Howdy!

Family and Friends:

I hope you are all doing well. Welp, yesterday Dilan and Gad were baptized. It was a really special service. Their parents had the opportunity to say the opening and the closing prayer, and I know they felt the spirit. When the time for the ordinance came, we found out that the water was really cold. There was almost ice floating in it! Our efforts (which cost us the whole of Sunday morning) to have warm water were in vain. Oh well, life goes on, noses get the sniffles...We are going to try to help their parents, Graciela and Juan Carlos get baptized this month, but they need to get married before. They are going to be pretty excited when we tell them that their son, Dilan, will be able to baptize them. They invited us to eat at their house after the service. We had clams, which is the first sea food I have eaten on my mission. I later found out that they were river clams. I still haven't had sea food.

I sent you a picture of Benjamin, also.

I received my Christmas package with my backpack in it! It's pretty dang sweet, and all the other missionaries in my district are jealous of it.

My new companion is named Elder Delgado. He is from Lima, Peru. He is just shorter than I and has a funny accent (they all do from the south) but I'm really excited to work with him. I am still in the same area. This will be the third transfer in a row for me. I'm starting to get to know the members well.

I hope you are all well. I thank you all for the love and such, including but not limited to: food, candies, and material goods that you sent me for Christmas. I love you!

Elder Johnson

Howdy!

On January 17, Elder Johnson wrote:

Families and Friendies:

This week was a good one. Except for when I got sick. Boy was I sick. I didn't sleep at all one night, and instead had a fun time wringing out my stomach lining over the toilet bowl. The whole night. Yup. I thought I was going to die seven times. Yes, seven times. The good news is, I am better now, and I didn't die, and don't plan on dying. However, a note to all you future missionaries out there: Beware of the lettuce.

We are having two baptisms this week, a young man (17) named Dilan and his brother Gad (12). They will be my first baptisms on my mission. They are very sure that they are going to be baptized, and have chosen, ah-hem, your's truly to perform the ordinance! I am relatively psyched. More or less. Please keep them in your prayers this week, so that it will actually happen. Our investigator Benjamin is doing well on quitting smoking. He is down from 20 cigs a day to about 6, and he keeps getting better. Our ward mission leader nicknamed him "fu-man-chu" which is directly translated to "smokey." Looks like he might have to choose a different nickname for him in the coming weeks. That's good news!

Remember, remember my loved ones: "We should be filling our pews with people that reek of tobacco!"

We had the opportunity to go bowling today, and I bowled a 95. It was waaayyyy better than the last time our district went bowling.

I love you all. I hope you are doing great!

Elder Johnson

Howdy!

On January 10 Elder Johnson Wrote:

Family and Friends!

This week my companion and I received a reference of an old guy, from a family in our ward. It was funny because one of the members took us to meet him and we found out that it was on a street we had knocked just a few days before, but had but had decided not to knock his door because we saw him yelling at a delivery man as we knocked the house next to him. As it turns out, he really loves the gospel, he even went to church and committed himself to be baptized! His name is Benjamin. This week we are helping him quit smoking, something he has done for 62 years, since he was 14 years old. We are planning on fasting for him this week, and would appreciate your prayers on his behalf.

This week we helped a lady in our ward move a huge pile of dirt into her yard. It took Elder Contreras and I three hours, but with faith, mountains move. Just like that one did. The next day, I could hardly lift my arms up, but I had a good feeling from doing service, of the which is hard to come across in Mexico. I always have enjoyed that kind of work.

We had tongue yesterday for lunch. It is the second time I have had tongue on my mission, the first time in Washington from a nice lady who looks just like my Grandma Johnson, but speaks very little English, mostly Spanish. Tongue is very tender, surprisingly, and has an excellent flavor, especially when you eat it with rice and beans and tortillas. If you haven't tried it, it's called "lengua" in your local Mexican cantina. It's worth a try.

I hope you are all well. Please excuse the lack of pictures this week. We had a very busy week, and not very much time to take pictures.

I love you!

Elder Johnson

Howdy!

On January 3, 2011, Elder Johnson wrote:

Family and Friends:

Well, this week was pretty good. I had the opportunity this week to learn how to wash my clothes by hand. It is pretty difficult, I won't lie, and my hands were swollen and raw from the soap and from scrubbing. I don't exactly have the desire to do it again, but now I know how to if I need to. We also were able to visit downtown Queretero, where (so I'm told) Mexico started, as in became free. I guess that's cool. We went to an old theater, that had a lot to do with the revolution. It was very cool to see it, but made me sad. I didn't know how much I actually missed that.

We had the opportunity to go on splits with our zone leaders in the middle of the week. they are pretty swell and know a lot. I learned a lot from them, and look forward to applying all that I learned.

I read a scripture this week that made me laugh. It's in Helaman 3:7, which talks about the Nephites becoming skilled in the craft of working with cement. It made me laugh because EVERYTHING is made out of cement here. Houses, stores, everything...apparently it's been the bee's knees here since, well, the Nephites, at the very least! That would explain a lot about why there is cement dust everywhere. It's because they've been doing that for generations! They are pretty good at it, in case you were wondering...they can make any building, any shape, any size out of cement. The only downfall to all that is the fact that all the houses are cold in the "winter" time. Oh well.

Another thing I have noticed about Mexico is everything is made for the U.S. All they do down here is put a Spanish sticker on the item, saying what it is and what it is made of. It's kind of funny to walk into a store and see so much English.

This week will be returning to normal, seeing as "vacaciones" are over. We should see our work load get bigger and more miracles happen! I look forward to that!

I love you all!

Elder Iver Johnson