July 28, 2014

Hey Kimbo, How is everything going at home? How is my mommy doing? Sounds like you guys had a fun, busy week. I always loved the time around the 24th of July. Yeah I haven’t heard back from Josey yet so hopefully she writes me soon, Kenzie writes me something short almost every week so she hasn’t been too bad at writing me. But jeezo this week I guess nobody likes me;) I just got letters from you, Gma, Brooke, Chase and that’s about it! But that’s alright, as long as I get a letter from my mommy! That is crazy about the fireworks at Olson’s!! Something always crazy has to happen when we are doing something with them! Haha! Who has Ty been hanging out with lately? So what is the deck going to look like? You will have to send me some pics when it gets built. Well yesterday when we met with bishop like we always do every Sunday before church, (this being the first time we have really talked to him since he screamed at us) he sat us down and basically lectured us for an entire hour about missionary work and about how missionary work should be done in his eyes. He wrote out a 4 page paper that he was sending to the first presidency in Salt Lake that talked about how he has a request about how missionary work needs to change in the area of La Joya, and that missionaries should no longer look for people to teach or bring new people to church, but to do 100% Home teaching? Yeah... He is crazy... I am here to baptize! haha But Saturday we had a wedding and married a couple then yesterday we were going to baptize them but then bishop STOPPED the baptism! I don’t know if I have been so mad before here on the mission. He grabbed them after church when we were talking to other members and pulled them into his office and basically told them they can’t be baptized this week when they are so freakin ready to be dunked! So now they are getting baptized next Sunday which really sucks... Porque ya me voy! I am leaving this area! I am glad I am leaving though because everything with bishop has been super difficult. I am upset I won’t be the one to baptize the couple because they really wanted me to be the one to baptize them, but I am glad that I am leaving this area. I love the members here but I am ready to head somewhere new. I will find out later today where I am going, but as of right now all I know is that I am leaving the area. I will let you know next week what my address is and where I am. But I have been packing my bags all morning and I leave first thing tomorrow morning! I am hoping I stay down here on the border somewhere pero quien sabe! I hope you have a great week Mommy, I hope everything is going great at home and that they finish the deck soon! Te amo mucho!!

Love, Elder Johnson

July 21, 2014

Elder Johnson right on the border of USA and Mexico, next to the Rio Grand River

It rains hard in Texas!!

Sounds like you are staying busy at home! That is cool that those kids came and stayed with you guys from Ty’s mission. I hope I am able to do that too when I get home. That is funny about the rain, I will send you some picks about the rain actually, you wouldn’t believe the rain storms that hit down here!! They are something I have never seen before! They hit and they rain so unbelievably hard!! I got sent to work in this little area right right right on the border this last week and I have some pics I will send home of me right on the border! But they sent me and 3 other elders to work it just for the day, and it started raining so hard out of nowhere and we had walked a couple miles from the car already so we just kept working in the rain and I am pretty sure people thought we were absolutely crazy but that’s alright:) It was fun though and I took a bunch of pics of me swimming in the river that I will send:) The bishop here is still pretty angry with us and we have no idea what is going to happen with transfers this  next week, We had interviews with pres this last week, we have them every other transfer and I talked to him about bishop a little bit because he had already heard about what happened and he gave me a lot of good advice. Just basically to love him though. Pres Maluenda is awesome, and I am learning to try to have that Christ like love for everyone. He told me to just love bishop and to do whatever I can for him even though he just gets mad at us for it. It is crazy how fast time is flying right now but things are going good and wow the mission is an amazing thing. Things are hard sometimes but other times things are great but I am learning so much and I am so thankful for the experiences I am having. I am learning so much about the gospel and so much about life. I really do love my mission even though sometimes I don’t know if I love it or not. I hope you have a great week Kimbo, I am so thankful to have such an amazing mom. Te amo mucho!

Love, Elder Johnson

July 14, 2014

Jeez that is too bad about June and about Brother Lewis.. That is sad to hear. I hope their families are doing alright. I haven’t gotten to talk to Shumway much. He just called me once to talk to me is all (even though we aren’t supposed to call out of out zone) haha I have shared your story about your conversion story and with grandmas conversion already a few times. I am so grateful for the impact it has had in my life!!  Something crazy happened this week.. We were supposed to have a baptism yesterday and we told the bishop about it and he started calling us freaking out about it, so we had to go to his house Saturday night to talk him about it and he went absolutely insane!! He was nose to nose with my comp and another elder I live with just screaming as loud as he could, because he thinks he needs to have interviews before baptisms, when he has no keys to do that. We have the right to do the interview and they don’t have to be interviewed by anyone else. He has already stopped a few baptisms because he grabs them during church and tells them to come into his office the tells them they aren’t ready to be baptized. SO it just stops everything with the baptism, so we told him we are going to have a baptism tomorrow and he freaked because he said they guy getting baptized isn’t ready, then just went off about how the missionaries just want baptize everyone and that none of the members like us, when really this ward absolutely runs on the missionaries. They always call us to come over and always want us to come over a couple times a week, and many of them feed us every single week. They members LOVE the missionaries here and half of the active members would not go to church without the missionaries. And bishop screamed at us for a good hour then his 25 yr old son that is the elders quorum pres had to step in and push him back and to stop. He then called the stake pres when we were walking out the door to set up a meeting with him first thing in the morning and he said he will have new homes for us soon and it was just crazy. His wife loves us and feeds us every Monday night and she was about in tears because of what her husband was doing and she couldn’t stop him, and it was just a crazy event. Either the bishop will be released soon most likely or Pres Maluenda is going to take the missionaries out of the area for a while to show him how big of an impact they make to his ward. So we will see what happens, so I will probably be moved this next transfer most likely! Other than that the work is great and we should be having another baptism soon that is a J dub. She is an awesome investigator! We have a couple other really solid investigators too so the work is great, but we will see if we get shipped out of here soon or not, I hope we stay at least for a few more weeks at least so we can baptize these people. We are going to play soccer with the ward today, and then basketball later with the zone most likely. Also we saw a car wreck with the border patrol was chasing them and they ran a red light and hit a car, and the car that was getting chased rolled a bunch of times and slammed into a palm tree in front of Burger King. They were running because they had 200 lbs of marijuana in the car and they had just crossed the border! The people running though were all killed in the wreck, seeing some pretty crazy things down here!
We cant drink the water at our apt, we cant drink any tap water anywhere near hear, just bottles and the big jugs we fill up each week. Usually it is the water in the valley, which is the places down here by the border that you cant drink the water, which is where I will spend a lot of my mission most likely, if you go up north to Corpus then you can drink the water but we cant drink it at all down here. Anyways everything is going well, how is everything at home? What have you been up to lately Kimbo? Well have a great week, Te Amo mucho!
Love, Elder Johnson

July 7, 2014

I think I might be the tallest missionary in my district!

Hey Kimbo,

How is everything going? How was the 4th? Here for the 4th we had to be back in the apartment by 6 because holidays down here are insane and everyone is drunk! Well almost everyone is drunk most nights here but on holidays they get pretty crazy here in this area that’s for sure! So we just went and hung out in the apartment and didn’t do a whole lot. I should get that package today from Brooke, that’s super nice of her to send me something! Yes, I got the backpack thanks so much for sending me that, it is exactly what I needed. I can’t believe Mason and Morgan are going to be able to drive.. They still seem like little babies to me!  Well two days ago I was on an exchange so I was working with another elder that isn’t my comp, and we had a lesson at the church and after we were putting the bikes on the rack on the back of the car, then we went to get in the car and the elder I was working with locked the keys in the car!! The mission office that has the extra key is like an hour away so we called them and they showed up like two hours later, so for the two hours we were walking to an appointment that was a few miles away and when we were about half way there we got the call that they were almost to our car so we just had to turn around and walk back to the car.. Then that night we were pretty close to the border after an appointment and there were border patrol trucks up and down this road, then all of the sudden a little Mexican lady runs out right in front of us!! Then the border patrol came out and grabbed a hold of her as she was running and the border patrol helicopter was right about us! So if you see a little silver car on that Border Wars show soon that was us!:) ha-ha other than that nothing is to new, we have found like 4 new families to teach which is great, I just hope they have the desires to come to church because we can’t get anyone to come to church anymore, because La Joya (where the chapel is) just got a grant from the county and they sent tons of more cops here.  I guess and everyone knows that so nobody will go anywhere near the city because none of them have papers. We have been running into tons of people that have just barely crossed the border too, because I guess it has been on the news and everything but the crossing in our area right now is super bad right now and is one of the highest crossing points on the border. So it has been an exciting week! Me and Elder Roylance don’t see eye to eye on everything but we have been working well together. I’m not sure what we are going to do today, usually there is a zone activity that we go to like basketball and football sometimes. Maybe we will go get ties or something because I don’t have enough of those yet :) I am glad your lesson went well, if you ever need any ideas let me know! Did you get my letter this week by the way? I sent it out last week so I hope you got it. But I hope you have a great week Kimbo, I love you so much and I truly do have the most amazing mom in the world! I am one lucky boy! Have a great week Mommy.

Love Elder Johnson

June 30, 2014

Hey Kimbo, How are you doing? How was camping? Things here are going pretty good, Elder Roylance is definitely a stickler about every single thing and we haven’t seen eye to eye with everything but we have worked pretty well together. My Spanish has gotten a lot better because he has sent me on a few exchanges already and both times last week I went on exchanges with greenies so I have had to talk a lot because the two greenies I went with I think have alzheimer’s  or something and don’t even know how to say “si” yet. But The boy we baptized comes from a part member family that me and Elder Shumway started working with right when I got here. Because the dad of the family works every Sunday cleaning a 7th day Adventist church and wanted his boy to always come with him. The mom is baptized but the dad wouldn't let the boy be baptized because he says he gets his work done quicker if his boy is with him on Sundays. Finally he let us baptize him. We are working with a guy right now that use to be a pastor for a for the Church of Christ which is a church that comes from our church and is super similar so he is having a hard time understanding the difference, when really it is just that one has the authority of God and one doesn't. He has read about half the Book of Mormon in a week already too and likes it but isn't sure about it yet because he is super into the bible. I have learned so much about the scriptures in my mission already and wow the church is so true. Other religions are absolutely ridiculous that is for sure. I have come to love my studies so much in the mornings, because I love learning so much about the things with the scriptures and just about the church. There is a book I am going to have to have you send me in the future that my comp has right now that is super interesting, it is like a biography of Joseph Smith. I just love learning about everything that has to deal with the Church. 

SO who is dad going to be up there camping with? Sadie and G ma? Grandma wrote me a letter talking about how much she loved camping with you guys. She told me ALL about it and about how much fun she had with riding the rhino and catching fish. Sounds like you guys had a fun trip. That is too bad about Jen’s finger, she has done some damage to those fingers of hers. haha I remember Elmos nic nic, I loved that game when I was younger!! I think I loved it when I was older too tho! Sounds like Ty has a super fun group he is moving out with this fall, what has he been up to lately? Here is a story about prayer that happened recently, me and Elder Shumway were fasting and praying for a miracle to happen because we wanted to baptize super bad together, and we were one short of our district goal for baptisms and there was only one week left in the month and we fasted on a Saturday morning and prayed to have a miracle happen so that we could have a baptism somehow by the end of the month. That night we ran into a guy at the gas station that is a lawyer and studied religion in college. He said to us are you the Mormons? We told him yes and he said jeez I have been hoping to run into you guys soon, I studied religion in college and I know that the Mormon church is the only true church on this earth and I want to become a member of your church. He lived in the other guys area that we live with and are in our district but he already knew basically everything about our church and so we didn't have to teach him much, be me and Elder Shumway met with him every day that week and then the other Elders got to baptize him that same week which was the last day of the month. It was a super cool experience, even though we didn't get to baptize him, he was so prepared and now he is already excited to go to the temple and find out what his calling will be. Anyways that is just a cool little story that happened not to long ago. I hope you have a great week mommy! I love you so much!

Love, Elder Johnson