March 12, 2012 Well, I don’t have much to tell this week. We reactivated a mother and baptized her 12 year old son this week. She is very emotional about that now and has a really strong testimony. She never went back to church because she isn’t married and is embarrassed about it. Of course the worst thing that could happen did…they called her to give the closing prayer at sacrament meeting. She couldn’t so they had to change it at the last second. Afterwords she was a mess and cried and said she was going home and blah blah. She speaks perfect English and speaks five languages. So I pulled her aside and yelled at her. I started in English because she likes it better, but I have forgotten English it seems and so I just did it in Spanish. I told her the story of my mom and how she went 20 years with out her husband being a member of the church and told her that she needed to toughen up and just do it because she knows it is true. I told her it doesn’t matter what the people say and she shaped right up and said your right and did it. I was happy she felt better after. I can imagine how Billy feels…so many people that just love you on your mission and they are so humble and meek and just have the pure love for you like you are part of their family. Then you go back and you’re just nobody. You are just the same…just Billy…Just Jake… your not Elder, your not the favorite… I know exactly why he is sad. Like Elder Holland said…” Unless you have served a full two year mission you will never understand or comprehend what it is to be a missionary. It’s 100 percent true. No one can understand. I hope all is alright and well. I’m fine here. I feel like the longer I go in the mission the less I need to say. The less time I have to say it and the more my life is here. I am a FULL TIME MISSIONARY. Not a six days then write my family or six days and miss home missionary. I feel like I finally understand what it is to be a full time missionary and lose yourself in the work. I’ve done it. I’m lost in it and I’m the happiest I have ever been in my life. A young man here in Palanque was sad because I might be leaving here soon. He said, “ I wish I could see the future…” I started to meditate on his words. They kept going over and over in my mind many times these past few days. I told him, even though you feel like it’s almost over or you don’t know what the future holds…we can jump through to see what is on the other side. We can know what is going to happen in the future…it’s true and real. The people of the world, we as members always say…oh they are lost. They don’t know. We say that when at the same time we don’t even know at times. For me personally if you are a member of the church and you don’t know or are lost it means you either don’t have a testimony or don’t understand the gospel and what it is. How many times has the Lord promised us a happiness that doesn’t end, and eternal happiness. As long as we are living the Gospel of Jesus Christ we will know a small part of the future. All we have to do is keep the commandments. If we do that we will have the promises that we will have one family eternal, be married in the temple, and have kids by keeping the law of chastity, be healthy, live long without sickness and have the energy to do what ever we want because we kept and lived the word of wisdom. We will always have sufficient blessings by paying our tithing, we won’t be in gangs or bad places…and if we study the Lord blesses those who live righteously to the desires of their hearts. All that you want can be yours as long as you live righteously. So we should have peace in our hearts that all is well and will be okay. I love you all. Elder Johnston