November 24, 2014

Laredo South Zone

 

 

 

Hey Kimbo,
How are you doing?? Ah man Judy promised us she would just send that video of us to you guys through a message! She said she wouldn’t post it for everyone to see! haha Yeah I have gotten one of Gmas packages and I got your little treat the other day, thank you for that!! I now have a couple sweaters so I should be doing great. I have like 5 pairs of pants so I am doing okay with them right now too. Yeah 34 x 34 is the right size now because I have put on a little weight:) I am at 184 right now, I weighed the other day because we had to get our flu shots. I haven’t seen Elder Shumway hardly at all since I left him which has kinda sucked, just here and there like twice. I think since I left him but we still stay in touch. He will be going home here in May and he told me he is going to come meet you guys when he gets home and he is going to meet up with you guys the day I get home at the airport! haha Well Ty has moved on now.. has he said why?? I haven’t heard from him in a while so I have no idea what is going through his head.. Man sounds like the Christmas tree wasn’t any fun!! There wasn’t any adventure to it!! That is always the fun part!! When I get home we will be going back up into the mtns to get the tree:) Yesterday was pretty fun, we went to J’s (recent Convert) and we set up their Christmas tree with them, and she fed us and then we made Ginger bread houses! She told us she has a stocking for each of us and that she is getting us all Christmas presents, she is such a cool lady and such a strong convert. She is so worried about transfers coming up though because its almost certain that at least one of us four here in Zapata will get transferred out. So she said she might be having a Christmas day with us before transfers because she wants it to be with us 4. I hope I stay mainly so I can spend Christmas morning with her and her family! We don’t have tons of members here in little Zapata but we have some of the coolest recent converts that we have baptized since I have been here. My first week in church here in Zapata in the apartment we had 8 people in church, that is including 4 missionaries and a senior missionary couple but these last few weeks we have been right around 40. It has been so cool seeing the church grow here in this little town. We were supposed to be having a baptism this last week but we are still waiting for our investigator to pay his probation off. Because he cant be on probation to be baptized and when we were teaching him he told us his probation officer said he can get off as soon as he pays $350. So hopefully he gets that paid this week so we can dunk him before transfers. Also we had a crazy storm this last week!! We were outside a little trailer teaching a lesson under this big mesquite tree and it started to rain so we decided to move to the other side of the trailer under a car port thing then all of the sudden the wind picked up and it started hailing, the hail was the size of like a quarter, I think that is the hardest I have ever seen wind blow in my life. Come to find out there were hurricane warnings and they thought it was going to be a hurricane for a while, anyways that big tree we were sitting under snapped and fell right where we were sitting and smashed the little trailer of our investigators pretty badly! Come to find out that there were a couple trailers in that area that had been blown over and there were trees laying all of the streets, so it took us a while to finally get out of that Medina area. So that was pretty exciting! haha but Everything is going good and we have another transfer coming up this next week so I will let you know what is going on next week! I love you Kimbo, espero que tenga una buena semana!!


Love, Elder Johnson

 

 

 

November 17, 2104

Hey Mommy, how are you doing?? It has been pretty chilly down here in Zapata lately, but that's all good! I went to buy some sweaters today at Ross but it was so packed with people we just left. Hopefully I can get some sweaters this next week. I got your letter this last week with your conversion story, thank you so much for sending me that. I loved reading through it!! For thanksgiving, J already invited us to go eat with her and also one other little family of less actives have invited us over to eat also, so we should have somewhere to eat it looks like! M should be getting baptized this next week, he should be paying his probation tomorrow. Things here are going pretty good, it has been getting really cold here which I wasn't expecting, it has been down in the 40s a few days and with the wind it has made it real cold. So riding the bikes around all day has been a little miserable, but we have been finding people like crazy these last couple weeks. I think we found a new investigator to teach just about every day this last week which has been cool. We will be having another baptism in the lake this weekend, we have been baptizing like crazy down here in the lake which has been awesome. S, our recent convert got the Aaronic priesthood this last week which was super cool, so we have 2 active people in the church that have the priesthood now!! We also got a new senior couple down here too! They are senior missionaries from Arizona, she was born and raised in Peru though. They are pretty cool. They are the Strong’s and I think should help a lot down here to have a couple to help us out. It looks like I will be conducting the meetings now at church, because the couple that would come down from Laredo on Sundays, the husband could speak good Spanish but now with this new couple the husband doesn't speak a word of Spanish so it will be a little different! So during a lesson with some investigators this last week in a place in Zapata called Medina (lets just say its kinda a rough place) we were teaching them about the Book of Mormon outside of their trailer, then all of the sudden we have a cop come walking through our lesson then we look up and there are a bunch of policemen that are coming running down the street and the next thing we know there are police all around us! We had one that came over and told us what was going on and it comes out that the guy we had set up a lesson with for the very next day is a fugitive and had just wrecked his car into someone, but because he was already running from the cops just hurried and drove to his house and was hiding in the field somewhere right next to his trailer, so that cops came chasing him and were looking for him in his house in the field next to his house and they found them. But it was pretty exciting! We couldn't leave for a little bit but then they let us take off. We never know what’s going to happen there in Medina! haha. But we know we will always be protected here and we don't ever worry. Other than that I cant think of anything to exciting that happened this week. Thanks so much for sending me a little something, I always love getting a letter or something from my mommy!! I hope you have a great week! I love you!

Love, Tu mas guapo hijo

November 10, 2014

Hi Mommy!!!

How is everything going? What are you up to? Sounds like you have been pretty busy lately.. Do you have some time to relax this week or another crazy week like usual? Sounds like St George was fun, Brooke told me she saw ya and that she always loves it when you come down! Thanks so much for sending me your conversion story, I was actually going to ask you to send that to me so thanks so much!  How did Brock do today at tryouts? I hope he doesn't stress himself out to much so that he can play well, tryouts were always stressful but there is a time you have to get rid of that stress and just have fun and play so I hope he is able to do that!! Things here are going good, we had the pool baptism on Saturday of a lady named R who is the nicest sweetest lady. She has a niece that is a member so when she saw us in Zapata she stopped us one day and asked us to come out to her house because she lives out on a big ranch and so we have been going out there and she is such a strong member already. She got baptized Saturday and confirmed yesterday. Also I baptized A yesterday in the Lake!! My first time baptizing in the lake! I have always made my comp do our baptisms because he is young in the mission and hasn't baptized anyone before I came but he has baptized the last two people we have baptized and so I did this one. It was a very cool experience and a very different experience outside of a font! We walked out on the boat dock and I dunked him. I will send some pics of that. We should have another baptism of A’s friend M this next week if he gets off of probation within the next few days. There is so much work to do here in Zapata and our group on Sundays has been growing very quickly. I love it down here in Zapata, there are few members, but there are some awesome recent converts!! Transfers are the 2nd of Dec so I will find out around then if I go or stay. I imagine I will stay, especially with how the work has been going, my comp could easily get transferred also which would mean I would stay. But I hope you have a great week Kimbo, I love hearing from you and I love hearing about what you are up to and what’s going on up there. Espero que tenga una Buena semana! Te Amo!

Love, Elder Johnson

November 3, 2014

Elder Johnson is very fortunate to have a wonderful family that takes great care of him and his fellow missionaries.  They are always feeding those hungry boys!!

 

Hey Kimbo! 

How is everything going?? How has your week been? What have you been up to? I can’t believe that story about Jason... That is unbelievable.. I feel so bad for the kid, I really like Jason a lot and that is too bad that this thing has gotten so dang big. I hope he realizes that it is still just a football game and that it is nothing more. You will have to keep me updated with everything with that, I hope he is doing okay now. Oh yeah, we just call her J, she is such a cool lady. She has us come over like twice a week and always likes to feed us or do something for us. She has three kids that are so funny. She really wants to go to the temple but wants the Salt Lake temple to be the first she goes to. I keep telling her I want her to come up to meet you because she is so funny, she has a personality a lot like you, she can be a smart aleck sometimes but it’s always a lot of fun there. She got baptized a little over a month ago now I believe and she is super solid in the church. I did the clappy thing and I told her that you guys think I look retarded when I do that and she agreed but told me that in Spanish, she called me malito, ask Ty what that means!;) I told her you would probably kill me if I showed her that so she said she would have to tell you about it then! Well of course something happened to Sherwin, how in the world did he get that thing so stuck?? That is such a funny story though!! I can’t imagine how hard Dad was laughing, I probably wouldn’t have been able to breathe from laughing so hard if I would have been there! Daddy is getting old, he needs to be careful with those hips that he has. Things have been going super good here, we should be having another laketism this Sunday! We are going to baptize a guy named A, he actually looks super white which is weird for down here but he is from Mexico somewhere. He is a super cool guy and told us he will get baptized if he feels the same feelings he felt when he was in Korea with the army at some church. He has come to church and cried both times, he said this is the first time he has had those feelings since Korea which is super cool. I will be baptizing him in the lake this Sunday it sounds like which should be super cool. Other than that we haven’t had anything to crazy happen this week, on Halloween we went over to our recent converts house, J, and she fed us some chicken but we had to be back home by 6 that night because things get pretty crazy here on holidays. Us 4 went back to the apartment and we played poker the rest of the night with cookies, and to play we all had to put in a tie and the winner got all the ties, and of course guess who got the ties... I did! haha it was a lot of fun, that’s all we did all night because the game took forever but it was a lot of fun though. The next night S, the guy we baptized two weeks ago took us out to the steakhouse again here in Zapata! He got us 22oz steaks there and wanted to see if we could eat it all. Of course I put that thing down like nothing! It was a big ol steak though! This week was a fun week, it went by super quick but things are going good here in Zapata. There is so much work to be done here and so many people interested in the Gospel here. Things are a little different here but I have loved this little town. Well Kimbo, I hope you have a great week, thanks for keeping me updated on everything. Be safe and have fun in St George! Make sure Daddy spoils you! I love you!

Love, Elder Johnson