Week 4

Hey Family and Friends!

This week has been a blast as always. My companions and I have been sick since last p-day, but we are all on the upswing now and are feeling lots better.  Here is a bunch of random stuff that happened this week

Turkish is continuing to go well. We have started teaching our lessons without scripting out lines and phrases to say. So now we just have to come up with what we want to say on the spot. At first it was quite a large struggle, but we are really getting used the grammar and I am able to say a lot more things that I thought I could, because instead of using the script as a crutch I can actually make my own thoughts (even though it is a lot slower) and adapt the lessons so much easier. Our teacher always asks really hard questions when we are teaching the lessons to him in role plays. It is really helping me grow and learn more about the gospel and new and better ways to improve the ways I teach.

A couple days this week one of my roommates, Hough Elder (the hungarian one), and I went to go play piano in the practice rooms. I haven't played in quite a while and it was really fun for me and reminded me a lot of home and college. I miss you guys. But it also made me realize that piano and music are some of the favorite things in this world, and that I should really make it a bigger part of my life after my mission. 

There have been a lot of fires up Payson Canyon and by Spanish Fork and so it has been really smokey here for the past week. At night we went up to the top building and could see the fires flickering and burning in the distance (pic of fires and smoke)

The night after I got sick, a bunch of people from my zone went and played soccer at the fields. It was the first time I had played since high school soccer I'm pretty sure. It was super fun and I felt like I really bonded with a lot of the new German Elders this week and they are becoming some of my really good friends. 

The Polish Elders in our Zone left this week-- it made me really sad to see them go, but after 9 week here they were ready to get out into the field and do the Lord's work. It also made me realize how fast the MTC is flying by. This Saturday will mark the 1/2 way point of the MTC, which is pretty crazy to think about. The polish gave away a bunch of stuff that they couldn't/didn't have space to take which was nice too. Here is a picture of the floor before the Polish left.

This week we also had Elder Neil L Andersen speak to us last night -- 

it was super awesome to have an apostle here. And he brought a bunch of his grand kids, and they were awesome.

Each of the grandkids bore their testimonies about missionaries and why each one loved the missionaries.

There were these two 6ish year old boys that were super cute and bore the sweetest testimonies. 

It really made my week. Elder Andersen was a super awesome speaker and I could really feel the spirit. 

Love you all 

- Elder Johnson