January 27, 2009 to Family

hello everyone!

how are you all? i am doing just fiiine. another winter without much rain hu? i wish we could send some of the rain here to there. we have too much! its kindof a floody place.

yep elder schneider has moved to 3rd branch in kuching which is not too far. he just got transfered down the street haha. ill miss him but its ok. my new companions name is elder griffin. hes from utah, and he seems like a really good elder. very likeable. hes been out for about 17 or 18 months, so hes been around. things are going well with him though. so all this week has been chinese new year. which makes for difficult teaching because everyone is partying or they went back to their villages far away. but thankfully its starting to die down now.

right now we are teaching 4 families all of which are really good and will be at church on sunday. i am so excited about them. we have another young man being baptized this weekend named chinpo. im not sure if i told you but last week two of the sons of a recent convert family were baptized as well. everything is going quite smoothly here. I look forward to working with elder griffin alot. it should be good.but the new family timah and sulin and clarence are all doing reeeally well. they've been to church every sunday since we met and they have referred us to 3 other families and she told us there are more. they are sooooo good. the other family with all the little kids should be back today and we're meeting them tomorrow. i always love going to their house, its always alot of fun. thank you alot for the ideas mom. ill try and use some of those. also thank you to erick as well. glad to see most of the object lessons are the same still haha. good old bob calkins. give him a pat on the belly for me will ya? haha.

I'll let ya know about the package when it gets here.that grass hopper was a good 5 inches long. no joke. it was raksasa! that means huge haha.everything is good here. im healthy and loving the people so much. this really is an awesome area and i hope i can stay here for a long time. now there are only 2 elders in my house as opposed to 4 before. president skelton seems to think only 2 elders are needed for the areas 2 used to work in. pretty crazy. we ride our bikes about 25+ miles a day as opposed to about 15 max. pretty crazy but i love it. the new area is so cool and is filled with people whom i can tell are open and willing to learn. also that area is surrounded by big old mountains covered in jungle which is cool to look at haha.

ok fam i love you all and hope you're happy and healthy. alrighty ill talk to ya next wednesday! selamat tahun baru china! happy chinese new year! haha!

love you,
elder johnson

January 13, 2009 to Family

hello family! how are you all? i am doing quite well! thats good you got those pictures mom. i think i sent them a little before chirstmas..but im not sure exactly. but yes you could just send it here, i think it would be fine. and yes you remember my last request ? for white srips/ thaaaanks mom haha.

yes elder schneider and I are doing just fine together. the family that is to be baptized has been having a little problem with the dad just because he's not sure if he's ready. the mom and son are and they want to be baptized but we want them to be baptized together. so we may end up putting it off another week but we will see tomorrow when we give them an interview. we shall see. the eight investigators were from 3 different families so they were parts of families and one family.

this last week we only had two at church just because there was massive flooding throughout the area. so not many of them could come. so hopefully things will be better this sunday.im not sure if i told you but good news is, that indonesian lady i told you about before,sammy,is to be baptized this weekend back in klang! that is so exciting.

that sounds great about the missionaries back home. sounds like there doing better. that is still pretty crazy about jennifer. and now kurt is engaged too!! what? thats crazy talk! but thats good she asked you to take pictures! youll have to use your talents mum.the new bike is very nice! it was sad because we got these 2 really nice bikes and we had to spray paint them to make them less likely to be stolen. i felt bad. so the language is coming along well. sometimes its difficult but most of the time it just kinda comes out without thinking, its very interesting. it really is a gift of the spirit i know. because when im just talking with the other elders sometimes its hard to keep up but when talking to investigators and members it just kinda comes. it really is amazing.

so the shoes --that sounds like it might be ok to just get them here. i think they might not be too great of quality here but when the time comes i'll do what i need to. but my size is 11.5. yes i got those pictures from picassa. that little kinster what a rascall. dad i think i remember you telling us stories about some family in canada that fed you pieces of cooked up pork fat? well the other day i had my first experience with that haha. we stumbled upon a big old family of ibon people and we ended up giving them some pamphlets and a book of mormon and i think they felt really indebted so they brought us out a bunch of food, one plate of which was a plate full of pork fat, complete with pig hair still attached haha. o man, interesting stuff.but kuching is still quite amazing. i have been here nearly 3 weeks now and it still feels like i just arrived. i love it. So now all 5 of us elders from the mtc are now in east malaysia. elder compton and i were the last 2 to come here but we are all here now. all quite exciting. ok well i hope your all doing well and i hope you have a great week!

love elder johnson.