December 17- Ushuaia, Argentina

Family,

This week is going to be a really short letter. Only because I was only in my area for about 3 days before today.

but just to tell you a little about my area. There are a ton of hills! The biggest hill of course is the one that leads to our house. so every day without fault we have to climb the hill to get home. Its very cold, and since the ocean is just right here the weather can change super quickly and it does... all the time. we have to have our jackets with us always cuz we never know if the weather is going to change from the time we leave our house or not. We have a branch of about 60 to 90 people. instead of having a zone we just have a district which is also our zone. so there are only 4 companionships down in this city. On the plane ride here I talked to the lady next to me on the plane, and she is in another area down here, but she is now talking with the missionaries from that area. I hope that things continue well with here, cuz that would be super cool to see her get baptized. My companion is from colorado and his name is Elder Bean. He´s really funny and this is going to be a fun transfer. We have to knock a lot more doors than we have had to in our other areas, but the last baptism they had here was found through knocking doors. Another cool thing is that no matter where we are we can always see the ocean, and there are mountains all around us. Its a little hard at times because we have part of the mountains in our area too. My knees just need to get used to it and ill be fine. Well thats pretty much all I have to say today. I will have a lot more next week hopefull. As long as my fingers havent frozen off I should be fine. Love you lots, can´t wait to talk to you in a week. If we all make it that far cuz apparently the world will end on the 21st. haha, anyways, until next week.  Love you! 

Love,

Elder Johnson

December 10th

Family,

So after all the complaining about the heat here in Argentina, Im finally going to be relieved from it. Yesterday was transfer calls, and I am once again being transfered. This time, to the most southern point of Argentina. My plane leaves on wednesday to take me down to Ushuaia Argentina. I will be serving in an area called monte olivia. So today and tomorrow Im staying with some elders then the wednesday im saying goodbye to all this heat. :) I may even get to spend my christmas with some penguins. This week was really really insane. Probably one of the most memorables of my entire mission. 

So thursday, was one of the craziest things I have ever seen. We have weekly planning on thursdays, and we are in our apartment until 3 o clock planning out our entire week. So the whole time we´re inside its raining. a good 8 hours of straight rain. Solid rain too, like in AZ when it rains super hard for 30 minutes and afterwards the sun comes out, but this time the sun didnt come out. Just very heavy rain all day. So in provincia argentina they have these things called Sangja´s. Its like little 5 inch deep canals on the side of the roads and they all flow to a giant river and its basically their sewage system. So we leave at 3... still raining, and we go down a little ways into our area, and the water is easily at our knees. then we crossed the train tracks and entered into a lake haha. The water was up to our waists. So we cross the tracks and we´re walking toward the street, and forget that there are sangjas. So we both fall into a sangja and the water is now about up to the middle of our stomachs its was incredible. Then we went and taught a lesson, and afterwards had to make our way back to the other side of our area. We get there by crossing a bridge over this giant river thing. We get to the street and make our way in that direction. Get to where the bride is (or used to be) to see kids in refrigerators rowing and pushing them like boats, and people swimming. As we start to wade through (cuz we have to cross to get there) The water easily made it up to our chests. Our scripture bags were just floating at our sides we didnt even have to carry them any more. It was really insane. I was really grateful that fred bought me the rain jacket at pomeroys that day, because with out it, I would have probably been pruned all over and definitely gotten sick. It was really a life saver haha. also it was great because it has a water proof pocket on the inside so I took my camera with us and got a few pictures of it. The bad news is, the place im at right now doesn´t have a SD slot so I wont be able to send them til next week. 

So I can´t remember if i told you guys this last week or if it was this week, but im going to tell you anyway. So we had a lesson with a reference named elsa. she told us that she didnt want to talk to us anymore cuz she just wasnt sure, but in all the lessons we have had with her she was always telling us that she wanted to know which church was the true church. I dont know if it was peer pressure or what, but for some reason she didnt want to talk with us anymore. So my companion and I obviously werent giving up that easily, so we told her that we weren´t going to stop coming by until she actually read the Book of Mormon and asked God if it was true. So she then said, "I just don´t understand why you guys are always so happy. You guys are so far away from home, your families, you have to walk in this extremely hot weather. How do you guys do it?" thenw e told her that we only do it, cuz we know that these things are true and that they can change her life. So she said that should would do it, and we set up a time to come back the next day and talk with her. We came the next day anbd she said that she had read, but she didnt´pray. so we asked her if we could just talk for about 5 minutes. She let us in and we told her the importance of asking God, cuz if we dont ask, he cant give. So we shared some scriptures about how to ask, and how the Holy Ghost speaks to us, and she told us she would do it at night time. Then we asked her to do it right there with us. She was a little hesitant, but did so anyway. She asked in her pray if the things she had read and if what we were sharing were true. Then we just waited in silence for about 1 minute after the prayer, and we asked her how she felt. She told us, "I don´t know why but I feel like crying." Then I said to her, "You remember how we told you it would be something you feel, but not explainable?" Then she started to cry, and my companion said, "So Elsa, do you know that the Book of Mormon is true?" Then she said yes, and we committed her to be baptized in 3 weeks :). It was a super cool experience. It was incredible to see the Holy Ghost touch the heart of an investigator right there with us. I know that God really does answer prayers, and all we have to do is just ask. "ASK and ye shall receive..." We must act if we want the blessings we need, and I know if we do so God will really help us according to His will. 

I love you all so much. Don´t forget to read and pray every night, alone and as a family. It´s important that we do so to strengthen our relationship with the Lord as a family, and strengthen our personal testimonies as well. 

Sé que Cristo vive, y que el es el Salvador de cada uno de nosotros. Sé que la oracion es el mejor manera que podemos recibir la ayuda necesaría día por día. Sé que este es el evangelio restaurada y que por medio de Jose Smith, hoy en día tenemos toda la verdad para que podamos saber lo que necesitamos hacer para vivir con nuestras familias y Padre Celestial para siempre. Sé que Thomas S. Monson es llamado por Dios y que el nos guíara hacer las cosas buenas acá para prepararnos por la vida que viene. Solo necesitamos escuchar, y actuar. Les amo mucho. Hasta la proxima semana, les escribo del sur!

Attentamente,

Elder Johnson

Pictures 12-3-12

                                         Slingshot...he said the kids use them to kill the birds.

                                         A view from the area he is in.

                                                  Golfing Range??

                                         Fries-the staple diet for Elder Johnson

                                             Planking...because there is nothing better to do??

                                          What you do when your birthday package arrives
                                           2 months after your birthday.

                                         Making tortillas...it isn't Elder Johnson cooking :)

                                         Hanging the dishes out to dry...
                                         yes I said hanging out the dishes.

                                         Soccer injury...fell on glass and cut his hand.

                                         Pretty cool picture...sure do miss him.

December 3rd

Family,

 

I hate to break it to you, but this week was really rough, and I don´t really know much to say. It was a really long and HOT and HUMID week. I would give anything to be in 120 degree weather right now. Just please get rid of this humidity. Then we hear it every single day. "Just wait til january and february, it gets even worse..." The other bad thing is that we don´t always get time to wash clothes. before it wasnt that much of a problem cuz there wasnt much sweating, but now its super hard to wear a shirt more than once with out being repulsed by your own stench let alone making others smell it.

 

Enough of that though. Just some things that happened through out the week... Early on in the week, we had a lesson with a recent convert, he´s super weird but super funny. He lives with his 84 year old mom and takes care of her. He{´s like 55 or something. We asked if we could say a prayer, and we said it, and when we finished he had both his arms extended high into the air. Then we asked him wahat he was doing and he said, "Oh I saw it on an evangelist tv station, so I wanted to try it." Then his mom, also a member, proceeded to do a cross over her body with her fingers, and she said we´re the religion that does that right? Then we told her no, and she apologized and started rambling on about how her neighbor is catholic and always yells at her for being mormon or something like that. Then its really funny too, because when he says prayers, after everything he says he says, "in the name of Jesus Christ" So we have to listen very carefully to make sure we hear him say Amen when he ends the prayer its really funny, and in his prayer he also asked for a blessing on his mom so that they could find someone to give her a hair cut so that she doesn´t look like a crazy witch when she wakes up in the mornings. Its quite the visit every week.

 

Then apart from that, not really a good thing, but something I just6 remembered. We were doing service on saturday, and this time we were making a floor out of cement. I was smoothing the cement, and i flinged some in my eye. It hurt a ton obviously, and I got up and started toward the water, when I fell in a hole and scrapped up my leg really bad and got my shoe all wet. Then I washed my eye for about 40 minutes and it wouldnt come out then we got q tips and toilet paper and attempted with that, didnt work. So eye figured I would just wait til we got home so i could use the shower and get a solid flow of water in my eye. Then the member calls me over and tells me that when I fell in the hole, I broke his water pipe... So my companion is trying to help him while I still have cement in my eye, when our branch president shows up. He tells me to wash it some more (2 hours later) I told him I had been for forever, and he says give me some toilet paper. Then tr

ies again. Then he tells me again, wash your eye. So I washed and washed and washed for another 30 minutes or so, then it finally came out. For the rest of the day though, I had a swolen eye, and I woke up the next day with it glued shut. Luckily it is better now, but it was very very painful. Also in the middle of the week I was playing soccer with some kids and I fell on some glass and sliced my hand open. Its been quite a rough week.

 

The missionary side of it, we have been finding some new investigators. Which is really good for this area. We´ve been working with a lot of les actives who say they will be at church, then they dont go... its hard but hopefully what we do now will change their minds in the future. Also, we met a lady, who seems pretty solid, she wanted to know why there are so many churches in the world, so we told her :) She seemed to except it, then we asked her if she really sincerely wanted to know what church is true, and she told us yes. So we gave her a part of the book of mormon to read, and told her that if she reads it and prays sincerely and asks God, she can know for her self that his is the true church. We have a lesson later in the week with her, and hopefully everything turns out good with her!

 

It's so weird for it to be so hot, and be christmas time, we´ve started singing christmas hyms, and transfers are this next week. once I find out who my comp is for sure we´re going to go by a little christmas tree. I hope you all have a good week, and hope your weather stays cool. Just remember im suffering over here while youre enjoying a nice cool breeze. Love you lots! Til next week!

 

Elder Johnson