Strike Two

This week was one of those, "wait, there's more" commercials, kind of week. And I'd also like to let you all know that I got a new hair cut and I'm feeling pretty great! That is all, on to the real news.

Tuesday was a pretty slow day. We had one lesson for only 10 minutes. You start feeling pretty bogus after not having anything for a while then you only have one lesson for 10 minutes. It's really hard sometimes. But we know as long as were working, the Lord will bless us. We did have a great day of contacting though, and who knows. Maybe they'll be hand picked by God to be ready to hear the word. I really hope so!!! 

Wednesday was even less than Tuesday. We had no lessons, but we did have another great day of contacts and talked to some good people.  And now, the moment you've all been waiting for... movie night. We were all geeked up for movie night because we invited everyone, down to our contacts in the street! So we got there, and we waited. after an hour, I could almost hear an umpire yell, "Strike Two!" That's right not a soul came. so I was pretty mad. And made the choice to bring it up in our next ward council. One more strike and we stop movie night.

Thursday we had one lesson that was ok. They didn't except baptism, but we might be able to visit them again!!  But that night was pretty good. We had our ward council. Now we have 4 elders total in our ward and a great mission leader! So I was feeling like our team was pretty stacked to back each other up. Because those of you who have been in a ward council know it gets a little nuts! So we started putting in our two cents and let everyone know, without them, missionary work doesn't work. Surprisingly they  were on board. Except for one sister who's always mad about something, so it doesn't count! We gave ideas, then to finish, the bishop brought tacos! Pretty cool, and not to mention, it was half priced frap day! Great way to end the day!

Friday was awesome! Instead of having one or zero lessons, we had three!! And one was a contact that we had had the day before!! She's gold!!! It was a little sketch getting to her house because we had to pass a group of Jehovah's witnesses. Before we passed them, I turned to my comp and said, "I just got to know, if it goes down, are you ready?"  We passed without a word spoken and I'm still here to tell the tale.  We finally got to her house and she opened up and let us in. She had questions and as we answered them she totally understood everything! Then she accepted baptism without hesitation! I was jaw dropped!!!  It was amazing!  Her name is Sandy if you want to slip that into your prayers! 

Saturday was good as well with 3 more lessons. One with Marieli. Earlier that day, she had gone with friends without telling her mom. So her mom got mad and her punishment was that she couldn't come with us to church. We stride so hard to explain why that was the complete opposite of what you should do, but it didn't work to well. The lesson we had with them was pretty good, but you could tell that they we a little tense with one another.

Sunday was normal and we had two lessons. Both with less actives, but I think they want to come back. It was a nice relaxed night going into P-day.

That's all I've got for you this week! Thanks for your prayers!

Stay Classy

Elder Johns

The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Full of the Good, The Bad, And the Ugly this week!

Tuesday was pretty cruddy. I woke up with the Mexican cold. I could literally feel the little mariachi band of germs playing their hearts out! So I was in the house all day (shoot me now), but nothing to report  more than that.

Wednesday was a very hard day with my comp. The reason being he doesn't stop talking... ever. Everything that pops into his mind he says that very instant. Whereas my personality could be locked up in a room for a month without any human contact and come out fine. I'm not going to talk about it too much because it's just a challenge that I have to get through, but my goodness! We did have three lessons though. One with a new family, and 2 others with baptism dates! One is a kid who's 8. And the other with a 17 year old named Marieli. We are also teaching her mom but she doesn't want to progress, but we feel if her daughter progresses, then she will see it's good and want to know more herself. So maybe you want to slap that into a prayer or something? Just a thought.

Thursday I was praying a lot to feel the love and patience of Christ. Then a feeling I have never had came to me. And it felt a little like Mosiah 28: 3. I felt so sad for the people who said no or didn't choose to hear the message we share from God. Or didn't want to progress and it almost brought me to tears. It was crazy because I've read that verse many times, but never thought I would feel that way. We also only had one lesson with a less active today. We don't have a lot of work is something I've noticed, but the work we do have we have success in! Also there is a sweet ice cream place that sells 2 for 1 fraps on Thursday. So those who know me know that I love a good frap and I'm sure there were some people thinking, "who's the big white kid walking down the street, sippin' a frap?" That would be Elder Johns and no he's not gay! He just enjoys a frap now and then.

Friday we had a great experience. The president of all the 70's came to visit us. It was great hearing from him and we all got to shake his hand. When he finished, he opened the floor for questions. Now keep in mind that our president told us 10 minutes before he came to keep the questions appropriate if he let us ask some. So all was well. Great questions were asked and we all learned. That is until the last question. Some noob in the back raised his hand and said, "I think something we all have been thinking and wanting to know is if President Crickmore will become a 70." ... are you kidding me? In short he told us that it was all revelation and that we don't need to worry about that. Then he told him that wasn't a good question. What a chump. That took up a good portion of our day then we headed back to our area.

Saturday was pretty boring. No lessons. No 2 for 1 frap deal. And it was so hot. Reminded me a little bit of good ol' AZ We had a couple contacts, but nothing to fantastic. It was a pretty bummer of a day.

Sunday was really good. We had both of our investigators at church with us and one less active. It was Marieli's first time at church and she told us that she wanted to go again next week! Cha Ching!!! Boom baby!  Stay hungry stay humble is what I always say. Hopefully she gets baptized!! Later that night while we were working, we found a new friend. He was drunk beyond belief and as we were talking to someone, he came right up in my face. He then began to say things like, "why don't you go back home" To which I said, "well señor, we are missionaries and are here for 2 years teaching about Jesus". "I don't need you confusing my people" "oh, we're not señor. would you like to hear our message?" He then said, slapping his elbow (which was odd), "you want to settle this like gentleman? 10 paces and shoot?" I thought to my self, number one, you don't have a gun. Number two, we should leave before he hurts himself. So as we walked away he used his hand to shoot at us... What a nut job. You see what I'm dealing with down here, people?  A bunch of fruit cakes!!!  But I LOVE them!!

Well that was my amazing week. Hope yours was great as well.

Stay Classy

Elder Johns

Mexican Standard Time

Well, I'd like you all to know that the Pope (or Papa as they say here) is in Mexico! I feel something different while he is here. Then again, it could have been that sketchy taco I ate. But it's the same, right?

Tuesday we ran into a Jehovah's witness.  Now it's not a lot new, but it is rare that they accept a visit.  Of course we got told why we were wrong, but he accepted! I've never had more of an urge to study the heck out of the bible before!! Our appointment is in a week or two because he and his wife are in Vera Cruz! Just more time to prepare! We later found a mother and daughter who are great and the daughter accepted baptism!! We gave them both a blessing because they have different sicknesses, and totally felt the spirit!! It was awesome!!! Pretty good day!

Wednesday, we had one lesson with an older couple. You could definitely see that the wife could have cared less, but the husband seemed a little interested! We taught from 1 Nephi 17 about when he builds the boat! They didn't except baptism yet, but we will keep on them!!

Thursday.  Well I've asked several people for scriptures to help with our lesson with the Jehovah witness. I've gotten a lot and learned a lot. I think I'm a little too fired up for this!!! We had one lesson, but it was cool because we've been hunting her down for a long time now and she accepted baptism and to go to church and everything!!! She is great and will do awesome if she keeps her commitments!!!

Friday was a little hectic. We do a movie night thing with our ward with movies from the church! Me and my comp are in charge. We normally have it in the chapel, but we had to switch rooms this time. So we ran around all day trying to get everything ready for the big amount of people that would come! We fixed a TV, set up chairs, and cleaned. We had about an hour to work, and then back to the church to greet those who came. It started at 7, but Mexican standard time is even worse than Mormon standard time. So we waited until 8. At 8:15, we packed up and headed out without one person showing up. Just a giant wasted day...

Saturday we had a lesson with a 70 year old guy and his son. His son was a contact from two other Elders. He heard those guys defending the church really well and wanted to know more. So they gave us his info and we headed to his house! His dad began to shoot out scriptures at us as we began. As we read then out loud, there wasn't one thing that we didn't agree with. And so we taught about the book of Mormon with the bible, and he told us by the end, "looks like I'm going to have to do a little studying to figure that out". It was great and we have another lesson next week!!!

Sunday was kind of a bummer. Not a single one of our investigators or less actives came. So all our baptism fell. And we didn't even get a lesson that day, but I did learn a lot in principles of the gospel class, so not a terrible day.

Once again, thank you for all your prayers!

Stay Classy

Elder Johns

Solid Week

Pretty good week this week.  Solid some might say. No miracles, but we did see people change and sometimes that is the miracle.

Tuesday we hit the ground running at 6 a.m. We have a member that owns a gym and lets us use it for free. So as much as I didn't want to, I did legs. That's right ladies and gents. I squatted. We had good lessons all day. One was when my comp wanted a mango, so we got him a mango. We asked the lady selling them if she had talked with the missionaries before. She said no, and the next thing I knew we were having a full out lesson with her! Cool stuff! We ended with 4 baptism dates that day!

Wednesday I woke up in pain. Why you may ask? Well, because I could barely move my hammies! I walked the whole day like I had something in my pants. I got some weird looks, but I thought to my self, "Elder Johns, you're 6´ 5", and that's something most of the people here will never be"  and then we were all even in my mind!  Also another good day of work!  We contacted like nut jobs and we are seeing a good amount of success!

Thursday I decided after being yelled at by a couple of people who had a lot of false doctrine that I wasn't going to just sit there and take it then say, "OK, have a nice day :)" I'm now going to fight back. So yes, I have roasted a couple people with the bible. The mood changed and they probably felt a little awkward like, "oh my gosh, I just got roasted by a big white boy, and he was right..." or something like that. But they need to know we have the truth!  We also had a great lesson with a small family who all want to change and have been to church a few times before us!  They are going to do so good if they continue to come to church. They only have one problem. They can't speak very good Spanish.  They speak some native language that's really cool to listen to.

Friday. So we have two sets of assistants in our mission now because our mission is bigger and they live really close to us and we like hanging out with these guys. Sometimes they need help with their job, so they call us. Sometimes we're running around doing stuff to help them out. Like we had to go and empty the baptism font, and refill it for a baptism at 5, but it was around 12 when they called. So we were constantly running back to the church to get stuff done that day in between our own lessons. After the work we could do, we put on a movie night for our ward.  It was alright, but I think we´ll have more people come next week!!

Not a lot happened Saturday. We had a lesson with a less active family who is awesome! They are one of our goals to reactivate!!  Their son wants to be baptized. When we asked him why, and he told us because he wants to know if the water is cold... we have a little work to do with him, but he's a funny kid!

Sunday, after church and eating, we had a small missionary conference which was alright, but it was really boring, but I did get some ideas out of it so it wasn't horrible. Then we went home and watched a D&C movie about the church. 

Hope you all had a good week!

Stay Classy,

Elder Johns

A New Area

Start spreading the news! I'm leaving today!  We are a great big part of it, CUAUTLA! CUAUTLA!!! That's right ladies and gents, I'm in the big city!!! Random transfer we had this past Wednesday, but it's pretty sweet!!!

So Tuesday we had meeting with the president and once again, I can't tell you guys how awesome this guy is!!! I will miss him when he's gone!! But during our meeting he told me, "oh, and by the way, you leave tomorrow to a new area. and you're senior companion. And you're opening this area as well. Missionaries haven't been in this area for a long time." So a little bit of a shock factor, but all is well. So right after the meeting, we left and I began to pack up. Not, a lot happened, but a crazy day!

Wednesday we got to our new area. my comp is elder Treviño and he's ok. We started learning the area and contacted people like nuts! We had to also set up our whole house because they brought us everything that day. Our area is city and a little bit of the boonies. I'm talking dirt road with no lights at night boonies. Pretty cool! That night, I was kind of iffy with my comp while we were walking the streets. We were talking about Rocky and he told me, "it so fake! I'm not a big fan." Needless to say, it will be a long, long cycle...

Thursday, opening an area is a little different. you don't know anyone, so all you do is contact and get to know the members. So we have all our lessons for this up coming week. But let me tell you something we do have. FOOD. I mean great food. Tacos, pizza, ice cream, tacos. Yes I said tacos twice!  Let me tell just say, I'd do more for these tacos than I would for a Klondike bar that's for sure! Just so you all know, I will be learning more about patience with my new comp. That's the last thing I will say about him.

Friday was pretty boring. Nobody has time to talk until next week so we just contacted and walked around getting to know our area. We also got ice cream that night. It was pretty good!!

Saturday and Sunday were the same. Walking and knowing, but we do have a ton of lessons planned for next week!!!  Hopefully we get some people who are interested!  But Sunday we also ended up with someone who wanted to be baptized!!!  So we will definitely be working with her! 

Sorry not to big this week!  More success on the horizon! 

Stay classy

Elder Johns