October 27, 2014

Well another week past and gone!

I don´t thint that i will ever stop commenting about how fast these weeks go because they seriously fly.....




so this week i got really sick... i had my first sick day. let me tell ya... they are terrible =p and then my companion got the same virus so we had another sick day... i really like to be out working =p but i did get the chance to listen to some really good church talks!!!! once again if you havent listened to the conference talk from this last conference i recomend it =p also if you have never gone back and listened to old talks i recomend that too!! ytou can find all of the talks since 1975 on the church website!

correctrion 1971!!! im starting there this week and im gonna try and listen to them all in 1 week! (P.S. If you have favorite conference talks from history let me know. ill have my mom send me the replies, or you can send me the talk names and ill listen to them! my email is declan.johnson(at)myldsmail.net)

so this week i also started to pray for the oppertunity to see miricales in my life every day. ill tell you about 2:

1) the wife of our missionary leader in the ward went to church for the first time since ive been here. i honestly didnt think that shed ever go... but she did =) this was one of the happiest parts of my mission =)

2) we have met somany people this week that are so ready to be baptised. my work here is to find the people who are preparedand we really havce been doing that this week!




so I really love elder fernandez. he is so awesome! he is very funny and we have been having a lot of fun together.




i seriously am so happy right now! i hope you guys can find happiness in your lives no matter what the situation! i know that we can do that throught the gospel of christ. the gospel can make us so happy. it will actually make us happier than anything else on this earth!!! i promise that =) and the best part is that it will last us eternity.




I know that this church is true and that throughthis church we have the oppertunity to recieve so much, most importantly an eternal family!




I hope you all have blessed weeks =)




Elder johnson =)

 

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October 20, 2014

Transfers

so today my companion got transfered!!! i dont have a ton of time to write! we ave to go teach soon. we basically just got him to the house, unpacked, and went shopping for foood and stuff for him for the week. today was awesome though. i am really sad to see elder balarezo go but im excited to start woring with elder fernandez. he is really cool. he is from chile and he is going to teach me how to speak chilean =p (honestly their spanish here is a lot different than normal spanish =p they conjugate things a litle wird =p) i am really excited to be living with a chilean. its gonna be a blast!




this week was really good. we taught a lot of really good lessons. we only got 2 new investigators but they are way awesome. we are working a lot with the ward right now to strengthen the ward an its members. that is our main focus. but things are going really well here and we will continue to work reeally hard =)




i hope you all have blessed week! Enjoy my pictures =)

I have a mate problem...

and a paisly problem p.s. if you want to send me a tie this christmas please send paisly =p im crazy for paisly!

 

my last day with my papá... transfers maña!!!!

mirror selfie with one of our youth in the ward! his name is alen and he is 15. he helps us a ton! his family is like my mission family.

elder balarezo alen and me

the barueto family on elder balarezo´s last day

 

elder balarezo is a pretty girl

elder balarexo and i with the celis family and javiera and may!

 

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October 17, 2014 A Mother's Mission Blues

This is a post written by mom. I know I said I was turning the story over to Declan, but today I need to throw in an entry by me. Today has been a little bit of a rough one, this week has been a little shaky, tonight, well tonight has just plain stunk. I haven't really know what my problem has been. Honestly, I've kind of been a little bit upset with myself for being so childish. I guess I've felt a bit sad, and maybe even a little irritated that Declan's letters on Mondays seem so impersonal sometimes. I guess sometimes it seems like I wait around all week like it is Christmas waiting on a letter, and then I feel like I don't really even know what he did all week. It isn't that he isn't trying to tell me, it is just that there isn't enough time, and email is so hard, and he has so many more people to write- it is just so hard not being able to pick up the phone and talk to him or send him a text and ask him my questions and get answers right away; instead I'm just left hanging. I'm very blessed that Katie thinks to write me and fill me in on things that he tells her that she knows he has forgotten to tell me, like his poop story, at least I'm not missing out on everything! He has been asking for a lot of things from home the last few emails, so I had decided it was time to start thinking about getting a care package together. His old roomate from college, Garrett, contacted me and let me know he had asked him to send some things also. I figured if he was asking other people to send stuff I needed to get on the ball and get something out quick. I had Garrett send me his stuff so I could include it in our package. Rodney and I curiously waited all week to see what Declan would have asked his friend to send him. Yesterday we received Garrett's package and were cracking up when we saw 3 Kendamas in the box.

Mind you, they have been well used and loved. They are worn, chiped, scraped, and you can tell they have entertained many a boy for hours upon hours. I remember Declan telling me about them in college. Rodney and I decided he must be going through some major video game withdrawls. I told Garrett that I had received them and mentioned that Declan also wanted a trick yoyo, and he offered to help me pick one out. It was so nice to be able to text him back and forth, and it also made me miss my Declan too. I have also been sitting around getting Christmas ideas pulled together for Declan as I will have to get them put in the mail at the beginning of November. I think that is playing trick on my heart this week also. Then tonight Rodney and I were watching a movie. It was a war movie where the boy was a sweet little innocent all American boy going off to fight in an ugly, horrible war. I sat and bawled. I cried and cried and cried. I could not get it together and it was just the beginning of the movie. I thought I was going to have to stop watching it. All I could think about was how scary the state of the world is right now, how sad I am that Joey (Decota's sweet, innocent boyfriend) is enlisted as a Marine, of all things, with all that is going on right now, and how much I miss Declan. Rodney kept saying "let's just not watch this", but I knew I needed to pull it together so about 20 minutes later I wiped the last tear away and made it almost through the rest of the movie. All night it bugged me that I felt so emotional, and like I could burst out crying at any moment, And then it dawned on me and I knew why today was such a hard day- today is Decaln's 4 month mark of being out on his mission. 4 months ago today I put my baby on a plane and sent him to a country I've never seen to speak a language I don't speak and love people he's never met, and I did it because I have faith that he is doing what God has asked him to do and that he will be watched over and protected, and that he will learn and grow into an even more wonderful version of the person I knew before. I am one sixth of the way done. Time is flying. He is happy. He is loving what he is doing. He is learning, he is growing. He is becoming the man that God is shaping him into. My head knows that I would not want him anywhere else at this moment, sometimes it just takes my heart a minute to catch up and remember that.

Oh how I love that boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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October 13, 2014

Another Week!

 

so i really dont have a ton of time. this is the last week in the transfer so we are rushing to do a bunch of stuff because it is very likely my companion will be transfered. but just a fast recap of the week, we didnt have any baptisms, we postponed the dates for another 2 weeks just to get them prepared fully. it is a lot better this way. umm we are teaching like 50 people right now, less actives and investigators but we are about to drop a bunch of people who arent preogressing. i hate this part of the mision but it has to be done... we have 8people with baptism dates right now. it is pretty awesome. we are working really hard with all of them! It is a lot of fun but challenging at the same time because each fam has their own needs. we are figuring it out though =)




so i really have to hurry so i am going to just tell you all my testimoney. i know that this is the true church. it is an amazing thruth. we have the oppertunity to recieve all that god has for us if we choose it. god is amazing and he loves every one of us so much. we are all so special to him. i can feel that about everyone of my investigators. i know it is true for all of you too.




i love you all too and i hope that you have a really good week!!!




love elder johnson!




( I have been giving Declan a hard time for not sending me any pictures. Here is his response to my harassment:

{ haha i know i need to send more... i will try to take more. im just scarded i will get robbed or somethig but ill do more.


the next week i will do better about pics! ill actualy take some in the week =p }


You heard it from the horse's mouth, we will see if we get some ;) If next week is transfers I have a feeling it could be a short email week so it could be a couple weeks before we get a good letter and/or pictures though. This week marked the one year mark for one of Declan's best friends, Nic Mower, in the mission field in Spain, so I thought I would post a picture of him that he sent me this week. We love our Texas missionaries <3 )

 

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October 6, 2014

Wow what an amazing weekend!!!


Does everyone feel spíritually recharged this week? i sure do!!!




Conference was sooo amazing! seriously that was a huge blessing in my life. i hope you all recieved answers to your prayers. i sure did. this week i would like to share some of my impressions from conference. i hope that is ok =)




1) Jesus died so we can forget our past guilt, mistakes and pain. The atonement is the greatest act of love that we will ever know. he SUFFERED so that we dont have to. Give him your sins because he has his arms wide open and he is ready to accept not only them but you as well.




2) it takes extreme courage to take on trials but an infinite amount more to turn down men. We need to get on our knees and ask for help because only god can give us the courage that we need to take on the world. he wants to help us. all we have to do is ask.




3) prayer is not something that we should do only 1 or 2 times a day. we should pray constantly. god wants to hear everything about our lives. the boring and the eventful. we should pray to him always and tell him everything. our doubts, our fears, and what we pray for will be made strong.




4) god is the same today yesterday and forever. His standards will never change. we experience apostacy when we lower his standards to the standards of men




5) Our faith will affect others more than we will ever know. through our faith others will find the inspiration that they need to keep on going.




6) Christ died not to save us but to offer us repentence. it is our job to take him up on that offer and repent.




7) God will never force us to do something. we will always have our gift of choice. we recieve blessings when we choose to follow him.




8) All of us have the oppertunity to recieve personal revelation. if we have faith, the intent to follow up on our answers and a pure heart then we will recieve reveltion through prayer, scriptures and church. its impotrtant we pray read scripturtes and go to church because we never know where the revelation will come from. the first step to revelation is to pray and ask for it.




9) Thomas S. Monson is a prophet called of god. He will never mislead us. he is here for us. it is our choice if we will listen to his words and improve our lives.




10) Jesus is the christ and redemer of the world. his death for us is the most important event in history. without him we have no hope or fuure. we have him though. that means that the world is ours. we just have to choose to take it.







I love you all. i hope my thoughts about the first session of conference help you out and make you feel like they make me feel. i love you all and i hope you have blessed weeks.




Love Elder Johnson

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September 29, 2014

Another week gone bye!!!


wow its already this time again!




So this week was good! We had a lot of really good lessons. We also got 2 new investigators! Our focus here isnt really finding a bunch of new people. well ok in this point in time it isnt. right now we work really hard to get our less active families to go to church. im gonna be a reall good home teacher when i get home =p i also know a bunch of really good slap in the face scriptures if anyone feels like they need to be humbled a little bit ;) haha dont worry they are slaps in the face for me too =p they are really motivating. we use a lot of them to teach because they are really blunt and they get the point across. christ didnt sugar coat anything when he taught so why should we? we do everything out of love though. i cant even describe how much these families mean to me. i just want them all to go to church and be happy and have eternal families. i get so sad when we have to drop people because they arent progressing... we had to do that a lot this week. we dropped a lot of people and contacted new people. it was a good week. we also started working with people who we had dropped 6 weeks ago. a lot of them could feel a big difference in their lives when we didnt go to their house. they are really motivated to make the changes that they need to in their lives!




I know that this church is true and that it really does have the power to change lives completely. ive seen it in a couple of people here. i know that only with this gospel we can be truly happy for eternity. the possessions we have in this life really dont matter. our families matter. and only through this gospel we can have eternal families. life is not easy. the enemy we have is very strong and he knows us really well. i know that god knows us better though. when we learn to rely on him our lives become better. way better. we can avoid so much pain and missery by reading scriptures, praying, and going to church. god wants us to be happy and when we make the effort to be closer to him that definitely happens.




i want to invite everyone to watch conference this weekend. i am so excited to listen to the only real living proffet of god on this earth. he recieves revelation specificaly for us. he knows what we need and he knows what god needs us to here. it is so important we listen to him becuase when we do we can have so much more peace and joy in our lives!!! He is here for us. and i promise you all that if you listen to conference this weekend you will find answers to your prayers.




i love you all a ton! have a good week =)




Elder Johnson!

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