Letter from David

Hello everyone!

This week has been (and I can't really lie about it) a bit challenging, but nonetheless amazing as it always is! I've been a little bit humbled this week due to some crazy things that happened. Here we go...

Tuesday: Elder Ward and I taught an investigator named Dawn. She is stellar and she had a baptismal date set for this Saturday. She had some concerns for us about the temple, and we tried to the best of our ability to answer her questions. When we were teaching her, we saw a roadrunner, and i couldn't get a super good picture of it, but I will include it in the pictures. We also prepared for exchanges.

Wednesday: We went to Amarillo for exchanges! I was with Elder McKenzie and we went tracting and we found 2 new people to teach. While we were coming back to the truck, i saw a humongous caterpillar. I took a picture of that as well.That night, we taught a little family named the Dengs. They are from South Sudan and the mother doesn't speak English very well, so we had the little kids translate. When we got home, we settled in for the night, and Elder Ward was hunkering down in his bunk bed when he discovered 4 little black dots moving around in the corner of the room, which we all identified as BED BUGS. Yep, thats right. Bed bugs. The thing everyone jokes about until you actually get bitten by one. We all had to sleep with the bed bugs that night, I got destroyed on my left arm, and it was not pretty. The zone leaders were not happy at all. Bed bugs are bad news, because they are just soooooo hard to get rid of, and absolutely grody to the max. They will hide in your mattresses and covers during the day, and they come out at night to feed on your blood. You can't kill them with your hands, you have to kill them with heat or poison. Either way, it's no fun. We had to let the bed bugs bite that night, we didn't have a choice.

Thursday: We were planning on going to do an awesome service project at the animal sanctuary, but instead we spent 4 hours bombing their apartment with anti-bed bug spray. We also had to vacuum everything, run the fans, roll down the windows...Texas is a pretty hot State. Hooray for bed bugs to ruin the day. We  had Dominos pizza for lunch. We had some coupons for the pizza, and we couldn't find them until we got home with the pizza. Well, can't really help that, can ya? And when we were washing and drying the pillows and blankets, the washer broke down and water got absolutely everywhere. We decided to take a break and eat some ice cream because ice cream helps make everyone feel better, right? Well, we found bed bugs in the ice cream as well, so no frozen treats. In fact,  a lot of the bed bugs were hiding out in their freezer. They were also hiding under duck tape, in the shower, in the dirty clothes baskets, in the trim of the walls, in the refrigerator, in the couches, in the vacuum, they were everywhere. Wherever you went, there were bed bugs. So exchanges ended, we went home, and it was raining. I left my bag wide open in the rain. All my stuff got sopping wet, and I just about had it. We had to wash and dry our stuff 3 times in a row (plus one more cycle just to be sure), and we checked all our stuff to make sure we didn't have any stowaways. My day got a whole lot better, though, when we taught dawn again and we played basketball that night. That day was rough, but we got through it. We were rewarded with a glorious sunset, it was just gorgeous, I think if I looked at it any longer, my face would've been frozen there. 

Friday: We went and did some more finding, but no one answered the door, which was ok. That night there was a primary party at one of the members homes, and that was pretty fun. I talked to a lot of people about Cheyenne and how the people there are so amazing. 

Saturday: Elder Ward and I went to the museum to help reorganize some stuff, and we were there for about 2 hours. The guy helping us out was Allen. He told me to carry a lady mannequin to their basement and it was really embarrassing because 1 the mannequin was not was wearing clothes and 2 halfway to the basement her arm fell of and when i went down to grab it, she just fell apart in my hands. Allen jokingly said, "need a hand?" And I also forgot to take a picture of the petrified wood flower bed last time, so I took a picture of it on Saturday. I had to break up some clay next to the bed with a pickaxe and I felt like I was in the old West mining for gold or something like that.

There was a baptism for an 8 year old member, he is a Romriell. Dylan Romriell turned 8 and his baptism was amazing. His dad was filling up the font while elder ward and I were teaching a lesson to dawn. We went inside to put up some chairs, and we saw that brother Romriell had left the font water running at full power, and the font was going to flood. Now, the door to the font was locked, and there wasn't another way in, so I had to climb over the glass and walk along the edges of the font to stop the water. I nearly fell in a lot of times, Elder Ward had a pretty good grip on me. We were able to stop the water, and when we stopped the water we saw a whole bunch of dead roaches and bugs floating in the water. We had to clean those out too. I played the piano at his baptism, and it was a really neat experience, I'm super proud of him. Turns out the water was stone cold and the heater broke down so the baptism was done in cold water, which was unfortunate. Afterwards,  we saw a light that looked like a star but it was actually a hot air balloon, it was still in the sun. It was really neat, I couldn't take any pictures though. 

Yesterday: Dawn didn't come to church, which was a little sad because me and elder ward had to change her baptismal date from this saturday to octobter 13th, but we are in no rush here. I was a little sad because Dallin H. Oaks told us missionaries to teach repentance and baptise converts. But my success as a missionary isn't measured in baptisms, its measured in invitations. Elder Ward and I taught the youth about acting the same around everyone and staying the same person around everyone. I played some more piano for the primary, I have come to adore and love the primary children. There aren't very many children in that primary, but they are still just so happy and ready to learn. I love them so much and I can truly understand that when we receive these little ones, we receive Jesus. We went finding again, and we came across a tree that was completely caterpillar infested. Those little furry beasts were going to town. 

This morning at 8, me and Elder Ward went to the ministry of hope and unloaded an entire semi trailer stuffed with moderate sized boxes filled with clothes into another semi trailer. It took about us 2 hours to complete, and by the end I was pretty darn tired. 

My visa still hasn't come yet, but I'm not super worries about that right now, because I have been called to labor, not to a place, and assigned to labor, not to an area. It doesn't matter where I am, the work is still the Lord's work. And I am just fine with staying here in the Texas Lubbock mission if that means I have to, and I am also ok with going to Madagascar. I am just so grateful for the people of Tucumcari,  they are so generous and kind, they are a little rough, granted. But once you have their trust, they become your best friends. I am going to miss them so much.

One other thing I noticed was that my scriptures are now riddled with highlights, tabs, and pen marks. Before I entered the MTC, my scriptures were blank and that's a fault in my part obviously, but now it's just amazing to see how far I've come, and how far I still have yet to go. 

Next week is the last full week of my first transfer of my mission, and to be honest, it has went so fast. When you do missionary work, you get busy, and you don't stop until the work for that day is done. Hopefully my visa does come, but like I said it won't really matter. I'm grateful for all of you and your support. I hope everything in Wyoming and Utah is going ok, and I hope y'all are staying safe and warm.

Malagasy scripture 

Helamaná 5:12

Ary ankehitriny, ry zanako, tsarovy, tsarovy fa eo amin’ ny vatolampin’ ny Mpanavotra antsika, dia i Kristy, Ilay Zanak’ Andriamanitra, no tsy maintsy anorenanareo ny fototrareo; ka rehefa handefa ny rivo maheriny ny devoly, eny, ny zana-tsipìkany ao amin’ ny tadio, eny, rehefa hamely anareo ny havandrany rehetra sy ny tafiotra maheriny, dia tsy hanan-kery aminareo izany mba hisintona anareo hidina any amin’ ny hantsan’ ny fahoriana sy ny loza tsisy farany, noho ilay vatolampy izay iorenanareo eo amboniny, izay fototra azo antoka, dia fototra izay tsy ahafahan’ ny olona mianjera raha miorina eo amboniny izy.

Tiako Ianareo! (Love y'all!)

~Elder Johnson~

Road runner

There's no doubt that David loves nature.

This was the petrified wood garden he was talking about. Very nice work Daver! 

Yuck, bed bugs are so disgusting!  

Scripture goals!

This is by far my favorite picture!

David and Lucy

David has a special relationship with Lucy.  He adores her and loved looking after her.  There was a period of time last spring that I needed him to watch Lucy while I went out of town once a week.  He did such a fantastic job.  Sometimes I would come home to her holding a new toy or eating an ice cream cone from McDonalds.  It pays to have a brother that can drive and has a job! Lucy misses her brother and often says the prayer, "Please bless David that he will talk into the microphone to the people in Madagascar." Except she says Madagascow.  And she also says, "David will be back in a week."  Oh how I wish!  Lucy figured out very early on that she could ask David to play any song on the piano and he could play it.  From frozen, to the bubble guppies theme song, to primary songs.  She was spoiled. Now that he's gone, Alexa is a great alternative but not nearly as fun! 

Letter from David

David Johnson	11:03 AM (5 hours ago)
to anniefederer17, austinjbailey, Keyarra, Kandy, mrs.walker, me, enoch, Eric, fam_walker, logan.mano, kenneth.stockwell, tanner.q.martin, masterchef346, parker.s.smith, vonniejack, sheppersonlyndsey

Hello everyone!!

Man, let me just tell you all that I am just so happy to email you guys each week! It gets me to be so happy after a week of hard work and finally get to sit down and talk with you guys a little bit about my week. I hope that you find everything in my email spiritually enlightening and somewhat humorous. I mean, c'mon. We all need humor in our lives.

Alright, here's my week....

Tuesday: Elder Ward and I went and mowed a member's lawn. He was in great need of moving his extra yarn from his garage and into his van. We helped him out with both of those things. Also, we tried to remember the victims of 9/11 that day. It got to 97 degrees Fahrenheit in Tucumcari that day. A little toasty down here. 

Wednesday: Elder Ward and I packed our bags and went to Amarillo Texas for zone conference! We were greeted by our zone leaders, Elder Collins and Elder McKenzie. Great Elders, I love them lots.

Before we went to Amarillo, we got directions from a man we are teaching to his brother who is in the hospital. We tried to go and visit him, but we couldn't find him. We tried again on Saturday.

Thursday: Zone Conference! Super fun experience. It's just like general conference except there is a lot more PowerPoint involved and there is a lot of role-playing. I had the privilege of playing the piano for the opening and closing song. They seem to take advantage of the talent I have. When zone conference was done, Elder Ward and I headed back to Tucumcari. When we came back, we were sooooooo tired. We nearly ran out of gas in the middle of coming back,  the only thing that saved us was Elder Ward looking at the Gasoline Gauge. 

Friday: Elder Ward and I went tracting in the morning on the street we live on, but no one was interested. We ate dinner with an inactive member at a restaurant called Del's. It has the best steak I have ever had in my life. You want good steak? Take route 66 to Tucumcari, New Mexico. We stopped around a lot at inactive member homes, and still no one answered. Oh well! We still had a great time as a companionship.

Saturday: this day was pretty interesting. 

Elder Ward and I went to do a service project at a museum. Our job was to make a new flower bed. It was hard, the lady who was having us do this wanted petrified wood to circle around the bed, and let me tell ya: it's not light stuff. A basketball sized chunk of petrified wood weighs around 50 pounds. We had to move around 20 luggage sized peices to the flower bed. Unfortunately, when I was rolling a chunk of petrified wood, it fell right onto my right big toe, and I was hopping and yipping for around 2 minutes. I enjoyed every second of the service project. For one thing, who ever gets to move petrified wood as a service project!? Its so cool. And for another, it's a museum we're talking about. I don't think I personally  knew anyone that has worked at a museum before.

Sunday (yesterday): Elder Ward and I gave talks on Gratitude, and one of our main progressing investigators came and listened. She loves it, and she plans on coming back. I played the piano for the primary children, since their original primary pianist had to leave. Her name is Sister Nemroe. She had a stroke at the grocery store while her son was there, and she was taken to the Amarillo hospital. When the doctors ran the tests, they couldn't actually determine if it was an aneurysm or a stroke. Either way, she was taken to St. George Utah to live with the isaacsons for the rest of her life. Ever since she has been gone, I have played in the primary, and the kids love it when a "mishy" comes to play the piano. I made a little friend, and she is Lucy's age. She's a sweet little girl. She was always trying to make me laugh during sharing time, and she actually made me laugh a little when she kicked me on accident when I was sitting next to her. I love the primary kids, they are sweet. They are actually getting a baptism, the boys name is Dylan Romriell. (Dad, if this sounds familiar, it's because the Romriells used to live in Cheyenne, and the dad told me he knew you). 

So I haven't really heard anything regarding my visa. At this point, it's kind of hard to tell when it will come, but I still have faith it will. I still study malagasy tons, and I love it lots. I hope I can learn some more before I go to Madagascar.

I have 3 weeks left here in Tucumcari, and honestly the time here has slipped like sand through my fingers. It's amazing how much time passes when you do missionary work. It's literally the greatest cause going on on the earth today. 

This last week, I saw a lot more tarantulas. September is the time of year where they start to migrate to their hibernating grounds. They will often cross the road and get ran over. I took a few pictures of them, and I will include them in the pictures. I had to quickdraw my belt again for a dog that was barking at us while we were sitting in the truck waiting to go inside. I didn't need to hit it, though. A cat came and the dog chased it all the way down the street, which bought me and Elder Ward time to get inside. I can hear coyote when we are walking kind of out of town at night, but I've never seen one around here yet.

I discovered that missionaries down here have quite a thing for humor and silliness. I will include a few videos of that as well.

Thank you all so much for all of your support, prayers, love, and all the above. I couldn't have made it where I am today if I didn't have you guys to back me up. So, thank you all so much. It means the world to me.

Alrighty! Hope y'all have a great rest of your week!

Malagasy scripture of the week

Môrônia 10:5

"Ary amin'ny herin'ny Fanahy Masina dia azonareo fantarina ny fahamarinan'ny zava-drehetra"

~Elder Johnson~

P.S I'm sorry I couldn't include any pictures of myself because I forgot. I promise I will do better this week 

P.P.S whoever got me the space notebook and pens, you're the best

Holley: These are from me, so obviously I'm the best!

Holley: What a great shot Dave.  Is that a hummingbird hawk moth? 

Letter from David

Hello everyone!

This past week has been a pretty crazy week. I've been super busy and it's surprising how fast the time has gone. Tucumcari reminds me tons of Cheyenne, just because it has that western feel to it, but it also has those frequently seen abandoned houses. The people here are nice for the most part, a little rough around the edges. I love them so much, and I'm going to miss them when it's time for me to go to Madagascar.

We had district counsel last Tuesday, and me and Elder Ward kind of dread district counsel because we are going into a different time zone which means we skip ahead an hour, and then when it's time to come back from Amarillo to Tucumcari, it actually takes two hours instead of one hour to come back. When we come back, we are usually pretty exhausted, but it's always fun to see the scenery of New Mexico. 

Me and Elder Ward do service at a place called the ministry of hope. It's like a charity place where they box food and ship clothes places, but it's one of those beat up places that smells kind of funny. Me and Elder Ward went to the ministry of hope for service last Thursday and our job was to box sodas. Well, I have to tell you, I was actually a little bit surprised to see how many of those sodas had exploded in their boxes due to how long they had been sitting there on those crates. For those of you who do not know why they exploded, they exploded because the grain ingredients in the soda had become fermented, and as a result increased the internal pressure of the can and eventually led to explosion. So anyways, I was working and when I got to the bottom of the crate, the smell of fermented Dr pepper and mountain dew came to my nostrils, and I have never smelt anything worse in my entire life. The soda had actually become to a degree like alcohol due to fermentation. It was super gross, it smelled like rotted vinegar, there were flying gnats everywhere, and it was just fun! Welcome to missionary service. 

When I was emptying out the vodka of the crate, I saw a tarantula hawk wasp, which is about an inch in length. It was gnarly looking. It is named the tarantula hawk wasp because it actually preys on tarantulas. The stinger of that thing is huge. It's wings were orange and it scared me a little bit, but it flew away and then i was ok. There is a picture of one in the pictures I sent in this email. I didn't take the picture, it was downloaded.

So last Wednesday we were walking next to an apartment while we were tracting. Me and Elder Ward were having a great time taking to each other. Then we heard someone say from inside their apartment "Hey, look. It's the Mormons."

Then, Elder Ward got a little scared and just said keep walking. We kept walking and not even 5 seconds later, a man without a shirt about as drunk as a pirate came hobbling out of his home to greet us. We talked with him for about 2 minutes, and then he said "You wanna meet my homeless friend?" 

We were a little scared. 

We go inside, and there is literally a blind homeless man sitting on this guy's couch. We shook his hand, we planned to get him some clothes, and then we left. 

We returned Friday, and Pablo (the first guy we met) came outside and thanked us for the clothes. We started teaching him a little bit, but then out of nowhere he started slamming us with Anti-Latter day saint material and doctrine. It shook me and Elder Ward a little bit, and we decided to leave, partially because we had another lesson to go to, and we saw Bowie Knives just laying around his yard, and we saw him starting over to grab one, so we had to run. No more Pablo.

Other than that, we had a lot of success with teaching people on the street about the restoration and helping out with service projects that they were carrying out.

On Thursday nights, the elders quorum holds a basketball night. It's a lot of fun. Before me and Elder Ward went to basketball last week, I hit my head on my way in to the truck. I stepped wrong and my head met the top of the truck. I saw stars for a little while, and I had a headache a little while after that, but it felt better later. When we got to basketball, we warmed up with a round of knockout and then we started a game of 2 on 3. Brother Manuele, who was on the other team, was intending to throw the basketball to his teammate at high speed, but instead of going to his teammate it made a perfect hit to the same spot I had hit my head earlier in the truck. It was actually pretty funny, I was rolling around the gym floor and I did a couple of somersaults into the wall.

One of our investigators got super sick this last week. We came and gave him a blessing. It helped him out a little bit, it seemed. But, what made him sick was just a little bit sad.

He works for a fax line company. He had to go find someone's line, and he did, but the door to that room was locked and he didn't know where the key to that room was. So, he got a key from the fire chief, and when he opened the door he saw green water with dead rats floating in it, and a fume of death escaped with a swarm of flies. It made him sick immediately, and he could not work with the fax line anyways, because the lines were underwater from the flash flood rain had caused about a couple months previous. 

Poor guy, I hope he gets better.

I didn't really see any crazy animals this week, but last night I saw a huge black widow, which I will include in the pictures.

I was standing outside with my companion Thursday night. We were looking at our mileage log. As we were discussing something about it, I looked up and saw probably one of the most amazing and awe-inspiring scenes in my entire life: Numberless concourses of twinkling stars, with the Milky Way in the midst of them. I could see our home Galaxy in its full form and glory, which was excellent. We are truly blessed with a front-row seat of Heavenly Father's creations. In this particular night, I saw the constellation of Sagittarius. It was one of the first times I got to see it without any light pollution, and to see it in the backdrop of our cosmic backyard was a chilling experience. I felt so small physically in the midst of it all, but at the same time I felt like I was important, because Heavenly Father and Jesus created that all not only for us, but for our Brothers and Sisters that live on different worlds. I am so grateful for the perfect system in which god had created for us and for his purposes, which we can fully enjoy and research.

We still have a baptismal date set for the 29th of this month. I'm super excited to be a part of the work here in Tucumcari. 

I haven't received my visa yet, but I'm still praying for it to come soon. I really appreciate all of your prayers in that aspect. 

Here are a few pictures from this past week. There was a magnificent rainbow that I took a few pictures of. It reminded me of the scripture Genesis 9:13-16. It's a great scripture about the promise the Lord made to the earth that he would never flood it again with water. 

Also I got lucky and took a video of lightning and screenshotted it (only reason I'm not sending the video is because I sound like an idiot)

I hope y'alls week went well, I'd love to hear from y'all, but I understand a lot of you are at work or at school, so that's ok. 

Love you all lots!

~Elder Johnson~

P.S Vega is the name of a star, so that's why I took that one

https://www.google.com/search?q=tarantula+hawk&oq=ta&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0j69i57j35i39j69i60.1821j0j8&client=tablet-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=2BnrNHC0rT7vpM:

David's Endowment

July 7th, 2018

David's Endowment went really well and I just soaked up every minute that I was able to sit with him in the temple.  I loved how there was a hot air balloon hovering over us and we even got it in some of our pictures. It just added a little fun to the moment!  I know my Father gets that I like a little fun! 

If you would like a virtual tour of the ft collins temple, please follow the link below.  

https://www.lds.org/temples/photo-gallery/fort-collins-colorado-temple

and here is why we build temples

https://www.lds.org/temples/why-latter-day-saints-build-temples?lang=eng

I love my boy!