8-25-14 Five tips of survival

5 tips for surviving Mission Comayaguela

1) Always be prepared

On Sunday we baptized a little girl who is the last member of her family to get baptized, she turned 9 that same day... That same Sunday Pres. Fortuna (the president of the mission and This branch pertains to the mission still so... it´s a big deal) gave a talk, I had a talk prepared in case someone didn´t come, I worked the music, and directed. Later we were in part teaching Sunday School when he sent us to teach the primary, from there we went to teach priesthood and give home teaching interviews. In the end we left our suit in the church so we could go to the pueblo called Coklan, (I thought it was Cokeland... ) and taught a little group out there and blessed the sacrament. From there we walked back to the main village, stopping to teach on the way. We gave a blessing and got to the branch president´s house at  7:30 to eat dinner and go home dead. ..... Always be prepared.

 



in Coklan

2) Carry a flashlight

On our way from Coklan it got very dark. (They don´t have electricity) Also it is a jungle territory, at about 6 we couldn´t see. Luckily I was carrying a flashlight I had bought in my last area. We found a Boa on the way home, thanks to the flashlight. :)

 

Community service at the garden.





 

3)Eat wisely

This week I had the privilege to eat... Skunk. Yup. A whole new level of ... questionable. haha I would like to avoid the experience in the future.

 

No, this is not skunk.  Nancies, Guava and Gineo (like a banana).

 

4)Learn to recognize if a person is drunk, half drunk, or in the process of becoming drunk. 

Do not give them money.

5)Do not be afraid, and always try to do new things. (technically 2 tips right?)

Go forward with faith! Everything will be alright if you´re obedient. Don´t stress, be happy! 

 

Service cleaning the store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than these 5 amazing tips, this week I had interchanges with an Elder from the Dominican Republic. He reinstalled my desire to go and travel the Domincan Republic. So gotta go there, sounds like a party and a half.

This week we were extremely blessed and have found 5 people who have accepted to enter the waters of baptism, with a specific baptismal date. They just need to keep doing their part and everything will be fine. 

There is so much evidence for me that really this church is sooo true, complete and whole. I hate that satan has made religion a competition. It shouldn´t be like this. Political parties that try to grab the biggest group. Oh well. We just try to give them a chance to feel the Holy Ghost so that he can teach them. Something now or soon will soften them and if not they´ll be humbled in the next life.

Well, I got to go, hope you got a smile. If not.... smile! :)

Paz y amor, Elder Johnson 

8-18-14 - One hour miracle

Yup, so this week was full of ups and downs but really the downs aren´t really so low because most of the things just fixed themselves.

So with that I´ll start off with the low of Tuesday and we´ll just work back up. Sound Good? Great!!!

So on Tuesday things took a nose dive, first because absolutley nobody wanted to talk to us, not even the drunks! They all hid from us. I´m talking like, all of them. We had one appointmen that was set and it was with a young girl. She is a young woman who studies in the school here because in her village there is no school. Instead of going back and forth in the hour drive, she stays here in the house of a member and pays rent. This is a common method of studying and living here. Something special about her is that she had accepted to be baptized the last lesson.

 At the end of the day I was so sick of walking and chasing people that I was really excited to be able to sit down and teach. We get to the house of the member to find him moving large boxes full of.... stuff. The house was empty. I put two and two together and figured it meant he was moving out.... (Yes, thank you, I have my bright moments.) So we offered to help, somewhere in the conversation we asked about Marina and he said, " What? she told me that she told you guys where she was moving to." It was a bad moment. All he knew was she lived somewhere by "the market." ... Yeah so there went the chosen and prepared of the Lord. We went home, a bit discouraged that night.

The next day, sometime in the morning, my companion and I decided we would ask the Lord for a miracle. That we would dedicate 1 hour to finding Marina and if our faith was sufficient, we would find her. So that´s what we did. We kneeled down and prayed at 10:00 in the morning and asked the Lord to lead us to find Marina at 1:00 after lunch. We visited some less actives and then went to lunch in the "market" 

The Market is a giant concrete building that people come from villages to sell stuff. We have an investigator who gives us a discount in her resturaunt in the center of the market. It is in the Heart of Jesus de otoro and there are many many houses and little stores that people made out of a house and such.

We started searching at 12:45 and just walked hoping to see her in a group of students or hanging out at the soccer field.. at 1:00 we found a secluded place under the bleachers and prayed again. I got the feeling to walk. So we walked and turned down one street. I was thinking of what we knew. 1) She lived by the market. 2) she was renting from someone named Amanda. 3) Money was limited so it wouldn´t be an extremely nice house or anything. We turned a street and passed a little blue house that looked like it sold little drinks. I stopped in midstep and said " Hey I have an idea, lets ask all the pulperias around here if they know an Amanda!" 

To explain a Pulperia, it is like a store that people put on there houses, very low budget and small but all over the place and therefore very convinient. There's about 2 pulperias in every block. So we went to this blue house and what would you know, the man did know Amanda and he knew Marina and said she had moved right in front in the cauteria. That´s where we went. It was 1:07 when we found her. I think it was late because of my doubt. One of the greatest miracles I've ever had.

 

Other than that we had Zone conference, President Fortuna talked about faith and fearing no man using the scriptures Psalms 56:4, and 3 Nephi 5:13.

 

As a result of this conference I have a new goal... I want to be a gamechanger. I want to make the impact that God makes when he has good tools. So thats what I´m trying to be, an instrument of God. I have to take out the fear and just do what God directs, leads, and knows I know I should.

Just that, Paz y amor

Have a good week.

Elder Johnson

8-11-14 - Teaching the gypsies

Sooooo.... This week was mas o menos. Mas menos.



This flower is actually a fruit that you eat

Anyways, we started out super good.  We challenged this family to marry each other and get baptized they were like... ya. Duh thats what we want. The bad thing is they can´t come to church because they leave every weekend to their village. They don´t live here, they just work. Then they go to the house in the village and have a farm that they maintain on the weekends... So bummer there. Not sure what to do, we are still thinking on the next step.

 

Zone Esparanza

After that, the next significant thing on my mind is.... well..... we taught some christain gypsies... the bad thing is they don´t want to quit the drugs.... that we found in their house.. hahha that was good. It´s a pair of legit Gypsies that know the language and are never in one place long but like our church. But they´re a bit confused about it. Apparently they read a book talking about Joseph Smith and how he worked through the Elements.... Idk Some pretty interesting teaching happens.

 

The District

 

 

After that, I just want to declare..... CLUBS WILL NOT SAVE US!!! CHARITIES, AND ORGINZATIONS CANT DO IT EITHER. We need covenants and ordinances the same way we need liscenses to drive. Why do I say that? Because a long time good friend investigator refuses to listen to us now because he belongs to an orginazation called the fraternity of Christian business men, where they declare it isn´t a religion but that they need to unite all religions in one orginazation to do good. Great idea, the bad is that you have to confess in front of everyone and "repent" by what seems like popular vote... It was an emotional night when he told us to get out and take all 5 books from his house.... I was honestly heart broken to see satan´s cunning ways harden the heart of a good man.

 

Cozuco

 

in other words, Armadillo

After that our district is trying to clean up the computer mess here. As in people who are baptized and not registered. It´s a problem. And a lot of work.

To finish up we went to Cokelan, a jungle village, and it was really fun when a mini typhoon storm came and attacked us.

 

Welcome to the Jungle

Also, I´m so grateful to my aunt Cynthia and uncle Jeremy.... 

I wanted to talk a bit about faith but... time is gone so I´ll just say. 2 nefi 25:23 and after alma 32:21.

We got to work even if we don´t know exactly what we´re doing or how to do it the best.

 

A "Sick" picture

 

Love you all, paz y amor.

8-4-14 - Seeing other's through God's eyes

Ello Hello!!!

So this week was well a week haha.

We started the week with a Family home evening with a member that has been teaching a little bit of apostacy... but he asked if we could come by and teach on the importance of the family. This familiy is a bit special for various reasons. He sells a food called mantucas for a living, which is like a tamale but sweet - instead of with salt and meat... so they´re not exactly rich. Also, he has a 17 year old son we call him chungo, this Chungo has a 28 year old North Carolinan girlfriend who is a missionary of another church and lives with this family.... but she totally listened and loved our family home evening. It was great, we used the stick analogy - took a kid and said hey... break this stick... he broke it. I asked "was that hard" "no it was easy" than I gave him like a bundle of like 4 sticks. and said "break it." he responded " I can´t", Why not? "because they are together" this is the Family, satan cannot break us when we´re together. They loved it.

Other than that, this week we put a fecha and worked with this lady from a village even smaller than Jesus de otoro.She is scheduled to get baptized this Saturday. She´s pretty great.

Then Yesterday was a super crazy day. I ruined our cell phone..... yes it´s a problem. But it was completely my fault and yes.... I don't want to talk about it. After that we went to visit some recent converts to find one as drunk as he could be, with like 6 other friendly drunks and they were all like lets pray lets pray... so... what did we do? We prayed. In the start I looked at them the way society seems to look at alcholics or in other words, down on them. But after the prayer... I felt a LOVE. I saw not only these drunks sitting around slobbering in the dirt, swearing and with their machetes. I saw them in a way I think God would see them. Not saying I saw exactly the way God sees us but for me it was a powerful experience. They were in varying degrees of drunk. One passed out and so being the only sober ones there we were like.. um... we just taught this guy we can´t leave him here like this.  I felt sad and concerned for the well being of this kid. I felt like we had to take care of this one kid specifically. So I asked the other sober person, the wife of this family. "where does he live?"  She answered "down the street with his mother. So we picked him up and half dragged him, half carried him to his house where we found a mother who was heart broken.... We have another appointment with this lady tonight... I feel a miracle coming on.

Other than that we continue working, I love this work! Que Grandioso es su llamamiento. Other big news, we put Home teachers and well.... some of them did it!!! 

This is the Lords work and he is with us. I am happy. Hope you are all good. Let me know how you´re doing.

Paz y amor

Elder Johnson