I'm working myself to death!

I think I'm slowly (e.g. quickly) killing my companion. We work a lot. We work hard. We are out in the streets during the hottest part of the day looking for new investigators, finishing our planning session at 10:20 at night, and leaving the house at 9 in the morning because that's the only time when a lot of our investigators can see us. It's really, really tiring, but really, really gratifying. It's nice to see when God starts blessing your efforts. Honestly, one day we did everything to find new investigators: we contacted everybody we talked to or who talked to us, we asked for references from a bunch of people, we tried to contact a bunch of references that we had received, everything and we still didn't find a new investigators. Then, at 8:30 at night, we stopped by to chat with a family of members. Only one of the daughters was home.  This daughter,  just so you know, is sixteen. Without even asking her, she suddenly blurted out, "Oh, hey, I've got a reference for you." The Lord just blesses our efforts sometimes. I love Him.

============== is still on track to get baptized this Saturday. She's very excited about it. She's more Mormon than I am, I think. That's a good sign. She honestly doesn't like not being Mormon. She likes keeping the commandments, going to Church, and doing good things. I'm proud of her. She'll be a good member of the Church as long as she doesn't marry a non-member like half the female member of Huajuapan have done. That's just not a good practice, by the way.

We went and used my comp's talents today in the morning. He's an artist (I'm pretty sure some of his work is on the mission facebook page by now) and so we went and painted somebody's house. It was fun. I just got to paint the base (green) and he painted pictures and wrote letters. It was actually relaxing (what have I become?!) but it killed our morning. Then, when we were writing our emails, the internet went out and so that's why this is coming so late in the day. Just so you know.

We had a really cool stake conference on Sunday. We had to travel all the way to Oaxaca, three hours each way, but it was worth the trip. First of all, I got to see some of my converts from La Hacienda. They are still doing well and are still more active than most of that ward. It's so gratifying to see people actually understand, feel, and apply the gospel. I love it. Then, I got to listen to two apostles speak to the people of Mexico. Elder Bednar gave a really powerful talk about repentance. The general theme was that members of the Church are not really doing it well. They are denying themselves the blessings of repentance by making it a memorized, wrote sort of tradition as opposed to a heartfelt, real, healing process. Even a full confession can be incomplete if it is not accompanied by heartfelt regret and a dependence on the Savior's power. His two main points were: 1. Repentance requires a Savior and 2. Repentance demands a humble heart (or something like that, I didn't take notes). It was very, very good and it reminded me that I need to repent everyday. 

Then, Elder Richard G. Scott spoke and it was a very touching message. Quite a few people started crying during it. He spoke about the sanctity of women. He spoke about how young women are denying themselves the divine gifts of their femininity  He spoke about how we need to remind women how important they are, how precious they are, how perfect they are. He said that the woman is God's most divine creation and noted that only after creating the woman, God pronounced the Creation both finished and Good. He spoke about the family, about how woman should seek to have a family and that no man is complete without the woman. It was an incredibly inspired message for the masculine inclined culture of Mexico. It was actually just a wonderful talk in total. I hope he gives it in the General Conference.  Tell Tyrel that I love him. I'll see him in five months. For the rest of you, see you in two years!

Love,

Elder Johnson