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