September 24, 2013

Dear family, I don´t have a lot to say this week. mainly because I´m super tired. 4 hours of sleep for the first time in a year and a half. The reason: We had to clean our pension ALL NIGHT because sister missionaries are moving into our pension. I´m staying in Palermo with the companion from spain. The one from Chile left. But We´re here together again, and now they are putting sisters here. There are going to be 4 missionaries in Palermo now. Until they find us an appartment we´re moving in with the Zone leaders. We had our baptism this weekend. Teresa got Married on friday, baptized on saturday, confirmed on sunday. It was a great weekend haha. Pretty busy, but great! I have learned a lot this week. I´m a little nervous about what´s going to happen this transfer. it´s going to be really weird cutting the area down a little bit. I think it will give us more finding opportunites and for me personally less stress. But anyway, we´re going to hit the ground running and get to work. I put my memory cared in the computer and it erased all my pictures, luckily it was my new card and i didn´t have much, but I don´t think im going to risk sending pictures again. :) sorry! Love you so much, don´t forget to read and pray every day! And share the gospel with everyone! Love, Elder Johnson

September 16, 2013

Family, My birthday week was great :D. I can´t believe I´m 21 though. I´ve got nothing to look forward to now until I turn 50. :( Oh well. But we really did have a great week. The investigator, Teresa, has everything set now to get married this thrusday, then her baptism will be saturday and confirmation sunday. She also brought a friend to church, her name is mirta. She went to church and said she really liked it, and she also has a baptismal date for the 28th of september :) Things are starting to pick up again. Jimmy, teresa´s son, and mari, hes future wife have started taking their necesary steps so that they can get married and Jimmy can get baptized. I love being here in Palermo! Next tuesday are transfers though and we will have ot see what happens. Also, on my birthday, our stake president (who is filthy rich) Took the entire zone to mcdonalds! Not for my birthday, but because we met our baptismal goal. Our stake is growing a lot, and the work is getting a lot better here. Yesterday in church we had more investigators go to church in the entire stake, then any other sunday in history! So anyway we met our goal and he took us all to McDonalds. He bought us all food and the total was 1000 pesos! IT would be about 200 dollars. Then after that he bought us all sundaes, and mcdonalds isnt cheap here. a sunday is about 4 dollars. So in total he paid almost 300 dollars like it was nothing. It was super fun. My comps and I are working hard to keep the area going strong., ITs a rough area, but the members are starting to help us and understand their duty. It makes things a lot easier when the members give us their help. I hope that I can leave this area better than I found it. Its probably been my favorite area of my mission and its going to be hard to have to leave it, but I know that God has plans for me. I just have to be worthy and working to fulfill them. I read Mosiah 3 this week. It´s one of my favorite chapters. It´s such a blessing to have the scriptures in our lives. I realized that the scriptures are like the answer sheets to our tests. When we ask questions all day long to our Heavenly Father, we expect answers so quickly, but He´s given us these tools, so that we can grow within ourselves and do things alone, and not have to rely on others. So that´s why when we pray, we find our answers through studies. It just wouldn´t make sense for Him to say, "oh, you want to know the answer? Well its this..." When we find things out ourselves, It makes us self sufficient, and when trials come into our lives, we won´t fall, because we already know how to find the answer--- I´m sorry if this sounds weird again, I feel like my grammar is slowing being destroyed. But anyway. I think you guys understand it. I love you guys. Thank you for your emails, and the news of whats going on at home. Sounds like the devils are in for a great football season ;) Preparing to when the NCAA Title the year I get home :) Love you guys! Don´t forget to read and rpay everyday! Elder Johnson P.s. There is a sister in the other ward who grew up in St. David. Its really close to benson apparently!

September 9, 2013

Family. Thiss week was a pretty busy week. I am dead tired! On top of things, it sounds like you guys are having a pretty good rain experience too. Friday morning, at 3 Am I woke up to so much rain coming down and so hard, and also the loudest and most frequent thunder I have ever heard in my life. I couldn´t sleep at all. It rained from 1 AM until about 5 pm. It was a pretty wet day. Now, on the work side of the letter. We´re working with Teresa, the girl IU told you about last week. She has a lot of desires to get baptized. It´s kind of crazy. She is the step grandma of Jahaira, the girl that got baptized her a few months ago. The whole family went to church again this week! The best thing that happened was that teresa set a date to get married, so that she can get baptized. We did some work with her and now she´s just got to wait it out and she will become a member of the church! Its pretty exciting. Her spirit is spreading to everyone too. This last week her future husband also started listening to us. And her son, jahaira´s step dad is changing a TON! If you would have asked me if he was going to get baptized about 2 months ago when I first met him, I probably would have just started laughing. He always treated his family really poorly, and even treated us poorly. but now everyone is seeing changes in him, and he told us yesterday, that he would do anything to get baptized! AHHH ITS SO GREAT! BAPTIZING FAMILIES IS JUST THE BEST THING EVER!!!! We´re now in the process of helping jahairas mom get divorced from her last marriage so that she can get married with Jimmy and then they will all be baptized! Transfers are coming up, and I´ve been here for a long time now, I don´t know if I want to stay another one, but I really want to see Jimmy get baptized. I guess will just have to wait and see what happens. I might have to come back to Argentina in about a year or so too to see them get sealed in the temple :D. But anyway things are going great. My companions are trying to learn english, and they both told me they want me to speak to them in english. Lets just say that I get a lot of good laughs throughout the day. I´m so greatful that english is my first language haha. It´s such a terrible language to ave to learn. This week, we also taught a class. we´re starting classes every sunday to teach the members how to be missionaries. This week we talked about personal revelation. While we were teaching my companions told me of something they did in the MTC here in argentina. They all wrote questions on the board, then they chose a chapter in the book of mormon and you can literally find the answer to almost any question in ANY chapter in the book of mormon! its awesome. One thing I learned during a stake conference, when a 70 talked, he said that as questions come to our minds we should always write them down. No matter where we are at. Then we study the scriptures we can pull the questions out, pray for guidance, and find the answers. I have started doing this, and hit has been helping a lot. It helps me so much to have a guided study, instead of just studying. I also learned this week, if we want guidance from our Heavenly Father, we have to ask for it! I was a little worried about one of the companionships in my district and couldn´t figure out how to help them. I asked the zone leader what he recommended that I do, and he said, ¨"have you asked God?" I felt pretty stupid, but the next day in my studies, I prayed specifically for them, and I received so many answers during my study. It was great. Thats my invitation for you guys this week. I know its hard to remember, but I know it will help. Who knows, maybe it will give more incintive to read and pray daily. :) I know that reading and praying daily will help you to solve your problems in your daily lives. I know that as we study and take our questions to church too, that we will be able to receive the answers we need. God has given us these 3 simple tools as a guide for eternal salvation, we just have give our actoin. I love you guys so much! I feel your prayers, I´m so blessed to have such a great support team. :) Not too many Elders have a team like mine at home for me :p. I love you so much! Thanks for the birthday wishes too! Love you! eLdEr JoHnSoN

September 2, 2013

Family, This week was quite an interesting week. Tuesday morning I got a phone call from the assistants to the president and the asked me what time of the day was going to be the least busy for us. They then informed us that an Elder who was waiting for his visa from spain got here and the Lord was sending him to our area haha. So now we´re in a trio. Me, a chileno, and a spanish. We all speak so differently in spanish and different vocabularies but we´re starting to understand each other haha. On wednesday we found a new investigator. He lives in another part of Argentina, but is here for a surgery and he´s giong to be here for 3 months. He is marreid to the daughter of the first guy that I baptized here in Palermo, he has a lot of desires to follow christ, but his wife doesn´t like the church so he´s never had the opportunity. This week was his first time going to church, and he really enjoyed it. he is reading the book of mormon and also the pamphlets we have been leaving hima bout the restoration and the plan of salvation. Our next appointment with him will be tomorrow and we´ll be able to see what else he´s feeling. We also found another investigator named Teresa. She went to an evangelist church, but said she was looking for something differnt. She happens to be the mom of Jahaira´s (the last girl that got baptized) step dad. We invited her to be baptized, and in her prayer after taht she started crying and said in her prayer that she believes that this is what she´s been looking for. The best thing of all of this was that the ENTIRE FAMILY went to church on sunday!!! Jahaira, her mom, her step dad, everyone! It was so great! I love seeing entire families together in the chapel its such a great site. I´m excited to be working in a trio and learn a little bit more about ethpaña. I know this is the true church and that the work needs to be done more and more rapidly. I know that if we read and pray every day the Lord will reveal to us the things that we need to know and do to be better children for Him. I love you! Thanks for all your prayers Love, Elder youngmoney Johnson :)