Elder Johnson and Elder Hales in Trébol (heheh cuz trebol sounds like you´re saying trouble)

 HOLA! Rapidito Update (ha, I’m reading this now and it’s not rapidito)

The mission is going pretty dang good.

It feels like Missouri summer humid warm here every day, which I actually like a lot after being in provo for a month. I love the sun and living trees. 

The dogs all think we´re food so I whack them with the Book of Mormon when they try and eat me and my companion, and I now carry a rock in my backpack for them too. I don't have to throw it I just pretend I´m about to and it usually helps. Last night one tried to come into our house while I opened the door for the delivery dude, so I pulled out a garden hoe to keep him out, so he growled at me, peed on our door and left. I´ll give him points for creative revenge.

We visited a member the other day and this guy lived out away from the city in the jungle, and he just has a bunch of fruit trees. He picked a tamarindo fruit and handed it to me and it was DELICIOUS. He also gave us some massive lemons and I made lemonade with it when we got home. I wanna be like that old guy someday and live out in the jungle with some cool looking trees growing yummy food for me. I think I was born to be a gorilla.

Work stuff (it´s pretty lit)

Right now our goal with the missionary work is mostly about finding new people. That´s because they pulled the missionaries out of our area for a month before I showed up, so now that we´re here we gotta find, and the search has been epic. It is sick to see how the Lord directs his work, and if you´re doing what you´re supposed to be doing, God will put you right in the middle of it, because WAT DA FRICK we are finding a TON of new people right now. So far just since Monday this week we've more than doubled the goal that the mission gave us for finding new people to teach, and schedule another appointment with.

Some ways we´ve found people (hint: talk with everybody and follow the spirit)

- Nice mom on the bus invited me to sit next to her and her kid since I was taller than the roof of the bus.

- Nice family gave me and Elder Hales some bananas to eat with them while we talked with them about church

- We helped an old lady who was about to try and hike down a mountain with a 50lb bundle of firewood on her head. (her head biceps must be more ripped than my arm biceps that lady was tough) PS: Thanks Dad for training me to be awesome at carrying firewood, turns out that was good mission prep. 

- Talked to a guy working in his garage, and then four other people in the street ended up joining in the conversation

- Helped two old guy brother grandpas sort beans

Elder Hales and I are like what the frick is going on because things are going really good right now. Kinda scarily good right now if I'm being honest though, because I feel like I´m just waiting for something really crazy difficult to hit, but it hasn't so far. Kinda funny because I´ve been thinking that since I starting being a missionary two months ago. But overall things are still going along fine *nervous laugh* Hopefully I don´t jinx myself.

Alright well the biggest hard thing right now I would say is the...

SPANISH 

I can understand a good 80% of conversations overall, (Sometimes a lil more or a lil less, depends on the conversation) and speak a bit, but I often find myself wishing I could start conversations with whoever I want however I want whenever I feel like it, or teach something or share something about the gospel or how I feel about something however I want, but sometimes I can´t. That can be frustrating. Benefits though: The Lord is teaching how to simplify his gospel to just the most important powerful parts. Also It means I gotta listen and watch and learn a lot more before I speak. But man I´m excited to be fluent.

(Kinda a new topic cuz its a story but still connected to spanish)

One experience with this was me and Elder Hales were teaching a new guy, and at this time I wasn't speaking much at all, because I felt like I didn't have enough spanish to say the right things about this the way I wanted to say it. But then the guy we were teaching said something like "You´re not sayin much, did your friend just drag you over here? You don't really wanna be here huh." WRONG MOVE BRO I explained to him that no I do care about what we´re trying to teach him, I just have only been in this country for 8 days and don´t know a lot of spanish, but that I´m going to share my testimony anyways. Then I squatted down to his level where he was sitting on the sidewalk, looked him in the eye, and I told him in the best spanish I could that I know that because God loves his children, he does not leave them to wander in darkness. Throughout time he has always reached out and called prophets to lead his church and teach the world about Christ´s gospel. Even when the people reject and kill the prophets, and even when that prophet that they killed was God´s son Jesus Christ, God still chose to call prophets one last time to restore his church, as prophesied in the words of ancient prophets, for the final dispensation of the fullness of times before the Lord´s second coming. That prophet was Joseph Smith. And with the beginning of this final dispensation, Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon through the power of God, as another testament of Jesus Christ. And by nature of it´s miraculous translation, it is also a testament that this is Christ´s church, with Christ´s authority, and with his living prophets on the Earth today.

Okay I didn't know how to say all of that in spanish to the brosqie on the sidewalk but I'm saying everything in english now since I can do that here so thanks for listening.

Moment of sketchy faith: I gave away my favorite BOM. 

We were teaching a lesson with this guy in his house and we introduced the Book of Mormon and read the introduction page with him, and taught and answered questions about what it is. And after my companion extended the invitation to read some of it, and ask God in prayer if what we´re teaching him is true or not, and bore his testimony, I showed him my super used up marked up english Book of Mormon that's been with me for the past 3 years, and bore my testimony of how I´ve studied it this much because I see that when I read it it invites God's power into my life, and it helps me change and become better every day. And I gave it to him to borrow until next week so he can look for pages with lots of colors, and find the same pages in his spanish book of mormon to read. I called this sketchy faith because I really hope he doesn't accidentally lose or destroy my book because I really love it. Prayers for the life of my book would be appreciated. It´s also totally possible that he doesn't read or pray at all. But the small chance that he does makes it worth trusting him with that book I really care about.

Aight it´s time for me to go so ADIOSSSS

Pupusa Count: 18

ALL PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pf1TgJAc3XnuoSQy6