March 18, 2009

Subject: It’s a hard rains a gonna fall

First of all, can someone explain to Caleb that Scott is my middle name, not his. That he has his own middle name and Scott is not a generic name for anyone to use if they feel like they need something between their first and last name. So I think maybe he should try Caleb Dee Johnson. That might work just a little bit better.

So I don't know if you remember me talking about Vladamire and Valentina, the couple from Russia who was homeless, but things have gotten a little out of hand. Basically Elder Hansen found them while street contacting. They stopped him and said that they knew the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet but were unsure about Brigham Young, so we started teaching them. In a park at first because they were homeless, but then Terry, one of our recent converts, found out about it and said we could teach them at her house which we did.

But Terry still felt bad about them being homeless so she let them stay at her house on occasion -- usually Saturday nights before church. She wanted to house them full time but was told she was only allowed to do it one night a week. So Terry started calling up parliament and immigrations to try and get them a place to live. She got them somewhere to live until immigrations could track down their passports, in which case they would probably be deported. She was also told that Vladamire and Valentina weren't their real names and that she should be cautious. That she probably wasn't in any danger in England, but if she went to Russia now she would be. She was actually arrested for housing them more than she was supposed to, but they let her go because she has a heart condition.

So finally Vladamire and Valentina were staying at Terry’s house one last time and immigrations were coming in the morning to search Terry's house for their passports and to take them to the home they had for them. (Terry hadn't told them this.) But Vladamire and Valentina ran off in the middle of the night. The police and immigrations came and searched Terry's house and didn't find passports but did find articles that Vladamire had written about the electric chair and radiation poisoning. The police waited at Terry's house for a while to see if they came back.

After the police left, they came back to tell Terry she was in danger and then left again. So we really don’t know why they were running from Russia, whether they were the good guys or the bad guys. All we know is that Vladamire was an inventor and a physicist in Russia and that he told immigrations he had radiation poisoning when he came into the country. So that’s basically been my week. It’s been pretty crazy.

Also Shepard and his family are not sure if they still want to be baptized because the church has too many rules; so we've been dealing with that lately. We did have zone conference yesterday and it was really good. I'm actually still on like a spiritual high from it, which is impressive because I've been dealing with Russian mad scientists and people not wanting to be baptized. So zone conference came at a really good time. We also learned that Elder Ballard is coming to speak with us in April so I am incredibly excited by that. Being in the England MTC you don’t get any speakers like you do in Provo so I'm really glad he's coming.

Overall thing are going really well and I'm really enjoying myself. Tell Kasey that I'm glad she's working at the vet and that she should be careful not to throw bags through the window there because they might not take it as kindly as you have. Also please tell Kasey not to get mad at me for saying that. Tell Dad the joke about him using my boots would make me more nervous if he hadn't just bought himself a pair of custom fitted boots from Whistler. Like I said last time, I would really appreciate addresses and or emails for people. Sometimes I have extra time if my companion is being slow. I'm glad you guys are having fun without me I guess.

No buying new pianos. That is absolutely unacceptable and I won't stand for it. Pianos are boring and we certainly don't need a new one. Boats on the other hand bring families together, not like pianos that just cause problems.

Vladamire wrote a book called creative inventions. I think that’s something for you to look for if you’re curious but don't search too much. I don't really even know if that’s what it’s called plus it would be in Russian. Try not to miss me too much, no more smashing windows and no more using the word fluffer. Church is true.

Elder Cody Scott Johnson

That’s my middle name and you can’t just take it whenever you want.