Second week in Nashville

My companion, Elder Monson

Eating a fish head that a member gave us for Dinner

The sky is always beautiful here

The Sun

Hey Family,

It has been a great week in Tennesee! Last week we went to a members house for Noche Hogar (Family Home Evening) and it was a lot of fun. I ate two really hot peppers, they were a little smaller than my pinky but they burned. I don't think I have ever had anything so spicy but I liked them. On wednesday morning, Elder Monson and I got to go do a session in the Nashville temple and it was really nice. This week we also had a companion exchange and I went with Elder Allen for a day and a half in his area and my companion went with the District Leader, Elder Andrew, in our area. It was fun to be in an area where they already had a bunch of investigators so I could see what it was like. The day after that it rained really hard all day long and I didn't bring my umbrella or my raincoat with me to Elder Allen's apartment. Luckily they had an extra for me to wear, but we both got completely soaked over the course of the day.

My talk went pretty well yesterday. I was a little nervous about it but I didn't mess up. I am getting a lot better at understanding native speakers. Last week during church everything everyone said just gave me a headache and was a blur of sounds but this week I could hear individual words and understand people alot more. Last night we taught a woman named Magnolia about the Restoration. I could really feel the Spirit there with us while we taught her and it seemed like she was feeling it too. This next week we are having a Zone Conference on Friday. I don't really know what that means beside the President will be there and everyone in our zone.
The photo you saw of us standing on the tree was a tree that we helped cut down on a week before last Thursday. There is an elderly couple who are in the English Ward in our area that needed help cutting down a tree who are also Elder Gage's grandparents (Elder Gage is one of our Zone Leaders). The tree was like 60 feet tall so we used a rope slingshot to tie a rope to the top of the tree, and then we tied it with a bunch of loops so we could all pull on the rope. Then Elder Gage's grandpa got a saw and sawed the base of the tree while we pulled the rope to control where the tree would fall. It looked pretty cool when it fell down. We were far enough away that we weren't in any danger. That is wierd that I was already tagged in it, I gave Elder Gage's grandma Mom's email address so that she could email it to her.

That is so awesome that Tucker and Dylan got their mission calls!!! Tucker and I will be able to speak in Spanish to each other. Tell them that I am really excited for them and that the are going to love being on a mission. Thats too bad that Ryan was rear ended but that is good that the other guy's insurance will cover the repairs.

I'm not sure why the pictures are so fuzzy, and I can't find anything that talks about jpeg compression or picture quality settings, but maybe I can find some instructions in the manual back at my motel. I attached some more pictures. I haven't been carrying around my camera so I don't really have any cool photos yet.

It was great hearing how everyone is doing and I hope that you all have a great week this week!

con amor,

Elder Johns