Howdy!

On May 30, 2011 Elder Johnson wrote:

Family and Friends:

Well this coming week, we have a baptism planned for Alma. Please keep her and her family in your prayers. Especially her dad, so that he will quit drinking and come to church again. We have begun teaching a man named Carlos, who was a drug addict about a week ago, but he lost everything (wife left him with hes kid, all his possessions he sold for drugs...etc.) and decided to clean up his life. He quit drugs, all of them, and came to church with his mom yesterday, where he introduced himself to us. We are trying to help him out the best we can. He is really humble right now, and could use your prayers. Primarily so he doesn't do drugs again.

The ward is cool. Elder Schultz and I bought a cake for the Relief Society (the women in the ward) and gave it to them a couple weeks ago. They adore us now (it's amazing what a little sugar does...), and love taking care of their guerritos (little white missionaries). We have a lady named Jenny who lives above our apartment and always drops by with a little bit of dinner for us. Our bishop is active in this ward, and is a really great guy, and after three weeks of searching, we finally found our ward mission leader. We have yet to meet him, but his mom is really cool, and always feeds us wonderfully.

Being a trainer is an interesting experience. We have had some cool experiences, and we are meeting some cool people. Transfers are today, and he (Elder Schultz) was really glad neither of us got transferred because, in his words, "We are finally getting this thing off the ground!" It has been really cool, seeing where I came from, not being able to speak a word of Spanish to now, where I am the one who has to speak it. It is cool and it is fun teaching my companion Spanish.

I love you all and hope you are well.

Elder Johnson

Howdy!

On May 23, 2011 Elder Johnson wrote:

Familia y Amigos:

I hope you are all well! I hope you are not worried about the bugs and such, we got it under control this week and we are sleeping very well these days!

We had the wonderful opportunity to meet and to listen to Elder Cook, of the Twelve Apostles this week. He is a lot taller than I thought he was, however, it was really great to listen to him and receive revelation from him. He made us some cool promises. I wish I could send you my notes, but they are in Spanish! I'll see if I can translate them this week and send them off. I learned some cool things. Really cool things. There were butterflies in my stomach when I shook his hand, it was a cool experience. His wife is the sweetest little old lady, too! She was a lot of fun to listen to.

We were able to bring one person to church. If you can keep her in your prayers, it would be much appreciated. Her name is Alma, and her dad is a member (very inactive), but she loved going to church! We are hoping to help the rest of her family to go this Sunday.

I love you all!

Elder Johnson

Howdy!

On May 16, 2011 Elder Johnson wrote:

Greetings all you fellow adventure seekers!

What a week! I am here in my new area in "Prados" tearing it up with my new companion and "step-son" Elder Schultz, we have been doing good work! When I first got here, we had a big problem with cockroaches! I have never before been in a room, let alone a house, so full of the little creatures. They have been feasting off of five years of missionary grossities, and there was dust everywhere. The cockroaches lived in every single corner, and anywhere they could get their filthy little bodies. The first night...was terrible. Being sick on top of being in that house was a nightmare. I didn't sleep well at all, and I woke up the next day with bug bites all over me...

So:

The first day we cleaned all morning long. My companion was just as uncomfortable as I was and quickly agreed to help clean. We have spent hours cleaning this week (but it needs to be done) and have hours left, however, the good news is that the cockroaches are dead, or poisoned and bringing it back to their nests to die with their sick little families. We have only seen two or so cockroaches in the past three days! We are winning! The house is also now livable. We are waking up now without bug bites. The smell of bleach and cleaning supplies have never smelled so good to me.

I don't have any pictures of the apartment yet, but when we get it cleaner I will take some and send them to you!

We found out also the morning after the first night, that not only had the previous missionaries not cleaned, but they had not paid any of the utilities for five years! Holy Smokes! I got here and I feel like the clean-up crew on the scene of a natural disaster! Oh well, as they say here, "hay que seguir adelante." You gotta move forward.

Hopefully this week will be a better week, and we can do good work.

I love you all!

Elder Johnson

Howdy!

On May 9, 2011 Elder Johnson wrote:

Family and Friends:

Boy was it great to talk to my mommy and daddy and sissy. It was good to hear that you are doing well and that you are happy. I hope the rest of you all are also! It was swell to hear about your adventures and such.

Unfortunately, I am still really sick. I had kind of a rough night, and scrambling around for transfers has made me really tired. I'll eventually get over it, I suppose. I have decided to do everything in my power to avoid eating the lettuce here. It has become a bit too dangerous for me.

I am excited to be training, and to be in a new area. It looks to me like we have a lot of apartment complexes in my new area, so we will see how that goes. I haven't met my new companion Elder Schultz yet, but by the look of his suit (which I saw in the apartment) he is not a very big guy. I'll send pictures next week.

I love you all!

Elder Johnson

From Michelle:

We had such a wonderful time talking with Iver yesterday for Mother's Day. We brought Shakira home from Ft. Collins for the call, sat around the phone (on speaker-phone) and talked non-stop for forty-five minutes! We had a little scare, and a hard time getting started, thinking maybe our calling card wasn't working, but Iver had given us the wrong number, and after about 50 minutes we got it worked out!

Here are some of the things he said:

As mentioned in his letter, he was "emergency transferred" today. He is very excited and nervous to be training a new missionary. We know he will be a fabulous teacher! Iver is such a great example of love and patience! He is quite sad, however to be leaving his latest companion, Elder Martinez. The two of them developed a great friendship that Iver hopes will always continue, and they did great work together. He is also sad to be leaving the many wonderful converts and investigators he has been working with.

Despite being "lettuce-sick", his spirits were high and had he not told us we wouldn't even had known! He laughed and laughed, which is exactly what this momma needs to hear! He said things in Spanish a lot, which he would follow with, "oops, that was Spanish!" And when Corbin tried to talk to him in Spanish he said, "Dad, I can't understand you, can you spell that?" So cute.

We found out that he HAS NOT had bedbugs, a huge relief to us. But told us about the gigantic la cucarachas that live with him. If you know Iver, you know that this is fun for him, as he loves bugs, but he knows they are not sanitary, so he scoops them up and releases them outside whenever he comes across them. He described their funny antics to us, like getting stuck upside down like they are "looking up at the stars." He finally found where they were coming from, the cabinet in their bathroom, and had decided it was time to wage war on them! Capture and release. Iver is so adorably kind and humane.

His socks are all worn out (sending him more!) and his ties are all faded from the sun. President Nancollas has asked all of the Elders to purchase a new white shirt for the upcoming general authority visit so Iver warned us that there would be a Wal-Mart charge on his debit card! I can only imagine how grungy those shirts get in the hot, sweaty, dirty city, with grimy drunk bums grabbing onto them and sometimes having to do laundry by hand! Mark of a fabulous missionary, though!

Shakira asked Iver to tell us about the mugging incident he wrote about a couple of months ago, and Iver just laughed..."How about I tell you about a different one? It happens all the time!" He went onto tell us about the drunk bum who demanded they give him money because his mother was sick. Iver said, "Tell us where your mother lives, we can bless her and pray for her!" Of course that wasn't what he wanted to hear, but after roughing them up and threatening them a little bit, he gave up and moved on. Now, of course these are not fun things for a mother to hear, but Iver knows he is on an errand of the Lord. He know his prayers are heard and that he will be protected. I know that, too. SO GRATEFUL!!

The mission was able to recently attend the Mexico City temple (I posted the picture above). Iver was very excited about that. He was especially struck by the architecture and how white it was. He loved that his ordinance work there was done in Spanish!

He loves Mexico City. Iver is a city boy and is definitely happiest in the city.

Iver expressed to us tearfully how grateful he is to be on a mission. He expressed his love for his family, and the precious gift of being able to be together eternally. He said, "I am just so grateful to be helping other families to have what we have!"

I can hardly believe that on June 9th, Iver will have an entire year of this mission completed. When we talk to him next Mother's Day, we will only be weeks away from traveling there to pick him up! I am crazy-thankful for this beautiful son of mine, and his service and sacrifice. We have been very blessed through it all. What a wonderful way to begin his adult life. He is most precious.

Howdy!

On May 2, 2011 Elder Johnson Wrote:

My habits, my friends, my family: they mean so much to me.

Hello:

Welp, this week we were able to baptize two more! Woot woot! But I don't have my camera, so I can't send the pictures. Matilde, grandma of Kevin, Karen and Kenneth, was baptized as well as Lorena, who started investigating the church over a year ago! It was cool to see them get baptized and have five confirmations this Sunday! It took up a lot of time, but it was so cool to see the ward's faces when they announced we would be confirming five people!

Woo Hoo!!

Well this week, I will have the opportunity to call my family. That's exciting. We'll be doing it on Sunday in the evening, and I'll give you a call Sunday morning to give you the number and the exact time. I'm excited to call you once again!

This will be the last full month for Presidente Nancollas. He is feeling ready to go home, I can tell, but he is finishing strong. He invited a visitor to come speak to our mission in about two weeks. We are all very excited to meet him. I have never spent time with a General Authority of his rank before. We are all excited to meet Quintin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and to learn from him.

Well, I love you all and hope you are well. I wish I had more time to write, but I don't.

Elder Johnson

From Michelle:

Some tidbits from a personal letter he sent to me...

"I do cook a lot. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a lot of muffins (I sent him a muffin tin and lots of mixes in his last package when he mentioned he has an oven in his apartment, Iver loves muffins)."

Answering if he was eating any yummy fruit: "If you call guayaba and papaya yummy, then yes. They are an acquired taste."

"I am getting some pouch mail..." (I'm sure he would LOVE to get more!)

"I hear from Kevin and Olive and Grandma J. I got a package from Olive, it was a valentine with some candy, and one from her and Ashleen, with homemade peanut butter and a swell tie."

"Let's just say that my feet enjoy sleeping at night."

"Hola to the Capitol Hill Ward."

And "Happy Birthday, Mommy. I love you!"