Mission: Impossible - Brownie edition

Salama iaby!

Another amazing week has dazzled me and had me on the edge of my seat wondering what will come next. Just as you think you're done seeing everything, something new and even more amazing pops into view and your amazingness gauge explodes. No matter how much you expect the unexpected, the unexpected is always expecting you...

Yesterday we had an incredible amount of 16 investigators come to church!!! That is by far the most investigators we have had attend sacrament meeting in Tanambao since the boundaries shifted inwards. I can thank my amazing companion for that stupendous change; He is focused, ready, and in-tune at all times in any circumstance. He has helped me to be the man I am growing to be.

Teaching children can be tough, especially children that are from a different culture that you aren't super familiar with or speak a language that you have only been speaking for about a year and a half. They can be squirrelly, fussy, and all in all, quite seemingly impossible to teach.

My secret weapon? Brownies.

Brownies have an interesting name in Malagasy: Mofo Kadradraka, which literally means ''Cockroach bread'' (Mofo is bread and Kadradraka is cockroach). It gets its name from the color that apparently is the color of a cockroach. But despite this parabolic description of brownies, it always has its magic with children, and especially with these children. Whenever I make a batch of brownies, it always makes me think of all the kids that will be smiling and scrambling for the brownies. There is never enough to go around if I cut it into large pieces, so I always have to cut them into smaller pieces. And, if I use these brownies for lesson incentives, it will help the children focus during important lessons. My main focus, however, is not getting the children to love brownies or even to focus during lessons, but I do it so that they can learn to love others and to love God and Jesus Christ. The real incentive, other than the treats, is the ever sweeter gospel, which taste lasts longer and satisfies better than any mortal sweet. And even that amazing taste should prepare us and motivate us for the ultimate treat: The love of God, or the fruit of the Tree of life.

Brothers and sisters, may we be ever eager to feast on all good things that come from above. I know that those things that I have said is true and I will never deviate from that.

with love,

Elder Johnson

The Beach

Salama iaby!

It has been yet another great week here in good 'ol Taolagnaro, Madagascar. We had a lot going on this week, because my companion and I have been trying to fill up our schedule with appointments. An up side of the week is that it rained a lot this week and I didn't have to sweat a lot. I got soaking wet again last week basically head to toe, my ties included.

I have had a lot of moments last week were I had something startling yet funny happen. One of them is this: we were sitting in a members home getting ready to eat dinner with them. I was shuffling a deck of cards at the request of my companion who was performing a magic trick, when a humongous bug flew at top speed into the house and into my hair. I swatted it out of my hair and it was flying everywhere scaring lots of little kids; Eventually, it landed and I killed it. We had quite the laugh about it when it was dead XD

Another one is when I was at the beach this morning at the tail part of fort dauphin (for those who are not familiar with what I am talking about, please refer to google maps). I set down my flip-flops on the beach next to the water and I went to go take some pictures in another place. When I came back and we were heading back to go shopping, I didn't find them. I realized that the waves had carried them away :( I was slightly offended. But there was a couple bathing in the ocean just a few hundred feet away and they had one of the sandals come to them. They gave one to me and just as I was getting that, a fisherman gave my companion the other one, and he related the fact that while he was out fishing waaaaay out from shore, a sandal floated towards him and he was wondering what the heck a sandal was doing out in the ocean until he saw a bunch of white people taking pictures on the beach, so he rowed back to shore to get it back XD

I hope that those were somewhat funny to y'all and I hope that y'all have a great rest of this week!

Elder Johsnon

God knows his people

Akory!

Another great week gone. My companion and I have definitely been upping the Antie with getting to work and restoring this branch in Tanambao, Fort D. Yesterday`s sacrament meeting was a little more that just chaotic. We only had around 4 Melchizedek priesthood holders attend church, and we had lots of funny little kids running up and down the isles throwing rocks and tackling each other. Everytime I think about the struggles we (my companion and I) face, I always think of the amazing revelation given to the prophet Joseph in Liberty Jail, ''Thine afflictions shall be but a small moment, and if thou endure it well, thou shalt be exalted on high, and thou shalt triumph above all thy foes''. What a glorious promise.

It is a heart-shattering sight to see so many poor people wandering the streets, with their clothes ripped and their spirits weighed by their situation. Who could ever forget the little children who only have the sticks and sand and rocks to play with? No room in a 16 year old's house has any video games, air hockey or iPhones of the latest. No 3 year old has any tricycle to play with. They play with car oil bottles. They play with tires. Toilets are even a seldom feature in the majority of the homes here in Madagascar. Most just have dirt, cockroaches, wasps, wood, and some wires. Put those things together, add a single ghastly looking bed with a mosquito net, and you have the average malagasy home. Often when I eat out with other missionaries, little kids will gather at the entrance and call us by our names so that they can get money or food from us. It happened to me just before I wrote this email. I never go through that experience feeling good afterwards, knowing they don't even have electricity or water. They don't beg to beg, they beg to live.

The encouraging thing is that the all searching eye of out Loving Father in Heaven knows these little kids, amidst all of the asian, european, african, american, and polynesian people of the world. He knows and loves them so dearly. They are part of the sheep that are not of the fold told by Jesus in the scriptures. I take comfort in knowing that God knows their needs. He's got the whole world in his hands!

May God bless you for your gratitude (keeping in mind that Thanksgiving is around the corner) and for your efforts to feed his sheep!

Love,

Elder Johnson

He loves you!

Hey everyone!

This P-day was epic! We went and climbed a mountain and got some way good pictures of the waterfall at St. Jaques (which is a popular waterfall in Taolagnaro). Getting to the top and looking down on the Malagasy Indian Ocean was breathtaking. I loved seeing all the trees and hearing the birds singing and some lemurs here and there. Afterwards, my zone (8 Elders total) went to the beach and played 2 hand-touch football. Way hard, but way fun! Good news is I didn't get super duper sunburned on my neck with blisters this time, but I won't stop applying that sunscreen.

For those of those who really didn't get to know what my interests were before my mission, I love stars, planets, and just about anything that sits in the night-sky. Ever since I was a kid (and I remember telling my mom who was tucking me in one night when I was still 5 years old that I wanted to be an astronaut), I have had a curious interest for the cosmos. If there was anything (during my teenage years) in music that I would hear that had anything related to space, I would listen to it. Space is really interesting.  Granted, It has to seem for the average human mind like looking into millions of light years of blackness and speckles of sunshine fosters little to no hope for looking for partner life in the universe. Alas, in the midst of multitudes of Floral Nebulas, Brilliant Galaxies, and Ruthless Black Holes, the power of the Almighty God has created other planets with life on it as it says in Doctrine and Covenants Section 76. What an astounding knowledge to have! Just staring into the night sky helps me to remember this one line: He loves you. I'm sure you all already know who that ''He'' is. Don't you ever forget that God loves you!

Also don't forget that I love you all and I hope this next week goes well!

Love,

Elder Johnson