April 7, 2010

Subject: emailed

Hey there. I'll answer your question. First, I almost have my license. I just have to take the actual driving test so I'm just waiting to see if I get put in a car area, then I can work on it and finish it off. People keep telling me having an English license affects your insurance. Is that true?

Not much has changed here. I'm impressed that Kasey and Caleb watched all of conference. I was realizing the other day that I never actually watched the Saturday session of the April conference back home. Always went skiing. Felt kind of bad, but they're better than me.

The weather might maybe be getting warmer here but I don't know. The weather’s never consistent here. It can be sunny, rainy and snowy and go back to sunny all in one day. You can't look out the window in the morning, see the sun and think it's going to be a nice day. It's an adventure.

I think I’ve finally mastered this whole picture thing so I'll keep sending them. Sorry I didn't email on Monday. It was a bank holiday so no luck.

I'm thinking of maybe buying another suit. It's a blue one button. It's really nice but we'll have to see.

This last week’s been pretty good. We were blessed to see six people come to church on Sunday so that was great. We were hoping for a lot more. Our goal was twenty but we'll get it eventually.

It's really weird emailing on a normal proselyting day. Oh well.

I don't really have much to say. Our ward mission leader messed up our night last night. We had exchanges set up with the assistant ward mission leader to go out after coordination. There was also a meeting that night that our ward mission leader was supposed to go to. The assistant mission leader, Bill Pierce, called to see if he was supposed to go to the meeting; but said if he went then the WML would have to find someone else to go out with us. He told him to go to the meeting and he would take care of it, hung up the phone, turned to us and said sorry, looks like I messed up your exchanges. This was about ten minutes before we were supposed to go out on splits.

We convinced him to go out until 8:30 so we wouldn't have to cancel our appointment. He went with Elder Thomas and when Elder Thomas was about to commit the investigator to read and pray, the WML stopped the lesson to ask what time it is because he doesn't wear watches. The investigator had to go into the kitchen to find a clock, and the WML told him they could stay for two more minutes.

I, on the other hand, was out with another member who kept disagreeing with me on directions even though I could see the house I was trying to get to. Then he started telling me it was probably a fake address because he couldn't find it. Finally I just started walking towards the direction I wanted to go and he eventually followed. The appointment went well although most of it was spent talking about how the member met his wife. Members make me laugh. They mean well, but they're ridiculous. I don't know what goes through their heads.

Oh yeah, afterwards Elder Thomas and I were supposed to meet back at the chapel. My member and I had walked to our appointment because he assured me it was nearby and then started walking. It wasn't close plus he stopped to show me a grave yard along the way. Anyways, when he realized it was more of a walk than he thought it was, he said he would call his wife and have her pick us up. So I ended the appointment at 8:55 and started walking to meet his wife. He called her and she said she was on her way. We got to where we were supposed to meet her, waited there for fifteen - twenty minutes, finally realized she had decided to go to Sainsbury's and do some shopping on the way, found her in Sainsbury's with a full shopping cart. We finally got back to the chapel at 9:35.

Meanwhile all of the priesthood holders at the church had made excuses as to why they had to leave because they had work in the morning or other things like that and left Elder Thomas alone at the church with only the young women and their leaders. It was an adventure. Life’s fun. That was a long pointless story but it was incredibly frustrating at the time. Funny now but not then.

On a positive note, Charlotte’s getting baptized this Saturday. Mathew, the one in the superman shirt in last times pictures, got baptized. And Orland, the Columbian in the pictures, got baptized. We've been really blessed. We actually decided to sacrifice our p-day on Monday to go and see some people and we saw a lot of miracles. We were able to teach a part member family where the wife would never talk to us before and we found a lot of new people to teach so that was exciting.

That’s really all I've got. Thanks for all you do. Do you think you could find me a quote by C.S. Lewis where he talks about how we've never met mere mortals. Love you all. I'm glad grandpa is doing well. Thank you. The church is true.

Elder Cody Scott Johnson