Ben's Mission: West New York, New Jersey

Ben's Street Address for LETTERS is:

Elder Benjamin Johnson

125 67th Street, Apt. #1

West New York, NJ 07093

Yep, his mission president let us know that he can and must receive letters at this address,

assuring us they will safely arrive.

But any packages must always be sent to the Mission Home. Otherwise,

the Elders never receive them--they are stolen right off their stoops.

(The Mission Address is in a previous post below).

9.20.09

Hello once again everybody :)

This week was kinda interesting.... We seemed to get "juked" (when appointments fall through kinda at the last moment and we're left with our back up plans) way more than normal. And then even after jukage we'd be stuck with back up plans that wouldn't work out sometimes...it was interesting, yet good. We walked lots as a result of everything and it kinda got to our legs and feet but that's no real biggie.

Our investigators seem to be movin along kinda well, Cira is still totally down with her baptismal date this saturday and it seems like thats gonna be totally awesome :) ..."Willie" her 13, almost 14 year old son is showing some decent interest in church as well. He likes young mens activities/classes on sundays lots. And yesterday at stake conference (which was interesting being in spanish and whatnot lol) I made him some "tarea" (homework) during the meeting, just 2 simple questions; 1. What did you learn during the meeting? and 2. What was your favorite part? ...which he answered and we're gonna review with him tonight during our appointment with his family. Being basically a boy myself I know how nearly impossible it is to just sit and pay attention so im hoping those lil questions helped :) ...i guess we shall see tonight. Our other main investigator, Jessica, is doing well as well. We actually had a bit of a breakthrough with her since last week. She kind of lacks the faith still, but we are discovering things that she sees she needs to change "if I wanted to be a mormon" ...so it's a start right? We are trying to help her feel how the Lord can help you in daily life and with spiritual and temporal goals. We had her write out some goals short, med. and long terms and we're gonna see what we can do to help her reach them...with the constant help of the holy ghost and the scriptures of course :)

So we did some crazy service this week.... it was with the Familia Chavez. Their house is kinda crazy.... they have 6 kids, and the oldest of them is 8...ya, its way loud. We painted some doors for em, which wasn't too big of a deal. But i swear their backyard is like a total war zone. We're gonna try to do lots to help them out over these next few weeks in terms of service and reactivating them. But their kids....my goodness. There was Joshua, who was running around with a lil cap gun saying "manos arriba!" (hands up), Derrik, who was playing with William basically the whole time (some sort of hide and go seek i think....but hide and seek that involved lots of yelling), Brittney, the 8 year old generally kinda chills with the youngest of the bunch but they're both pretty loud and April is just kinda there and laughs at everything, yet is really shy of the elders.... and then there is William..... who has the far better fitting nick name of Tuke-ee.... He is 3, and mildly crazy. He doesn't really speak a real language....more a mixture of nothingness, spanish and english (prolly in that order). He is regularly nude, or at the most wearing either a shirt or pants...never both. And he is always yelling lol. He is near impossible to fully capture in an e-mail because the simplicity of my words cheapen the very essense of Tuke-ee. It is crazy lol. He really enjoys yelling CACA! ________ (followed by some random word [snake being his favorite i think]) but we are unaware what it could possibly mean. ....Ya its crazy but the family is awesome. They want to go to the temple and Britt. is 8 but not yet baptized. We have sooo much we could help them out with, helping them build their estate here as well as in the next life. I cant wait to do everything i can to help :)

That basically sums up my week tho, hope everyone is doing nothing short of the greatest!

Hasta Luego,

Elder Johnson