Elder Rasband, the legend?

Moin boys and girls, nice to have you back.

I’m sure many of you are thinking, „When is he going to find a different way to open up his weekly emails?“ Let me tell you when. Probably never actually—they will always be weird to start.

ANYWAYS this week was crazy. We basically spent our week on trains and in different cities again, so that’s cool. I guess I’ll start off with the highlight of my week, I got to meet an amazing man. A man who taught me much, showed me how a legend lives his life, and is a great example. His name is Elder Payton Wright. Great man.

I’m just kidding, as most of you know, we had a very special meeting with Elder Rasband from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles this week, and it was really an awesome experience. Not just because of the life changing sack lunches we got after, but because we got to hear from an apostle of the Lord on how we can be better missionaries. But more from what he said later.

Where is this place? Never seen it before

We met with our golden investigator that is going to be baptized sometime in the unforeseeable future, and that was also good. He had a lot of deeper questions about Adam and Eve, which is really good that we had Arabic translation there. He said to the translator, „I’m not asking all these questions because I am doubting the things I’ve learned, but because I want to know everything so that I can teach my friends.“ How cool is that? I feel like we as members could be better at that, trying to learn as much as possible so that we can teach our friends and answer their questions.

Tausch (splits) Bavarian wursts

We were in Berlin 2 times this week. That means we made the 6.5 hour trip to Berlin 4 different times. On our way back after the first time (Zone conference) on Wednesday, our one train that could get us back to Hof in time fell out which meant we could get back to Hof at around 12AM but that’s a no no for missionaries. Instead we took the fastest alternative and went back with my legend Elder Wright and his comp to their area near ours, and slept over there again. We didn’t get home until 11PM but at least it wasn’t midnight, right? There’s been a lot of getting home late this week because of all this craziness in Berlin.

ZoKo legend meet up

Hamburg pic?

On our way to Berlin the second time I made about 15 new 12 year old girlfriends. They entered our train and sat near us talking being crazy until they realized we were speaking English and then we were the main attraction of that ride. (The girls probably thought they were in an American boy band, haha!) Once one of them pulled it together to speak to me, and found out we were Americans, they just lost all dignity and started talking over each other in their broken English and telling me all their connections to America, including one girl whose uncle lives in some city in Canada. The city didn’t matter though because it wasn’t Toronto and we all know any city in Canada that’s not Toronto is a waste of land 😉. It was pretty funny though. At one point I switched over to German as they were all staring at me and I hit them with a, „Wir sind keine Tiere meine Freunde,“ or for you lesser species who don’t speak German, „We aren’t animals my friends,“ and they had a good laugh at that one. Funny experience, I choked though and didn’t take a selfie with them. Next time.

checkpoint Charlie and crazy flag holding dude

Elder Rasmussen and me at the Reichstag building in Berlin

😍😍

some az legends

pay close attention to our name tags (my mission goal of getting a Sister Johnson name tag has been fulfilled)

One thing that Elder Rasband shared that I found very deep, heartfelt, and profound, was when he was talking about President Fingerle being almost done with his mission and said the profound words, „Don’t get trunky, President Fingerle!“ Just kidding those weren’t the most profound things I heard from him, but they were pretty funny ones. 

He recounted a story of when he had heard the news of President Monson‘s passing, and knew it was going to be time soon to set apart President Nelson as the new prophet of God. He knew it was always the most experienced apostle/President of the Quorum of the 12 that would be the next prophet, but he needed to get the spiritual confirmation that this was God‘s will. He prayed and fasted for a long time and received his confirmation as they all had to put their hands on President Nelson’s head in the upper room of the temple, and President Oaks said the words, „Russel Marion Nelson...,“ he got his confirmation and knew this was God’s next prophet.

our small little mission, aww

He then invited us all to receive this confirmation for ourselves, which I think many of us have lacked to have done. He promised that with this spiritual confirmation, our testimony will be strengthened so much when we say the words, „I know President Russel M. Nelson is a Prophet of God.“ So try it, will ya?

Anyways, overall pretty good week besides a few blaspheming, but it’s all good.

See you all next week I guess bye

Elder Johnson

Ludwigstrasse 52

95028 Hof

Germany