Sunday, October 19, 2014

October 15-Last week in the CTM!

Hey everyone, This is my last email from the CTM im sure you read the subject line but i just wanted to say how excited i am to take the message of the gospel to families in Brasilia! This weeks been great, ive mostly done the same things as every other week besides that this week Brother Aidukaitis of the seventy came to the CTM to talk to us. Two sister missionaries and i played a triplet? not sure if thats the right word but i played the piano, sister heck played the violin and sister hill played the flute it was great! The weather is great here, it gets warmer and warmer every day, next week my email will be more exciting!
 
Ate mais!

We will post Paul's new address on here as soon as we know it. 

This second email Paul sent to the family, but I think it's so good that you guys should read it too. 

Thank you all for attending this email reading, i will be your host haha jk but I was so scared when i read your email dad about uva i thought she died or something then i read the last part haha silly menace of a dog! That little beastie! (Uva got stuck under the fence in our backyard for a few hours). Thanks Carla for sending me that list of missions that was really nice of you! Haha well this week i met an irmao from Brazil who was a foeign exchange student in Utah and went to Cottonwood! Another cool thing this week was that Elder Aidukaitis of the 70 came to the CTM to give a talk and guess who got to play a special musical number as an opener... THIS ELDER :) two other sisters palyed too, it was a triplet? I guess thats what you would call it but it was really fun and we did just fine. I remeber him from conference when he was talking in english and i thought he was from the middle east or something because of his accent but he is from Brazil! And i remember googling him and thinking he was really cool and yesterday i got to meet him in person! His talks are even better in Portuguese haha ;)
 
     There have been some random power outages and a serious drought here in Sao Paulo! Like some of the instructors dont have running water at their apartments. Good thing ill be in Brasilia in 6 days!
 
     Hey i want all of you to write me your favorite scripture so i can read it and think of you guys when i read it! So please PLEEASe send it.
 
     Brazil celebrates this day called Criança Dia which is when they celebrate all the children in Brazil! I think we should have celebrated that haha but all the lunch ladies and staff had funny costumes and hats on it was awesome. We got two new brazilian roommates this week, our room is a little packed now with six guys sleeping in it but its fun and its also getting hot here! Its weird to think about snow, i miss snow. Mom be grateful for snow, its a wonderful thing! :)
 
     Jeff where did Itallo and spencer swerve their missions? (Yes Swerve) haha i am just curious. I hope the BMW is still as much fun to drive as it was in september.
 
This week i started studying more in depth the lineage of Judah and Joseph it was really interesting! Also more about the Book of Mormon because honestly i have never read it all the way through while keeping track of all the places and people but its soo much more interesting to read now i recommend you do the same! In Doctrine and Covenantes class we talked about when we study we need to study for our pesquisadors, more than ourselves, so then i practiced teaching the restoration instead of other things which are really interesting but not necessarily relevant.
 
     Carla and Jeff youre both so smart and bright! I wish i could go to college with you both after the mission it would be fun ahha but you can teach me all i need to know right? This is my last email from the CTM which i am very grateful for! Because i am getting bored here haha but the field is something i know i have to be studying hard for because words matter!
 
     Ive made a ton of flash cards, and at night on the weekends there are alot of parties outside the ctm in the streets its funny. Today in the temple i had a little translator device and i switched it to spanish and italian for a little bit just to commemorate minha familia :) I~m not sure if thats kosher but i did it anyways
 
Mommasita im glad your friend sonia and her family are sealed!  Thats really cool especially after a year from her husband being baptized! I always think of the power of missionary work and you because you are a convert and the convert that has made the biggest impact on my life :)
 
Well next weeks email will be more exciting im sure because ill have something new to talk about! Love you all, keep being the best family on the planet! Ciao pue ciao
 
Love- Elder Johnston

Sunday, October 12, 2014

First proselyting Experience. October 8, 2014

Hey everyone! So the most exciting thing that happened this week was proselyting on Friday! We put on our best white shirts (it was tough to choose which one) and headed off to a huge train station slash city square and it was so fun! First, our bus ride took about 30 minutes and everyone was really nervous to even talk to anyone, mind you we had been cooped up in the CTM for 4 weeks before this. One sister in our district was kissed by some random Brazilian guy on the bus! On the cheek but it was more funny than bad or whatever, the first Brazilian i talked to that day was an african american lady who didnt know that much Portuguese either! She knew english and spanish haha it was meant to be! We only talked for a few minutes and i told her we were missionaries training here in São Paulo. Anyways we arrived at this park and walked a couple blocks to this Theatre where i guess they have concerts, plays and other things but there were so many people! Holy cow São Paulo is huge! It was weird to see clothes different from a white shirt and tie haha but anyways the first guy we talked to was Peruvian! He was looking lonely and kinda sad so we just walked up to him intoduced ourselves and asked a little bit about him, he said he was peruvian and so i talked about my mom (Mom youre the bomb!) and a little bit about why were there so after that we talked about our church, asked if he belonged to any church in particular, but eventually we talked about the restorarion and the belief that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are different personages and he was interested so we gave him a book of mormon and pamphlet about the restoration and then went to talk to some more people! Oh yeah one scary thing was when we were talking to this peruvian a man in a suit holding a bible came up and shook all of our hands and i was scared we were about to have the Bible bash of the century! But he just walked away, miracles do happen! 
 
 Later that day we saw the peruvian reading the Book of Mormon!! Next was an old man sitting on a stone wall and he was really happy to see us because he was wondering why we had name tags and we told him then talked a little bit about our church and gave him a book of mormon too. Haha then we walked into this park and talked with some Jehovah´s witnesses quite by accident for awhile but they were nice and we didnt argue or anything. Then next to the cross walks we gave out two more to these nice brazilian fellows and one of them talked alot about the book of revelations (apocolypsia in Portuguese) and so we continued talking when out of no where this super loud and hardcore screamo music just started blaring from the subway grates below and made it harder to talk to him but i know who that was! We kept talking though and could really feel the spirit and he gave us hugs and was very grateful for the book and said he would read it!
 
Later we gave out a pamphlet out to a man on a bridge and tried to get his contact info for the CTM but he didnt want to, nice guy though! After that we were out of stuff to give to people so we helped another companionship give away their book of mormons! Great times, I am so excited for the field! In only 13 days ill be in Brasilia, a missionary from Brasilia talked to us and said the people there have very hard hearts, its a pretty wealthy city, but after proselyting i came to appreciate this gospel even more and gain some confidence for the field!
 
What else, conference was awesome! It was probably the first time i actually listened and took notes on every speaker aaha but brother gudoy´s talk was in enlgish for us! I was fine for that, we all heard the talks in english, but today at the temple i turned my translator thing to Portuguese and did the whole session in Portuguese, maybe that makes up for it haha.
 
Funny things about the CTM: my companion has a camoflauge onsises pajamas haha and everyday the guys in our district have an intelligent conversation about whatever its pretty funny anways the Church is true and really answers so many questions about life! Atê Maís! (Until next time)

Saturday, October 4, 2014

October 2, 2014

Hey everyone!

The CTM is great, sorry I haven't writen to many of you ive been trying to figure out the best way to send these emails! But anyways I'm doing just fine here the food is great and the spirit is so strong here! Lately we had the 1st counselor of the presiding bishopric come and give a talk and also a member of the seventy who served in Brazil and is Brazilian! Such great stories I wish you could all just be here to listen to them! I feel more in touch with my hispanics roots here haha there are so many South Americans and today around 100 more missionarires arrived, one from my stake! Our teachers here are very funny and nice when it comes to learning about the language, they also double as our "investigators" but the gift of tongues is real! Holy cow so many people in my district thought they could never learn the language and they are picking everything up so quickly! It's getting much hotter here but I don't mind and on friday we are going to a train station in the middle of Sao paulo and proselyting to real non-members! Pray for me if you wouldn't mind but if not thats okay :) I will think of more things to write about for next week love you all!
 
P.S. i cant send pictures from this computer but in two weeks i can from the field! (Paul leaves the MTC on October 21)