I'm 20 Now, That's Pretty Weird.

Birthday wishes to Elder Johnson from all around the world from family & friends.
Utah, France, New Hampshire, Hong Kong, Arizona, Peru, California, Massachusetts, Africa, Disneyland, Brazil

Well t'was a pretty good week with the work and all.  We found some new people, lost some old people, got yelled at by apostates, you know, the usual same old same old. Really there isn't much to talk about this week.  We really just had a pretty normal week.  We have some investigators getting ready for baptism this week, so hopefully they will be baptized this Saturday.  One thing that was pretty interesting was that we got to go to Maceió to pick some stuff up at the mission office, and yeah.... that's really it.  Next week is transfers so that'll be cool and I'll be ending my companions life too.

Yep....

Oh, and it was my birthday too.

So I guess I'm 20 now, that's pretty weird.  I feel like I should be more mature and responsible than I really am, but I guess that'll come more with time.  With all the self-restraint I could muster I didn't open your birthday package until yesterday night so  that was a whole lot of self control right there.  I really enjoyed the package filled with beautiful ties, music, cards, (my companion got a real kick out of the card that Adam and Emily sent,) and all sorts of frivolity.  I especially liked the t-shirts you sent me.  I kind of forget all about my love for geek culture shirts and so that was a good reminder.  I was also very impressed with the photo album of pictures you sent me, very creative.  You managed to get all my family and friends to take those pictures holding happy birthday signs to me so that was really cool, I liked it a lot.  It looks like you all haven't changed too much.  I liked the recorder with everyone wishing me happy birthday.  Riley has a super deep voice now, which was weird.  Overall it was a really good day.  I went to church, taught the Elder's Quorum lesson, and then I got to go help out in the Primary for the next hour because the primary teacher traveled over the weekend.  That was loads of fun with all of the little kids.  I also managed to cry some repentance and get some good old fashioned gospel preachin' in too.  President and Sister Gonzaga even called to wish me a happy birthday. I just want to say thanks for the package and for all of the effort you went through to send it and all the work you put into it.  It was a really great blessing and it made me very happy.  It made me think of how blessed I am and for everything my Father in Heaven has done for me.  He gave me everything, a loving family, millions of other blessings, and I just sat back and thought about how good my life is.  I'm so thankful for the gospel in my life and for the amazing blessing it is.  I'm thankful for my Savior and for his Atonement.  Yesterday was just a day of thanks, and I'm honored to be here serving the people of Viçosa on my birthday.  Thanks again for everything you've done and I hope you all had a good time eating my birthday cake... without me... JK LULZ.  I hope all is well back home.  Make sure to thank the family for the presents and cards.  Love you and have an amazing week!

Elder Johnson

P.S.  Thanks to anyone who had something to do with that package.

P.P.S. Now please stop sending me expensive packages.

P.P.P.S.  Thanks again family.

Good Times...

Viçosa!

Well this has been a week of some very interesting people.

First – there was a man who worked for an art school that we wanted to go do service at.  This was his explanation of the school: "This is an art school, we study guitar, keyboard, trumpet, and Jiu Jitsu."  Where Jiu Jitsu fits into this "art school" is beyond me.

Second - we also spoke with a lady who probably has a manlier voice than I do.  The lesson didn't go over very well.  We started to teach her, but she found it to be more important to show us her kittens and EVERY photo in her family photo album.

Third - we also taught this lady who was a 7th Day Adventist.  I have nothing against the 7th Day Adventists, but I do have something against this lady.  She kept repeating herself over and over again saying, "I'm a 7th day Adventist.  10 commandments.  We observe the Sabbath on Saturday."  She said each phrase about 3 million times and I just about lost it.

Saturday was a rough day.  It was Viçosa's 182 birthday and so they decided to throw parties throughout the week.  On Saturday they constructed this huge stage right in front of our house and decided to hold a humongous concert at 11:00 at night, with the one and only PABLO!  That's right you heard me, Pablo!  I know, I didn't believe it myself.  For those of you who don't know, and I don't know how you wouldn't, but Pablo is the most popular singer in all of northeast Brazil. Everybody plays his music and since they don't believe in earphones here, we hear him a lot.  People are always walking around with speakers, blasting his music in their houses, or blasting it with the cars with speakers hooked to the top.  I hear his music roughly over 9000 times a day and it all sounds the same.  So naturally, it was a pretty big deal here in little Viçosa.  At the concert they had like three groups of people who also had huge speakers blasting other music.  It's kind of like going to an amusement park, but just doing donuts in the parking lot.  So there was a glass shattering amount of music being played and lots of people, both men and women, seemed to mistake the front of our house for a public restroom.  Good Times.  Pablo didn't even show up to the concert, but they still managed to blast his music until I was deaf.  

Oh and one more thing, the ceiling fell on us.  I was talking with Elder Jepsen in another room and my companion was laying on my bed reading, when I saw out of the corner of my eye the ceiling in our room just fall down.  A cloud of dust, bat excrement, and insects then filled the air as my companion ran out of the room.  So we spent the next hour cleaning the room.  Good Times.

So yeah, the roof fell.

There literally was a good time this week.  We baptized our investigators Kailani and Kildere, which is awesome! WOOHOOO!  It was a very spiritual experience, you could just feel the love the Savior had for us so strong and the spirit was absolutely amazing.  Everyone was smiling and just filled with happiness.  One family that is closer to being forever! I had the honor of baptizing Kildere and I confirmed Kailin the next day, which I had yet to actually confirm someone, so that was a cool experience.  I love being a missionary!!

BATISMOS!!  Our baptism we had with Kildere and Kailani!!

So that's it for this week, I'm going to go preach the gospel and eat cuzcuz com ovo!

Tchau,

Elder Johnson

Victotry Dinner!!  Cuzcuz e Ovo  (Couscous and Egg)
I don't know why this picture makes me look so gaunt.

Elder Oliveira!  My old companion.

Elder Rutledge!  My old friend.

Muh Milkshake.  Abacaxi e Acerola com sorvete de morango, Bom to Pega!!!
(Pineapple & Acerola with strawberry ice cream.  Good to handle!!!)

Great and Terrible Was The First Week of October

First off General Conference was legit!  We didn't get to go watch it in the Stake Center because we had to be here in Viçosa just in case we had investigators, (more on that later), so we set up a projector in the chapel and had Conference there.  It was good, but it's not the same in Portuguese, you don't get the emotion the speakers deliver.  One cool thing though, is that Elder Richard G. Scott is fluent in Portuguese so he does his own voice over so that was a pretty cool experience.  I really loved President Thomas S. Monson's talk and his story about that blessing he gave and I also liked Elder Eyring's talk.  It's hard to really reflect on Conference because I have a hard time paying attention with the mixture of Portuguese with English speaking lips.

Great...yet terrible was the week.

The week really started off amazing!  We picked up like 17 new investigators this week and they were all way elect.  They all had great questions and the will to act and to learn more.  We found one family, that's right A FAMILY that was LEGALLY MARRIED and I swear the father would've been like a stake president if he were to be baptized.  The first two days were great, with chance encounters, wrong referrals that turned out to be huge blessings, and all sorts of miracles and excitement.  Well it all crashed and burned on the second half of the week.

Side story, we decided to do an open house of the church this week.  Our church is located really close to a high school so we decided to throw the open house during the times when all the teenagers get out of school.  I was on the inside with my display on the Book of Mormon, Elder Denna showed the baptismal font and some of our supplies, the Stake President took names and addresses, while Elder Jepsen and Elder Silva were outside inviting people to come in.  It was madness.  Teenagers... Teenagers everywhere.  They wouldn't stop coming in and we couldn't keep up with them.  For about 1 hour and 15 minutes we had about 250 people tour the chapel.  They were all asking questions, touching things, and overall causing all sorts of chaos.  There was lots of us shouting "Don't touch that!", ‘Put that down!", "Over here quickly", "No you can't swim in the baptismal font!"  They all wanted stuff too.  By the time the open house ended they had taken every supply and example of church materials that we had.  That includes:  A Young Women’s Personal Progress booklet,  A Duty to God guide, and A Gospel Principles manual, who does that!?  We were so excited to look at all of the addresses that we got.  About 120 people left their name and address to learn more about the church, but for some odd reason they forgot to put their house number, or the road that they lived on, and some of them just left their neighborhood.  #Facepalm  We had better success at the other open house we had later at night.  We had less people, but we could explain things better and make sure THAT THEY LEAVE THEIR STUPID HOUSE NUMBER.  More snakes too, which was uncomfortable but overall it was a good time.

Anyways... By the time General Conference rolled around Satan decided to have his way with our investigators by:  

·       Giving them the will to return to their own church that they really didn't agree with in the first place.

·       Telling us that their uncle died and had to go to his funeral. *excuses*

·       Or, my personal favorite, getting locked inside their house because their "dad" got drunk and decided to lock them inside the house without any means of escape.

So when Conference rolled around we had 0.

Overall it's been a rather difficult transfer and a half here.  Don't get me wrong I love Viçosa and the members are awesome, but it's been rather difficult to get people baptized here.  I know I shouldn't complain, but man we've tried everything and we've worked ourselves to death.  But I guess it was never supposed to be the easiest experience in the world.  This has been the hardest two months of my mission, but it is definitely the two months that I've learned the most.  We've all had our fair share of hard times here, but I've definitely learned to rely on the Savior and apply his Atonement in my life.  I'm excited for what the rest of this transfer has to offer and what I will learn next.  Anyways, love you all, hoped you enjoyed Conference and remember:  SALVATION IS NOT A CHEAP EXPERIENCE!!!!!!!!

-Elder Johnson

Battle Of The Century

Off to baptize a village.

So this week I had to go to Maceió to pick up an ID card at the police station and man it was a long annoying adventure.  We woke up at 4:00 a.m. in order to get to Maceió by 7:00.  When we arrived in Maceió we had to take a bus to the police station, but we didn't know which bus.  So we asked this guy and he told us to take this bus that just pulled up.  We got on the bus and the lady who takes your money on the bus asked us where to, and we said we were going to the police station.  Please note that she then proceeded to smile, nod, and take our money without any problem, we therefore understood this to be an understanding between the two parties.  We missionaries wanted to go to the police station and she was more than happy to take the acceptable amount of money and confirm the plan that she would take us there.

We were mistaken.

The bus then started to leave the city.  What was once brick, mortar, and carros de som, soon turned into lovely green Brazilian countryside.  The lady who made said promise with us approached me and said that we didn't pay enough to get to União dos Palmeiras, which for those of you who don't know is on the border of Pernambuco, which for those of you who don't know is the next state above us, which for those of you who don't know is very very far away.  LIES!  We then pleaded our case that she told us she would take us to the police station.  She then gasped and said, "Oh now we did a bad thing."  The bus, however, did not realize that and happily continued on its merry way very very faraway.  She then flagged down another bus about another few miles down the road and sent us back to Maceió and guess where it dropped us off?  The bus station, the exact same place we came from just about 2 to 3 hours ago.  It wasn't all in vain though; we talked to one of the bus attendants on the bus to Maceió who told us she just left her old church.  We then taught her the Restoration and maybe we opened missionary work in União!  Well probably not, but I can dream can't I?

We had interviews with President this week.  It was really great.  We talked about our area and he gave us a lot of great suggestions.  He even took us out to lunch! which is one thing we lack here in Viçosa.

So there was a Battle Of The Century this week.  We were trying to convince the non-member father of a family of recent converts to let us baptize some of his kids.  When we got home he was a little iffy about letting us do so, but then we bared our testimonies and the spirit was super strong.  He then gave us permission to baptize his children and there was much rejoicing.  In truth it wasn't really a battle, but it was spiritually intense and you could definitely feel it there in the room.  However, we can't baptize them for a couple of weeks because of scheduling conflicts, which is stressful.

So that's about it for this week.  I love you all and keep up the good work.

Tchau!

Elder Johnson

E aconteceu que Eu terei uma outra transferência aqui em Viçosa‏.

(And it happened that I'll have another transfer here in Viçosa.)

Opa!!!

Well it is now another transfer here in lovely green Viçosa and things are going great.  I have a new companion and his name is Elder Denna and he's from Sacramento (1st American companion).  I am also ending his missionary life too.  He's on his last transfer and we're going hard in the paint!!!!  Like seriously, really really hard in the paint.  We taught 17 lessons this last week and two of those days we spent in Maceió.  He's showing me a lot of cool techniques n stuff so it's been a pretty good transfer so far!

So this last week we had a Serão (Fireside) for our branch about member missionary work.  We divided the Serão into four different trainings and themes.  My job was to be the guy who gets everybody excited.  I played a video from the Work of Salvation broadcast and talked about the impact members really have on the work.  I feel like it worked pretty well because we had a member ask for five copies of the Book of Mormon, some old pass along cards, and some pamphlets he can give to people.  Needless to say I'm not going to complain.

So this week I feel like I broke through a spiritual barrier, I RECEIVED REVELATION!!!!!!!!  #WINNING  So personal revelation has always been a hard subject for me, not because I don't agree with it or anything, but that I feel like I just don't get any.  I've had other experiences with revelation that was more of a IKnewItWasRevelationInHindSightKindOfAThing, but I never really had a IFeltTheSpiritTellMeToTalkToThisGuySoIDidAndItTurnedOurHesBeenWaitingForeverToHearTheGospelSoWeBaptizedHimKindOfAThing.  So I was walking down the road the other day, marveling at the greenness and shear beauty of my surroundings when I had this strange feeling to talk to some old guy in the road.  I ignored it at first because I thought he looked crazy and would only say crazy things to me and I'd be wasting my time.  BUT on the return trip I saw the same guy and thought, "Well maybe he really wont be crazy and he'll actually want to go to church." 

I was very wrong.

Conversation:

ME: Hey! How's it going?

CRAZY OL MAN:  SISTER LIMA!!!!!!!!!

ME:  ... Sorry what?

CRAZY OL MAN:  SISTER LIMA!!!!!!!!

ME:  Sister Lima?

CRAZY OL MAN:  SISTER LIIIIIIIIIIIIIMA!

ME:  Sister Lima…

CRAZY OL MAN:  No, SISTER LIIIIIIIIMA

ME:  Sister Liiiiiima.

CRAZY OL MAN:  Yes SISTER LIMA!!!

ME:  Who's Sister Lima?

CRAZY OL MAN:  I'm Sister Lima!!!

ME:  You're Sister Lima?

CRAZY OL MAN:  Yep!!!

So it turned out that crazy ol man was Sister Lima.  I talked with Sister Lima for quite some time and it turned out he really was crazy and our conversation was going nowhere.  But what did go somewhere was the little girl who stopped to listen to our conversation.  I distracted Sister Lima by talking about his beliefs while my companion asked the girl if her family was interested in listening to us.  She said yes, so I bid farewell to Sister Lima, who pointed to the girl's house and we talked to her family.  Turns out her family had previously met with the missionaries and they loved us!!!  We had the matriarch give the prayer and she started to cry and said she knew our church to be true.  After the lesson I felt very pleased with myself.  FINALLY I had a revelation/impression experience, so I made sure to give extra thanks in my prayers that night.

That's about for today; sorry it isn't a whole lot.  For your information mom, we live above a bar, or at least that's what I think it is.  The guy who always chills in the house below us has lots of pictures of beer and is always drinking/breaking open coconuts.  Nobody is ever there, just him, so I don't know if it's just a guy who is really fond of his barley based liquor, or if he's really terrible at running a bar.

Well, that's it, bye!!!

-Elder Johnson

(Love ya mom and sorry for the lack of pictures this week.  Love you guys!)

Killing My Companion

Tchau Elder Araujo!!!  #Selfies

So today was the day I killed Elder Araujo.  He's now off to good ole São Paulo.  He was a really great companion and I learned a lot from him.  We received word about the next transfer and I'm staying here in Viçosa for another six weeks!!  

Speaking of killing, I saw a Nordestino (Northeast) funeral procession the other day.  It was a bit strange.  They had one of those cars with the huge speakers on top of them playing strange Catholic music while people pushed the casket on a cart that you'd find in a cafeteria.  There were a lot of people walking behind the car too following the casket to the cemetery, it was rather odd.

One thing they like to do here in the interior is sell things on the streets.  Not like the usual street vendors selling pastéis (pastry) and coxinhas (drumsticks), but people who sell things out of the back of cars and bikes.  There's this one guy who comes by every morning at 6:30 (he's become our alarm clock) and he likes to yell "Seu Leite Irmão!!!!" (Milk Your Brother!!!)  He hooks this huge container of milk onto the back of his motorcycle and sells it in the mornings.  The thing is though, it's fresh milk, like really fresh, like it came out of the cow about a half an hour before he showed up fresh.  So you have to boil the milk first to get rid of all the bacterial goodness before you can drink it.

I've also seen people sell bread with huge trays and baskets of breads attached to bicycles.  It really is impressive that they can go anywhere with these huge metal contraptions hooked on top of their tiny bikes.  There also was a truck that likes to drive around the Feira (Fair) selling 4 chickens for 15 Reais, which if you did not know, IS A BARGAIN!!!!!!  The thing is though, they're still squawking when they sell them to you and we have no place to put live chickens in our house or any knowledge of butchering so that idea went out the window.  Oh and there's also a man who sells fine cheeses out of the trunk of his car.

Always something new that happens here.

Church this week was interesting too.  There’s this one guy, lets call him João, that's a pretty vague Brazilian name.  He once held a pretty high leadership position in the church at one time, but has since left the church so now he makes a hobby of coming to church every now and then and making things difficult.  To kind of give you a picture of this guy he has curly white hair, a booming voice, and wore a white T-shirt that had a quote by himself to church.  The lesson this week in Gospel Principles was on the role of the family.  He quickly liked to share his opinion, which is it is necessary to beat your kid in order to teach said innocent child respect. Which the church, myself, the Elder giving the class, a recent convert, and probably most governments and civilized people, would consider to be wrong.  His argument was Jesus beat the people who were selling stuff inside the Temple, therefore we must beat our children.  #Genius.  The class then turned into us arguing with him and his friend who he brought to church over the matter.  In the end our recent convert friend, who is probably one of the nicest and kindest ladies I've ever met, told him off and that he was completely wrong, in the nicest and kindest way I've ever seen.

There's always something interesting that happens here.

Our friend didn't stick around for sacrament meeting, but before he left I told him that the unique thing about the gospel is that it invites us to change.  He then told me I was too young to know such a thing, that he can never change, and that religion never has the power to heal anyone.  He was right about one thing, I am rather young, but that doesn't mean I don't know what's true.  I've seen the power of this gospel and if there is one thing I know to be true it is that people can change if they want to.  I've seen if first hand.  I know that the Atonement is real; it's worked for me and millions of other people.  It just comes down to the fact that some people just don't want to change, even when they know what's right.  God could be staring them in the face and tell them what is true and they would just be perfectly happy staying where they are.  There are people, that during lessons when it gets to a really spiritual point, ignore the spirit they are feeling and try to distance themselves from it.  That really doesn't make sense to me, but I guess some people just don't want to work for their own salvation.

But I've also seen those people who have worked for the well being of their own soul, made clean in Christ, and I can testify that it is worth it.  They become new people.  They smile more and are free from whatever it was in their past that kept them from progressing. This church, this gospel, and everything they encompass I know to be true.  

Last day with Elder Araujo.  This is a family in our branch and they're super cool.

I guess that's about it for this week.  I'll be down here preaching the gospel and buying bread from strange people on bicycles.

Tchau!!!

- Elder Johnson

Reunião do distrito.

Nossa Casa  (our home).

Look at this weird pineapple I bought the other day!!

The Brothers Are Going to Liberate

It was a pretty good week.  I've found that the week following a baptism is usually a bit difficult.  We've kind of hit a dry spell, but we recently found some pretty cool investigators.  So I guess the work is hastening, slowly, but it is hastening!!!

Something interesting I learned this week is that there are a group of people called "Pessoas Sem Terra."  Usually in the cities the really poor people live inside Favelas or Grotas, which are like slums built on hills.  Here in the lovely interior they don't really exist.  Instead they have Pessoas Sem Terra.  They're usually people who are super poor and don't have anything.  So what they do is form a band of poor people and invade some land, usually on the side of a hill, and build shacks out of wood and plastic tarps.  They then start to farm on these hills and sell the food to make money.  The thing is, it's not very legal and they have their own laws and weapons.  We don't talk to them because it's not a very effective use of our time, but you can see them on the side of hills and stuff.  

The restaurant we ate at in Maceió.  It has a lovely view of the Grota!

So the other day we were returning from Maceió to Viçosa, because we had a meeting, when the bus we were on pulled over and turned off its engine.  The bus driver got out and there were a ton of cars and people on the road, all stopped for about two miles.  We got out and we saw that there was a fire up the road and a ton of people were surrounding it.  We, like the helpful little missionaries we are, decided that we would go help out the problem and provide blessings to those who needed it.

Chaos in the road.

We set off down the road with our stuff and a banner with Jesus on the front (we needed the banner for a future activity) not knowing what kind of adventure would await us.  We got lots of comments from people on the road like, "The Brothers are going to liberate!!!!" and "Ya, you wave that banner of Jesus!!  Liberate!!!"  When we got closer to the fire, about a kilometer (yes I think in metric now) away from the fire, one of the onlookers said that a bunch of Pessoas Sem Terra built this fire in the middle of the road and made a blockade so nobody could pass by.  We then turned around realizing that it probably wasn't the best idea to get involved and we headed back to the bus.  The hardcore police showed up and they started their negotiations with the Pessoas Sem Terra.  We waited for about three hours and it was starting to get dark by the time all the commotion ended.  When it all cleared up one guy shouted at us as he was driving away, "See I told you the Brothers were going to liberate!!!"  Nothing really happened, nobody was hurt, but it sure was eventful.

Gonna liberate!

I also finally saw Capueira for the very first time.  Capueira is Brazilian martial arts that resembles an African style of dance.  When the Portuguese came over to Brazil they brought lots of slaves with them and they developed this style of fighting.  It's really cool looking filled with lots of flips and kicking really high into the air.  They also use colored rope cords for belts, which is pretty cool.  A gang of them were doing it in the park close to our house so we stopped to watch for a bit.  There's lots of bongo drums and strange instruments.  Pretty cool.

Capueira

Went and visited another waterfall today.

They've got these weird looking cows everywhere.

A flower for mommy.

Serenity  (lol)

I also had the opportunity to give the lesson in Elders Quorum yesterday.  And by Elders Quorum I mean the missionaries, the branch president, and an investigator.  I talked about the blessings of the priesthood and I felt I did really well.

Hope you all are doing well, love you all, and have a great week.

- Elder Johnson

I buy a lot of fruit now.

Yep, me and Elder Rutledge again.

It Was Glorious

SELFIES!!!  Elder Rutledge, Elder Jung (my MTC companion), and I looking at our own respective cameras.

Hi mommy.

We had Zone Conference this week, which was pretty legit.  We had to catch a bus at about 6:00 am to get to Maceió before the meeting started at 9:00 am.  We ended up taking this van thing that they use to ship people from the interior to the capitol and it sure was different.  Once you get into the city people can flag down the van, pay two Reais, and I think they'll drop you off anywhere in the city you ask.  I don't know, it's kind of a confusing concept.  Anyways, once it gets into the city EVERYONE decides to use this van it was PACKED! It was more packed than any other bus I've ever taken down here and it sure drove a lot faster.  It was a miracle that the van did not tip over.  I don't know how it didn't, but it survived.  After flying down the streets of Maceió (that includes the unpaved dirt shoulder or the road and sidewalk, which the driver thought was a good idea) we arrived at the Farol Chapel.

Zone Conference was over all a great experience.  President and Sister Gonzaga emphasized the importance of working with members along with improving our baptismal services to make them more spiritual.  We also talked a lot about the Restoration along with the importance of maintaining our testimony.  A jolly ole time if I do say so myself.

Getting back from Zone Conference on the other hand was less jolly.  We had to catch a bus that left at 6:15 pm and we left the chapel at about 5:50 pm and we had to walk all the way to the bus station.  We also had all of our bags, new things for our house, and packages to carry back.  The bust station is a bit of a distance away too so we started walking fast and then we started to run.  Over the Grota we ran, we sprinted up the hill, and bought our tickets just in time to catch the bus.  When we got there we learned that it was delayed for about half an hour so our epic sprint was in vain.  Nevertheless, it was glorious!!!  We ran all the way there with each of us carrying about 20 pounds of assorted packages, copies of Book of Mormons, pots, pans, and little towels.  When we got there an out of breath missionary told me, "That was epic."

And epic it was...

Also this week we had the baptism of our good friend Maciel!!!  He's 15 years old and is a really cool guy.  Elder Arajuo baptized him and it was a really good meeting.  Maciel and his cousin were talking about serving missions the other day so that made me really happy.

The work is going really well down here in good ole Viçosa Alagoas and I'm loving every minute of it.  Hope all is well back home.  I'll be down here crying repentance and riding sketchy vans.

- Elder Johnson e Johnson
(My other nickname they like to call me down here.)