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

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

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

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

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

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