Jeff's Email- 08 April 2009

E aconteceu,
And I came to pass,
Well another week has passed in the land of Brasil and once again I have a new companion. After spending a week with Elder O, he is now gone to his house. It was a long "trunky" week for him. He is going home early to start school. Last night I stayed at the house of the assistants and today I returned back to Rio Bonito with my new companion. He is a professional soccer player for which I have no clue which team. He is pretty awesome! English is slowling withering from my mind as I only speak when he asks me what a word means or today when I am typing it. Hopefully I wont speak too horrible of english when I return.
The english class is going well. I just sit there and answer questions for a while until the end when they have been trapped and we grab their address and go and challenge their lives with the gospel.
Cool story...we were teaching this family and they have a little son about 7 years of age. During the lesson we always ask questions to see if they are paying attention. His mom, older sister could never answer but he always knew exactly what to say. We asked them to pray about it and we returned on the following day. The first thing he said to me was that he prayed, he knew José Smith was a prophet and that this was the true church. He turns 8 this August so who ever will be working here at that time will have a nice easy baptism on their hands. Hopefully if all góes as planned his family will be baptized here in a few weeks and his baptism wont count as a convert baptism.
Anyways I am starving from a long day of travel and want to get into my house before the rains come so until next week!
-Elder Johnson

Emma- Student of the Week

Susie- 4.0

Jeff email

To whom it may concern,

Yet another week has come and gone and this time it brings great news. My father, (trainer), Elder M has been transferred to Campos. It was sad to see my father leave me but I had to let him go. The work must go on.
My new comp is a professional soccer player who is just leaving the office where he was a secretary for about six months. Elder M was actually this guys trainer last year.
Because he is gone, the English class we have been teaching now rests upon me. It will be difficult because I don’t even know English that well but I am excited to see how it goes!
Its been raining like crazy lately! We're finally out of the hottest summer of my life so it's getting a little more bearable here with the heat.
Well I must bid you farewell until another week has passed.
Com amor,
-Elder Jeffrey Johnson

Jeff email

HELLO FROM BRASIL!!!
Well this week was great! Today we had an intense game of tennis with one of our investigators named Leonardo. He is the principal of 3 English schools around here called FISK. An American guy owns this school. Leonardo heard us talking English on the street and stopped and started talking English with us. He asked if we would stop by his school because in order to learn a language you need to speak it so he wanted the people in his schools to speak with Americans who speak well and give them the opportunity. Its great because they always ask about the church so we get to talk to them about that. We taught him the first lesson a few days back and gave him a Book of Mormon. He asked for one in English. This guy speaks better English than we do because he doesn’t speak a lot of slang so he uses very big words. He invited us to go play tennis with him. Being a baseball player and golfer tennis is very difficult for me because I tend to hit the ball as hard as I possibly can every time. By the end game my hits were untouchable. Haha!! He was a catholic for 10 years and left because he didn’t agree with the doctrine that they teach so he has been looking for somewhere to go since. I think he will love it here! We have already baptized an Michelangelo, if Leonardo is baptized all we need is Raphael, and Donatello and we have baptized all 4 of the ninja turtles! Just a little fun fact. Haha.
Mission conference was pretty awesome! President Didier, the president of the Brazil area was there. He gave a great training on how to teach the restoration of the gospel better.
Last Sunday we got to church and President Saul, the branch president, came up and asked me to speak in church. I had to say yes but during the next two hours, (in brazil you go priesthood, Sunday school, the sacrament meeting), I was writing a talk. I got up and didn’t even use the words and was able to go on for my five minutes. I spoke on Nossas testemunhas. Our testimonies. That’s talk number two.
Two more weeks until transfers! I don’t know what is going to happen. If I do get a new companion or go to a new place I hope to get a brasilian companion. That way I will forget speaking English and just speak portuges every day. That would help a lot with the language!
Well….I must bid farewell until next Wednesday but I leave you with love and appreciation for all of your help!
-Elder Jeffrey Johnson

Update on Jeff

Jeff is doing well and was able to baptize a man on Saturday. He is doing well with the language. He understands that he has been spoiled with his first apartment with it being brand spanking new. He has been informed that the rest of the mission is not like this. He had the opportunity to have the experience 0f finding a worm in his food when he ate at a members home and was sick for a few days, but has since recovered. He told us he stole the worm and took it back to his apartment to take pictures. Hopefully he set it free :)

I must say as his mom, what an awesome young man and I sure love him!

770ml of acai, Yum!

Mission Pics

Image out of apartment

Out back of apartment

Traffic on bridge that crosses the bay in Rio de Janeiro


Van ride after Mission Conference

Bridge that crosses the bay in Rio de Janeiro