New Companion, great Emails and YES! He is coming home!!!

Michael is doing very well. The work is going strong and he is determined to finish strong. I would think nothing else of this young man.
Here are two new emails, a picture of him and his companion Elder Sciotte and the best news so far- HIS RETURN ITINERARY!! UnBeLiEvEaBlE!!!

August 9, 2010
ok here is the rundown for bots!
we speak english but... some people are better than others! But setswana is a bit tought but i learn little by little.
2.Gabs is small small small compared to jo'burg! There are no stakes as of yet. Botswana is still under the roodepoort stake in jo'burg which is 4 hours away! broadhurst is a part of the town. church membership is 95% black. with a few coloureds and asians and whites in the mix!
the make up of our zone is 6 sisters and 10 elders and a senior couple!
elder sicotte is from draper utah!
he's one transfer ahead of me!
But the work is awesome here!
Faith is one of the ladies we are teaching her husband tendai is a less active member! But she should be getting baptized next week sunday the 22nd!
And we're gonna try to have tendai baptize her!
Also we started teaching the mother and sister to one of our recent converts this week and they both came to church! which was exciting. so we're hoping to put them on baptism date this week. We also had the chance to go to visit another church on Saturday, The Gethsemane Healing Church. the pastor is one of our investigators. it was the funniest thing ever. it was just a choir practice but he was still dancing everywhere and giving mini sermons and everything. it was entertaining. i thank the lord that im a member of this church. especially when i see things like that. :)
i can already tell it's gonna be hotter than hades here in a few weeks! i can already feel the heat!
Botswana is awesome! it definatly is wild here! i saw a warthog and monkeys the other day in my area! And we play soccer on dirt fields there are very few grassy soccer pitches here. very african style!
Unfortunately it's proven hard to get pictures loaded up. so i'll keep working on that.
Yes mom, i love the closing quotes! don't worry! i enjoy hearing it every week! at the end of the email you told me to Go-Well and Stay Well. and i shall!
Dumela is hello, legai is how are you!
and i'm already working on the app stuff. it will hopefully be finished in a few weeks!
probably by the end of august i'll send it to you!
It's going to be a lot of fun, i plan on plunging ahead in the work for sure! we found 14 new investigators last week! which is very exciting. so as always i'm working hard... which is really the least that you can do. if you're not working hard as a missionary than there is something wrong.
But that's about all from me this week!
stay well!
the church is true!
-elder johnson

August 16, 2010
RAPELLA NAKO!(prayer time!)
haha
i don't know how to say too much in setswana it's still a work in progress. Ya Pastor Ulthwang came to another fireside this week! but he can't come to church because of his church. He's gonna be a tough nut to crack. but we'll see what we can do! :)
Wow high adventure sounded awesome, who went? How are Tanner and Corbin and those kids doing?
The new "digs" are still sweet! responsibilities are managable! i being a zone leader and in most things in life i always keep the following story about Harold B. Lee in mind it goes kinda like this " a man came into President Lees office one day and boldly pronounced that the church was wrong to make members wait a year after baptism to go to the temple and that he had received a revelation that said that it needed to be done away with, President Lee's response on it was this " 'any man who takes himself that seriously is not fit to receive revelation from the lord' "
So i always keep that in mind. Take your calling seriously and but never take yourself to seriously lest we become prideful :)
Faith passed her interview! and will be baptized this week! so we're excited for that! as well keleboga's mom and sister are both on date for baptism! and they are doing very well.
We're still workin hard on building up the teaching pool we have some great new investigators the great thing about The wards here is that they are all fired up about missionary work and we have 2 or 3 activities a month to which we can invite investigators too! In my last areas we usually never had any....
But we talked with the bishop the other night and chatted about the work here! and he hinted that there will probably be a stake here before dec. 1! so that will be great! i look forward to that!
We had some new training this past week they've kinda expanded on PMG and made it more effective. it was really great we're going to be having training meetings every wednesday for the next week. it will be great the first one was awesome. brought back some greeny fire into me. lots of new things to try and apply. so i enjoyed that a lot!
i've attached a picture of elder sicotte and i that we took this morning so we can send you pictures of how great we look! haha
to finish off, we had that fireside on saturday and it was a musical fireside. a bunch of members of the stake from roodepoort came and put it on. but it was truly a great experience the singing wasn't too amazing but the spirit that was felt as the testified of the restoration was definately amazing! i loved it a lot. the church is true!
have a great week!
-elder johnson

Return Travel Itinerary For JOHNSON/MICHAEL FORREST - 01Dec - YAC5LO

CHURCH TRAVEL CWT DATE 16AUGUST10
50 EAST NORTH TEMPLE ST AGENT VH/SL BOOKING REF YAC5LO
SALT LAKE CITY UT 84150
TELEPHONE: 801 240-5111 JOHNSON/MICHAEL FOR 148992-R
FAX : 801-240-5115

MISSIONARY TRAVEL
SOUTH AFRICA JOHANNESBURG
Because this was so long, I just gave you all a tease. But it really is happening!

The picture is of Mochudi, the village he references in his email.
"Travellers with a taste for the wild side will relish Botswana."
This is Michael's new area! Need I say more. Sounds like the perfect place for him to finish out is mission. Here are few more descriptions of Botswana,
"Beyond the narrow eastern corridor where the majority of the population is concentrated, Botswana is a largely roadless wilderness of savannas, deserts, wetlands and salt pans. Skinflints and softies beware: this remains a destination for the intrepid, well-heeled traveller."
Gaborone, estimated population 186,000 (2001), is the capital of Botswana. Gaborone is located at 24°40' South, 25°55' East.
The old Gaberones became a suburb of the new Gaborone, and is now known as "the Village". The abbreviation "Gabs" has survived as the abbreviation for Gaborone and is sometimes used in speech.
So Elder Gabs now lives in the "GABS"- PERFECT!!!
We gave him a hard time about not telling us where he was going and along he didn't know. I am anxious to hear what it is like and how the work is going. From his email, it sounds like it will be WORK. He has been rather spoiled his whole mission. The members have really taken the responsibilty of "finding" and the Elders then do the "teaching". Now it sounds like he may be doing more finding and organizing. I think he has more responsibility as a zone leader too, which will make things interesting.
Enjoy the email.

Monday, August 02, 2010
OH boy oh boy. That was a great email! lot's of stuff is happening. well at this moment i feel like Pahoran answering in response to captain moroni's letter. So, after much assumption of my negligence to tell you where i was going i will tell this unto thee. We don't find out where we are going until the day of transfers now. So i couldn't have told you unless i attempted to prophesy. but i will tell you this i went to the one area that i almost thought would be impossible for me to go!! the language is Setswana, the people are motswana's and the place is botswana!!! So i have now officially served my mission in two different countries!! it's kinda like starting mission all over again!! The reason why i wasn't going to go was because of my visa extension stuff my passport wasn't in the mission office so i was on the "do not transfer to bots" list. But i am serving in the capital of botswana in Gaborone in a place called broadhurst! we also have the only sister in the Jo'Burg mission in our zone! so that's pretty crazy. But this area is definately going a bit slower than my last one. So hopefully that can change in the next 4 months! We've already worked had i actually had big gaps in my schedule for the first time in a long time. it was..... weird! haha
But i am having a lot of fun aside from trying to cross the border, we were stuck at the border for 4 hours on wednesday night. and had no money to pay customs for any of the stuff we were transporting it was very difficult so we left our trailer at the border and came back for it the next morning once we got some much needed pula from the senior couple. Unfortunately my rands are worthless now.
My companion is Elder Sicotte from Utah. And like me he plays a little guitar so we should be creating some great musical numbers in the coming months!! :)
I'm excited for the boise state news in the coming months if we can beat V-Tech i think we'll be ok!
Additional info: There are 3 wards in Gaborone. Including the only singles ward in the entire continent of africa! We are aside to the family ward in Broadhurst though. We live in a house not a flat. it's awesome, lots of room. As far as the investigators go i think we'll have a baptism by the end of this month. and i don't know very many of the other inv's or members!
It's definately going to be a great next few months. lots of work to be done.
I can't believe that kevin will be on mission in may! if the stars are aligned and he gets to come to my mission! he'll know all the missionaries i served with!! :0
I don't know if there is too much more to tell you! i'll let you know more about the work here when i find out about it. The big moment will definately be when i go to mochudi for exchanges. its a small village outside of gaborone. the elders stay in a shack! haha so i'll let you know about that. T.I.A!!
your lesson in setswana today is: Dumela-Hello, Legai-how are you?, Riteng(roll that R!!!)-Fine!, Salasinhle-Stay Well. Tsmiyasinhle-go well.
have a great week!
Die Kerk is Waar!
-elder johnson
p.s. i was gonna send pictures but our email shop is not the best! so i'll try another time!