Moving at the Speed of Light

Elder Johnson's first e-mail(s) arrived since we left him last Wed.  After I read it I get an image of him running around in triple time, like when you fast forward a movie.

HEY! So my P-day is on Monday and I only have 30 minutes to email so I am going to kind of ramble on and on.  

First off though this is the stuff I need: 

--My heavy cardigan

--Striped AE shirt

--White pants (the skinnies) 

--White stripe shoes

--Ragnar hoodie

--Pajamas

-Heavy socks

Mr. mac also never sent my overcoat so you might check on that... please :)

SOrry to list off the things I need first but if I didn't I would forget completely!

Anyway! I miss my family so much! But I know that I am doing the right thing being here. Today we got to go to the temple and do an endowment session which was very nice :) It was a very spiritual experience. 

The language study is SUPER crazy intense. We taught our first investigator the SECOND day IN FRENCH. bahaha. I was so awful when I was when there trying to speak to Melanie. She is a French exchange student for BYU studying english. She is super nice and forgiving thankfully. Otherwise she wouldn't come back to listen to our broken French. I was able to tell her to Book of Mormon was true and that if she read it, it would bless her. It was cool to testify in French. I have also started saying all of my prayers in French. Some of the pronunciation is all wrong but I have a feeling that notre Pere Celeste understands what I'm trying to say :) THe first day in class I thought I had walked into the wrong place because it is complete French as soon as you start. NO ENGLISH. 

So my Companion is Elder Hutchinson! He is from Wales, UK and is very agreeable. I thank Heavenly Father every night that I got such a good companion my first round. I'm junior companion but only because his name is alphabetically first :P lol. We have two other elders in our room. Elder Price, who is from London and elder Andrew is from California. We all get along so well. Which brings me to talk about my district! There are exactly four elders and four sisters in my district. Soeur Jackson is also from London (I am completely surrounded by the British accents and I have to conscientiously keep myself from saying rubbish, toilet, bin, and a number of other British words). Soeur Jackson's companion is soeur Koyle who is from Idaho. The other two soeurs are from Germany and Italy! So, Americans are out numbered to internationals in my district! Pretty crazy :)

A little bit about my actual mission--

There are 240 missionaries serving in my mission. 60% Elders & 40% Soeurs. Wowzah.  

There are also baptisms every week which is one of the highest rates of baptism in Europe.~

OH! I also met a missionary that knew Jaime Perry .. he said that he met her when she was a missionary and that she was the "most fun" missionary ever. haha

Thank you for the candy! It really brightened my day. I've shared a ton of it with the elders in my room :)

The MTC schedule makes you feel like you don't have enough time in the day to do anything! We have about 30 minutes to eat but hey, we only have six weeks here so we better use our time wisely. Apparently I fly to San Fran sometime this week to the French consulate. Which will be a very fun!  My companion doesn't have to go because he is from the EU and they don't need visas. 

I love and miss you all! It has been a rollercoaster already but I know that the Lord has blessed me tremendously because of it.  I can't wait to read more of your emails! How is the ranch? 

Je sais que l'Evangile de Jesus-Christ est vrai et il'amour nous. Je sais que le Livre de Mormon est le parole de Deiu. 

I love you all. I wish I could write more but I simply don't have time. 

Avec beaccoup pour amour,

Elder Johnson 

Then I received a bunch of short little e-mails…kind of a, "Oh yeah..and then Oh yeah…" Here are a some of them.  :)

So, tell Stanton that I am not prepared for a mission because I forgot my toothbrush. The irony. I can't even... lol Don't forget to send Dear Elders! Those are my favorite :)

Love, 

Elder Johnson

oh! Last thing. Please pray for me to learn the language! I would also love some pictures of my family :)

LAST silly, small email.

Love,

Elder Johnson

HEY! So I guess I have a little more time on this... The laundry is taking a while. on my Address the DEC 10 needs to be changed to NOV 12..I don't leave until the DEC 10

Oh! I remembered something else. Please send a USB for my camera! 

Two Big Days

BIG DAY #1

October 29, 2013

Going to the temple… 

What a wonderful place the temple is, it is a very sacred place that can bring much happiness and peace.  It was a great honor to be able to go with Cameron and attend with him for his first time through.

Jordan River Temple in South Jordan Utah

Did you know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has 141 operating temples world wide at this time?

Cameron's signature jumping photo!

You can learn more about LDS Temples, why we have them and what we do in them by going to www.lds.org/church/temples

____________________________________________________________________

BIG DAY #2

October 30, 2013

Drop off day…the final goodbye.

Grandma Janet, Cameron, Aunt Jennifer and Great Grandpa Astle

Hugging his Great Grandpa goodbye.

Headed down to Provo to the missionary training center (MTC).

Quick visit with Bryan Fowler.

Our last photo in front of the Provo temple before we took him into the MTC and dropped him off.  I wish now that I would have gotten a photo of him walking off with ALL of the missionaries.  It was quite a site to see.  Pretty awesome actually.   

Now what? We wait for letter/e-mails to arrive to hear how and what he is doing.  (Jeopardy music.) 

"The doctrinal basis of missionary work is the word of God, revealed in every age, that man cannot be saved in the celestial kingdom without the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and that the only way to lay claim to the merits of that Atonement is to follow the command of its author: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you” (Acts 2:38). We are called to assist in this great effort." - Elder Dallin H. Oaks