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!