Halloween - JerZ style

Hey everybody!

Well I hope everyone's week has gone absolutely great... As with every week serving as a missionary, mine has been quite splendid. It was kinda a short week in terms of actual missionary work because of Zone meeting, Zone conference, Interviews with the president and having to come home early from working both on Halloween night and the night before.

All of the interviews and meetings were awesome and insightful though. The only thing is I feel like I hardly know any missionaries in the mission. Like everyone gets to reunite with old friends at these big events.  Then there's me and the other new missionaries who are left adjusting our ties, glasses and pocket protectors in a corner.... But with time I'll be just like the big kids *fingers crossed*   It is awesome to have soooo much awesome advice and information to soak in though, I loved it.  


As for the holiday and the night before though, that just kinda felt like a waste of time in a way =/   I mean we were able to stay semi-productive by doing some in depth weekly planning and area book updating but it was just a lot of time to have on our hands. Bright side is that last week I e-mailed Preston and got his salsa ingredients and took a whack at it. I will be honest I am very pleased with the outcome. It was way spicy and way flavorful and just downright delightful. We made some awesome burritos with chicken beans and rice (cuz its not like we ever get fed any of that ...ha ha...lol) and threw some of the salsa on there. It was an exquisite treat. We were fasting on Halloween though so we didn't really do anything special that night but get like 2 extra hours of sleep (one because we got to bed early and the other becuase of the time change) it was pretty sweet =D

Today we had an awesome mission hike too. I really enjoyed it. It was a really fun to get outa the Concrete Jungle and experience a bit of the garden state. I took some pictures and maybe someday i'll finally get around to mailing home my pictures to my mom so everyone can see what i've been doing for the last 2 months....sorry I feel kinda bad.

On sunday we got some awesome food from Ecuador and Peru... They were both way good....food is awesome and some of the stuff out here is just plain crazy delish. Peruvians definitely know whats goin on when it comes to cooking.

The mission life is great and we have high hopes for the second half of this transfer...we've picked up some new investigators and some of our old ones are moving right along...it is truly exciting.

Anyways, not much time today, gotta run.  I hope everyone is doing fabulous! ...Its crazy to think that i've been in the field for 2 months now...
Elder Johnson

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~SPECIAL REPORT~   from Karlyn


Ben's awesome trainer is Elder Davis.  Recently, I was able to connect with Elder Davis' mom.  Her name is Kathy Davis and she and her family live in Roy, Utah.  Long story short, Kathy and I are now Besties and thoroughly love swapping stories about our mish-boys.  She sent me a covert copy of Elder Davis' letter to President Bahr written this week.  Ben has sent us his letters to Pres. Bahr from time to time and I've  totally thrived on his precious insights, as well as getting a small glimpse of 'his' developing relationship with Pres. Bahr.  Anyway, I'm sharing a portion of Elder Davis' letter.  He speaks so highly of Ben and I just had to share =D  Enjoy and thanks for supporting Benny!  No cryin now....


WNY.... where to begin, the miraculous time change, the obedience of my companion, the many changes that we had due to the schedule but yet were able to do as many lessons and all of that. It was an amzing and inspiring week. This week more than any other on my mission has been the most full of just meetings and what not, but also the most busiest due to the time restrictions we had. We were definitely blessed due to the fact that we had to be in this week early a couple of days but yet are hitting the goals or getting close to them. As we went through out this week we had 2 big breakthroughs. One was with Jessica, our soon to be baptized 18 year old was atheist investigator. The other with Miraim whose family is almost all members and also going to be baptized soon. With Jessica she is so close to being baptized yet she doesnt give thought at all to the many blessing she has recieved and it is so hard coming from an atheist background to just give that kind of thought. But slowly and surely she is changing around and she told us, on more than one occasion,that she is seeing things different and talking more about God. So from going to nothing to now, has been a massive contrast in her life. Miriam, who, brought her friend and neighbor to church yesterday is also really close to baptism she has a testimony and just needs to make those final few steps to conversion. I love the area and the members that we have in this area. they are so very supportive in this work and make it alot easier!

My companion Elder Johnson, is the main man of the week. We did a fast a couple of weeks ago for the goals we set for the trasnfer and i know for a fact that it was through that fast and the faith of my compnaion that we saw the miracles we did. I know that in no other week with all the things that we had going on that we would be able to do what we did. Nothing short of miraculous... we are also working this week with a goal of painting the town red, by getting out and contacting more and setting a goal of 50 pass along cards by the end of the week, well 70 really -- 5 a day, but to make this all more effective and to be able to share this amazing gift of the gospel that we have been given.       Elder Davis