Elder Zachary D. Johnson's Mission

Elder Zachary D. Johnson's Mission
Elder Zac Johnson has been called to serve in the Brazil Santos Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and wants you to share in his adventure! "Take the leap with me."

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Sempre Fiéis

Beleza? I hope so! I don´t really envy the snow that you guys have had. Although it is pretty hot here and I sweat buckets, I don´t sunburn so it is bearable! Not sunburning must be the gift of the spirit that I was blessed with, not the gift of tongues!

When I was having a particularly difficult day in the MTC, brother Paulich took me into another room and we had a little chat. After our talk, we both came to the conclusion that my lesson that I need to learn from the early part of my mission is to learn to have patience with myself. I did much better after that chat but ever since I got here it feels like there is this pressure to be fluent now. I don´t know. But I have spent hours and hours on my knees and in the scriptures (i have finished the D+C, pearl of GP and started the OT this week). I also read ´´our heritage´´ last night and something stood out. Lorenzo Snow (i think it was him) went on a mission to hawaii at age 16 and was fluent in 3 months. The author said that was the gift of tongues. The way that I have been viewing the gift of tongues has been completely wrong. I thought of it as this immediate transformation but it isn´t. Ignorance of youth huh?

Yesterday, Bishop pulled a fast one on us and asked all the missionaries to speak in church. It´s a good thing sacrament meeting is 3rd hour here! So I gave a short talk on faith and miracles. It was a miracle that I got through it haha. Now half the ward thinks I can understand portuguese and the other half doesn´t. One of the young women in the ward calls me ´´Elder não endendi´´ (Elder I don´t understand). Isn´t that nice? But all is well and I am understanding more and more each day. We clapped outside of a random door on friday (you don´t knock in Brazil, you clap and yell. it is pretty fantastic) and this lady answered the door. She was smoking and had a prosthetic leg but after we taught her the first lesson, she committed to baptism and to come to church that sunday. And she did! Even when we told her that she would have to quit smoking and drinking coffee, she said ´´No problem, I need to stop both anyway.´´ So, she is slated to be baptized the 19th and I am so stoked! We are also teaching a 13 year old and we are trying to get his dad to listen in but he is a bit stubborn. We have a couple more people that we have had for a while but Satan is hard at work. All one family has to do is get legally married and they can be baptized but the mom took the money that they have been saving and used it for a down payment for a new house. ÇALSKDJFAHGAGHUIAEGIERG. We´ll see what happens!

Lunch is the big meal here and they stuff you to the brim. I eat really well. The brazilian diet is very balanced. We hardly buy food because we are given left overs all the time. most of our money goes to the buses. We take the buses a lot and after a while, it gets pricey! I´ve been thinking about buying a cheap guitar here but I don´t know if I will. 

I am loving brazil and can understand more of the jokes and funny stories. Old Brazilian people are my favorite people in the whole world. They are so sarcastic and blunt. One old guy in his 80s had me in tears!
I hope you all are doing well! Enjoy school and work :)
Bom trabalho,
Elder Johnson

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