Emails from Elder Johnson

Received December 22nd
hey family! well i am emailing you from beautiful Nelspruit, South Africa. It's 4 1/2 hours east of Jo'Burg and its sooo freaking hot!!! The entire town is built on hills and im lucky enough to be in one of the only biking areas left in the mission... as you can imagine my legs are pretty much jell-o all the time. It's a really nice town though and the people are nice. right now in south africa it is summer vacation and everyone is outta town, usually at church we have about 60 people in our branch but this week we had about 30. So summer vacation is a pretty big deal around here. Our living quarters are pretty nice. However when i first got there we did have a bat living in the shower, and we have roaches! But aside from that it's a pretty cool flat!
My Trainers name is Elder Mbhele from Durban, South Africa. He's a cool guy and a good trainer. He's also an african so we're a bi-racial spiritual wrecking crew out on the streets. haha He's been out for 14 months and he has served in Botswana and Lesotho. And yes we get along great! My first door approach was fine, my second one was really messy. But i've been doin pretty well. We usually end up getting to teach somebody at least once a day. My first teaching oppurtunity was with a lady named Sharlene we tracted to our house and tought her the lesson 1! She's super spiritual and we made her cry(in the good way) so i think it went pretty well :) Tonight we are going to visit a part member family and work on getting the mom and the daughter into the church. The Dad and the other daughter are already converts. And the apartment we eat whatever we can, I usually eat ramen and eggs or ramen and grilled cheese. Sometimes the senior couple in the area will hook us up with food, that's usually a great thing. Not very many native foods however they have this juice concentrate stuff called wild island, it's super cheap and super good and i love it. And Rooibus Tea(it's herbal tea) is awesome as well. And over here they have this sweet chili sauce. It is so good! it's replaced ketchup on eggs on for me.
The mission president and his wife are great! they are very nice. President Paulsen runs a pretty tight ship but it's all good!
As far as letters go, we don't get mail up here so the only letter i've got is the one that mom sent early aside from that i will have to wait til january 6th when we go down to jo'burg for "mission tour" hopefully i'll get some mail by then!
On christmas day be expecting a call from 9-11 o clock in the morning. I will call on the home phone.
Im excited to hear about the bsu game! i can't believe it's already bowl season and i can't believe i've already been a missionary for almost a month! it's crazy! And hopefully the bears can pull it off, that would be awesome!! Oh and kevin you're email was weak sauce. And for that im gonna tell you that i'm probably better than you at rugby. haha jk unfortunately we havent played since i left the mtc. but hey dude let me know on how things are back there you're my youthful insight on things in boise!
Anyways hopefully i answered all your questions well enough. Things here are super awesome and hopefully the lord can prepare some people for us to be ready for the gospel!
oh and congrats on the white christmas thats awesome!
and unfortunately most missionaries don't get accents here, you usually end up coming home and talking to people like they are 5 years old cause you really have to simplfy what you say and speak slowly!
And tell jeff i better hear from him next week!
Love you all so much, thanks for checking up on me!
Love,
Elder Johnson
p.s. mom, can you get marcus's email address from his folks? I'd like to see how he's doin
Email #3
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 11:47 PM
To: Johnson, George (Cons. Support-Boise)
Subject: Re: OPEN FIRST: 12/12 Johnson Family E-mail
wow it's great to hear about the snow! that will be awesome! No such luck down here, however it does rain EVERYDAY! the loudest thunderstorms ever! OH and you guys should know that i play touch rugby everyday, it's pretty rad. And yes i'm super pumped for the real deal. We get out of the mtc on tuesday and start in the field on wednesday! As far as the package goes don't worry too much about it, i already bought a watch and the only treats i really want are mints, i miss gum. And yes pool the emails together cause i don't know what the rules will be once im outta the mtc. and make sure you're forwarding them to the rest of the family! anyways today for p-day we are going to go on splits with the missionaries in Soweto, which is a township in jo'berg. it's gonna be soooooooo rad. and don't worry i have faith that my bears will pull it off! hmm...im trying to think of anything else.... I know that letters take FOREVER to get here. the only one i've gotten is the one that mom sent a week early! that was great. And i too am reading the book of mormon, again. I finished it just before the plane landed in johannesburg, hence acheiving my goal of finishing it before i got into the mission field, and at the rate i'm reading it right now i'll finish it again by february! Anyways the mtc has been awesome, everyone here is great, and i'm so freaking pumped for the field! my next email will probably be next monday the 22nd. cause p-day is on mondays for the jo'berg missionaries! anyways have a great week! i hope to hear from you all later! oh and sorry george i still don't have a plaque scripture, i can't really zone in on one yet!!!
anyways love you all so much!
talk to ya soon
elder j
Email #2
Alrighty here is the weekly update from Jo'berg! The MTC experience so far has been incredible we've been super busy and the spirit has been super strong here! We've been outside of the mtc gates like 3 times i think, once for the temple and then twice to go buy stuff! So i guess first things first i better answer mom's questions:
1.Yes my body clock is back in order i can now sleep from 10:30 to 6:30 with no problems
2. I eat this fruit and nut cereal with yogurt, it's killer. And the MTC has a kitchen staff that makes all the meals for us. the food is great! and at night all the missionaries hang out and eat Casadillas! There are about 28 missionaries about half are africans. the african guys are sooo freaking awesome!!
3.Favorite time of the day? Casadilla time then bed time.
4. Yes we went this week and a lot of the african guys were going for their first time and it was probably the best temple visit i've ever had. and then we go again next week!
Anyways melissa, the beginning of your email was not funny. but congrats on trev bot and tell dave good luck for cougs b-ball!
Oh and i'm glad to hear that my baby (the kia) is back into good hands.
Jeff, im glad to hear about the stampede ring that's fantastic. And yes my companion is a kiwi, he's maorie and can probably beat up anyone in the world. He's a super spiritual guy and a great companion it's been awesome!!
Since the group is pretty small we are all pretty tight! it's actually been pretty much what i expected, probably better than what i expected!!
Anyways i best be goin but thanks for filling me in on how things are and if any of you run into any of my friends get after them to write me so i can feel cool and get letters!
I hope to be hearing from you all soon!
Love,
Elder Johnson
#1 can’t seemed to find it. But I will keep looking.