9.14.09

Here comes another update of a week in the life :)

Well days are kind of blurring together so if i mention something i mentioned last week please do forgive me. But it has been a good week.  We had a bunch of different meetings, such as a basic training meeting for the new elders, zone conference, zone meeting and such. Those kinda ate up some time during our days but we still had a pretty solid week. We are trying to focus on getting new investigators, a category with which we are kind of lacking. We have a lot of potentials that we just need to have blossom. One of the potentials did begin to blossom this last week however (or 'sin embargo' for some reading this :) Ana Solis is a new investigator we have who was a media referral i believe (so like someone in the RC at the MTC told us to go there basically) and we finally got in touch with her this last week and have taught two lessons in her home now. We have gone both times with Hno Paillaman (pie-ya-mon) and every lesson we do with him is just like golden (the one prior was when we set Cira with a baptismal date). But basically it seems to be going well and her daughter Natalie (prolly around mid 20's is showing some interest as well. And one nice thing is that they understand more english than most of our investigators/ward members so it helps me out with trying to teach.

One of our other investigators named Jessica who we kinda just knocked into last sunday is pretty awesome as well. She really truly wants to regain her lost faith in God and Jesus Christ. And her willingness has led to her being awesome at reading from the Book of Mormon as well as praying. So we will see how that plays out.

As for Cira (who has a baptismal date for the 26th) she is basically rip roarin and ready to go. She is basically ready to enter the waters of baptism :) ...and according to Elder Davis I should baptize her :) ...not gonna lie, i'd be a fan, but we will see how that plays out.

That covers a decent bit of the investigators, or at least the ones that I know well because I've actually taught them (there are others that I have yet to really teach).

...It was wet and rainy a lil bit this week, but I was given a sweet trench coat and basically I was lookin pretty fresh. It was actually kinda fun to be chillin in the rain... but before Elder Davis gave me the coat somethin kinda funny happened... I was walkin down the street and this random guy (Eddie) stopped Elder Wilcox and I (I was on a quick exchange because Wilcox's comp was feelin sick) and was like, "Where's your coat?" ...directed at me. then he pointed to Wilcox and said, "see he's got a coat he knows whats goin' on, but you're (me) lookin [freakin] retarded" (he didn't say freakin)  ...so I explained i was new and didn't have any winter clothes really and he said, "Well i'll buy you one" ...which kinda took me aback, but he politely insisted. We proceeded into the 99c store and bought a sweet trash bag---i mean poncho so that i didn't get too wet. He then says how he likes to help people, and his example for how he helps people out was this: like if you have someone you need to [mess] up, i'll kill em for you........  Ok, whoa.  It was at that point that Wilcox and I handed him a pass-along-card and were on our way. The whole experience was pretty out there and pretty funny...

Another pretty funny story happened at church yesterday (mind you its a spanish branch so i only barely get whats going on).  And the Brother conducting the meeting was announcing the schedule and upcoming talks and what not and said then we will hear a testimony from Elder Wilcalkjebdason....or at least thats what it seemed like. Elder Wilcox and I are both new to the ward and couldn't tell which of us he had said. So we were trying to figure out what he had said by asking people around us but nobody really knew...and a sister in front of us got mad at us for talking so we kinda just stopped and let it go. Well when the time came for the Elder....whoever it was...to speak there was kinda a long pause....sooooo I just got up and bore my testimony cuz none of us really had any clue what was going on. Come to find out afterwards he had actually accidently said Wilson (ya go figure) but meant Wilcox. All in all pretty funny cuz we were just like wait what did he just say??? And im guessing the Bishop and his counselors were crackin' up when i stood and walked to the stand. :-)

I'm starting to get down what is kinda where with the area which is nice... had some food which was good. They were Arepas, Venezuelan goodness basically...with some rice and chicken stuff. It was way good. Topped it off with some flan basically (it was called something different but thats prolly just cuz its from Venezuela). Had some Civiche the other day too, which was pretty good. 

Basically things are going well and im just trying to get the hang of understanding spanish still.  I feel like, and keep hearing from people (whether out of pitty on the lil gringo or legitimate-- im not sure which) that my spanish speaking is good. I just get so easily lost in fast conversation. Colombians are way easier to understand tho :) they are always a treat....actually going over to a colombian family's place tonight for a Family Home Evening (Noche De Hogar). It should be good.

Anyways that basically sums up the week, lots of walking lol but thats all the time pretty much lol. Hope everything is going well with all of you!  Please do not at all hesitate to toss me a letter or two or 12 or something. It's always nice getting letters :) ...Im pretty sure my mission home address is on this blog thingy or whatever and if not you can just ask my mom ...she's basically pretty awesome and knows that sorta thing :)

Till next week :)
Elder Johnson