Rather Odd Miracles

The view from our window.

We had some miracles this week, even if they were rather odd. 

The first one happened a few days ago. My companion and I were teaching a lesson outside on the sidewalk when some guy with two cigarettes in his mouth came up to my companion and yelled  "YOU ARE ON MISSIONS!!!  BUY GUARANÁ" and then gave two Real notes to my companion. We tried to tell him that we couldn't accept his money but he yelled "NO!  YOU ARE SERVING MISSIONS!!!!  BUY GUARANÁ AND BREAD!!!!!" he then slapped another two Real note in my hand, gave the lowest bow I've ever seen, and preceded on his merry way.  Our investigator took it as a sign of love from God so I really can't complain.  We then bought Guaraná (a Brazilian soda) and bread out of fear of that man.

My companion asked one of our investigators if he knew of anyone that would like to hear the gospel. He said yes. He told us he knows this man believes in God, but is hardened, doesn't want to go to church, and overall hardcore.  We went over to the house he referred us to and this very nice lady let us in (who turned out to be a less active member.) She led us to her husband (our referral) and he turned out to be a very nice man.  I was thinking we'd walk in on a man with a beer in each hand, smoking, huge, and covered with tattoos that'd say things like "Eu Odeio os Mórmons" (I Hate Mormons), but he turned out to be really nice, felt the spirit, and invited himself to church.  At the end of the lesson he asked us if we could "make continual visits to his house and teach him the gospel." .... fine.... I guess we will......

I've reached an "I'm very tired phase of my mission" which hopefully means something good.

So cool experience.  We had some recent converts bring us to a house of a less active member to try and bring him back into activity.  Usually when you work with less active members it's because they got offended or stopped reading the Book of Mormon and fell away.  These types of lessons are usually pretty chill and we try to rebuild their faith.

That's not who this guy was.

Turns out he practically was born in the church, attended until he was 20, and stopped going to church just because he wanted too.  He's a lawyer (rich) and now is part of an Espírita Church.  I still don't know what Espírita is completely; nobody seems to be able to tell me.  The only thing I really understand is that they're Christians, but believe in reincarnation, that Jesus did not atone for our sins, and that we have to atone for our own sins.  We talked for about two hours hitting lots of deep doctrine points and everybody bearing powerful testimony, it was nuts.  I've never really had a deep doctrinal discussion in Portuguese before, but I did that day.  We proved our point and the recent converts bore really powerful testimony.  He didn't accept to come back to church, but he did accept to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  We were also able to plant some seeds in some of the neighbors while we were there and one of them actually seemed rather interested.  It was a very interesting experience. I truly felt that I wasn't "confounded before men" and I felt completely confident the entire time, which I thought was a very interesting experience.

That's about it for this week, really nothing else really happened.  We're trying to find some ex investigators around here and the members are really supportive.  I'll just keep chugging along down here.  Until next time!

Elder Johnson

P.S.  Abraços  (Hugs)

P.P.S.  Love you lots.  Tchau a abraços beijos sucesso batismos!*  (Goodbye, hugs, kisses, success baptisms!)

A rich part of our area.

A small Grota.  We do have a bigger one, but I'm too afraid to take a picture of it.

I'm Very Catholic

´Twas a very slow week.  We made lots of contacts and tried to visit lots of people, but had little to no success with that.  We'd mark appointments with people and of course when we got there, they wouldn't be home.  Nobody wanted to really listen to us also this week so that's cool too.  I have a feeling this next week will be better though, we had a very extreme Ward Counsel meeting the other day.  I didn't know that Ward Counsel meetings could get extreme, but yet again the mission has proven to be filled with all manner of surprises.  We got there at the meeting and everyone started shooting out ideas of how to get the less active members to come back to church.  They all started throwing down names of people they wanted us to visit and dates when we could leave with some of the members to talk with less actives.  The room was filled with about 10 people all throwing down names and addresses at the same and it was complete chaos... I loved it.

So some of the wonders that encompasses the magical world of Elder Johnson this week:

We went to a lunch appointment with a family that indeed has monkeys for pets.  There are quite a few monkeys in my area because we're close to some kind of forest reserve that they decided to build in the middle of the city, which is inhabited with these tiny-creepy-koala-looking monkeys. We first spied them sitting on the roof of the house next door to us and we saw them again at lunch the other day.  I naturally was overjoyed and took a lot of pictures of them, which I probably won’t be able to send today because I hate this computer and it wont read my card.

We also talked to lady who told us she was very Catholic.  We invited her to learn more about Jesus Christ and she said in her own words:  "Guys, you've got to understand that I'm very Catholic, like very very Catholic.  I'm not a little a little bit Catholic, I'm seriously Catholic."  

I also met a dog named "Meg Ryan" the other day, which I found to be rather funny.

The Grota here makes no sense either.  We went inside because we had a reference for a family there and it made absolutely no sense.  Grota's should be poor right? Then how come these people can afford satellite and HD TV's when some of these people don't even have a bathroom?  There were churches and stores down there with a putrid smelling stream that everyone uses for a sewer.

To answer some of your questions Jardim Do Horto is the ward that takes part of the neighborhoods Canaã and Gruta de Lourdes. I'm liking my new area, the members here a really cool and work well with us.  We don't have McDonalds or fast food in my area, but we do have a Hiper Bompreço and an Extra, which is really cool.  Training is pretty cool too, it's a little bit of work but it's fun, you learn a lot.

So I guess I'll end this on a more spiritual note.  I was reading the word the other day when I came across this scripture D&C 103:36 which says "All victory and glory is brought to pass unto you through your diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith."  It just kind felt different.  I've read the D&C a few times and I never ran across that scripture before. It's like a formula to overcoming trials and being successful.  You can bring about your "victory" through diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith.  I shared this scripture at our lunch appointment and the member and her mom jumped at the scripture and said it felt like they heard it for the first time. Her mom even asked for me to write it down for her so that was pretty cool. 

So that's it for now, I'm going to cry repentance atop a soapbox in the middle of the road. Tchau!

-Elder Johnson

Diligence, Faithfulness, and Prayers of Faith.

I'm A Father

The other day at transfer meeting I was called to serve in Ala Jardim Do Horto inMaceió.  After about 10 months on my mission I finally get to serve in the city I was called to.  It's a pretty interesting area, it has some tall 10 story buildings, a pretty nice neighborhood, along with another neighborhood that has houses nicer then probably most of the houses where we live.  It also has some neighborhoods that I'm used to and Grota!  For those of you who don't know what a Grota is it’s a kind of Favela, for those of you who don't know what a Favela is it’s a slum that is built on top of hills.  Grotas are different from Favelas because you descend into the Grota instead of climb to the top.  It's pretty different; they've got houses built on top of other houses all willy-nilly with staircases climbing to the top as roads.  They have Catholic shrines of Mother Mary inside and some of the houses are even made out of scraps of wood and tin metal.  It's a pretty daunting looking place.  There's a road that passes next to our Grota and there's always stuff going on inside, you can here barking dogs, commotion of people, and a blend of all the music they're blasting at the top of the Grota, it's all sorts of chaos and madness.

Jardim do Horto Maceio Alagoas Brazil

So naturally I had to go inside.

It's pretty cool inside the Grota, it's definitely not what I'm used to but it's pretty cool.

Oh and I'm training.

Yeah when I got to the transfer meeting they announced that Kyle and I would be training.  Training, since I got here, has been one of my biggest fears.  Training takes quite a bit of responsibility and this would mean I would be whitewashing into my area. So yeah when I was called to train (and I could feel it coming too) I definitely didn't know how to respond.

I would like to liken receiving the call to train unto receiving the news of having a terminal illness.  People come up to you and say things like, "Hey man it's going to be alright." "I know you can do it!" "You're good enough." "I bet it won't hurt too bad."  Other people congratulate you and as with congratulating someone who just received word that they'd be dying from a terminal illness, it made absolutely no sense to me.  "Hey congratulations Bro!" "Way to go on your imminent doom buddy." "Man I wish I was in your place."

Yeah, no sense whatsoever.

So all of us trainers chilled at the church until the secretaries came to get us.  We got to the Presidents house and we saw all of the new missionaries.  I was called to train Elder Torres!  Who is a Gaúcho (cowboy) from Rio Grande Do Sul (southern most state in Brazil) and has the accent to prove it "Que Barbaridade Tche!"  He's really cool and I really don't have to do much training he's the most excited missionary I've ever met.  He just goes and makes contacts like there's no tomorrow and just tears it up all day. So my son is pretty cool.

We whitewashed into an area that was previously an area for sisters and so they left the house all clean and instructions on paper with hearts on it.

So yeah it's going pretty well here in Brazil.  They don't really have Halloween down here so I was really sad, but it's cool I'm over it. Well I'm going to be down here trying to train a missionary. Wish me luck!

-Elder Johnson

My Last Week In Viçosa

Our Zone T-shirt.  I'm a bit hard to find.  I have white hair in this photo and standing next to the sweating guy.
 Guess which one is Elder Rutledge?

I got the news last night that I'm getting transferred so that'll be exciting.  Five Reais to anybody who guesses my next area correctly. I'm going to miss Viçosa because I sure learned a whole lot here and grew a ton.

So I was asked if I already have had children by some lady this week.  I told her that I was 20 and that I'm not allowed to have children until after my mission.  She then asked me why I wanted to be an old dad. Yep....

Oh the abomination of the week goes out to the 14 year old girl we talked to who has a boyfriend who is 23.  We asked her if she found it to be the least bit strange and she answered no.

There's also a church really close to our house that likes to sing a lot of our hymns.  I understand hymns like "I Need Thee Every Hour" and "Nearer My God To Thee", but they were singing "Come, Come Ye Saints" yesterday and I have no idea as to how it pertains to their religion.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they were to sing "If You Could Hie To Kolob" in their next meeting.

I was called out of nowhere during this week’s sacrament meeting to give the first talk after the opening hymn which was loads of fun. I said a quick prayer and gave a little talk on the Sacrament, which I felt went over pretty well! So that's my tender mercy of the week!

So we had some baptisms this week!  The first we held at 2:00 in the afternoon for our investigators/recent converts Valeria e Veríssimo!  They're awesome!  We found them while searching for less actives and they accepted everything, could repeat doctrine, volunteered to pray, and even made their own baptismal meeting invites.  We had to baptize Valeria twice because she didn't go all the way down the first time, but the second time she said she felt so good and she just left the font all happy and smiling.

We then held the next baptismal meeting at 9:00 in the afternoon for our investigator Neto.  We planned to baptize him at 7:00, but we had some issues come up so we had to delay a little bit.  He's really cool; he lives in another city but attends church here because it's the closest one to him.  When we first talked with him he'd already read a substantial amount of the Book of Mormon.  When we taught him the Word of Wisdom, we asked him what things he thought God wouldn't want us to drink or smoke and the first thing he said was coffee!  Yeah he's really cool.  It was an amazing baptism and just listening to him talk about how he felt afterwards was absolutely awesome!  The branch out here is growing and it makes me so excited to see where it will go in the future.

The baptism of Neto.  He was baptized by his nephew who just became a Priest that same week.

Well that's it for now, I've got to find out where my next area is and get a new companion.  Tchau! 

Elder Johnson

Bye Companion!

Die Companion!

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