September 17th

Family,

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. This past week was pretty rough, but my companion and I had pretty good birthdays. So even though the days were rough, the nights were pretty fun. On my birthday, my companion and I went and got some facturas, its like a breakfast dessert kind of thing, like donuts. Then for lunch we had empanadas, that a member buys for us every thursday, and we also drank an Inca-cola which is a super good soda from peru, it taste like bubble gum. It´s incredible. Then in the night one of the members in our ward bought us a pizza, and some things that kinda were like cake pops. It was super good, cuz I´m always super hungry when we come in at night. Then for my comps birthday it was pretty much the same thing.

So also, this last week, we received an email from our president, and it was a plan that he had made through revelation on how to work better with the memebrs of the church. Cuz like President Hinckley said, "the best way to do this work is through the members." So my companion and I have been having a little bit of a rough patch. We are really low on investigators right now, and the ones that we do have can only meet once a week. So we decided that we were going to put this plan into full force asap. What the plan is, is that the members make a list of names, then the pray with us to know who is ready to talk to the missionaries. After that we make plans with them so that they can do missionary work with them, and then they will introduce them to us, rather then us asking them for help with our investigators. So far we have done it with  about 8 families or so, and the names are coming in fast. We are pretty sure that we are going to have a ton of success here in the next week or 2. Also, it has been super cool to see that through this plan we have been gaining a lot of respect from the families. A lot of the families in the ward we didnt know to well, because my companion and I haven´t been here super long. But we have really noticed how much more excited people are to help us, when they actually know us. So it has been nice to also see that we are gaining relationships and trust here in the ward. We really think it is going to bring a lot of success.

Also, today is transfer day... and my companion and I are staying together haha. So we are really excited for another 6 weeks to put this plan in full effect and see the miracles that will come out of it. Also, I´m not sure if my package has come in yet. They haven´t told us anyhting, so my companion and I are going to go to the offices today and see if it is there. I don´t have a ton to write this week, there aren´t a ton of updates, except for the fact that we saw a walmart the otherday when we were going to the stadium for the celebration, and I forgot to tell you that last week :p It was super exciting to see a walmart haha. Oh and also, we had dinner with a family, and they invited a mexican guy, and he brought spicy chilli powder and we added it to the super weird spinach tarta that we ate. It was super good. He also said he is going to invite us over one day and make us some mexican food. I´m super excited for that haha. It´s been way too long. I also found out this week, that there are a TON of elders here in this mission from Arizona. Like 5 from mesa a few from other places too, and one from snowflake. Maybe one day I´ll have a companion from Az then we can be good friends after the mission too. But who knows! That is pretty much all I have to say from my boring week. I hope everything is super exciting there as its getting cooler going into the winter, just remember that I´m dying of high heats and humidity over here!

Love you all!
Elder Justin Brent Johnson