Saturday, November 24, 2012

This week has been a lot better. We had tons of lessons this week with a lot of new people to work with and leads. This past week we had a zone conference where we reviewed about teaching the law of tithing. The president showed us a chart that showed the dramatic growth of the church but showed the number of people who payed their tithing only had a little increase. We are now asked to make sure we teach the principle of tithing completely  At the zone conference we also got mail and packages. I finally got the one from my birthday and the one for Christmas. I shared a lot of the candy with my district our weekly meeting. Thanks for all of it! 
Quick shout out to Blake and Beth, I got your letters from October, Thanks!, My reply should come soon. 
I really enjoyed reading the article from the Mormon times and the music. 
This past Friday we also had a zone activity in my area where all of the missionaries from the zone came to help us find new people. I got to go off with my old friend Doria. We found someone who is very prepared for the gospel. When we knocked on her door she told us that she spoke English and invited us in. Her name is Nelly.We learned she had been deported from California about 5 months ago. She has lived all of her life in the united states and doesn't have any family here in mexico. Needless to say she has been going through a rough time here trying to adapt to the way things are here. We gave here the first lesson and the spirit was very strong, we have a visit with her today and are going to bring her an English copy of the book of Mormon  The activity was very successful.  Now we have a lot more references. The members are helping us a little more. That is due to two things. This past Saturday we had a meeting with all of the bishoprics in Mexicali were a member of the 70 and the mission president came and emphasized the importance of working with us to have more success. This past Sunday I was all surprised to see that the 70 and the mission president were sitting in the stand at our sacrament meeting. Again here the 70 began emphasized the importance of missionary work and keeping a clean chapel. Since then the members have been giving us more references  So our plan for the following week is to contact all of them. 
One of the people that we are working with is Isaises. He is great but I don't see him progressing to far, yesterday he was drinking so we set up for a visit with him for next week. He is always pretty interested but has a lot of doubts about God. We are also teaching a friend of his named Juan and his family. They are pretty good as well the only challenge with them is trying to keep the 2 kids quiet so that we can teach. 
A family that we are getting very well acquainted with is the Hazard family, they have a friend who comes to church that we have been giving the lessons too. The only problem is that she is 15 and her parents said that she cant be baptized. But we are going to keep trying with her.
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Monday, October 15, 2012

Mexicali

Well I  have some exciting news...This past sunday I got a phone call from the zone leaders telling me that there were going to be special changes. I have finally left Riveras Del Bosque, I am now writing to you from Villa Verde, Mexicali. Yep Mexicali. Thankfully it is october here so it not too hot, Its starting to cool down here. My new companion is Elder Richins from Colorado. He is my 3rd american companion. Which is odd, usually american missionaries only get one or twoother american missionary companions. This past sunday was fast and testimony meeting so I gave my testimony and announced in front of all of them that I would be leaving for Mexicali the following Monday. We spent the day visiting some recent converts of mine and some families I was close to. I am really going to miss some of them. Elder Bowers is staying there and getting a new companion named Rodriguez. I feel bad leaving him since we didnt have to many investigators at the time. The one person we had really going for baptism was Berenice but this past sunday she had been given a bible from the Jehovahs Witness, she then started asking as a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon and one common question JW´s have is ¨so what is Gods name¨ so we had to explain how Jesus Christ and Jehovah are the same person. We talked more of the Book of Mormon and the Bible and she had some maps on the back of her scriptures but she didnt know where Israel or the city of Jerusalem were, or Egypt. She is in college and couldnt find these places on a map. The educational system here does not do a whole lot of focus on geography. But I think we were able to resolve her doubts. That new family that contacted us while we were eating turned out to all be members but less actives. They have one son who is not a member and Elder Bowers plans to try with him and reactivate his family.
So today I was on a 2 and half hour bus ride from Tijuana to here in Mexicali. You remember my old companion Elder Ramirez? he is now my District leader. Elder Doria is here in my zone too. 
I will be here with Elder Richins for his last 3 weeks of his mission. 
From what Elder Richins has been telling me our sector needs a lot of work. Our area hasn't had a baptism since May. Usually if there have not been baptisms for longer then 3 months the sector gets closed down, so its a little wierd that this ward still has missionaries. I got a lot of work to do then.
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Thursday, September 20, 2012

9/17


Well this week we had a baptism! Leslie Rosas was baptized this past Tuesday, a lot of her family members came and so did a lot of members of the ward. It was a little hectic, we had problems looking for baptismal clothing for her but we eventually got it. Elder Ramirez played the violin during the service which was great.
We had planned for a baptismal service for one other investigator Alejandra but she didn't show up to the baptismal service and her dad wouldn't sign the register (she is under 18) so we will see if we can salvage that. 

This past Saturday and Sunday was independence day here. because of that we had to be in the house by 8 we both couldn't sleep well. A lot of gun shots, shouts of "VIVA A MEXICO!" and stuff like that in the night. I feel a little bad saying this but I feel that the holiday is just used as an excuse for a lot of people to start drinking and partying all night. Most of the members didn't do anything for the holiday because of it. Very few of the people that I talked to in the street really could explain to me the real significance of the day or its history. ah well.
We are trying to work with the father of Leslie but it was a little difficult. When we passed by he told us that he had been looking around the Internet about Mormon temples he then wanted to talk about what he had read and all the details of the temple covenants and things. We tried to explain to him that though things were sacred and that we don't take those things lightly. But he still kept wanting to talk about them.
We have also been running into a lot of people like that too. Honestly there are a lot of people that believe what ever is put in the Internet. I cant tell you how many times Ive had a person who wants to talk to me about the Freemasons and how they are convinced that they are trying to take over the United States. For me it can be a little annoying.
We have been trying to help some people who are becoming less or inactive in the church. Sign of the times: men's hearts failing them. Working with less actives can be a bit annoying, they always have a 1000 excuses most of them are about other members in the branch or the leadership or old missionaries. Most if not all have said that they still know the church is true but they don't go because of something stupid that happened between them and another member. I had to hold myself from raising my voice. I just wish people would take responsibility for there actions and quit blaming the rest of the world for there inactivity.
We have been implementing our new strategy. We found a new person. They are neighbors of our ward mission leader. Her name is Gaby, she is married to a member who is inactive. They actually use to live in Utah in Brigham. She was very receptive. I think we can have progress with them. We are going to continue having members help us.
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

This week has been very interesting. To start with I have a new companion named Elder Ramirez from Monterrey just like my trainer Elder Guevara. He is a violin player and is very cool. Well we did it! we got the baptisms! Baldamar and Guadalupe were baptized and confirmed members of the church. It truly has been a miracle, there were so many roadblocks in the way but each time we were able to tare them down to get them married and baptized. Even one of the zone leaders said that he thought that weren't going to baptize them. Well we did. Elder Miguel and I spent a lot of time thinking about them and praying for them. But it all worked out in the end and the baptismal service was very spiritual and strong. Honestly one of the best baptismal services that I have had.
I got to go drop Elder Miguel and say some last good byes. I am really going to miss him. He has been the best companion I have ever had. I am extremely thankful that we got to end it with a baptism. Right after the baptism we found out the transfers. I am staying here for another 6 weeks in Riberas del bosque. Elder Mayo is leaving, when we went out for pizza later I pointed out that we have been in the same district for 8 months and we were finally saying good bye for now. Now our district leader in a guy named Elder Benson who was in my district when I first started off In insurgentes. This transfer we have around 17 missionaries going home. My zone Florido and Insurgentes will get to see the ground breaking ceremony. There are going to be church leaders and some government officals including the Governor. So the mission president told us to get everything ready.
Right now with Baldamar and Guadalupe baptized we are looking for new investigators to work with. Miguel and I spent the entire weekend contacting in the hot sun. Sadly we didn't get any new investigators. So Right now we are in finding mode.
This past week we had to go a couple hours with out water. Thieves came in the night and broke off parts of the water pipes to sell for scrap metal. We learned that this was the 5th time it has happened to our building so this time they used PCP pipes instead. Now it wont a happen again. Saturday Mexico won against Brazil so there was some celebrating over that.
I also got the package this week thank you. And Thanks Mariah the CDs are great. I also got your letter Grandpa and Grandma.
Love Elder Micah Johnson


Monday, July 30, 2012

July 30

One thing you learn quick about Tijuana is that there are a lot of interesting characters. While contacting 3 guys outside there house one of them started talking to us in pretty poor Spanish with a Russian accent. I didn't really remember what he said, all I could think of is how hilarious a Russian accent in Spanish is. He gave us his spiel about religion, world affairs and god while waving his cigarette. It was kind of funny. I tried asking were he was from but he just said Somalia. He was white, bald with blue eyes.
Today is Elder Miguel's birthday. He is turning 21. I am going to see if we can try and do something cool for it.
He also revealed to me that this is actually his last transfer. He didn't want to tell members so that when ever we saw them they would all be ¨oh Elder Miguel you only have 2 weeks left¨ and keep reminding him about it. I am really going to miss him. I hope that we meet up at BYU.
A big item of news here is about the Batman movie starting, at a premiere a man came with a AK-47 and killed a bunch of people. Some people here in Mexico are really superstitious. they now claim that it is cursed.A bit of news gossip here. People here are also talking about the Olympics.
Okay the good stuff. Investigators. Guadalupe and Waldemar came to church, they are not able to get baptized right now. When we taught them the lay de castidad (chasity) they told us they had been married by the catholic church but they are not registered as married according to the government. So we need to get them legally married. It kind of just reminded me with the Gutierrez family how we lost them over that. I think we will be able to have better luck this time.
We also met a cool new family of 3. Nanny and Luis.The mom and dad both are young parents and have lived most of there live in the United States. The husband still works there. We gave them the first lesson. It was the first time I gave the lesson of the restoration in English, it is kind of hard to switch back. But it was good we got them baptismal dates. they didn't come to church but I still think that we can work with them and bring them to church.
This week we have been working a lot more with members, visiting them and trying to get references. They are great people but sometime when they say don't know people it can get hard. Sometimes we will say a name of a person they know who isn't a member but they will say things like ¨oh she wouldn't be interested she is catholic.¨ I usually respond by saying ¨we are in Mexico, everyone is catholic!¨ but we have gotten some good leads. We are reactivating this teenager named Kevin and his family. Kevin keeps coming to church by himself and we would like to get his family active too.
we also have interviews with the president too. Looking forward to that.
Love Elder Micah Johnson

July 16th

I missed putting this letter up but it has a really fun story in it I thought might be fun to read so here you go......

Well this week has been interesting...sadly we have lost a lot of investigators. They didn't go to church. But whats cool is that a new person named Guadalupe and her husband showed up to church and they want us to come over to teach them. Very cool.
One of the investigators we went to get after sacrament meeting, she said she would show up but didn't. When we got to her street we saw her sister at the gate and she let us in. When we got to the house we talked with Susana (investigator) she said that the reason she didn't come was that her sister (the one we just talked too) had tried to turn the boiler on this morning but accidental got half her face burnt and burned off part of her hair and eyebrows. We told ¨But we just talked to your sister and her face is fine¨ but even though we caught her in the lie she kept going on about it. She stuck too it. So we dropped her after that. Another investigator told us she would come to church if we got her a ride. We arranged the ride but when the members went to go pick her up she lied and said¨didnt the missionaries tell you, I told them I wouldn't be able to go anymore¨ dang we dropped her too.
One guy we have found this past week named Mario didn't go to church this week either. But we are still going to work on him this week since we just started with him. But we taught him the word of wisdom and I think that might be what turned him off. In the lesson he admitted to having problems with drugs, alcohol ( a lot), smoking, coffee and tea. I kind of wanted to point out to him that he would have more money for food if he didn't use this stuff. (he is homeless). We are going to keep working with him. But we are back to the drawing board. Oh and the American investigator, Shana, we have talked wants to have lessons with us but his wife is a hard core catholic and does not like talking to us at all. We still get to talk to Shana a couple times, very nice guy. His adopted kids are actually his brothers kids that he legally adopted after his brother and sister in law went to prison for robbing a house. The kids seem interested too.
Okay cool experiences this week, one day me and Miguel were heading home, both of us were hungry and all we had in the house was eggs. I said that I could really go for some tacos and literally 5 seconds after I said that a black car pulled up next to us. He lowered his window gave me 200 pesos and just said¨go buy some tacos¨ and drove off. I had never seen the guy in my life. It was very cool.
We ran into evangelical Christian's from Texas and California a couple time this week they were here building a church. During one of the times we ran into them I was with my zone leader Elder Anderson. they asked us to share a bit of our beliefs about what makes us different from other religions. This was a bit harder to do in English but we talked about the restoration of the church and the book of Mormon. I think they were a little intrigued but they began to share there beliefs about how they thought it didn't matter what religion you were just as long as you accept Jesus as your savior. One of them gave me a new Gideons pocket bible, I later just put in a cupboard. While I was talking to one of there members who use to be a Mormon before joining there congregation, the rest of the group had a pray with Anderson were they sort of ambushed him praying for the salvation of ¨his lost soul¨ He was a little annoyed by that later, I thought it was kind of funny. But we didn't realize that they were recording it on camera till after it was said and done. So if you see a Video on youtube called ¨10 day missionaries save LDS missionary¨ that's him.
Me and Elder Miguel continue to get along great he is my new favorite companion
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Monday, July 9, 2012

July 9 2012cOOO

Drum roll please...The Church will officially begin construction on the Tijuana Mexico temple August 18th. I had heard rumors about for the past week and this past Sunday they officially announced it in church. I hope I will still be here when they open the temple. 
This week has been the best. A lot of interesting experiences. Elder Miguel is a excellent companion, one of the best. He is very spiritual and has great insights, he also knows how to teach very well. We have already found new investigators and people to teach. Tuesday when we left to go start working we actually ran into one of our neighbors who live on the bottom floor, he is from the United States but came over here to escape the high prices and to marry his wife. He has three adopted kids from his brother that he takes care of. We talked a bit and started talking about families and how much he likes traditional family values. We came back the next day and shared a short message on the importance of family values. We gave him a family proclamation and we shared the video of ¨Together Forever¨ Its a little bit difficult to teach them, The dad and 3 of his adopted kids only speak English and his wife only speaks Spanish. I don't know how that happened. But they seem to understand each other pretty well. A great experience.
That same day we went to go search for a less active member, we accidentally  went to the wrong house but before we could knock on the door, their pit bull jumped out from her dark den and started attacking my companion, it bit his knee. Before I could do anything the owner heard the noise and came out of the house and got the dog off. We left and went to a members house to inspect the damage a bit, One of the members went to go to the same house to confront them about the dog but they didn't answer. The members gave us a ride to the doctors and we got him some medicine. The wound is not grave but he had a big bruise. 
We have started also working with a less active member. This is the family I showed how to fold the American flag. They invited us over on the 5th for breakfast which was delicious. It also included something I had not seen for the length of my mission, Root Beer. It was so good. He is a good guy, he use to be a missionary here in Tijuana when they first opened the mission here. We are going to continue to work with and hopefully get him back to church. 
We have found new investigators 2 sisters and her friend. Luz, Sandra and Susana. We only were able to get Sandra to church and it was only for the final hours of relief society but I think she had a good time and will tell the others about it. This next week I think they will all come. 
We also got a reference we taught. The dad is almost atheist and kind of attacked us by asking us difficult questions that were hard to answer. I need to get better with situations like that. We got him committed to pray though so I think if he sincerely does it he will start to grow more in tuned with the spirit. The family as a whole have a lot of questions about God.

This week we have had 16 lessons that is insanely good and whats even better is that instead of us contacting people, others are contacting us in the street.
Love Elder Micah Johnson
Mom-we sure are tearing it up, if we keep this up Riberas del Bosque will be translated like Enouch. Already our relationship with members has improved dramatically. They were shocked and surprised that I was still here and not Elder Rico. But most of them say that they are glad I am still here and he is gone. Elder Miguel is from Coconut Creek he lives literally 5 minutes from Coral Springs. His ward is called The Coconut creek ward also. He says that you can give him the information of Craig and Cindy if you want. When he returns home in 6 months they will be in the same stake. He use to live in Coral springs too.  
Dad-please do send me one of the ties from Missionary mall. A lot of missionaries are jealous that I have such good ties for free. Sounds like it was a smaller 4th of July. Not much happened here. Did you guys still buy fireworks.  His dad is from Gutamala and his mom is from El Salvador. He grew up in his home speaking spanish. He was born in Los angeles. We have a lot in common. 
Love Elder Johnson

Thursday, June 21, 2012

June 18, 2012



This has been a pretty good week, a little more lessons. We have been working with the Monica family a bit, its a bit sporadic teaching, she has 6 kids so at times she has to get up in the middle of lessons to take care of them. We didn't have any investigators at church but I feel we are going to change that this week. This week was also the branch conference, afterwards we had a meeting with the stake president, he emphasized how we needed to work at reactivating members. The stake has 700 members on paper but not all of them attend. That's enough people to have 2 stakes here. They also announced that they have a place secured to build a chapel but that we first needed to get more members who are faithful tithe payers. All the missionaries in the stake including us are have dinner with him today at 6. Elder Rico is pretty excited about that.

This week we went to go visit a member family-Ramirez. But when we got there they were getting ready to leave. They asked us if we were hungry, we told them a little. "There are some eggs and tortillas here make yourselves some food and just remember to close the door and lock it." I don't like being in peoples houses when the residence isn't there so we both decided just make a quick egg and get out. But this Sunday Brother Ramirez came up and told me "hey you left the bathroom door opened and you left the tortillas on the counter table of the kitchen. The dog grabbed the tortillas and took them to the bathroom and made a huge mess" I was pretty embarrassed and apologized profusely. Thankfully he assured me it was okay. But then he went on to say "look I know you are not happy with your companion, endure it and this next transfer you might get a better one. Whatever you do, do not loose your faith. Our family prays for you all the time, your a good missionary." It just meant a lot to me that a family in the branch thinks of me as a good missionary. I don't mean to judge (when ever I do I feel like the man that has the beam in my eye trying to take the mote from my friends eye in Jesus parable.) but my comp has no faith that we can have success in the missionary work. I fear he is becoming whats called a dead missionary. A missionary who just goes through the motions. With this same family (Ramirez) we once had lunch with them and Rico went into it about the difficulties of missionary work. After I talked about the blessings I have received from the mission. They have a son who is going on a mission to New Jersey, I want him to start off with good feelings towards the mission and that its all not trials and hardships. Whenever I start feeling frustrated or we are having trials I remember "what ever you are going through, there is always somebody going through a harder time then you, find and help them." Its hard for me to complain when I look and see the trials and hardships people have here. A lot of families when you visit them will give missionaries a lot of praise and compliments, we need to remember not to let it go to our heads. As Elder Uchtdorf said "don't inhale it". This same family also told us how one companionship came to visit them and one was exalting himself saying he was a saint and stuff for going through such trials. The only thing they said back was "Man up, stop complaining" it made me laugh a bit. Their right. After that the missionary didn't want to come back to visit the Ramirez's. Me and Elder Minquiz were the first to visit them in a long time. Sorry long tangent but just really like this family. They are planing to move back to Utah so I can visit them when I get back.

We also had a zone conference, a new rule is that we cant teach kids under 12, too many kids under 12 get baptized but don't have parents who will help them go to church so they go inactive. We also cant share our cell phone number with anybody.

Elder Mayo has gotten pretty sick this week. The day before we went on splits, I went with his new companion Elder Cortes and Mayo with Elder Rico. It was great experience he is already a great missionary. We taught one family who were shocked to learn I was 19, they all guessed 25. I think the spirit helps us to seem older and more mature so that way they will listen to us.

Recently when me and Elder Rico visit Jesus and Sonia our recent converts, missionaries from Jehovah's witness

followed us and knocked on their door while we were teaching. We just stay quiet till they go away 20 minutes later. I think they are a little mad that we converted them and they are no longer attending their meetings :)

We are all guessing were we are going for the end of the transfer. Since I have Been in TJ for awhile. A lot of people think I'm going to Mexicali or San Luis.

Sorry not much happening at the moment.

Love Elder Micah Johnson

This is my Zone

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

5/28

This week we have gotten more referrals, 2 of them Sergio and Victor look promising. We also started teaching an old investigator Fernando who looks promising as well. 
This past Friday my companion was not feeling to good, his throat was a bit swollen and he had a fever so we went to a doctor to get him checked out. The thing is I am not sure if the doctor we go to is the most medically competent. This might just be me being paranoid but the doctors office is located right next to a pharmacy, in fact the two buildings are attached together. He was in the guys office for literally 3 minutes before he came out with a prescription for about 500 pesos worth of medicine. So it makes me wonder a bit if he is just trying to push expensive medicine on us. Elder Rico didn't have any money to pay for all of it so I ended up helping him out a bit. Then after that we called Hermana Carreon who told us to go back and get some rest so we headed back to the house at 4. He went and took a nap but I wasn't tired or sick so just ended up doing some reading and thinking, bad idea, not having things to do changes your focus from the work to other things at home. Because of his sickness we have not been able to work that hard but he seems better now so I have hope that this week we will have more teaching appointments. I'm still thankful that I haven't gotten sick to the point were I couldn't work, I have heard of some Americans who have gotten sick for a couple of weeks and I do not want to share in that experience. 
Elder Rico seems like a nice guy, he includes me a lot more in the decision making but there are some things that are making me a little nervous. When he sees a airplane fly over he always says 9 months. That's the amount of time he has left in the mission. 


This week I have also been practicing my rr, the rolling your tongue and different phrases such as this
¨trace tristes tigres tragaban trigo en trace tristes trasos. En trace Tristes trasos tragaban trigo trace tristes tigres.¨

.Elder Mayo is our new district leader and I felt our last District meeting was great. Our old district leader never had anything planned and we just lay there talking not making real progress. But Elder Mayo has whipped it back into shape. So I have high hopes. 
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mothers Day

One thing I forgot to say yesterday over skype was Happy Mothers Day! sorry I was so excited about getting to talk to the family that I forgot a couple things I wanted to say. I look forward to calling the family again at Christmas. 
So after my time was up talking with the family Elder Mayo called asking us if we knew a member who had skype, he tried at a couple of different places with no success. Luckily we were able to get him to our sector and on skype with plenty of time to talk to his family. He introduced me, Guzman (his comp) and Elder Minquiz to his Mom, Dad and younger brother. 
I also found out later that night that we would be giving talks the next Sunday. At least this time I have more time to write something and spend some more time on it. This is my chance at redemption. hahaha
This past week I also had splits with the companion of the district leader Elder Vargas in his sector. I was a bit nervous about it. He only had 2 months in the mission field and was still in training. But when we went to our first teaching appointments I was able to take a good lead on the lessons and I felt the spirit testify of the words I said to their investigators. After, I felt I had led alright. I'm still worried about the possibility of becoming senior companion but now not as much. Friday we had a zone conference, surprisingly Hermana Carreon spoke to us about obedience. In all of our conferences she usually doesn't talk. But she gave as a talk about the importance of being obedient. "you are either an obedient missionary or not" I think it was something our sector needed to hear. We are a baptizing sector but I think because of that we may have become a bit relaxed about rules, just not taking them as seriously as we should. 
Are new goal this week is to get 7 references from ward members and contact them. That is mostly the plan for the week. A lot of times after the baptism and confirmation it a bit like "okay what now?"
I'm trying to think of things I may have forgotten to mention in my call last night. I forgot to mention we do have 2 investigators (Gabriela and Reuben) who have had all the lessons from Elder Mayo and Elder Guzman. They want to be part of our branch because of some personal problems they have with the bishop of their ward. The only thing that is keeping them from getting baptized is marriage. They said that they wanted to, we just need to make arrangements for them to go to San Luis to make it official.
Another thing I forgot to mention was a little bit of information about this sector, Here there is a lot of people with horses and surprisingly we have come across a mans house who had 4 ostriches and a donkey. weird. It explains the odd noises we have at night. 
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

May 7, 2012

Me and Elder Minquiz had a rough go this week. We didn't have any investigators at church this week. The family Montanyas had their interview this past week but it did not go to great. They are living the commandments but are now starting to express some doubts. The dad is a member of the Jehovah's witness and I think he is getting some flak from them. The son said he is not sure if it is right to leave his catholic faith. I said to him ¨but you don't even go to the catholic church and you said the times you went you didn't like it.¨ He still said he wasn't sure if he wanted to be baptized. Because of that my new goal is try and get the gift of discernment to try and resolve concerns. Resolving concerns can be pretty complex, Preach My Gospel describes it as a iceberg we only see part of it above water, they may have deeper concerns that we cant see. I hope we can fix what ever problem they have but its not looking to good. We have a new investigator named Alberto, he is 60 and use to live in San Diego for most of his life but got deported. He use to be a stained window glass maker but is out of work. We taught about the restoration and the gospel. This past week we taught him the word of wisdom. I was a bit worried about teaching that to him. The man smokes like a chimney. What makes us worried is that he also revealed that he has problems with coffee, alcohol, drugs, tea and tobacco. Right now our goal is to try and get one thing down at a time. He smokes 3 packs a day so we are trying to get him down to 1 and half. We want to slowly dwindle it down. He really wants to start changing though so I have high hopes. The only thing I think that would stop him is his wife. When we tried to visit him once she came out side and told us he wasn't home, 2 seconds later he walks out. She had a hard time looking us in the eye after that. We also have found a new investigator who is a seventh day Adventist, unlike most investigators he is familiar with gospel terms, at the end of our first lesson we tried to invite him to be baptized but he said he didn't need to because he had been baptised already in his church (this was after we explained priesthood authority). As a missionary you need to be careful not to get frustrated with people. I feel like I see everything clearly and its sad to me when people don't progress because of their spiritual blindness by things of the world. Church members really do have more of a eternal perspective while most people i teach have a ¨¨here in the now¨perspective, I feel that sometimes as missionaries our job is to try and stretch peoples minds more and get a new perspective. 
This week our new plan is to try and get more investigators by working through members. We have tried contacting and we are just not having the success needed. But I know that this week will be awesome. I just need to focus on the work.
Love Elder Micah Johnson

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

last two weeks

April 23, 2012
This last sunday I had to give a talk in Sacarement meeting. It definitly was not one of my better ones. Me and Elder Minquiz found out about it when we got home at night. We were both pretty tired, entonces I did not do as great of a job as I should have. I rushed through and sat down. I realized right after that the microphone wasnt on so not many people heard what I said. oops. Elder Minquiz gave a great talk and they fixed the mike. More importantly though we had the same family in church the Monsalvos. They are probably going to be baptized this week. The only thing that worries me is that at our last lesson, thier son said that this saturday was too soon and wanted to push it back. When we asked why he said he felt bad about leaving the Catholic church. Honestly that confuses me a little. He hasnt gone to Catholic church in years and says he doesnt like the church service much. So I wonder if that is the real reason.
We have a new investigator named Gallerno. He used to live in the United States but was then incarerated and afterwards deported here. He was put in prison for stealing cars. Here in TJ you find a lot of people like him. Ex-convicts who have turned there lives around and want to come closer to God. He is making good progress.
We are teaching another family too but they are not making good progress, when we taught them the law of chasity the son said ¨but our teacher says in school that those things (adultery and fornication) are natural and not bad.¨ I was a bit flabergasted by that. ¨they really teach you that¨ I was just thinking about how if that happened in Utah parents would be extremly upset and how differently they think here.
We got to do a little service this week. We went to go teach a guy we street contacted and we got to help lay some bricks. We helped him lay a row of cement and bricks. It was a lot of fun and we got to teach him some gospel principles.
I learned a bit more of Elder Minquiz background, his parents seperated when he was 16 so during his high school years he lived with his brothers. He was also converted to the gospel when he was 16, his mom did not approve of it but his dad gave the okay. He doesnt get any emails from his mom or dad just his brothers, one of which is in military school now. With all he has been through he has come out with a strong testimony of the gospel.
I found out Elder Guzman(elder Mayo companion) is from Kennwick Washington. He says there are a lot of spanish speakers there so Blake may get a chance to use his spanish skills.
Love- Elder Micah Johnson
April 30,2012
This week has been a little tough for getting teaching opportunities and the ones we have had are people who are not completley interested or didnt believe the things we taught. We didnt have any investigators at church this week either. But its always important in the mission never to loose hope, some where out there is somebody waiting and looking for the gospel.
One of the things we are trying to improve on is comunication with the leaders de la rama. Most of them work in the United States and usually only come back on weekends. So its been difficult to get a hold of them.
This week we were teaching a family who were recent converts about the importance of doing family genealogy work. When ever this happens I always like to pull out the pedigree chart of our family and show it to them. They thought it was pretty neat and that they wanted to get started on doing genealogy work for their family.
This week we have been showing a lot of DVDS to people, specifically the Joseph Smith story and the Testaments. Both are great. This past week I have been trying to focus more on testifying in lessons, I felt I had become sort of a robot in lessons, when that happens most likely your investigators will feel the same way. That your just regurgitating what you have told others 1000 times. its important to teach for them and not just teach for a number. It can be easy to loose sight of that. One thing that kind of sadens me is how seeing the poverty here doesnt suprise me any more. Some of the conditions people live in are completley horrible, we taught a family of 4 who lived in a cinder block building about the size of my old bedroom. I asked one of the ward members who works at a Mcdonalds how much she makes, she only gets 12 pesos a hour. thats about 1 dollar some days its less. Even with the poverty some people are in, they are still a happy and spiritual bunch.
Sorry I dont have much to report on for this week, I will write a bit more next week.
Love Elder Micah Johnson
Dad-That experience has taught me to be a bit more preparred with talks, I am definitly going to carry some talks with me just in case. Im looking forward to calling home too :) Elder Minquiz said we can choose either the 10th or the 13th. He is planning on the 13th so I will plan for the same time. The plan is to use a computer of one of the members that has a skype account. So get skype soon!  
Mom- Thank you for your words, I had been feeling a little less confident in my abilities, but Your words reminded me that the lord is here to help me I can always have him for support. I really like the part were you said walk with some swagger in your step. I can see myself with some swagger "yeah I'm a missionary for the lord...whats up? hahaha thanks.



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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

4/9

I forgot to mention last week that we would be having cambios (transfers) this week. I have left  to a new area leaving Elder Alvarez back in Los Pinos. He will always be one of my favorite companions. I feel kind of sad leaving, I really like all the ward members. It is a great ward. With Elder Alvarez we only had the family Gutierez to teach but they are making progress. They showed up late to church this Sunday, but they came- which was awesome. The past week they invited us over for tacos which were really good. There was a lot of food. One thing I should probably mention is that they live in a area called Terrazas de la presa its probably the richest area of our sector, few missionaries actually get investigators there. The father Javier, makes his living by buying cars in the US and selling them here in TJ. He also buys houses and fixes them up and sells them. Flip man. We started teaching them about the palabra de sabiduria (word of wisdom) and when we finished we felt we should talk about the law of chastity. That's when we found out a problem. They have 4 kids and are not married. 
It was kind of surprising to me to hear that. They have plenty of money and the proper paper work for a wedding. Usually the reason people don't get married is because its too expensive for them. The mom said she wants to get married and Javier said so also but he sounded less sure. 
We have doing a lot of contacting, when you do that you start to notice that a lot of peoples answers sound a lot alike. A lot of them say that as long as you know Jesus Christ is your saviour it didn't matter what church you go to. When that happens I think of in the New Testament when Jesus Christ cast out demons from people, when he did the evil spirits would cry out asking to be left alone "for we know that thou art the Christ" The lesson I learn from that (with the help of Jesus the Christ By James talmage) is that just saying or even believing that Jesus is our saviour wont save you. Elder Mayo just told me of the scripture that tells about this in James Chapter 2 verse 19. We believe in Christ but so do the demons. This knowledge didn't change their evil ways. We must take action for our salvation. 
Sorry back to the transfers. I am now with Elder Minquiez in Florido. We were in a chapel with a bunch of other Elders waiting for the president to announce were we were going and who with, I was pretty nervous but I wanted to leap for joy when the president said my name with Elder Minquiez. I am really excited to be with him. He was with Elder Mayo in my district with my first 6 weeks. He is very funny and relaxed. I am also in the same district with Elder Mayo again so that's good. There are not many members in our area so we just have a branch and we don't have a chapel. I think we meet in a ware house. We are trying to focus are efforts on bringing more youth to the ward. 
My new apartment is the best. Its really big and clean. We have a washing machine so now I wont have to haul my clothes and pay to clean them. Its great. 
Love Elder Micah Johnson
I'm happy to hear Blake got his mission call, tell him congrats from me. You never know, maybe his Spanish will help in that mission.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

the last few weeks!

last week-
This week we had another baptism and confirmation. Tereza, she had been having problems with alcohol and coffee but this week she was ready for baptism. She actually needed two people to help baptize her, she is kind of big and has problems with her spine. So me and another ward member helped in the baptismal service.
I made a new language plan, I'm trying to memorize 5 words a day, one scripture, read a page in the book of Mormon in Spanish and write a paragraph of what happened in Spanish. I'm trying to do these things to better master the language.
I got a bit frustrated with Elder Llaguno. Yesterday we ran into 2 sister members outside are apartment. they both close to our age. I kept trying to say things like "oh well we need to go.." "we need to make plan for tomorrow bye" but he kept talking to them. They asked for some water so I went a got them two glasses of water. One of them said she had two go to the bathroom. Elder Llaguno looked at me as if he were unsure and I just said "NO, sorry" Even though she didn't ask i made it clear she could not come into our house. Finally they both left. But today I got mad again when we were going to write our families he didn't have any money. He wanted to go to female members house to ask if we can use her computer. I had to remind him that the rules say we cant use members computers and say I would pay for it. Those things just make me mad because he knows the rules. He is ending his mission in 4 months but is disregarding the rules. He should be setting the example.
This week we are going to look for more investigators we are really out of people to teach.
 
Love Elder Micah Johnson
 
this week-
Well...I have some bad news. Elder Llaguno has decided to go home. I will try to explain what happen.
You remember those two girls from last week? Well when Tuesday came around while we were studying my companion told me that he wanted some cookies so we stopped by a small store but he lied to me and instead decided to use their telephone booth. We have a cell phone so their is really no point in using another persons phone unless you want to do something your not suppose to do. We went back to the house and I was feeling mad that he had lied to me like that. When we were done he said that we had reimbursements and wanted to get his money. So we went to the ATM at the market and guess who happened to be there? The girls. They were talking fast and I had no Idea what they were saying. They were talking about a person they knew who was a member in our sector so i thought we were going to visit them so we got in the car. It turns out we were going to the Macroplaza for food. Its against the rules to leave your sector with out permission of the leaders. I finally put it together that he had planned this and was feeling worse and worse by the second. We got to the Macro plaza and I was feeling just horrible. They wanted to go eat Pizza but they needed to go get money so Elder Llaguno said we would meet them there but on the way there I told him I didn't feel good about being there and before I knew it my voice was getting raised and I was yelling that so we ended up ditching them which made me happy but this really made Llaguno mad. He started walking really fast trying to make it difficult for me to catch up and all the while talking about how if I wanted to obey the rules I needed to be at his side at all the times. Later we got a call from the zone leaders and we explained what happened. One thing I am thankful for is that Elder Wilkinson wanted to get my side of the story so I got to tell him. The next day when we had district study I went and explained to the zone leaders what happened. The next day we had interviews with the president. I just told him what happened. Llaguno told him he wanted to go home. He managed to persuade him not too but yesterday after having a hard day with rain he decided to go home. Part of the reason he wanted to go home I believe is that his family is inactive and are encouraging him to come home. Also after our two baptisms we don't have many people to teach. The Other part is that we have been having communication problems due to my struggles with Spanish and he had little patience .When I learned he wanted to go home I felt some pain in my soul, I wish he would have changed his mind. Even though he was unkind I know he is going to regret this for the rest of his life or if not now in the after life. When I was driving home with my new companion I was feeling pretty down but as soon as we got home I already felt 10 times better with him. While I feel sad this has happened this has just strengthened my resolve to study Spanish and to complete my mission with honor. I will not loose sight of why I am here. I still remember something dad said in a old email and I have decided to make this my theme: Give me this mountain.
Love Elder Johnson

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

2/20/2012

This week we have been doing a lot of walking and visiting members. Some interesting things have come up in are lessons though.
As I said earlier we have been doing some tracting, people here react a lot differently then what I expected. In the US if a person is not interested in hearing your message they will say it. For some reason that is still strange to me, some people will just lie, por ejemplo we were trying to visit a person we had given a lesson to before but had not seemed too interested. We came back and her husband was there and told us that he was there by himself waiting for a telephone call. Right after that his son came out of his room and came to the door to say hello. He got really stiff and nervous like we had just caught him doing something really bad. I don't understand, maybe there conscience gets pricked or something.
A excellent experience we had was with Ana Marie. We decided to teach her about temples and doing work for dead family members, this is normally a lesson that the ward missionaries teach. But we felt impressed to teach it. This was also my first time teaching this principle. First we asked if she had been reading and praying about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith. She said yes and we asked if she had received an answer. She told us of how she felt a lot more calm and peace in her life since she has started to do these things and said that she took this to be a YES!. It was amazing feeling knowing that an investigator has demonstrated the faith and received an answer. Whats also amazing is that she started to express how she wanted to quit drinking coffee, this is even before we had taught her the Word of Wisdom. The lesson just got better from there. I was teaching her about how important it is to do family history work when I felt something tell that I should testify of the blessings my family has received from doing family history work. After I said that though I thought to myself "why did I say that?" After our lesson she said that when I testified she felt that doing family history work is important and is going to the classes to learn about how to start. Best lesson ever.
We also have a new investigator who came to church named Brenda her husband is a less active member and she asked and we gave her a blessing. She has a lot of questions so I look forward to teaching her again.
Love Elder Micah Johnson
Dad- Tell the Southwick's congrats! Keep giving me updates on them. I wont be able to see there fare wells but I will be there for there homecomings. Yo memrizo cuando Jose smith tiene vision con Dios y jesucristo. verses 16 and 17. sorry I don't know how to do the accent marks on this computer.
Grandma and Grandpa-thanks for your email! Sounds like snow was in short supply this year. People complain that its cold here but it feels pretty warm to me. Jazz need to rev up there game it sound like. I think about you guys too and am grateful for the emails
Thank you for all the prays and support everybody

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Last Sunday we had a interesting experience. At church its really common for people to just come into the church walking off the street, this one guy we met named Israel just decided to come over and he had never even met the missionaries before. We sat with him and talked for a bit. His family had been taking lessons from the Jehovah Witnesses but he said he did not like their views about God and their other religious practices. We went and taught their family about the restoration. They were all listening very well. When talking about the great apostasy I talked about how they had in their house 3 different bibles with different wording and told of how people started to interpret it differently. We had to close pretty fast though because...Jehovah witness came and had an appointment with them. We invited them to read and pray about the book of Mormon. We scheduled a lesson for next Saturday and left. When they showed up though they did not look pleased to see us. oh well. We will see what happens. But I have high hopes for them.
Elder Mayo and his companion also baptized this week which was cool to see.
This week we have also received excellent references of people that want to be baptized. One named Kathy who is the daughter of a former bishop who is now inactive really wants to get baptized so we are going to have a lesson with her later.
A key indicator we have is lessons with members. For the most part having a member there can make the lesson 10 times better. But I learned this week that we need to be very careful in who you invite. One of our investigator is named Anna Maria, we brought her next door neighbor who was a member but she started going off on how other churches were bad and evil. She also kept cutting us off and binging up topics that we did not want to get into. I have to admit during the whole time I wanted to tell her to be quiet. Luckily by the end she had become silent and we were able to testify with the spirit.
Are other investigator Elvieta did not feel good enough to come to church, la gripe, the flu. I hope next week she feels better and will come to church.
Love Elder Johnson
This maybe a bit random but I find it interesting how when I tell some people I'm from Utah they say"oh so Mexico" I say "no Uta- ah yes Mexico". This Friday is a zone conference so I expect some letters then. Yeah I have gotten better with conjugating. Right now I just get frustrated with the boot verbs or the irregular. Tell me in the next email the Southwicks mission calls, okay? 
Lydia-we teach so many people that I am having trouble keeping track, my companion is really nice. He is very caring and is very cool. I love you too.
Me and Elder Guevara are keeping our apartment a lot cleaner now. It easier and helps us do the things we need to do. I feel better with the language, but I have some days were I am doing really good and other days were I don't do to good. With some people its easy for me to talk with them and understand them. If its somebody new I usually have problems. But I am always getting better each day. We mostly have done service by helping people move from different houses and little random acts of service by helping people who get their cars stuck. I'm very happy here

Thursday, February 2, 2012

This week has been what I would call the Refiners Fire. Me and Elder Guevara feel like we got slapped. But in a good sort of "wake up!" sort of way. First the AP came, Elder Smith and Morales. It was a big surprise for me and my companion. They took a quick look around are apartment and chastised us about how the place was a mess and the spirit wasn't here. We went around for the next hour directing about what needed to be clean and where things needed to be. I´ll be honest 95% of the stuff around the house belonged to Elder Guevara but I could have helped clean up a lot more before by putting his stuff away. The APs also told me that I should help to organize his stuff and that I need to get a part in my hair. That specifically is not a rule the president requires but the old president did. But because they are my APs I'm going to start doing it. This has proven to be more difficult, my hair does not like to do the things I want :) but I will keep trying.
The next day we had an area conference with the president we did some practices, but the defining moment was when he showed us a graph of how our key indicators were all going down especially baptism for the past 6 months. Our district only baptized one and that was the Zone Leaders. We have received a new key indicator, contacts, we need to contact 15 people daily. Hopefully this will help
We also had exchanges that day. I was with the leader of our zone, Elder Wilkinson in my area. He came in our house too and was a bit annoyed at how messy the stuff was. He gave me some tips on how to learn the language better. Later that night I woke up to him talking in his sleep...in Spanish. cool.But what he told me I think he is a little crazy with the Spanish, he said he use to wake up at 4 to practice and study Spanish. So he only got 5 1/2 hours of sleep. When the president found out he quickly put a stop to that.
That same night however we had to go with the president to the hospital. He was surprised to see me, and I think he wished that Elder Guevara was there. Guevara was in the offices as a secretary so they are pretty close. Anyway the reason we went to the hospital was because his daughter had a weird growing lump which might be cancer, that's what it sounds like I could be wrong, they didn't explain it well. But I got to help out in giving her a priesthood blessing with the president and Elder Wilkinson which was very powerful, the spirit filled the room.
The next day we cleaned out our house and now it looks spotless. Me and Elder Guevara have a goal now to keep it clean. He is worried a lot lately about the lack of results and is now putting forth more effort to obey all the rules for which I am extremely grateful for.
This week none of are investigators came to church, this surprised me since the day before we had taught Yohida, Cindy and Guadalupe (family of 3) about the importance of attending church and did it with powerful testimony. Free agency.
Now with the new month approaching me and Elder Guevara have become regenerated and ready to get those baptisms.
 

Monday, January 16, 2012

Stake Conference

We had stake conference this last Sunday, it was televised from salt lake city and Dallin H. Oaks spoke but it was translated into Spanish and I honestly had no idea of what he said. This was also due to that some investigators came in the middle of it (which i am very thankful for) and we were running around helping them to find seat and giving Book of Mormons.
A new investiagor we got is named Luiz, he was baptized but never confirmed. weird. We need to check with the president to see what we need to do. But he might have to get rebaptized and confirmed. But he told us that he wanted to get baptized and confirmed.
Sadly we talked to Gracia and she told us the reason that she did not come to church was that she went to the catholic church and wants to stay there. We talked to her for a bit. I told her that we cared about her and we here to teach her because we know how much the gospel can bless her life. I think that got to her a bit but she still wanted to stay with her church. I consider teaching her a learning experience. Looking back I wish I had focused more on receiving an answer to know if what we say is true. But I felt alright leaving, I felt that maybe in the future some missionaries will see her name in the area book and come and visit her and she will come to church.
We are also teaching Fernando who seems ready for the gospel.
We are also teaching a guy named Eduardo who is very open to the gospel. But I hope its for the right reasons and not just because his girlfriend is a member.
Last Monday we went and climbed a mountain, its called cerro colorado. I don't know if i sent a picture of it but it has the Jesucristo es el senor, on it. I was the first to get to the top and then Elder Mann (our zone leader) came and asked "you were a boy scout weren't you?" "yep". Afterwards we went and got some Chinese food, it tasted a bit different then what I had before but was delicious. It was a lot of fun. I forgot my camera but I will send pictures soon.
Yesterday was the last day of transfers. Elder Mayo is staying here and training a new missionary, his old companion Elder Minqueiz is going some where different. Elder Mann is going to Mexicali (probably spelt that wrong). My friend Elder Benson got called to somewhere else. I hope we will be in the same district again. His old companion elder Del Angel is done with his mission and going home.
Love Micah Johnson

Monday, January 9, 2012

commitments

Hey guys! I hope everything is going well. Heard Utah finally got snow, very cool.
Well...to be honest our entire district has been having a rough go at it. Me and Elder Guevara invited 8 people to attend church again but just like last week none of the people came. I don't know but we try to keep spirits high. Salvador has stopped visiting with us altogether but we passed by him and gave him an English copy of the Book of Mormon (prefers English to Spanish). Our investigator Nancy has up and left. We stopped by to visit and the door was open and everything in the house is gone.
Gracia has a baptismal date. We are really happy by that, but she is not keeping the commitments. I feel like she isn't listening to us. She keeps telling us about problems and difficulties in her life and we try to keep telling her how the gospel can help her but she still doesn't do the things she needs to do. I think I'm starting to understand how Christ feels when people wont do what they are suppose to even though its to help them. Right now we are trying to find some more investigators through working with the ward which has been a great success we have received tons of references to go on. This week I have also been starting to take the lead a bit more in teaching lessons, I think I'm starting to get a bit better but at the first attempts I get really flustered especially after I say something and they said they cant understand my Spanish luckily Elder Guevara is with me to help.
The ward continues to be great, they tell me that my Spanish has really improved. I hope that's true and that they are not just being nice. Our district had an interview with President Carreon, all went well. Many of the families ask us to come over and visit them which is always nice. I also received the package that you sent with the ear plugs, pictures and the debit card. I desperately needed those ear plugs, I woke up one night and thought we were being attacked by a screaming Banshee, nope just my companion snoring. I show this one family we keep visiting a lot an old picture of our family where I have long side burns. They said I looked like Elvis. I also got that along with some mail from my friends including Blake's letter and letters that were sent to me while in the MTC.
Dad-at first I really felt frustrated by that, we were not being as effective as I wanted because of our people living so far away from each other. But we are starting to run into more people by street contacting which has been great and improving. It turns out with the bikes that they were only for elder Mayo and his Companion Elder Minquiz. But I went on splits with Elder Minquiez and I got to try the bikes, we sure got to our appointments a lot faster and on time. I'm sorry I'm still trying to work on figuring out our address. We live in a neighbor hood filled with these pink apartment buildings. That probably doesn't help. sorry. I will get it soon. I will probably be with Elder Guevara for another transfer. Training lasts for 12 weeks, and every six weeks is a transfer, so probably be here for two transfers.  Mom- Sadly no, they are not keeping  the commitments. I think one of the problems is that I have not been teaching by the spirit as much as I should have. Do you and dad have any advice on following the spirit? Or with getting investigators to keep commitments?  In order to find people me and elder Guevara are thinking of starting a class at church to teach English. A lot of people are asking if we would do that. Sounds like fun.
Love Elder Micah Johnson
ps. The bible in Spanish has the book of Micah spelt like this: Miqueas (me-kay-us)  cool.
 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

feliz anos!

I hope you guys had a great new year. My new year was a bit like my Christmas, I woke up and did everything I usually do then at around 12 go "oh its 2012...cool." When writing in my journal I thought a lot about the past year, last year at this time I was in my last year of high school. Feels like a life time ago. In the night it felt like a war zone, fireworks and gun shots all night and people shouting.
This week we got 3 new investigators. The first Nancy already has a baptismal date but she has to either marry the guy she is with or leave him, probably leave him, she hates the guy. While going to visit her, she left us a note saying that she had gone to visit her son, but we street contacted the guy next to us which is how we got are next two investigators, Salvador and Mary. I went up and started talking in Spanish when he stoped me and told me that he spoke English. It turned out his brother is a member of our ward, both Salvador and his brother Juan lived in the United States for most of their lives but Juan was deported and Salvador decided to come back to Mexico before getting deported. Both of them have been, in there words, In The System, prison for most of their lives. They don't say what for. He expressed that he wanted to make changes in his life, he told of his heroin addiction which makes me nervous. Most missionaries who teach drug addicts describe them as eternal investigators and that they don't keep commitments. I hope that with him and his girlfriend its different. Unfortunately we invited Nancy, Salvador, Mary to church but none of them showed up. dang.
Another piece of sad news for us in our zone is that one of the missionaries went home, Elder Vicab, I had gone splits with him a little while before and he seemed fine. This week I went on splits with an elder in my district from Canada he has been in the same area for 6 transfers and hopes that at the end of this transfer he gets to go somewhere else. Then I went on splits with one of the zone leaders, Elder Mann, sadly I got us lost many times. oops. With Elder Benson from Canada we saw the sight were the temple is going to be, right now its just an empty lot. While I was with him tracting a drunk came and thought I was Brigham Young and that Elder Benson was Joseph Smith. Very funny.
This week about a 150 people from Utah came, they were a group called homes with out boarders. They gave out clothing and built some houses for people. I didn't know any of them since most were from Orem but a couple of them that were getting ready for missions came with us to teach which was a good experience for them.
With Gracie and Santo, our other investigators, they are not making real progress, their not praying or coming to church so I hope they change and keep our commitments or we might need to stop coming by.
Love Elder Johnson
Lydia-The people here are a lot nicer then those in America. I really like talking with them. I like talking to people in Spanish too, they tell me that for only being here for 4 weeks my Spanish is getting really good. I hope that's true and that they are not just being nice.
Dad-Well just as long as the cougars don't go to the championship bowl game or a really big one while I'm gone, I'm good. how did Jimmer do in his first game? The Olympics starting soon? How is Mitt doing? Sorry a lot of worldly questions. I think your Spanish was right I understood it all. Your right about the differences in the Spanish too.
Mom-you should get something really cool. I know you guys asked for my address, idk, ill try to get it as soon as i can. How goes teaching? Grandma and Grandpa-there is really no snow? here its very hot, I'm sweating. Keep the letters up, tell Adam congrats from me, Ashley too.