Semana 1. Ornitorrinco.

FAMILIAAAAAAAAAAA

ITS PAY DAY BABAYYYYY. 

1st of all. You guys are amazing. Remember my grammar and spelling is gonna be so bad because this keyboard is small. (I have added punctuation to his letter)

Um ok! I now know why we only had 5 min to talk last Wednesday! Holy smokes. I have never been at such at a low and high place in my life than this last week. Where do I start!!?? 

Ok so the plane ride we had like 50 missionaries and it was the hardest/worst thing in my entire life. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what was happening but I prayed like crazy. So, we get to Guatemala and the place is awesome. They barely even checked our bags and everything cuz we were missionaries haha, and then we got on these huge buses and rode to the CCM aka MTC and basically the driving is so bad here we almost got in like 5 accidents and everyone has a motorcycle and they drive around everyone. I saw like 10 people miss em by an inch haha. And so we show up to the CCM right across from the Temple and its this gated hotel thing right next door to a gas station with a guard with a shotgun so that was pretty sweet. They’re all really nice though. We have guards and basically it’s a holy prison hahaah. I love it here and we all do but we want to get out so bad. I’ll talk about that in a sec. 

So we get here Wednesday, all of us wondering what we just got into and wanting to go home and they tell us to take a nap until 12 and we’re like how the heck do we do that when we’re all this close to jumping the fence... but we got our companions and mi companero es Elder Mcfarlane from Draper Utah and he was an answer to my prayers the first couple days. So I slept. And they tell us to get to work. We had a devotional from Presidente Cox and he’s such an amazing guy -he’s in Salt Lake for a week because he had a clot in his arm but he will be back probably Sunday- and he helped a lot. He said don’t worry the Spanish will come in 4 months hahahah. I thought he was kidding but boy oh boy that’s like my only problem now. Worrying about the language! So mom! I need you to ask a bunch of people how long it took to learn Spanish! Por favor! Then I don’t even remember what happened that day hahaha but that night I cried and cried and thennnnn the next morning in the shower.... I cried and cried hahahaha but I have only cried those first 3 days ;) So the next day we started our first 16 hour days.. and its literally 16 hours. Always doing something. ALWAYS. Ah I have so much to say and only 30 min to say it now! 

I’ll just try to say something else ha. Basically this week and those first days were the most terrible gut wrenching indescribable days I have been apart of. There’s just no way to say how bad they were. My testimony was tried like never before. It was scary. I wanted to go home, I didn’t know what I just got into, I hated life basically. And then that 3rd day Elder Macfarlane and I decided to fast. And all a sudden, I started to come back to life. That hole in my stomach slowly filled with love. I was excited. And the reason is because I finally used the Atonement to drop my burdens at the Saviors feet. He literally saved me. Sounds weird but I will never take anything for granted again. Carter, Savvy, Luke you don’t understand, but one day you will. One day there will be a time in your life when you wanna give up. When you’re done with everything. You’re done with what’s been happening at school, with friends, with the family, with anything. And right then and there, you get on your knees and lay your burdens at the Saviors feet. He’s been there. He REALLY knows. People say it all the time. He knows what you’ve been through but I testify with all my heart, I hit my darkest abyss, my breaking point, and as soon as I started to realize that Jesus Christ atoned for not only our sins but our sorrows and pains, things got better. I had HOPE. I thought this would be easy. I thought it would be easy to learn Spanish (I never thought about learning Spanish before because people said don’t worry about it but that is the only thing now that I get stressed out about.. and I work my tail off and I just sometimes forget its only been a week) I thought it would be easy to do all this work. I thought. That’s the problem. I wasn’t relying on my Lord and Redeemer. This church is true everyone. I wish I could express the things I’ve learned and the spirit being with me all the time and how it feels. But you can feel the spirit like I do right now. All you have to do is pray and read.  Ah, only 10 minutes.

So we teach an investigator or a fake investigator that’s our teacher (oh guess what our hermana teacher looks exactly like Megan Hopkins its hilarious haahahahahh) but we teach in Spanish and its so hard and Elder Macfarlane took 4 years of French so he has a hard time but were getting it, The first lesson we felt the spirit and it was sooo amazing. But the 2nd we didn’t feel the spirit and it went way bad but the 3rd we focused on him and he committed to be baptized, and ah I wish I had more time but you HAVE to have the spirit if you want to teach people. It’s not you teaching. You’re just the instrument. Always remember that.

Some funny things um were with Latinos and Americanos- so lunch is great (oh speaking of lunch its stinkin’ amazing like soooo much food and drinks and fruit. Sometimes weird, but always with a ton of meat. Just hit me the last couple days if you know what I mean.. haha lets just say there’s a lot of food and its from Guatemala). But so the Latinos barely speak English and we barely speak Spanish but its so awesome talking to them. I have this Latino buddy and he’s from Honduras and one day during the week we were brushing our teeth and he asked how my Spanish was and I was like no bueno, and he said he couldn’t speak English so that was that. And then he tapped me on the shoulder and was like “I’M BEAUTIFUL” hahaha he’s hilarious! Now were way good buds and mess around with each other and he’s such a goof.  Only got 5 min ahhh I’m sorry if this makes no sense, there was just so much and barely had any time to talk about how my testimony is growing, or what happens here, but know this. I’m in an amazing place. In a spiritual prison full of endowed worthy members of the church who have the priesthood. Who gets to do that? Also my district I knew in pre-mortal life. I wish I could express how amazing and godsend they are. EVERYONE READ THE BOOK OF MORMON IT BRINGS THE SPIRIT. I wish I had time to talk. But fyi I get letters in 2 weeks so send letters and SEND PICS PLEASEEEE they got me through the week with the letters! I wish I could express my love for you guys and how much your prayers I can feel. Ah this church is true and God is good.

Your weekly quote from MacFarlane is "dude, one year is like way less than two years" hahahaha I want to be in the field! 

This week I’m thankful for my family, the holy ghost, my district, mi compannnero, God, prayer, scriptures, Latinos, the Atonement, laughter, Elder Pugh, my Mom, Tanner Venema, Cart man, Savvy, Sam Richardson, Elder Westerlinds, music, basketball, workout, Elder Miles and his skin crawling weird stories, my 8 roommates, Luke, Dads email about the joke, Papas letter, letters in general, e-mails, Ms. Abby Anderson, my love for the gospel, trials, and faith! Love you all.

Oh mom, send me some athletic shorts, some stuff I can give my companions from the US, and face wash- pretty please!

-Elder Johnson