June 25, 2012

Buenas Dias mi querido Familia, How are you all doing? So here I was writing you all a letter, a little down because the only person who had written me was President, and then along came a letter!!!! Wooo hooo! That is great that everything has been going along well in the house. Oh, by the way, tell Benny-Boy that it is absolutely prohibited to get married in these following 7 months. No ifs or buts. PROHIBITED! ha By saying that, I am probably going against the counsel of his Mission President in his last interview. I imagine he said, "Elder Johnson go home, get a job, go to school, and get married a soon as possible... it is not good that man is alone". You will definitely have to send me pictures. As for me, I have given up trying to use contacts. Eye infections come so easily these days because of all the dust and dirt in the air. I stick with my old glasses. Dad, thanks for your advice about dehydration. It is a very real threat here, but the good thing for us missionaries is that if we are thirsty, we can just knock on any door and ask for a glass of water. And then we have our foot-hold. While one person drinks the other begins to proclaim the gospel. Classic, but effective. So, I will tell you all a little bit about what has been going on around our area these past days. This past Saturday we had a lesson with the Hna. Ana Maria. We taught her the ten commandments, including the word of wisdom, law of chastity, and tithing. She promised us that she would stop drinking coffee, but when we passed today in the morning, she had drinking today. hmmmm. it is something very sad, but we are going to keep working with her to prepare her for her baptism. The Zone leaders have really been pressuring us to baptize her this week end, but I don´t know. We are going to see. Will have to see a definite improvement very soon. Today we committed her again to stop drinking. We will see tomorrow. I hope that all goes well. Remember last week when I told you about Lidia. Well we taught her this week, and then we challenged her to be baptized. She accepted, but we began to question her motives when we tried to put a date. She told us that she would be baptized the last day that I was in Culiacan... then she went on to explain that she was going to marry an American with blue -eyes!!!! aaaaahhhhhhh. So, to top it all off, my companion has six months in the mission, and many things that people say just go right over his head still. He sat there half-clueless the whole time. So we have decided that we will return when we have the back op of one of our leaders! The funny thing is that people confuse the feelings of the Spirit for other things. They are not used to feeling this way, and they do make note that it comes when we go and teach them. Also, we found a family of 4 this past week. Marcela, and her three children Sulma, Jesus, and Alejandra. They are really great, and we have an appointment with them tomorrow. They could not come with us to church this Sunday, but we are hoping that they will be able in the next week. Also, my companion and I formed part of a Boy-Band this past week, even though that is against the rules. I´ll tell you what happened. A Brother in the ward came to us and asked us if we would participate with him in the talent show this past Friday. In the end, we sang a song that we had never even heard of before. It was great fun. I´ll tell you something very funny though. It sounded a lot better when we were practicing. I cannot imagine why, but It is very true. Oh, well. It is over, and now Elder Toomey and I are rock stars. If you want to know what song it was look up "How can I be". It is about Book of Mormon prophets. Well, I love you all, and I sure hope you have a great week. Love, Elder Johnson