December 11, 2008 to Family

hello family!

sounds like the last week has been pretty interesting! Dad and duke hangin out alone at home? this sounds like trouble...haha. I wish i coule have seen you in the parade dad thats would have been neato. i dont think i got to see you other than just at home playing.o ya before i forget i wanted to say to becky that one of the elders here elder mattox is from northern florida, so he is quite southern one would say. and so he has sparked interest in the south for me. so now i have this awesome image of georgia/the south and it makes me want to go there haha. just big old trees, huge houses and kudzu everywhere haha. o ya and i asked him about kudzu and something about the south planting it in the north to take it over and he said " yup your sister served in georgia" ahaha.but sounds like the surgery wasnt quite as breezy as it sounded like last week? it seems like thats how it usually works. you feel quite good the day of, wake up and ouch...i hurt...haha.snow sounds like so much fun! i will miss it.

sounds like you had a really good time at church mom. its true though. the church is the same here as well and its pretty darn far away. the only difference i have seen thus far is when people say good morning in the microphone everyone says it back haha its pretty funny.so the day that i wrote last that night i got to play basketball. so we went over to the appartments where most of our investigators live and played there. a bunch of little nepale guys were sitting off to the side of the court watching me and elder bickmore (just came for zone conference) play. so i went over to them said namaste and they all got excited like normal said a few more things in nepale and before i knew it we had 10 people playing and more that wanted to haha.

just so happens the next day at zone conference we recieved a training partly on building relationships of trust. This is so true. we cant just blab at people without them knowing about us or being able to trust us. unless they are super ready. but usually not haha. so regardless we went back that saturday and got 10 new nepale investigators from playing basketball. so i got to have fun for an hour and on top of that a whole bunch of new people to teach! so awesome!so 2 days ago i got to teach all day in malay! it was really cool! we went with a member named eder. he served in malaysia on his mission and has been off for about a year. so needless to say he helped so much since he speaks malay natively. but still it was an awesome experience.

i feel so blessed for the mtc experience. i got to talk to those peaple and help them hopefully come closer to the lord. while my companion since he didnt have that experience in the mtc(but has been out for almost 6 months now) just sat and listened. i am greatful for that time in the mtc even though at the time it seemed so long.and yestrday was sooooo good! we extended 4 baptisimal invitations and 4 people excepted. one was dinesh whom is so ready already. he is so awesome. and to a guy named roni from bangladesh and 2 others to men from nepal. all of which if it wasnt for work would be baptized within the month but will most liekly take into january.we had district conference on sunday which was really good. we got to hear president and sister skelton speak again. they are both so lovely and funny. i like them so much. and one of our investigators from nepal named gun pronounced goon got to go. He changed his work schedule to go to church which is really hard to do. he said that if he liked it he would change his schedule for good. he also got to meet president skelton for a short while. it was really good for him. i havent spoke much about gun but he is another super good nepalese man. i feel so bad for them since they are forced to work so much for so little money. its awful. the people of america are so very blessed. a job in america payiing 10 dollars an hour which is not a very good job at all is like better than any foreigner could get here. thats about 35 ringet an hour which is amazing seeing as people here work for four about 4 ringet an hour. americans are so blessed.

i hope this experience here will help me to never complain about the american economy when i go back. but enough about that.

ya still no packages but whatevs. something i would like though. some elders here have sufjan stevens christmas music and so if you would send me those cd's that would be nice. i think there just in my dressor. but if you cant find them, no worries.i get around by foot and bus. sometimes taxi. but not usually because you cant contact more than one person in a taxi. the bus system is really good here. and quite cheep.so it rained super hard yesterday. alot of the roads were flooded. no serious damage or anything though.

i got a picture with me in it so i hope i can send those home soon haha. ok well i had better go! we are going to batu caves for p-day. its a huge tamil community so it should be fun and full of good food. also theres a huge hindu temple with monkeys everywhere. so that should make for some interesting pictures haha. ok love you all! thank you so much for the letters! o ken glad to hear your going to church with brandon! keep it up ok. i know the lord blesses us when we are doing the simple things he asks of us. i love you kenny and think about you often! hope you are still safe on your motorcycle and not doing anything crazy on it. Everyone rides motorcycles /scooter things here and i havent seen one yet half way as nice as yours yet hahaok i love you all and hope you are all doing well! have a great week!

Love elder johnson