Sorry!

August 11, 2014

Sorry for sending this in late [he had started to email in the morning and then didn’t finish until late afternoon].  I got cut off in my email time and couldn't send out the email.  We had some choir thing to do for when Elder Anderson is going to be touring the mission.  Oh yeah, and Elder Anderson is going to be touring the mission. Anyway, here's the email, new and improved!

This was actually a pretty solid week.  I am excited.  The Risco family, the family we dropped and now are teaching again, told me on Sunday that they noticed when we were gone there was a certain emptiness in the home.  I heard it and thought, Wow, that's exactly what we prayed for when we dropped you.  On Saturday, we had the chance to talk with just Carlos, who told us "Well, for my part, if it wasn't for my in-laws, we would already be members."  In-laws, am I right?  Anyway, he also told us that his wife had a doubt about tithing, so on Sunday we went on a division and I went to go teach tithing.  All good on tithing, all settled on temple marriage, so then the question of the night:  Do you honestly feel like the Book of Mormon is true?  Carlos said yes. Elna...almost said yes.  She's reading but needs to pray about it.  The next question:  When you can honestly tell me yes, will you be willing to be baptized?  She gave a solid yes, which is a big step for her after what happened with her parents.  

Pray for them.  They can do it on the 30th.  Carlos is like stake president material.  When we talked about sealings, he had a question about what Jesus said in Matthew 22 about the resurrection, and I thought, Why in the world do you know so much already?  What a punk, right!

Well, to explain what's going on, we are going on splits a lot now, because in Lima, very little happens during the day, and then suddenly it's seven thirty and you wish you had a jet pack between appointments.  It's like what Dad says about being an anesthesiologist.  It's fun.

Sounds like we'll have another free baptism as well, from someone who went to English class and said that she attended church for 9 months, was about to get baptized over in Chiclayo, and then she moved here.  Those poor missionaries in northern Peru, right?

Now for the pictures:  The first is the baptism of Jorge Astete and his son Alan.  His wife, Vanessa, was a less-active member but now everyone is a member.  We are talking with them a lot about their temple date.  He is a Marine and he's great.  Alan is a funny little 11-year-old kid who always has very specific questions.  The baptism really happened because of really persistent follow-up on the Book of Mormon.

The photo here is our most recent baptism named Sandra.  She was kind of an eternal investigator, but now she's good and had a friend of hers baptize her.  Something funny about her is that one time when we were visiting her with a member family, she gave us all brownies, to which I freaked out, because there really isn’t a lot of that in this country.  But now, like every other time we see each other, she gives me a huge bag of brownies because her work gives it to her free and no one there likes it.  I'm glad we have her around.

A picture of the district about a transfer ago while we were doing a service project

A stake activity we were asked to help with

The Olivar Zone

A stake activity we were asked to help with

I'm having a great time here, finding some great people.  I don't want this to end, even though I sense it coming. Thanks for all the support.  Just keep praying for me.  We are very close, but I just need help, and we need to believe that we can do it.  There's just this constant craving to baptize whole families. 

Love you all!

Elder Johnson