Tuesday, October 1, 2013  (I forgot to post this blog a few weeks ago sorry)

Oi! To all those wondering how I doing, I'm Great! Really, I'm loving this experience. The language is coming right along. Every day my capacity to communicate increases. In case anyone really wants to know, I've covered the present, preterite, imperfect, two-word and one-word tenses of verbs so far, and my vocabulary and grammar is coming along as well. I'm able to use bits and pieces of Portuguese in everyday conversation. In fact, tomorrow my district is attempting a Portuguese-only day, which should be interesting because we're hosting for newcoming missionaries as well. It's so weird being a now "senior" MTC attendee. My entire district is looking forward to getting their reassignments/visas next week ( Thursday/Friday). Rumor has it that visas are starting to come through a little bit easier, so many of us (including me) have high hopes of going straight to Brazil! 

Speaking of Brazil, in case anyone wasn't aware, my mission is going to be HOT! Every returned missionary that has come back from Brazil says that the Motto Grosso region of my mission in one of the hottest, most rural places in Brazil. Every day this week the temperature has been over 100 degrees, so wish me luck!

This past week has been a long one. Mostly because the same old routine of the MTC is getting more and more burdensome every day. BUT it's all ok! I still love it here because every day, the spirit touches me and I learn something new! This past fast sunday was especially neat. We had a big MTC mission conference instead of regular meetings, and that was a super cool experience. The meeting was two hours long, and missionaries were falling asleep left and right, but I was learning way to much to be tired! Unfortunately, yesterday I seem to have misplaced my notebook i which I keep most of my notes (typical me) and so I can't necessarily relay specific thoughts.

more to come, gotta go get my clothes into the dryer!

alright I'm back

As for my pescisadores progradindo (progressing investigators) Both Bernac and Tomás are coming along quite well. In fact, the past two lessons with each investigator went really really well. Last week, my companion and I decided to put more of an emphasis on the Book of Mormon in our teaching. What we discovered though was even though planning is super important, sometimes you end up teaching something entirely different. That's the way these lessons went. We planned to teach something, and then when we got in there to actually teach the lesson, we end up teaching something else. The neat thing was that both times, me and my companion were on the same page about it! It just goes to show how absolutally necessary the presence of the spirit is when you teach. A lesson without the spirit is not really a lesson at all. Noone really gets anything from it. For those of you unfamiliar with this term "the spirit" it refers to the feelings you get from god when you are being taught truth. In essence, what it means is that if we can't help people feel the love and power of god we are not fulfilling our purpose as missionaries. That is why I am out here, learning Portuguese, preparing to spend the next 23 months in a 100+ degree swampland. I want to bring people closer to Christ, and help them find the way to perfect happiness. At the same time, I myself am drawing closer to Christ and finding happiness! What a great, incredible opportunity! I love this work, and I love this Gospel. My love and best wishes to all back home!

Elder Johnson