June 23, 2014

My 1st Baptism!!

Hey Kimbo, how was camping this week? How was it with G ma there? Elder Shumway ended up going up to Laredo and just called me this morning just to talk;) But he is serving in a super wealthy area up there but is the district leader for a bunch of sister missionaries and that was the only thing he did want when he left! haha but Elder Roylance is my new comp and he is pretty cool, he is a farmer from Washington state and comes from a tiny town up there somewhere. He is an old missionary and will be going home here in like 4 or 5 months. He is a super hard worker though and we have been getting a long. He told me I can come hunt on his land up there sometime, because he owns 1200 acres and there are tons of pheasants on it he says. Another elder that lives with us now played baseball in high school and we have been playing catch almost every morning which has been great. It has made me realize how much I miss baseball. Thank you so much for sending me a back pack, I will try to get it soon. Sounds like Nae and Ty are super good friends now from what I have heard? I am glad she is staying around you guys. She has always loved you and being around you. She would always just want to come hang out with you when I was with her! Well let me know how camping was this last weekend! Especially with Gma! haha Te amo much kimbo!
Love, Elder Johnson

June 16, 2014

Apparently, this is what a real tie collection looks like!!

 



Hey Kimbo,
How is everything going at home? Did dad get a hot tub or not? You said at one time he was looking for one.  The octopus that I ate last week wasn’t too bad! It was super chewy and it wouldn’t ever go away in your mouth so I just basically ended up swallowing it whole but it didn’t taste too bad! How was Father’s Day yesterday? What does dad want when he takes that U boat back? Jeez it is crazy that everybody is heading out on missions! Since I have left I have been shocked at how many people are actually deciding to go. Baby Brockles is turning into a big baby now! I can’t believe he is as tall as you already! He has already grown a lot since I have left. Bout time he hit puberty. That is weird to me about the Crushers. The Red Sox were just different I feel like, we were somewhat the same team from the time we started till we ended though and we all just grew really close. When we would go on trips all of the families would come, and we all just came to be super good friends. That is something the Crushers lacked. I am jealous you guys are going camping. There is not even the slightest bump of a hill down here that looks like a mountain. That was honestly one of my favorite things of the year, was going camping with the fam. I am so glad you guys are taking G ma, she will absolutely love going up there with you guys. I just hope she doesn’t fall down and go boom though! That is too bad about Patriarch Lewis, I will definitely keep him in my prayers. I hope all goes well with him. Kimbo, I am glad you got it out about the deck, but have patience Kimbo! As long as it is done by the time I get home is all that matters :) Well transfers came out yesterday morning....:( Elder Shumway is leaving me. We will find out later today where he is going and then in the morning we meet at the mission office and I will get my new companion.  I am bummed that Shumway is leaving but we will always be really good friends. I am a little nervous to find out who my next comp will be, but whoever it is I am sure I will figure out a way to get along with him.  This transfer we are getting tons of sister missionaries.. Kill me now!! And there isn’t a single Elder Coming in this transfer. So a lot of the areas will be turning into sister missionary areas, and they always stick sisters in nice areas. There are some very wealthy areas down here that I was hoping to get to go to sometime because the missionaries get absolutely spoiled in those areas. Last Christmas a family gave the missionaries IPad’s. But with all the sisters coming in that means the Elders will usually be in the ghetto, or out in the brush like I am right now. We were supposed to baptize a 12 year old boy yesterday but he only came to church for a little bit and the Bishop is a jew down here and said we couldn’t baptize him even though he doesn’t have the keys at all to stop the baptism, because the Mission president holds the keys for all convert baptisms, but we wanted to keep the bishop happy with us so we moved it to next week. So I should have my first baptism next week which should be awesome. Elder Mulitalo who is one of my Zone leaders and is absolutely huge and will be playing football for BYU here in a couple months because he is one his last transfer now, came and worked with me and Shumway last week and we were eating at a members house and Mulitalo wasn’t feeling too good before, but when we were eating they told us to go look at something in a different room and  he kept telling me under his breath to just go look at it now so that he doesn’t have to go, and I kept saying no come with me, but they don’t speak English so they had no idea what we were saying, but then he said if I get up right now I am going to freakin poop my pants so go right now without me, and Shumway and I started laughing so hard! It was pretty funny. Him and Elder Lee are my Zone leaders and Lee is from Idaho and likes to hunt, and has already invited me to come up and stay with him and go hunting out on his land and on the land around him. He will most likely be playing football for BYU or Utah when he gets back. My three leaders will all be playing college football when they get home and are the only 3 elders playing college sports after here in the mission. So us 4 are super good friends and we are sad Elder Shumway is leaving us. Anyways Sorry you didn’t get a letter from me this week, I didn’t have anytime to write last week so I will try to send one out today. Oh yeah, whenever you send the next package, it doesn’t have to be now, but whenever you do will you send me a backpack too. Just a medium sized backpack, like we have those Burton ones at home or if we have something just a little bit bigger would be great. I will use the murse I have for working still but I need another small pack for when I go on exchanges and just to pack stuff around with me. No hurry though, just when you send something in the future it would be great if you could throw that in there. Well Kimbo I hope you have a great week,

Te amo mucho.

Love, Elder Johnson

 

 

June 9, 2014

Elder Shumway burnt his shirt this last week because he hit his year mark! 

I also ate octopus this last week! It was... interesting!!  

Hey Kimbo!! Yeah it has been a hot one down here in Texas, where we are it actually hit 104 the other day! We ride some days and we drive some days, we only have so many miles we can use so we have to ride bikes too! Thanks so much for the letters, I will write you guys today so you should be getting a letter from me later this week. It was good having Mark  come to the baptism we had, he videoed the hymns we sang, did he show you those? Yeah, he was pretty amazed with the ties we have:)That is funny about having to say the prayer, same thing kinda happened to me the other day at church but it was to teach the gospel principals class. I was with Elder Wasden and I taught it because the teacher didn’t show up like usual. It went well and I was able to say most everything I wanted in the Spanish I have learned so far! Have Chase buy whatever it is you get for Dad so that you can use his discount. He still writes me every single week and has never missed a week since I got here. What have you heard about the trip to Cali with all of them? Nae sent me some pics, it looks like they had a good time. I think me and Shumway will be staying together one more!! We are hoping at least, and it sounds like we might be staying together. I will give him your number for sure, he says he wants to come visit you guys when he gets home.  Things here are going well, yesterday during the first our of church we went and did a round up of all the people who were at church, because it is different here, sacrament is the last hour so that they have a better attendance.  We went to one home where they always tell us they go down to Mexico on Sundays, but when we got there, they were just sitting there on the couch and we caught them super off guard. Their son that is 17 who doesn’t have a license goes to church alone every week and is awesome, but his family is just sooo lazy and stays home. We talked to them and they said they would come later but of course they didn’t show up. Then we went to another lady who is less active that is a recent convert, and she always seems to have an excuse of why she cant come. Well her excuse was valid this week and that was because her tire was flat so she couldn’t drive, so we said we will be back and we went back to the apartment got our bike pump, and went back and pumped it up for her and said okay we will see you there in a few minutes then:) She came and we are hoping to baptize one of her sons that is 12 this next week. On our way back to the church from her house though we were driving and we had seen some border patrol trucks parked along the road then as we kept going there were border patrol trucks everywhere up this little road, and then we look up and hovering right above the trees next to us is the border patrol helicopter and there are border patrol guys with a bunch of Mexicans and the helicopter was following the group of guys through the trees and they were catching so many people that just crossed the border!! AND I DIDN’T HAVE MY CAMERA!!! I was so mad... we stopped and I thought it might be in my bag in the back and it wasn’t there either so we just watched for a few minutes then left, but I wish I could have gotten it all on my camera, it was like something you see on the show Border Wars. It was pretty cool to see it all since we were like 10 yards away from it all. Anyways, that’s just a little that has been going on here, I hope you have a great week Kimbo. Thanks so much for the letters and emails, I love hearing from my mommy.
Love, tu hijo mas guapo (your more handsome son)

June 2, 2014

Hey Kimbo Timbo,
How are thing going up there? That is super good to hear about Gus Gus, I am excited for him and I am glad he is going. Jeezo you guys are playin on Sundays?? What is this? haha How did Brock like this last year of baseball? I hope he had fun with it, I remember the last year of the RedSox, that was a sad year!! Why aren't they doing a freshman summer ball league? Is Brock going to play with a different team or what is the plan there? Yeah, I can tell summer is definitely here now, the last few days here it has been well over 100 and we rode our bikes all day the other day and it was 108, so we were pretty much drenched in sweat all day with riding in the heat and with the humidity. The work has been going alright, we had two baptisms this last week in our district and one of them happened because of me and Elder Shumway but the guy isn't in our area.  He is in the other elders area that we live with and are in our district. So we basically made the baptism happen but it wasn't our baptism.  We worked with the guy a lot and he just got off probation so he could be baptized,  so we didn't work much in our area this last week.  Also because we went and helped out the other two elders in our district with a guy they baptized yesterday.  They met that guy a week ago and he is a lawyer down here.  He studied religion in college too and he found the elders at the gas station and said he has wanted to join our church for so long. He already knew so much about the church just from studying it and said he knew this is the only true church after studying it through college.  He was awesome and throughout the whole week he kept telling us how excited he was to be baptized and cant wait to go to the temple, and is excited to see what his calling is.  He was an addict though and a lot of his clients paid him that way to be his lawyer but he said he changed his phone number and is going to have nothing to do with them anymore. So he was a pretty awesome miracle, and changed his life so fast. Me and Elder Shumway should have a couple baptisms here in the next couple weeks. Hopefully before transfers because they are in two weeks. I hope we stay together for at least one more transfer because me and him just get along like best friends here and we work really well together. Him and the zone leaders sat me down the other day and told me that they think I will be a senior comp really soon and will start training really early in my mission because of how I work and with how I have been doing.  Which that means I would be an early leader because usually after you train here is when you go to district leader. Anyways things are going well here. That is crazy about spending that much money on a pageant.. man I hope I don't have any girls that want to do that in the future! That sounds like a fun group Ty is hanging out with. Has he been talking to any specific girl or just everybody still? Well I hope you are having a good day Bo, I hope you got my letter this week also that I sent out. Have a good day doing laundry, I really need to do mine also. I love you Kimber!
Love, Elder Johnson