10.19.09
Hello everybody,
Today: Rain, a high of 46 and a low of 41. Tomorrow: Rain, a high of 45 and a low of 40-with a moderate breeze. Friday: Rain, a high of 47 and a low of 42-with a slight breeze...ie 'chill factor'. And it's getting colder............not exactly the most motivating forecast to hear at the start of the week in a walking area. But despite the wet and the cold and the wind (all of which I am not a fan of one bit while having to walk everywhere) the week has still been good. :)
The crowning moment was the baptism of Willie we had on Saturday night. It was awesome :) And it was the first time I had ever baptized anyone. The Spirit was super strong just as I pulled Willie up out of the water. It is really too amazing to be cheapened by simple words in this e-mail, so let's just call it Pure Bliss. I know that it was confirming to me that the Lord was smiling down upon his son, Willie, at that very moment. I feel so blessed to have been able to take part in something so significant on an eternal perspective.
And to be quite honest, in comparison to that, the week seems rather dull....not because it was a terrible week, but merely because of the fact that participating in Willie's baptismal service easily out shines the rest of the week. Transfers came and went, and in my district there were no changes, which is nice. Elder Davis and I have really high hopes for this next transfer here in West New York.
We did an awesome lesson with Jessica, who is still struggling with faith in Jesus Christ..."what if it is all just fictionalized to make him sound better than he really was?" ....is more or less her question. Our lesson was trying to help her see the sacrifice that he has made for her. What we did was we made cookies and put 4 golf balls in a jar. For every golf ball she got out of the jar she got a cookie. But she couldn't touch the jar.... The object was that she had to ask Elder Davis for help...then for every golf ball I did 25 push-ups, then the gold ball was taken out and she got a cookie. And it went perfectly, right when we sat down she said, "I want cookies"...so we did the lesson. It worked perfectly and she was able to put together the meaning very easily...E. Davis was like our Heavenly Father, I was representing the suffering of Jesus Christ, the balls were sins or obstacles we need to overcome, cookies were blessings...etc. It was one of my favorite lessons we've done thus far simply because it went down so perfectly.
It was also Willie's b-day and we were invited over to dinner that night and last night we got some amazing food as well. It's simply delightful :) I'm totally lovin it here in WNY and I'm really starting to finally like get to really know people in the ward and that sorta thing...youth and adults alike (its easy with the youth though, they all speak english) =D
Anyways, I hope everything is going well for all of you and hope for nothing less than a great week for all :)
...till next time,
Elder Johnson
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
9.28.09
Dear Everybody, or Whoever's Listening...
Well this week has been kinda crazy...as have been some of the people we've met.
It all kinda started off on a bad foot with a broken phone =/ ...Which really made us appreciate how awesome phones are lol. I seriously cant imagine missionary work without being able to call and make/confirm appointments. So on tuesday we drove to get a new phone, which was a literal miracle that they had a spare we could use. But that left our day seemingly shot. Yet it ended up being quite sweet...
We we're walking to go basically see if someone was home (no appointment just a stop by and hopefully visit thing)... And we hear a familiar voice say, "Hey Guys!" from the above window. Mind you the appartment we are by is not one in which we know anybody. We we're actually taking an odd and inefficient way to get to our final destination... But it was Frankie, Jessica's (Jessica being our sweet investigator that we found my 1st sunday here) like 5 year old brother. We were basically shocked to see him... Pretty much we stumbled upon Jessica's grandma/sister's house. And the best part was Jessica was there and we taught her and her sister just like totally on the spot =D It was wild. Apparently they had just been talking about life after death and Jessica was trying to explain/remember things we had mentioned.... perfect timing right? :) So that was way cool and kinda a nice update on one investigator that will hopefully begin progressing a little faster...she seems kinda stagnant (hope you like that word choice Alec ;]). But i've got the faith things will work out, with her and her sister.
As for Cira, she was just baptized on saturday :) it was awesome, yet way toooooo hectic. We didn't get back from a "Mission Blitz" (where everyone went to one area and knocked every door basically) till like 5:30 and the baptism was at 7... So we basically jumbled everything together which was a bit of a bummer and super stressful for my comp. I was just kinda doing what i was told and fairly care-free by comparison, lol. One bummer was Jessica, who had said she'd come didn't :( ...which would have helped her so much to feel the spirit, one thing we are trying to get her to understand). But all is well. The next day Cira received the gift of the Holy Ghost while in Sacrament Meeting :) ...it basically went really well. And as for her son, "Willie" he is scheduled to be baptized on his 14th birthday, the 14th of october. He's basically a stud and so ready and willing to learn more about the gospel.
We also set another investigator, Marisol (who I hadn't met before this visit) with a date. Oct. 10th, we asked her to pray about it to see if it is what she should do and haven't followed up with her yet. But I imagine things will go well in that regard :)
Basically things are just pluggin along... It's been way humid. We've done some more service, helped a Colombian family move...boy was that an adventure. Their fridge was too big to fit into their new apartment's door.... We had to take of the door to the apartment and the fridge and it still barely fit. Luckily there were 6 of us for that so it went fairly quick. We had to do some thinking with that one tho.
But we met two of the craziest people I've ever met ....like ever.... this week. Oddly enough they're both Cuban, go figure! lol. One of em, "Uncanny" Manny as he says "they" refer to him as...dunno who "they" are lol...was just like wandering and started talking to us. Basically he thinks he has a gift...he predicts things...and they all come true. According to Manny, NYC is gonna be hit by a missle by winter time...he knows this because it is showing up in his art. (which i must say actually does look kinda cool). Also, evidently his wife's family are Philipino mercinaries (sp???). Just a nice lil' tid bit he mentioned. We think he just really needs a friend after our two times we've run into him (both of which lasted for like 30 mins.) ...he's kinda an interesting character, but nothing in comparison to Alfredo...
...It was 8:30 one night and we basically had nothing to do...our appointment at 8 had fallen through and 8:30 is a really awkward time cuz knocking doors would just annoy everybody and its not a ton of time to put together a visit. So we were walking to try & just stop by and talk to a less active member and we heard what sounded like pure nonsense shouted from across the street. The man beckoned us over. So we went and began talking to him. And as he stood there in his burlap-sack pants sucking down a cigarette he said that he was baptised 4 years ago...which naturally kinda caught us of guard given the sucking down of a cigarette whilst we met him. He proceeded to say that we need to teach him and when we asked when, he said, "like right now". So we were like alright lets do it. ....seems like a golden find, he's an inactive member who we couldn't find and had kinda given up on trying and he found us. Little did we know how strange it would end up being. We got into his apartment, which will be tainted with the rank stench of a smoking corner of an airport forever. The thick, smoke-filled air like literally slaps you in the face when you walk in. He put out his cig. and we taught our quick lesson about Jesus Christ. We asked if we could say a prayer before we left (kinda as we always do) and he says nothing but permiso, grabs a huge cuban cigar, lights it, blows it like right at my face (he was staring at me) and then let us pray...during which he got down on his knees in front of Elder Davis and muttered something while bowing his forehead to elder Davis' folded arms....ya kinda weird. But not too crazy. We set up another appointment for the next day and that when things got super crazy. He let us in and it started basically like the usual (meaning smoke in our faces as we choke through something about Jesus Christ). One weird thing is that he was totally ignoring Elder Davis and only talking to me (which is tough cuz he's cuban, which basically means impossible to understand). He basically just starred at me, even when Elder Davis was talking, kinda odd. He had like a crazy coughing attack during it too, which evolved into like the most hacking cough I've ever heard. It legitimately sounded like some sort of demonic laughter...and coupled with his red face and eyes fixed on me it got down to way creepy even. That subsided tho, and we went on. At the end we asked if he would pray. He said yes but asked if he could do it in his language. ...we said yes obviously, assuming he meant spanish seeing as how we hadn't spoken anything but spanish the whole time we had talked with him. He then goes on to say a weirder than weird Congan chant, in which he tapped and ran his index and middle fingers across my head. Yeah, it was weird. I basically got HEXED. And he did it to his cat too.... weird stuff lol.
well ive rambled for a sufficiently long period of time.
hope all is well =D
Elder Johnson
Dear Everybody, or Whoever's Listening...
Well this week has been kinda crazy...as have been some of the people we've met.
It all kinda started off on a bad foot with a broken phone =/ ...Which really made us appreciate how awesome phones are lol. I seriously cant imagine missionary work without being able to call and make/confirm appointments. So on tuesday we drove to get a new phone, which was a literal miracle that they had a spare we could use. But that left our day seemingly shot. Yet it ended up being quite sweet...
We we're walking to go basically see if someone was home (no appointment just a stop by and hopefully visit thing)... And we hear a familiar voice say, "Hey Guys!" from the above window. Mind you the appartment we are by is not one in which we know anybody. We we're actually taking an odd and inefficient way to get to our final destination... But it was Frankie, Jessica's (Jessica being our sweet investigator that we found my 1st sunday here) like 5 year old brother. We were basically shocked to see him... Pretty much we stumbled upon Jessica's grandma/sister's house. And the best part was Jessica was there and we taught her and her sister just like totally on the spot =D It was wild. Apparently they had just been talking about life after death and Jessica was trying to explain/remember things we had mentioned.... perfect timing right? :) So that was way cool and kinda a nice update on one investigator that will hopefully begin progressing a little faster...she seems kinda stagnant (hope you like that word choice Alec ;]). But i've got the faith things will work out, with her and her sister.
As for Cira, she was just baptized on saturday :) it was awesome, yet way toooooo hectic. We didn't get back from a "Mission Blitz" (where everyone went to one area and knocked every door basically) till like 5:30 and the baptism was at 7... So we basically jumbled everything together which was a bit of a bummer and super stressful for my comp. I was just kinda doing what i was told and fairly care-free by comparison, lol. One bummer was Jessica, who had said she'd come didn't :( ...which would have helped her so much to feel the spirit, one thing we are trying to get her to understand). But all is well. The next day Cira received the gift of the Holy Ghost while in Sacrament Meeting :) ...it basically went really well. And as for her son, "Willie" he is scheduled to be baptized on his 14th birthday, the 14th of october. He's basically a stud and so ready and willing to learn more about the gospel.
We also set another investigator, Marisol (who I hadn't met before this visit) with a date. Oct. 10th, we asked her to pray about it to see if it is what she should do and haven't followed up with her yet. But I imagine things will go well in that regard :)
Basically things are just pluggin along... It's been way humid. We've done some more service, helped a Colombian family move...boy was that an adventure. Their fridge was too big to fit into their new apartment's door.... We had to take of the door to the apartment and the fridge and it still barely fit. Luckily there were 6 of us for that so it went fairly quick. We had to do some thinking with that one tho.
But we met two of the craziest people I've ever met ....like ever.... this week. Oddly enough they're both Cuban, go figure! lol. One of em, "Uncanny" Manny as he says "they" refer to him as...dunno who "they" are lol...was just like wandering and started talking to us. Basically he thinks he has a gift...he predicts things...and they all come true. According to Manny, NYC is gonna be hit by a missle by winter time...he knows this because it is showing up in his art. (which i must say actually does look kinda cool). Also, evidently his wife's family are Philipino mercinaries (sp???). Just a nice lil' tid bit he mentioned. We think he just really needs a friend after our two times we've run into him (both of which lasted for like 30 mins.) ...he's kinda an interesting character, but nothing in comparison to Alfredo...
...It was 8:30 one night and we basically had nothing to do...our appointment at 8 had fallen through and 8:30 is a really awkward time cuz knocking doors would just annoy everybody and its not a ton of time to put together a visit. So we were walking to try & just stop by and talk to a less active member and we heard what sounded like pure nonsense shouted from across the street. The man beckoned us over. So we went and began talking to him. And as he stood there in his burlap-sack pants sucking down a cigarette he said that he was baptised 4 years ago...which naturally kinda caught us of guard given the sucking down of a cigarette whilst we met him. He proceeded to say that we need to teach him and when we asked when, he said, "like right now". So we were like alright lets do it. ....seems like a golden find, he's an inactive member who we couldn't find and had kinda given up on trying and he found us. Little did we know how strange it would end up being. We got into his apartment, which will be tainted with the rank stench of a smoking corner of an airport forever. The thick, smoke-filled air like literally slaps you in the face when you walk in. He put out his cig. and we taught our quick lesson about Jesus Christ. We asked if we could say a prayer before we left (kinda as we always do) and he says nothing but permiso, grabs a huge cuban cigar, lights it, blows it like right at my face (he was staring at me) and then let us pray...during which he got down on his knees in front of Elder Davis and muttered something while bowing his forehead to elder Davis' folded arms....ya kinda weird. But not too crazy. We set up another appointment for the next day and that when things got super crazy. He let us in and it started basically like the usual (meaning smoke in our faces as we choke through something about Jesus Christ). One weird thing is that he was totally ignoring Elder Davis and only talking to me (which is tough cuz he's cuban, which basically means impossible to understand). He basically just starred at me, even when Elder Davis was talking, kinda odd. He had like a crazy coughing attack during it too, which evolved into like the most hacking cough I've ever heard. It legitimately sounded like some sort of demonic laughter...and coupled with his red face and eyes fixed on me it got down to way creepy even. That subsided tho, and we went on. At the end we asked if he would pray. He said yes but asked if he could do it in his language. ...we said yes obviously, assuming he meant spanish seeing as how we hadn't spoken anything but spanish the whole time we had talked with him. He then goes on to say a weirder than weird Congan chant, in which he tapped and ran his index and middle fingers across my head. Yeah, it was weird. I basically got HEXED. And he did it to his cat too.... weird stuff lol.
well ive rambled for a sufficiently long period of time.
hope all is well =D
Elder Johnson
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