Taggart's Married!

So, I'm super happy for Taggart!!!!!! He's married, in the temple, and he's going to live across the street from me. I have a lot of plans of crashing at my brother's house when I need to do homework and my apartment is too loud. It's going to be great. I hope he's ready for that cuz I have no plans of asking permission. It sounded like a beautiful albeit busy week. I would have loved to be there. I still have yet to attend a mormon wedding, but I'm happier that he's married in the time that he wanted to be married. And he only lost the ring twice. That's quite an accomplishment.

OUr family is growing up, I think. I'm coming home from my mission soon, Colton is a full-fledged teenager, Aubrey is living by herself, independent, and writing a book, Tyrel can cuddle with little girls (that's so weird - I need to see the pictures), and Taggart is married. We are an old family. But we will always be a family. We will always be willing to sacrifice for each other and always be wanting to be with each other. AS old as we get, we will not forget quickly of years playing pretend in a dark basement, of standing at the top of the stairs on Christmas, of looking for little boys lost at the state Fair, of weird music and fashion tastes, of trademark Johnson sarcasm or any of the like things. We are a family. We love it and we support it. I do not have any plans of leaving anybody behind in this life trip, be it you, Tyrel, Aubrey, Colton or anybody.

 

If there is anything I have learned on the mission, it's that I love my family. What an exceptional caste of misfits and oddballs! My family truly is incredible, by my standards and the world's. We are close knit. We are capable. We are intelligent, likeable, and, over all, decent people. We make respectable decision and quietly do admirable things, all the while neither asking for nor receiving the deserved attention. Aubrey's academic excellence, Taggart's bravery on his mission, Dad's prolonged time-sacrifice for us, Mom's capability for running a full time therapy program, Tyrel's advancement in society, and Colton's growth as a person with little to no fanfare are just a few of the things that makes me marvel as to why God let me be in this family. I love you all and I am happy that it just got a little bigger with the addition of Amber. I hope she got my email.

ANyways, we had some good and bad things in this week. Good thing: we baptized somebody. Carlos is a solid man who has changed his life completely over the course of the last few years. I was completely shocked when I first heard that he used to have a lot of bad habits. Now he is a respectable, good member of the Church that paid a full tithe before his baptism. His wife cried with happiness on Sunday. Bad news: Carlos was one of our very few investigators. We taught only three lessons to investigators all of last week. We made up for it by teaching a remarkable number of lessons to members, but we need new investigators and fast. Good News: we may have reactivated Efren, Carlos's inactive Sunday. Let me tell you, I have had some spiritual lessons during my mission, but this one is certainly top three. I have tried several times to describe it with words, but I have failed. So I will just let you know that Efren went to Church on Sunday and we should be baptizing his nine year old daughter some time next month.

But that's about it with me. My last officials changes passed and I am still with Elder Price and still in NOchixtlan. That really surprised us because we both thought that Elder PRice would get raised, but hey, I'm fine with it because he is a good and capable Elder. I still haven't gotten my package yet. I guess I'll see you all in a bit. Have a great week!
Love,

Elder Johnson