The 241th Anniversary of the Beginning of World History

Alrighty ladies and gentlemänner,

Welcome back to this week’s edition of „Where in the Country is Elder Johnson“. Well, this week I was in just about only 2 places; the feels, and deep thought. Nah just messing, the two places I was in was Berlin (little city a bit north of us, you’ve probably never heard of it), and our home.

Americaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Why was I so much time in my home, you ask yourself? Online proselyting, baby. The Church announces missionary work 3, this time it’s all done inside your apartment . Oh also my companion almost died from a sunburn blister, probably should mention that. From those of you who read / still remember my weekly from last week, I wrote about the legendary burning of the members of the Hof branch. Well heck diddly do y’all, I was underestimating when I said that any of us got it bad ooooo baby. It didn’t help that we sat again in the sun at beach volleyball on Monday, after which my companion put on socks potentially containing sand, just to rub against his already bad sunburn, which eventually turned into a half orange-sized blister near his ankle. This baby was a monster. Along with that, he had many smaller blisters along his legs and arms, needless to say, we weren’t going anywhere for a while.

yes,,,my friend,,,, the sun makes,,,,,orangeankle

Well as my friend lied on his death bed, a problem occurred. We needed to somehow get to Berlin in order to Tausch Persian style, but luckily we found a solution and I brought a different Elder up there with me and we went to the small cute little city of Berlin. Before that, we were eingegossen with the wonderful opportunity to eat from the greatest Döner in Germany, yes the legendary Babelsberg. It only gets better every time I go.

In berlin, we were able to Persianize the heck out of that place; taught a lesson to our good friend in Lübeck, who is now aware of the 10 commandments and will do his best to follow them, and found a few potential Persian investigators, made an appointment out with an inactive Persian member who they’ve been trying to get back in contact with for quite the while and speaks lots of Farsi. We spoke with one man (he wasn’t German, no idea where he was from) who was convinced that God created us, trees and plants and animals, and left us in this world that Satan created to be led into Satan’s arms. He had some interesting ideas but as we were talking to him, I look over as an old lady is crossing the street, biffs it face first hardcore yelling, when an ambulance happened to be driving by at that exact moment and stops and helps her, ALL while this man is telling me that Christians are worshiping the wrong Jesus. It was truly wild, friends.

Personal Motto

Other than that, thank goodness for the 5 minute delay of our train that we raced, God Bless America, and the sisters almost got kidnapped this week, but you know all in a week’s work right? Speaking of America, we were blessed with a wonderful USA barbeque with the family we ate with yesterday, it was nice and patriotic.

Well my Herrschaften, I don’t have much more to say besides wear sunscreen and don’t ride your bike down concrete stairs, thanks you very much, have a good one, we’ll see you nex

you should’ve seen the sun after this fight

that’s what happens, boys and girls #12,10

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof

Germany

Nickelodeon announces Mr Krabs 2, and it’s me

So I’d love to begin these writings today with the expected, yet nevertheless unfortunate news that the German national soccer team choked majorly and got absolutely wrecked by South Korea, just plain unacceptable. Meme below for summary of Germany’s performance in the World Cup.

ANYWAYS other than all this nonsense, quite a good busy week was performinizationed by us. Allow me to giess you all a little bit ein of what we did this week. 

Tuesday, I was given the opportunity to once again to performanize the actionationing of Splitting companions and going with the legend Elder Dawson in Hof, which included me talking to an Iraqi speaking Persian (?), the weirdest accent I’ve ever heard—us getting roasted by some very angry German man for „being a cult“ and about every other rude thing you could imagine—and ending it with a classic game of get destroyed by Elder Johnson (aka basketball). We had a good time though, talked to some interesting people, got some potential legends, not too bad.

11-4 is there a hole in your glove boy?

It goes well by my Persian friend in Lübeck, it helped a lot to have a native Persian speaking member there to help me during our lesson this week, but the investigator is still making great progress which is awesome. We had also the great privilege of attending the graduation of a few friends of ours we have made through Volleyball. If you want to try to imagine with me how a German graduation goes, think to yourself of a classic American graduation with hats and robes and throwing your hat up and the classic music, and then take all that and make a literal 100% opposite of it, and there you are, a German graduation. Not only fun, it was actually pretty cool, I enjoyed it. It was in the largest Catholic Church in Hof, decked out with a choir (who sang a Hercules song, dope), a few skits, and some somewhat inspirational speeches from some somewhat important people. The organ in that church is beautiful, just had to say it. It was really cool though to see how many of the people from the graduating class we knew and were friends with, and they were quite excited to see us there to support them.

the district

the district

Saturday was basically Dia de Los Muertos pt 2 for us here in Hof. I almost died helping a member move into a house on the 3rd floor, especially bringing the 200+ pound washing machine up, I swear that thing almost chopped my neck off. Wouldn’t recommend bringing a washing machine up 3 stories of stairs. BUT NEVERTHELESS I prevailed and we got that stupid machine up there and the other accompanying things that I had already found rather heavy. After this deathly service, we made our way over to the Untreusee, a large lake in Hof (the largest in fact), and had a ward activity there. The activity was great, grilled together, played sports, got to watch them all swim and enjoy themselves inside of the Satan-controlled waters, and had a really good time with one another. Oh, might I add the fact that God announced Sun 2 and this time we all die of sunburns, because basically everyone went out of that activity looking redder than the Rossman and Rewe signs combined. Even those of us who put on sunscreen often (most of us). But naja, the Germans just don’t understand what it’s like to be from Arizona where it’s just culture to always be sunburnt.

On Sunday, I got a new companion for the day. I can finally say I’ve served with a native German. After a long brainstorming session of how Elder Smartt can go to the baptism of a friend of the Arabic language in Plauen on Sunday morning while I attend our ward conference, because I have responsibilities to play the piano for the choir and for the meetings that I totally didn’t forget about until the day before, we came to the idea that I go as companions with President Merkel, the Branch President here in Hof, while Elder Smartt goes along with the Arabic speaker himself Elder Lorenzen and the Aussie to the baptism. It was a great time being companions with a German and with a man old enough to be my dad (but this man looks young enough to be my brother, no lie), being in the branch presidency temporarily, and having a good time. Church was great though, the choir sounded amazing, talks were great, and a new man walked in asking to learn more about our faith and learn English as well, and he doesn’t even seem crazy! So Sunday was a good day.

völkerschlachtdenkmal in Leipzig, pretty sick thing about destroying Napoleon or something like that

 

1-And it came to pass that in the past 7 day period the reign of President Christian Hans Fingerle came to an end. 2- And it came to pass that the same exact fetching day the reign of President Axel Leimar began. I’m excited for the new changes and to see what the new mission president is like. President Fingerle will be missed („sehen sie das?? Sehen sie das???!“).

Well I would like to close this novel with only one word to put you all in deep thought, bye 

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof

Germany

Yes, please, enlighten me further

Salami

Okay so my friends here we are once again all congregated together in order to read more inspired words of the one and only Elder Johnson because there haven’t been 3 Elder Johnson‘s in this mission at one point in time.....in any case, we’re here and every single choice each and every one of us has made throughout our entire lives has led us to this very point of our lives, to be strengthened by the words of me.

Well this week was great, I had the chance to learn so much about my country, it was awesome. You see, as Americans here in Germany, we’re quite vulnerable to backlash about the decisions particular leaders of our country make, and also to the hearing of what America is „really” like. I’m so glad I’ve been so lucky to learn about America from different Germans, who learn all they know from their „unbiased“ news and the internet. Remember kids, everything you read on the internet is true, no matter what. Nah it’s all fun and games I love the Germans they’re great people, but sometimes I feel they forget we lived in America for 18 full years haha.

We had a couple great appointments this week, one of which, we brought a friend with us to our Arabic investigator’s house to help him learn German because it’s easiest to learn the language by speaking it to native speakers, even though they don’t usually understand their own language rules haha. This will help him with his problems though, once he learns German and gets integrated into the society, his problems will hopefully go from far away to here actually. He’s a good man. We also met with a less active member, at which appointment I was blessed to sit on the dog’s couch (you could tell that’s where the dog spent most of his time). It was also a good appointment, as we talked about the importance of forgiving and how it is not always easy, but through the Lord it’s possible to forgive everyone. We had also a few weird appointments and a good amount of fallen out ones.

Germany barely scraped by in their World Cup Game against Sweden this past Saturday, if you didn’t know. I’m not sure what gave it away that Germany won; the messages we got from Germans, the non stop partying outside of our house all night, or the fact that it was brought up and compared to the gospel in most testimonies on Sunday at church. Apparently it was a close win though, I wouldn’t know because I may not lay eyes upon such an event.

The highlight of my week was definitely Friday for many reasons. There was a lesson I got to teach on Friday for a good friend of mine who is living in Lübeck, Germany, and is of the Persian descent. I brought a good friend of mine, Elder Denny, to assist me in teaching the Gospel of Christ. The dude (investigator) is an absolute unit, he’s reading Book of Mormon like a monster, praying the heck out of it to find out of the truthfulness of it, and calls himself Mormon when I ask him questions. I’m excited about this man, he’s very promising and has already shown the change that the gospel has brought him. He also speaks approximately not even one bit of German, so it’s completely in Persian, یععععنییییی.

We also met a very nice Turkish girl who found my jokes pretty funny. Remember the correct way to say thank you in Turkish my friends, it can get quite out of hand if you’re not careful. Friday was a great day my legends.

got to pick some cherries today and climb high in this tree

don’t let this picture deceive you, I might look like I’m picking a cherry, but I am only looking for somewhere to hold on to for dear life

mom said it’s my turn in the cherry tree

when it’s too rainy to play real sports, gotta do your best to improvise (I’d like to thank my paparazzi)

Well I hope you enjoy yourselves,

goodbye

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof

Germany

Young Crimes

Grüß Gott my friends, please, I want Him to feel greeted from me.

WELL, what a week, ladies and gentlemen. I was thinking about going the Elder Lorenzen path today and writing my whole email in Arabic and sending that out for you all to translate on your own, but I’ll be merciful today and write it in the greatest language of all languages, English.

Honestly this week wasn’t too crazy full of interesting stuff. We met with an American investigator of ours who isn’t actually rather interested in learning more about the church, but more interested to have a quite American conversation where we can talk about the greatness of the free land, including its amazing sweet candies. 😉

penrahhhhseeeeeeeee and Karl (the father of communism)

me and Karl

Karl looks great

We had quite the interesting appointment with our Arabic Persian couple investigators. It was extra fun because now we can both speak their native languages so we can both be learning our middle eastern language there. As we were waiting for our friends to be finished making us some delicious Arabic food, we got a call from an investigator of ours asking about an appointment and when we can, you know, have one, and it turned into quite the funny conversation. It went all the way from her being afraid that the police will take her to jail for sketchy things she did, to asking if we will pray with her at our meeting (like no lady, who do you think we are? Missionaries? No way), to the most legendary part when she starts randomly out of nowhere singing an English birthday song that neither of us had ever heard. This was amazing, so amazing that we asked her if she would sing again and if we could record it to send to our friend who has a birthday soon, and of course, why not? So now idk let me know when your birthday is and you can be blessed with this beautiful birthday song from some legend in (Barley) Bavaria Germany.

Other than that, yesterday I had the chance to struggle through teaching the plan of salvation to a Persian friend of mine who lives in Lübeck, and that actually went better than I expected it to. We had a solid conversation about God’s plan, and he’s just as big a fan of the actual plan as he is the Drake song. No but for real it was good, he actually wants to be baptized so that’s super sick and we’ll start working towards that because NUMBERS, nah just messing, but I’m excited to see what comes out of him.

just a fat Young throwback (MTC days--besties since day One!)

Anyways sorry this week was a little lamer, but I hope you were nevertheless entertained.

Thank you for your attentiveness,

Bye

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof

Germany

The Last T Pose

Well there ya have it folks,

I can’t believe those 2 years are finally at an end. As of this Wednesd—Whoaaaaaa alright alright I gotta chill, I’m not done just yet, **cue the sighs of relief from literally every single one of you who loves reading my weekly letters**

WELL this week was great, but different. It was also sad, happy, frustrating, zeugnis stärkening, depressing, legendary, trash, and pretty alright all at the same time. So the former Elder Cole Rasmussen had his chance to say goodbye to friends and to this cute little Bavarian city and we headed up for one last supertausch with the legend himself Elder Payton Morris Wright. We had a good time, I beat him ALMOST every time at basketball (he beat me once, but don’t let that distract you from the fact that Columbus didn’t discover America), including a legendary game where I had him 21-2; kinda sounds like as if he was playing as the Utah Jazz. It was good though, had to say goodbye and all that sad stuff, and then me and Elder Smartt made our way back to Hof, making a pit stop in Plauen to teach an Arabic lesson.

the last t Pose until the going home t pose

shoot man we'll see you on the other side

This week we had a cool opportunity that was a, „once on the mission“ type thing. We were given the invitation this month to try to watch the Disney movie „Coco“ with someone who’s not a member of the church or is struggling to be one. Our Branch President’s family was blessed to have movie night with the elders (we were actually blessed to be able to watch with them) and we had a few non member friends there. Luckily youth in Germany are quite obsessed over American culture so they all learn English (they’re also required to because the government is just as obsessed), so we watched the film in English. We were able to watch it and see the many messages of the importance of family history and that we don’t forget our ancestors. It is a very important message that’s sadly not very popular nowadays. But if you watch the movie Coco you will understand why it is so important, and that would be that we do it to allow our ancestors to make it through immigration on Dia de Los Muertos when we put their picture on the table.

Coco Family

Anyways, that was a fun experience, shout out to those of you who made it possible 👹.

Another cool definitely large highlight of the week was the Persian temple trip, where, if you remember from last year, as many Persian members/investigators as possible will tell you they will be coming to the temple with you, 80% of them cancel, and we meet with some of the strong non-cancelling Persians at the Freiberg Germany temple. It was a great experience though. The legend from Brandenburg / now Frankfurt, Hassan was there and I could actually understand a tiny bit more of what he’s saying compared to last time I saw him! Let me tell you, he speaks in a way that’s like almost impossible to understand. There was also a friend of mine there, Mohammod, who I translated for a month or 2 ago for the first time he had met with the missionaries in forever! That was cool to see him there, and to see his excitement for our church and to be baptized. Cool things are happening, boys. The rest was just great, I feel I don’t need to do much of a run down of what you did just know this: the temple was visited, the Persian was spoken, the Abendmahl was genommen, and the Geist was felt. These are some really great people who are pioneers for their culture and the church. I’m very grateful for the chance I have to learn this language and to work with these cool people.

a pic I took of the temple (imagine a bunch of Persians and missionaries standing in front of it, for I am unfortunately not allowed to send pictures of us all because of safety reasons)

the Aussie

Otherwise yeah, should be fun this transfer we’re already working hard and are just gonna work harder and harder. Hopefully we can spend a day or two a week in Hof at least 😉

göödbyë

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof
Germany

Unwetter pt. 2

Salaam aleikom dustaanam

So I’m sure literally not a single one of you remembers, but about 1 year ago to this exact time, I had a weekly email named „Unwetter“. The rough translation for this German word means „the crap hits the fan and deutsche Bahn basically ceases to be a working company,“ where the real translation is, „severe weather“. Well if you can remember a bit now, you’d remember that last time we had this problem we ended up stuck in Potsdam for the night, which wasn’t too bad; it meant a night with the elder penrahsee. But this time the crap hit the fan, we were in the middle of nowhere dependent on 1 train to get us home. We were in a city in a far away part of our area on Thursday, when it started raining pretty hard and it was a pretty solid thunderstorm. We received news waiting for our train that a tree had fallen on the one track between this train and the station we were at, so it would be a while until the train back would get there. About 2 hours later our train finally makes it, and we are so relieved because we can finally head home, and classic, another tree fell on the track. So we went really slow for a long time as the driver drove by it, he ended up scratching the side of the train apparently because they kept going out and looking at it. Then we stopped at this random village and a different lady comes in and starts doing a bunch of paperwork which sounded like it had to do with the scratches on the train. By this point we’re like, my legends can I PLEASE get a Waffle? We eventually made it back home around midnight. Best part about it, our phone was dead the whole time so we had to borrow someone’s phone to be able to call our mission leaders and explain the situation.

basketball morgen Sport with the choke king

I was also approached by a prostitute and offered cheap Geschlechtsverkehr while Elder Rasmussen was in the bathroom, so that was a first for sure.

On a bit of a lighter note, I translated a few Persian lessons this week, one of which was very interesting. My legend read some things online that he had questions about, and let’s just say it was not easy, and I did not have the vocabulary ready to explain in Persian about polygamy. I somehow got my point across and cleared it all up, but that was another first haha. He asked me a good question though in our appointment, as I was explaining our beliefs of the life after death in a spirit world, he asked me, „Okay so if everyone there will have a chance to hear from the gospel; and I choose to listen to you now and not accept it, will I have that same chance then?“ I was taken back a little by that question, because it’s a really good point. After a bit of thinking and trying to figure out some words I can say to explain this, I ended up just saying „most important thing is that God loves us and wants us to be able to live with him again, and He will do what He can to get us there.“ Both he and I felt pretty satisfied by that answer. It was the Geist saying it not me 😉.

Other than that, the legend Elder Cole Rasmussen is minding if he kicks on a young plane trip and heads back to America this week. He’s gonna kill it out here and be engaged within 4 weeks, no doubt about it. Gonna miss that kid, I mean why not shoot guys it’s Rasmussen here. And I’m getting another companion from Utah to add to my large amount of them, classic. Elder Wright is also leaving me to go north so I’m sad for all of you not going to be able to see those good looking pictures I send every week of us. He’s going to destroy it up there #mocc #18weeks

district Mexican food (for Germany, 7/10)

mmmmm gotta get that young kiwi Becher

roar (means give yourself a try in dinosaur)

what a BEAUTIFUL CITY (right, rosa?)

we thought this place was a cool old castle thing but it’s just a restaurant haha 

me and Rasmussen at a tower a few weeks ago

I am climbing said Tower

Alrighty wellllllllllllll bye

„mom said it’s my turn in the trash“

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof

Germany

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