Bonus Monday...got a few emails AND a letter in the mail, definitely enough to make us miss him a little bit less :)
In the letter in the mail he mentioned some of his favorite things in the mission field..running in the mornings, personal study time, food (especially dinner since ward members cook it for us) and teaching, even though people rarely answer their doors. On his list of what he misses...family, friends, running shorts, the mountains and NAPS, most of that sounds like a pretty typical missionary :)
"Hello to everyone, This week has been really tough for me and has really questioned lots of my reasons for being here, at times I have felt like there is no reason for me being here and at times I just wanted to go home, but ultimately at the end of this week everything came together and all the doubts were gone. Lots of this last week all I have been able to think about is all the hard work I put into running and how quickly lots of it is going away. I am able to workout for a little while in the morning but it is definitely not enough time to stay in the kind of shape I want to be in. For lots of people It may look like a stupid reason to be so worried, but for me running and being in shape has meant so much to me. I know that satan is putting these doubts of not being able to get back into shape after my mission into my head to try and get me to go home and sometimes I really want to. One of these days that I felt this way I asked one of the spanish elders for a blessing. He had no idea why I needed a blessing or really anything about me. I really want to testify of the power of the priesthood. In this blessing I received answers and direction for so many specific questions I had prayed about earlier in the day, many of which talking about things before and after my mission. there is no way Elder Dalton could have known about the things in that blessing, I know that the priesthood is the ability to act in gods name because I have seen it influence my life so many times. I know that the lord will bless me for being here. Elder Ludwig (another spanish elder) told me this the other day, "you are spending two years doing whats important to your heavenly father, and I know that your heavenly father will help you with what is important in your life when you get back. The spirit testified of the truth of what he said and that has helped me to overcome my fears out here.
Although this week has had a lot of hard times it has also had a lot of success. Saturday night we committed Phillip and Gary to be baptized on the 25th of this month. Watching the progress they have made has been amazing. they both were heavily addicted to weed, smoking, and many other drugs and it has been so cool watching them progress to get off of there addictions with the help of the lord. unfortunately they werent able to make it to church yesterday so there baptisimal date has to be pushed a week back, but I know they are on the right path. We had another success last night when we got to go teach James Sears along with the mission president. James is the father of 4 kids and is married to a member of the church. Missionaries have been working with james for months now and last night after talking about the plan of salvation and gaining eternal life with your family he committed to being baptized on the 25th of this month. His wife was so happy to see him accept the gospel, she had been trying to get him to be baptized so that they could one day be sealed in the temple but never had success in trying to help him, you could tell how greatful she was for his decision to be baptized.
My mom was asking what kind of things I do on P-day but this is only our 2nd one so we havnt done a whole lot yet. Last week we had a nerf war, played basketball in the gym on swivel chairs, and went to the gym. Today we are planning on playing soccer with all the missionaries in the area and then we will go to the gym again.
Have a great week!
Love, Elder Johnson"
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