SO HAPPY!!

MI FAMILIA TAN HERMOSA!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!  I'm so happy to see all the great blessings that you all have received!  I can't even tell you how happy I was to see the pic of the baptism that you guys were in and that Chris directed!  That's so awesome.  And that's awesome that Sylviana was there in the baptism of Gabe and Carlee because that is literally the best place for an investigator to go when they are investigating the church!  There is actually a super gnarly statistic that of every 10 people (no miembros) that go to a baptismal service, 8 get baptised also!!!  Do you remember that one experience with my investigator that went to a baptism and then after it ended, asked if he could also be baptized?? yeah, it's true!   Also, those pics of Hawaii are so awesome, I loved the one of Court and Dillon out on the rocks! hahahaha.  Everyone here in the internet cafe were all looking at me super wierd because I was laughing so hard!! haha.  But it looks like you guys had a good time there!  Also, what's up with the snow in Mesa!  That's so wild...maybe there will still be snow on the slopes when I get back????  Positive thinking! haha.  I can't believe that Mac is already in the CCM of Gutemala....I just now realized that she is the first girl missionary of our family....that's way cool!!  I'm so happy to be part of this family, it is definitely one of the blessings that I will be forever grateful for!

So this week was basically AWESOME!  We are seeing so much progression in the branch right now and that's even with some of the strongest members being out of town so I'm soo excited what is going to happen when everyone gets back and we can start to work BIG TIME!!  The members are so much more excited to work and to really make a diference in the branch here in Rosales!  That, I think might be the best part is that it's not just us working now to try to help, but we are helping the members so that they can help us in return and now we are working like a team.....like it should be!!!  WHOO!!!  Jose came to church this Sunday and he was way excited.....he didn't last week for some other problems that they had in the family, but we got it all taken care of and now they are all going to church together again!  Oh and not to mention, Nadia and Sofia gave there first talks ever in their lives on Sunday!!!!  They were super nervous on Saturday so they asked us if we could go over to help them a little with their talks, so we went over and they both had all their books out and the web page of the church open looking for ideas....it was awesome to see that even though it was their first time, they were so willing to do it....and in the end, they did a GREAT job!  All the members were congratulating them afterward and they both felt great!

Arturo and Armando couldn't go this week, so we are going to go visit them to see what happened, but they are both reading in the Book of Mormon and praying to know if it's true so we are super excited for them, but we're going to see what we can do to help them get to church this Sunday.  Also, we have a way cool investigator named Horacio that we taught this week and had a way cool experience with him!  He was feeling a little down on himself because he really feels like he doesn't have any friends and the ones that he had kind of just let him down so he wasn't feeling too well....so we started to talk to him and he was telling how grateful he was that we had gotten there in the time that we did, because it was in the moment that he most needed it!  This work is Gods work!!!  Also, Elder Parkinson invited him to be baptized at the end and he accepted!  He still hasn't gone to church yet, but we have to go with some members to see if that will help him feel more comfortable going for the first time!  Pray for him PORFAAAA!

We had an awesome experience with Leonel this week, the husband of Guadalupe (the one that got baptized about a month ago)!  He was also kind of having a tough time because he is from Honduras and hasn't seen nor heard from his family in a really long time.  So Elder Parkinson and I were trying to think of how we could help him and we came to the conclusion that only God could help him so we prayed and asked His help to know what to do.  When we went with him the next day, he started to tell us about a a really cool experience that he had the day before.  He said that one night he was really feeling bad and was really missing his family and felt the "random" desire to go out of his house and pray and ask God for help...he said that it was one of the first times that he really prayed to God and asked his help.  Well, the next day his son got home and told him that someone had added him as a friend on facebook that was from Honduras that supposedly had recognized the last name.  Well, it turns out that this guy is from his same small town in Honduras and is family!!!!  WHAT!  Leonel said that he was literally in shock that God had answered that fast his prayer!  While we taught Leonel he was way more receptive to the spirit and it seems like his realtionship with God has totally changed!  He is progressing a ton now and we are super excited about it!  God answers prayers and this is His work!

I love you guys so much and I'm so excited to see you soon!  I hope that you have a good week full of blessings....keep looking for them and you will find them!

Elder Johnson