October 18, 2010

Subject: Did it again

I just realized how many of these I've written and that I'm officially out of things to see. One of the missionaries I lived with once showed me this thing that he called post recycled which was whenever he didn't get post for a while he would go back and read an old letter and pretend like it was new. Kind of sad but also I think genius. I was thinking that you could apply the same principle. You should have a lot of emails to read through and if you use your imagination it should be a lot of fun and you probably have enough to last the rest of my mission. Please realize that the principle of post recycle in no way excuses you from writing and emailing me.

This week’s been interesting (I'm typing with one finger right now.) We were in Leeds for 3 straight days. It was good. I learned a lot but that’s more learning than my body can handle. My will to live left me after the first 2 hours of instruction. Not doing missionary work is actually a lot more tyring, tiering (spelling is not easy) than actually doing missionary work. But it was interesting as long as I never have to do it again.

I don't really speak Chinese at all, but my broken English is pretty good. Sometimes I talk to English people in it, awkward. My sense of humor is also changing. Chinese people now find me hilarious but English people just stare at me like I’m handicapped. The Chinese humor really is very different. They'll be laughing hysterically like the funniest thing in the world just happened and I'll ask them to translate and it will be something like Elder Shen just asked how my day was.

The culture is very childlike sometimes which I think is why so many accept the gospel. But they’re also very easily frightened. A lot of them actually scream and run when I say hello on the street. Not the best for my self esteem but I'm getting over it. I just ask all of them to feed us so I've eaten a lot of Chinese food lately, chicken feet, eel, crab eggs, and one dish that Elder Shen couldn't tell me what it was so I'm a little concerned about that one. Did not taste good either. All of my requests for food have kind of come together in the last few days so we learned how to make dumplings, got fed sushi and got Korean food. It was good. My chopstick skills are nearly legendary. We went on a hike with Bro Walsh on Monday. It was good. He teaches us all of his deep doctrine. Next time we’re getting his Adam god doctrine. Fun. Maybe Caleb can go on a Chinese speaking mission. It would be good there. Honestly, the best people I’ve met on my mission.

I don't know if other people talk about something meaningful in their emails, I tend just to ramble on for a while. Things are really going great even with all the meetings we were still able to have 8 people scheduled for baptism and 15 at church. It was the primary program and it was really good. It was powerful. Jessica and Chen should be getting baptized next week. Jessica’s got a masters in English so she's kind of the Chinese version of a high school English teacher. Really good though. And Chen’s a stud. We didn't think he was going to go anywhere but he got some powerful answers to prayer and he's doing really well. We played chair futbol with him for FHE. He's really tall, competitive and loud but also really bad at chair futbol. Good combination.

I always have things to ask you but I always forget. I interviewed the most amazing man for baptism this week named Dermot. He's white South African. He found out about the church and ordered a Book of Mormon but said it took too long to get there so he booked a trip to Utah to investigate the church for himself. The missionaries brought the Book of Mormon by before he left and he said from the moment he met them, he knew the church was true. Then he spent two weeks in Utah, mainly at temple square, investigating the church, came home and got baptized three days later. He taught me during the interview and quoted the Book of Mormon the whole time.

So everything’s going great here. How are grandpa and Sandra doing? I accepted the fact that I'm the smallest a long time ago. I'm expecting a lot of skiing out of Kasey this year with the new skis I keep hearing about. Well let’s call that good enough for who its for. Love you all. The Church is True.

Elder Cody Scott Johnson