite scriptures was Omni 1:26, Si venid a el, y ofrecedle vuestras almas enteras como ofrenda a El. [Come unto Him and offer your entire souls as an offering to Him.”] I really, really liked it. And I’m trying to do so. I’m also trying to open my mouth at ALL times, and not ever think, well I don’t have to talk right now, or I don’t have to testify. Because I should ALWAYS open the mouth to testify with sound of regocijo [rejoicing]. And the promise is that if I do so, I shall be able to receive help from the Lord that is unknown among the children of men.

Those really impacted me. Then, Thursday, we had a special training in the Zone Hunter where the president came to teach us somethings about planning for lessons, and about consecrating ourselves, and about serving the Lord. He talked about the zone, and what we can do. I’m glad he asked about one thing: if the Arequipans are hard of heart. Before in the mission here, let’s say a few years ago, there were very few baptisms. Now the city of Arequipa has many more baptisms per month. He said: do you think the Arequipans have repented, or the missionaries? And we understood that really these are the remnants of the Lamanites. They are just waiting to be gathered up, and the better we can be the better we can take part in that gathering. One missionary in the mission saw15 people baptized this last month. He taught us about faith. We planned until late and had just a few hours. Then Friday we finished the plan and I had an interview with the president for the first time in a while.

He showed me first a sheet that has some of the key indicatores [statistics] of me in the past month both in Camaná and Arequipa, and said, here are your results, how does it seem to you?  I was very, very preocupied [worried] by the 0 0 0 0 0 de bautismos en todo enero [no baptisms in January], knowing that it extends more before, and he definitely noticed my worry. I have been trying to make myself the best missionary possible and finding lots of people and in that I haven’t been able to do so. He asked me if I am worthy, and I said, yes, but maybe what I lack are the last "little" things: always talk spanish, be more punctual, writing every night in the journal since planning with the 13 principles and... He told me about how Preach My Gospel talks about obedience with EXACTITUDE and that’s true. We also talked a little about how to pray constantly and without stopping. We talked about the spirit, he told me about some of the things he did on his mission. I had come to be able to know what I have to do in order to give the step so that every week we can find some of those chosen children that God has prepared, and he listed Dyc 4, 6, 11, Alma 26 and Omni 1:26.

We also talked about gifts of the spirit. He said something very interesting, that when we look for gifts, we can find all sorts of gifts: Gifts of teaching, of listening, of being able to love, of getting along with everyone. I was also thinking about the importance of these and realized that they are gifts that would help us be able to do the work of the Lord with much, much more efficiency. He also mentioned that I need to know what Mosiah 28:3 means to be able to help people make covenants. In truth, there is such a huge difference in the life of someone who lives the gospel and someone who does not.

Sometimes when I talk to someone who is aggressively rejective, I get distracted a little because I feel like if I could be like Ammon, people wouldn’t be like that. But reading Alma this morning I realized that’s not true (see Alma 26)... but anyway, in place of being worried about these things, he said I should pray earnestly, that they might one day be able to get know the Church, that with them, we should offer this prayer if possible, and that even in the moment that they do all they can to reject us,we should demonstrate the pure love of Christ. Because, as he helped me see, every contact we do makes an effect in the people we talk to. This effect can be incredible and it can help them to in the future accept the next missionaries. The area has been proselyted by missionaries maybe 30 years. Some have known bad examples, and for that don’t want us to visit them, and need to see a better example. If we pray for them and ask the Lord to bless them then He can and they will be able to feel our love and see that the blessings we ask for are completed and the next time we come, they will say, “Hey you are friends of those who came before and made a difference in my life even though I rejected them.”

I worked on that in the few days of proselyting that we had, and we met with a lady who had a bad experience with a missionary a while ago, and demonstrating our love she came to understand that all people are imperfect and was able to overcome the image she had before.

Oh, and the best part, after leaving the interview we went to visit some brothers, where one is a recent convert and his brother is not member, who told us he wants be be baptized.

The next day we taught an investigator and read Alma 7 with her, and challenged her to testify to God her faith in being baptized at 6, and she was baptized!!!!!!!! She has been going to church 3 months but until yesterday didn’t feel the ability to make that promise with God. Wow.... wish I had more time but that’s it. Se llama Zenaida Arhuire.  [Her name is Zenaida Arhuire.]

Love Elder Johnson

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