Pictures!

Now that I come to think about it, it's a good thing his tail didn't detach when we were taking this picture.

My new buddy

A Mango almost the size of my head. It was indescribably delicious.

Ostiones and ceviche. I'm pretty sure it was clams (or oysters) with some fish. It's cooked by soaking in lime juice. It was kinda tasty.

Birthday party for Elder Rodriguez!

Mini bananas are really sweet and have a slight tangy taste.

A small tortuga (turtle) on my face. There wasn't any reason for it to be on my face except for taking the picture.

A street we walked by on the way to send our emails. I can' wait until it really starts to rain a lot.

Happy Fathers day!

This past week was pretty different. On Tuesday it was my companions birthday and we had a clase de zona which is a Zone Class. The President basically followed up on what he taught us at the Zone Conference at the beginning of this transfer and I really enjoyed it. It was kinda sad because it was our last time seeing President and Sister Call. Their last day is only a week away. I am really going to miss them and I almost cried when I said goodbye to them. They are really great. I also finally got the package you sent me on Tuesday! Thanks so much! The candy is delicous and the toy with the ball on the string is perfect for when I need to occupy myself for a minute or two.

After the Zone Class, we headed back to our area and had cake at a members house, then some more cake at a recent converts house, and then even more cake at a little birthday party that two families put together. My companion has been here for 6 months so he knows the members pretty well. After the party, I went on another Exchange with Elder Girot, but this time we were in his area. We got to contact all day but it was fun to be with Elder Girot again. Our Spanish has really improved and we didnt have any problems being without a native spanish speaker.

For a few days it rained during the night and was cloudy during the day. It felt awesome! It wasnt as hot and the break felt amazing. It didnt rain at all while we were outside, but I kinda cant wait until it does. My companion told me that it is the best when it is rainging. There is also more road flooding, but we havent had to go where it is really flooded.

Yesterday was kinda cool, there is a naval base in our area that is close to the beach. We have gone past it in buses a bunch of times and there are always people guarding it with guns. I never thought we would go inside, but one of the members works for the government and lives in the residential area on the naval base. The member had to take us to sign in and stuff. We also couldnt go around contacting people in the residential area, so I remember hoping that if there was anyone there that was prepared to accept the gospel, that they would run into us and tell us to come and teach them. As we were going from the car to where the member lives, the only person we ran into told us that they would really like to meet with us and have us teach them. We couldnt teach them right then, so we worked it out with the member to get us through security later this week to return and teach them. That was kinda cool.

The work didnt progress a whole lot this week. Our investigators were almost never home during our scheduled appointments and one wont answer our calls. None of our recent converts or investigators showed up to church so that was kind of discouraging. I am going to keep my head up and keep working hard and start to work even harder. We only have one week left during this cambio and I will probably be getting a new comp because my comp right now has 6 months here.

Thats so cool that Kelsey and Elise performed at the  Baccalaureate! I had so much fun last year playing Forever Young with my band at it and I was also very scared about doing it before hand but was so happy that I did it afterwards. That is so crazy that Kaitlyn and Kelsey are graduating this week! It feels like a few weeks ago that I graduated myself! Sorry to hear that Abby wasnt feeling very well and was a little more difficult, but I bet its nice to have Ryan home for a bit. I hope Dad thoroughly enjoyed his Fathers Day yesterday, and I want him to know that I love him very much. And thank you for the uplifting spiritual message, I really needed it. I am sending a bunch of pictures!

¡Les amo y espero que Ustedes tengan una buena semana!

con amor,

Elder Johns

Hard Week.

Hey family,

This past week was hard. An investigator needs to attend 2 sacrament meetings before they can be baptized. We committed Salvador to be baptized on the 23rd but he didnt come to church so we wont be able to batize him. We also found another investigator, Karina, who has been really good. We also committed her to the 23rd but she didnt come to church either which means that we arent going to have any baptisms this cambio(cambio means change and it refers to the period of 6 weeks) because the cambio ends on the 24th. We have been having problems with Pedro. Susanah came to church without Pedro, which was awesome because it means that she enjoys how she feels when she goes to church.

I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday! I spoke for ten minutes about missionary work and I had about that much free time to prepare because they just told me on saturday that I was going to speak. I guess someone cancelled on them. It was a little scary to have to talk in front of so many people in Spanish, but I enjoyed it.

I met someone named Terry this week and he was an active member until he moved here to Mexico. He grew up in Oklahoma and he is about 20 years old. I got to talk to him in English and I taught him in English and it felt so unbelievebly amazing to be able to completely express myself. I am really jealous of English speaking missionaries.

We had a large traingin meeting with all the Elders who arrived in Mexico at the same time as me. It was great to see the other Elders I had gotten to know at the MTC. Things have been pretty tough for them too and it felt really good to have some time to talk with them and swap stories.

I dont really have a lot for this week. The sewer water has almost all receded, the got a water pump machine to pump sewage water into the lagoon so that it is not overflowing in the streets. There are some streets that are still pretty bad but now its not everywhere so thats nice. I love horchata! Im glad Abby enjoyed it. Thats too bad about Uncle Danny, I am sure they will enjoy Las Vegas though. I will keep Uncle Jeff in my prayers. I love you all and I hope you all have an amazing week!!

con amor,

Elder Johns

Buenos Nachos

Buenos Nachos,

 

Well, I dont really feel like I have much to share with y'all today since I just sent an email last Wednesday. We found a new investigator named Salvador. He was sleeping when we were walking by, but then I thought he might really enjoy having the gospel in his life so I woke him up and we got a return appointment. We have only had one lesson with him so far but it went really well. We were going to set a baptisimal date with him, but he had to leave when we showed up for the appointment. He works at a panaderia so likes to give us bread. Bread is a really big deal around here. They have panaderias (bakeries) everywhere and its really cheap and really good. They have people that either drive cars or push carts up and down the streets where all the houses are and they play some song that is about pan (bread) and they play it over and over again. I'm getting fat.

 

Susanah is opening up alot more, we passed by to meet with Karen and Pedro but they weren't there. I asked Susanah if there was anything we could do before we left, and she asked us to tell her about the Book of Mormon! We talked about it for a bit and and it was great. She even came to church yesterday and stayed for all 3 hours and seemed to enjoy it. The Bishop asked Pedro to give the closing prayer during sacrament meeting so that felt really awesome to see him do that. It is really awesome to see Susanah opening her up. The gospel has really helped her family to be so much happier and it makes me happy to see this and be a part of it.

 

It looks like we are going to have to drop the family of four we have been teaching for the past month. They havent been reading or doing any of the committments (such as praying, reading, going to church, ect.). We have been trying everything. We asked them what they would do if they new that everything we were teaching was true and recieved an answer that they needed to be baptized in the church of Jesus Christ and the father, Eduardo, basically said he wouldnt do anything. We are pretty good friends with this family but they just want to talk about relgion and not act. We are probably going to have our last appointment with them tomorrow. It makes me a little sad but I cant force them to act and find out the truthfullness of what we are teaching.

 

Because our area is so close to the temple, we are allowed to go every three months with the approval of the President. I am not really sure when the people who are in zones that are further away get to go to the temple. The paint from the service project we did last week came out of my shorts, but it didnt really come out of my shirt so it looks like I now have a special shirt to wear when I paint houses from now on. I didnt really know about the picture sizes until a few weeks ago. my camera has been taking photos in size 4320x3240 which is kinda unneccesarily big. The smallest size is 640x480 and the next smallest size is 2560x1920 which is still kinda big. It does not give me any options to take photos inbetween those two different sizes. What I have started doing is taking pictures that I want to specifically send in the 640x480 size and then photos that I want better quality in the 2560x1920 size. I havent gotten the package yet. What they do with the mail here is hold it all at the office and then take it to the zone conferences or interviews that happen every exchange. I can only check for mail before then when I happen to need to go to the office which doesnt happen very often. I have an elder in my district who works in the offices and if a package came for me i am pretty sure he would bring it to District Meeting. The last time i was in the office to see if I had mail was wednesday last week. It takes about a month for letters to get to me so maybe it takes a little longer for packages.

 

Prom sounds like it was pretty fun! and congrats to Colin for 100% attendance at seminary! It is so wierd to think that my prom and my seminary graduation was an entire year ago. It feels like it was only a couple months ago. Im jealous that Kelsey went with Zander. Haha sounds like something James would do. I am glad to see that you are all doing so well back at home. I really miss home and sometime it feels like I have been gone forever and I am never going home, but I try to have a bigger, eternal perspective and I dont feel as homesick and know that all of a sudden I will be home and I wont be here anymore so it is important for me to utilize and enjoy everything here while I am here. I love you all and wish you the best!

 

con amor,

 

Elder Johns