September 26, 2015

 I got to take one of my very best friends and drop him off at the airport this last week because he came to the end of his mission, Elder Worley.

Hi Kimbo, how are you doing?? That is awful what Quik Check did to Granny, pretty low blow and not very respectful. I hope she is doing alright, she told me she is just going to be retired then? Or what is her plan?? What is she going to do all day now?? I saw the pics of the big kill!! I haven’t heard anything from them about the deer, but I know they weren’t planning on me emailing today, but I will be emailing on either Saturday or Mondays now, I don’t know which or how often, so it will be kinda random, but it will be Saturday or Mondays from now on and the rest of my mission! 
So this last week has been a crazy one.. So on Monday afternoon I got the call from President to be AP and on Tuesday morning I had to get to McAllen bright and early, but Monday night we were busy visiting a bunch of people I wanted to say goodbye to, so we got home about 9:30 and I started packing and doing laundry and what not then I finally got in bed about 3am. We got up at 4am to run over to the church real quick then I got showered and I had to be up to McAllen early to have a meeting with president and my new Comp, Elder Cruz. We then had the Transfers meeting at 9am and it ends usually by 10:30 and we start sending people up to their new area with their new comps, and I had to load everyone up in the big Transfer van that pulls a big trailer to put all the luggage in and we took off to Corpus. It was a 3 hour drive up, and I picked up a missionary up there to bring down and it was 3 more hours to come back down and I was running on 1 hour of sleep so it was a tough drive but I made it! Then we had a meeting with all the missionaries that were going home right when I got back to town, then we took them to Presidents house where they have their last supper. After that all the missionaries that are going home have an FHE with Pres and Sis Maluenda and us as the APs we get to go to all of that and they have a little going home party then we headed home at about 11. Then next morning we had to get up super early to take them all to the airport. Then these last 3 days I have been to the airport 3 more times picking up and dropping off missionaries and I don’t think I have gotten to bed before 11 yet, and we have not slept past 5:15 yet either but things here are going great!! I have never been so busy in my life, and this will be what I do for the next 3 transfers! I have never been so exhausted but at the same time it is a lot of fun! We have made a bunch of changes to the mission, like combining and splitting zones so we have been super busy with just random things, but at the same time we have a few people we are baptizing tomorrow in our area so we are trying to keep up with them, but we have had time to only visit them once this week and all we did was just commit them to be baptized this Sunday and that is all we had time to do and they are going to get baptized tomorrow so that should be fun! Tomorrow we will also be driving up past Corpus to take some missionaries up there and possibly Laredo so I imagine we will be on the road all day tomorrow! We very rarely work in our area, when we are in town at the most we get like a couple hours a day to work in our area but we will be on the road traveling a lot of the time. I think there is only one week this whole transfer where we will stay in McAllen, in a couple weeks we will be spending 2 days in Corpus then 2 days in Sinton back to back so that week is already gone but it is a lot of fun! I am just trying to get used to it all right now!! I am super pumped for these last 4 ½  months to be able to work so closely with Pres and Sis Maluenda and be able to travel the mission a whole bunch! So in the mission there are just 2 houses that missionaries stay in, like there aren’t members there but where they actually have the whole house to themselves and that is the house in Brownsville where I just was and the AP house. So I have been spoiled, I have gotten to stay in both the houses and I will finish my mission in this one! I don’t know the address, so just send everything here to the mission office because I am in here every day now. My new comp is Elder Cruz, he goes home next transfer and he is from Washington state. He is a super good kid and a hard worker and I am excited to be with him. As an AP our purpose is to lead and guide all of the Zone leaders in the mission, to keep all their missionaries in check, we have about 200 missionaries we are in charge of. We get tons of calls from Pres to just go and do random things, or pick peeps up from the airport, or do whatever it is pres needs us to. We don’t work in our area hardly at all and we just work with all the other missionaries that are leaders in the mission to help them become better leaders and help them to better help those in their stewardship. I got your cookies and shirts, thanks so much Mommy!! Those cookies were gone the second they got in the door! What is new up there in SF?? Was Dad excited about the deer? How is baby Brockles doing?? Does Ty have a girlfriend yet? I hope you have a great week Mommy, I love you!!
Love, Elder Johnson

September 22, 2015

Okay, well sorry I didn’t email yesterday, and sorry that you aren’t going to get much of an email from me today either. Yesterday was pretty crazy let’s say. It was the last P day of the transfer so we had a bunch of things planned here in Brownsville, then on top of that in the middle of the day I received a call from the mission president letting me know that I had been called to be the new Assistant to the President for the mission. That was a pretty big curve ball but I am super excited! I have to leave to be in McAllen by 8 am, and I have a meeting with President, then at 9:30 is when transfers happen so tons of the missionaries will be at the mission office, and it will be announced there that I am the new AP and then I have to drive the giant transfer van, pulling a huge trailer up to Corpus full of missionaries and then drive back down to McAllen to meet up with my new companion again to go to Presidents house with all the missionaries going home. So, I will be taking off to Corpus by 11:00 hopefully and there is a meeting with the going home missionaries and Pres at 5:00 and the goal is for me to be back for that and it takes exactly 6 hours to drive to Corpus and back so it should be a crazy day! Then we will deal with the dead missionaries and they have a little party at presidents house then we will get home close to midnight tonight, and we take them to the airport with President first thing tomorrow morning! I am basically just going to kiss sleep out the window! haha Right now I am running on just a few hours since I had to pack and do a bunch of stuff last night then the next few days are insane, but I am super excited! Sorry I can’t write everyone individually but I will now have P days either Saturday or Monday just based on our schedule but I will write you guys better then! Im sorry, I love you all!!
Love, Elder Johnson

September 14, 2015

Hi Kimbo how are you doing?? Sounds like Mexico was a blast!! Did you and dad both enjoy it?? I am glad you got to feel the weather down there, I don’t know if here it is quite as hot as down there, but the humidity and heat is pretty dang close I believe!! I am pretty worried about coming back in January because I am going to FREEZE when I get home! Guess I will just have to extend till June..;) How was snorkeling?? Like did you find anything cool or did you just swim around in circles?:) I hope dad didn’t put on too much weight.. being that it was all you could eat all the time! How did you like el agua de sandilla?? What did you guys like better, the cruise or where you went this last week?? Because we have got to have a fun family trip when we all get back home again! That is good to hear that Kira got baptized, I cant believe that she is already 8 yrs old!! What has Colt been up to lately?? Things here are still going super great, I am really enjoy being with my companion, but I am pretty sure it will be impossible for us to stay together. Because right now I am the Sr comp and he is Jr comp, but he is a super great missionary and will be bumped up this transfer for sure and go be a Sr ZL somewhere else so I don’t think there is any chance of us staying together to be honest, but we will have to see what happens! We can always pray for it! haha This is the last week of the transfer so it should be interesting to see what happens!! This last week we didn’t really have anything crazy happen to us, but we had a lot of success in the zone which made us super happy. Right now we have 26 missionaries in the zone and we have seen them all change so much which has been super cool to see and they are all seeing a ton of success! This next week we should be baptizing close to 10 people which should be a lot of fun! Each Sunday is so crazy and so exhausting but I really love it a lot! Last night when I got off the phone with one of the district leaders in our zone I found my comp asleep with his suit on his bed. I tried waking him up and I threw things at him to try to get him to change but he just kept falling asleep so I just left him like that and at 3am he woke up and changed out of his suit I guess! haha We are working hard down here on the border and it has just been a lot of fun!! Sorry I don’t have anything crazy to tell you guys, but things here are going great still! I hope you have a wonderful week!! Oh and could you send me maybe like 3 new short sleeve white shirts please?? All of mine are getting hammered and starting to look pretty bad and it is hard to find them anywhere down here so I would appreciate it if you could send me those!! My neck size is a 15 1/2. But I hope you have a fun week catchin up on things mommy, I love you!!

September 7, 2015

Hi Kimbo how is Cancun treatin ya?? I would be super down to go down there as a family! Especially being able to speak Spanish now, it would be a lot of fun for Tyler and I being able to communicate with the people down there! What are you guys planning on doing down there?? Hey if you can find agua de sandilla, Pronounced- (agua day Sand-iya) you have to try it, it is a drink that a lot of Mexicans make here and I love it!! In English it translates to water of watermelon but it is super good!! But yeah I think we should do something like that right when I get home:) Well tell Daddy happy birthday for me here in a couple days! Man you guys are getting old!! Sounds like it should be a fun get a way for just you two! You guys probably flew directly over the top of me yesterday, being that Brownsville is over on the coast and Cancun is just straight below me just a long ways away. Things here in Brownsville are still going great!! This last week our zone hit a record we are pretty sure for bringing the most investigators to church in a single week. As a zone we had 31 investigators come to church which was super awesome!! We are looking to baptize so many people in the month of September and it is just tons of fun seeing how happy and pumped all of our missionaries are in the zone! We have seen a bunch of missionaries change so much and it has been so cool to see them change and want to be better. And as they have done that, they have all seen so much success in their own areas. The meetings were great in McAllen, each night I got to work back in my old area since we had to stay there for a few days and it was a lot of fun getting to go back and visit a lot of people that I used to visit. I visited a family that I was teaching while I was there and the missionaries had stopped teaching them, but I stopped by with them on Wednesday night and I committed all of them to be baptized on the 13th, which is this Sunday!! It was a super good lesson and it was super cool to see them and see how much they have changed since the first time I met them. The family just consists of a dad and 4 kids, the mom was killed in a hit and run accident two months ago. So it is a pretty sad situation but it is super cool to see how much just having the knowledge of the plan of salvation can help someone. I also got to visit another family that I worked with a lot that was just a family that wasn't very strong in the church. He went to Iraq for 5 years and just lost his faith completely then when he returned a couple years ago some missionaries found him and helped him and his wife and 4 kids come back to church, but when I visited them this last week I set a date for them to get sealed in the temple together which was super awesome!! They are going to be getting sealed at the end of October and they were super pumped! My companion and I are having a lot of fun together, he actually served in Guatemala for a full year then went back home for some personal reasons, and he had to stay at home for 2 years then he was able to come back out and they sent him down here to McAllen and he finishes in December. He is a super great kid and we have been having tons of fun together. Things are still going great here on the mission, one thing that I have learned for sure is that God is easy to please, but impossible to satisfy. Just knowing that has given me so much drive to just go and do all I can during these two years that I have down here. This next week is the last week of another transfer.. I cant believe how fast each transfer keeps flying by, but I am just going to make the most of each one! I hope you have a fun week down in Cancun!! You have to send me tons of pictures when you guys get back!! I love you!
Love, Elder Johnson

August 31, 2015

 

 

 

All the cars in the water had been ruined by the water and so slowly one by one they were pulled out of the water but we had counted, in this one intersection there were 13 cars that had been wrecked by the water!! We spent a lot of the day, helping others push their car out that had been ruined by the water! There were places where we drove in our truck and the water came over the hood!!! Yes it was that deep!!



 That is the border that is touching our tail gate:)

Okay, well here is a little of what has happened this last week: On Wednesday I went and worked in a different area with a couple missionaries to help them with some investigators that they have and it was super cool. I was able to talk and teach a lady and commit her to be baptized on Sunday. I did their baptism interview right then and there and yesterday her and her two kids were baptized!! It was a super cool experience and was super cool to be able to see them be baptized. Then on Saturday and Sunday me and my comp had just a super crazy couple of days! We had 6 baptisms in our zone and we were just running from place to place helping missionaries and we are having some issues with some of the missionaries in our zone and it has just been crazy. I don’t know if we have spent more than an hour in our house that last few days!! Then today the assistants to the president came down and we had a super fun P day, we got permission to go out to South Padre Island for P-day with the APs today and it was a lot of fun!!! I will send lots of pictures of that to y’all. We played some beach volley ball and walked the stores there. We can’t get anywhere near the water of course so that was a little tough! haha But it was a lot of fun going on a little road trip out there. It is about 45 min from our house and we stopped at a big light house on our way out to take some pics because you can go up into the top which is pretty cool! So we did that today, then we got back to town and a giant storm came through with hurricane warnings and it was super crazy and we got a bunch of calls from the missionaries in the zone saying that they are stuck or they are surrounded by tons of water so we had to tell everyone to park their cars and not touch them because with how deep the water was it would just ruin the engines. So then we had to go and pick a bunch of our missionaries up and take them to their apartments since we are the only ones that have a truck so we spent the rest of our day doing that and pushing cars out of the water that had their engines ruined!! Crazy last couple days and tomorrow we head up to McAllen for the next 3 days because we have another couple meetings so we won’t even be in Brownsville this week really then we will be down to the last two weeks of the transfer already. Time just flies by and weeks feel like days right now to be honest!! I am loving the mission and I love being a missionary. I love being able to just serve others all the time and be able to change peoples lives. By doing that I know that it has changed my life more than anything and I love the change it is bringing to me!!

Okay Mommy, I am going to answer every single one of your questions..

1)How are you this week?
1) I have been doing great this week, We saw tons of miracles here in the zone and I got to go and work with a bunch of missionaries in the zone because they had people that could possibly be baptized but the missionaries just weren’t making things happen so I got to go and teach those people and many of them were baptized on Sunday which was awesome!!

2)Did you trap the possums?
2) We haven’t gotten the possums yet, we still don’t have the trap..:(

3)Did you get a package on Thursday? Did it come early enough in the day, before you left for the day? Were the cookies totally destroyed?
3) I got the package, and it came early enough so thanks so much for that!! It was great to get mommies cookies right at my doorstep:)

4)Do you still get to go to the gym?
4) Yes, I just got a gym pass here and I am still getting huge'. :) A member gave me a big thing of protein and I make a dang good protein smoothie lets just say:)

5)Do you ride your bike still? Are you going to sell your bike down there or bring it home?
5) Yes, I do still ride my bike, not very often because our area is huge, and we have to do tons of running around here in the zone since we have so many missionaries here. But we still do have to ride them every so often. I think I will probably ship my bike home, just because it is worth so much more than what I would get if I were to pawn it or something here. Most just ship it home for like 60 bucks so I will probably do that but I haven’t really though about that yet.

6)What do you and your comp eat?
6) Me and my comp don’t eat a whole lot because there is so much work to be done and we don’t get fed by our members here very often, I am losing weight which I am not very happy with because I have a goal to go home at 200 even and I got here to Brownsville at 196 and I am currently like 191 so I just got to go harder in the gym!

7)Do you still see lots of Border Patrol? Do you still drive a truck?
7)Yes we see lots of border patrol here, yes I drive a truck. I will have a truck the rest of my mission because all zone leaders and the APs get trucks so pretty much no matter what I will have a truck which is great. I have been able to drive a truck almost my whole mission!

8)Are you doing lots of teaching or more managing of missionaries?
8) We have been spending lots of time on our missionaries because there are some issues that we have been having but we still are teaching a lot of people also. We are just crazy busy all the time!!

9)Have you had any bad storms/hurricanes?
9)Speaking of storms, yes we had a huge storm today! I sent some pics, let me know if you don’t get them. We spent a lot of our time today pulling people out of the water and helping missionaries that had gotten stuck.. but it was a lot of fun! We spent a lot of our day in water up to about our waist!! And I am not joking!

I still can’t believe that Brock is in high school.. I would make him wait on going to dances, looking back, when I went on that date with that girl a couple months before my bday it just didn’t really feel right to be honest, but I am not his parent! I would just suggest making him wait a bit, being that is what the prophets have said. I cant believe that there are houses coming in by our house!! That is not okay! Have you guys thought of moving at all or is that thought just out of the ideas for now? Are the Olson’s still planning on moving?? That is super funny about Izzy, how did you teach her to do that? She sure is cute, but seems like a little bit of a beast at the same time! I hope you had a great week mommy, I love you!

Love, Tu oso

August 24, 2015

Hi Mommy how are you doing?? That is pretty cool what Dad and Ty did to you!! I got a pretty good laugh about it as I read it! I cant believe Gunnar is home!!!! It is freaking me out more and more each week because someone is either getting married or getting home off of the mission! Crazy how fast time flies and all that is going on! That is super good to hear that Christian is going on a mission. There is an elder here that played football with him at SUU and know Christian also so I will have to tell him about that. That is crazy about what happened at Judy’s house, is Howard doing anything about what is going on? Or is he just letting them do whatever they want? That is good to hear that you guys got some stuff, it sucks that you had to pay for it but it is still good to hear that you got some of it. Wait, so are you in the primary presidency or the relief soc presidency?? I thought the relief society but then I just read primary. Are you excited for your new calling? Like will you still get to go to our ward or will you be going to other wards a lot?? My momma is a boss! haha Okay, I am super sorry I haven't gotten to write a good email for a while.. Things here have been so crazy lately and I have only had like 10 minutes a week to jump on and email but today I finally have some time to write like normal. Things here are going really well, I live in the house like I mentioned last week and it is a pretty old house but it is actually pretty big! It is a lot of fun living here, other than we have possums in the back yard that we are on a hunt for! haha We have a member that is bringing a trap to us soon so that we can catch all of them:) My area is called Southmost, so I imagine you can guess where it is if you look where I live at on the map, it is most south point of the US and it is a pretty interesting place! It is great though, the border of the US is our whole southern border of our area so it keeps things interesting! I am really enjoying it down here though, me and my comp get along really well and we are having a lot of fun! This last week we left to go to McAllen on Monday afternoon and didn't get back till Friday night so it has been an interesting week! It just flew by so so so fast and I cant believe it is Monday again already!! The meeting in McAllen was great, we had a leadership meeting all day tues, wed and thurs and President Maluenda just knows how to blow our mind. After every meeting all of us leaders just repent a whole lot then go out and work harder than ever before! My companion and I are changing a lot of things down here in Brownsville. He was down here last transfer with an Elder that was going home and the zone really suffered a lot from that missionary that was going home so when I got sent here President Maluenda gave me some special things that he wanted me to change down here so we have been so so busy every day but things have been going great. I love, the mission and I am grateful for all of the crazy experiences I am having down here! I hope you have a great week mommy, and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! I can’t believe you guys have been married for 25 years!;) But for reals though, I am so grateful for you and dad!!! I honestly could not think of a better set of parents a kid could have. I love you guys so much and I am so thankful for everything!!!

Love, Elder Johnson

August 17, 2015

Well, this last week has been crazy, and I am so sorry but we are leaving here in 10 minutes to head up to McAllen for a meeting all week. It starts early in the morning and we won’t get back home till Friday afternoon. It is a meeting for all of the leaders of the mission and it is always a super good meeting that we have every 3 months. Well yes, as you can probably tell I am not in McAllen anymore!! After 9 months of being there they finally kicked me out! I was pretty bummed at the same time though because there is a family of 6 we were teaching in my last area that is going to get baptized next week, along with a girl that is getting baptized tomorrow in my last area and also with an 18 yr old kid. We had begun seeing tons of success then they kicked me out and sent me back down here to BROWNSVILLE! The most southern tip of the US!! A missionary just died here this last transfer and I am here with his comp now and we were put here to fix some things and our zone has 30 missionaries in it so it is pretty dang big! We have SO SO SO much to do and we have been so incredibly busy this last week trying to get everything going but things are going really well. I really like my Comp, his name is Elder Boyer and he is from Orem. Here are just a couple pics, this last week I had to go with the APs to go pick up the greenies, then the other one is when we left McAllen to come down here to Brownsville. It has been such a crazy week, but I promise next week I will tell you more!! Also, we live in a house down here since we are the zone leaders for this zone and it is super sick, it is really old but it is pretty dang cool that we get to live in a house! I will send some pics of it next week!! I hope y’all have a great week!! I love you!!

Love, Elder Johnson