MTC Miracles

I only have one more Preparacion day here in Peru before I leave to Ecuador! It's crazy and exciting. My new companion is such a nice guy and I'm really blessed to have him as a companion. He is from Huancayo and is 23. His name is Elder Christian Lorenzo.

So, I wanted to share a couple cool miracles that I've already been blessed with here. It may not seem like much but I wanted to share. A couple weeks ago I forgot my scriptures in my classroom one night when I went up to our rooms. The classroom building is the same as the dormitory building, the classes are on the first floor. The classroom doors had already been locked. But I checked and my class door was the only one open! I got my scriptures to read that night :) The same thing happened one other night when I was helping my old companion, Elder Cabrera. He was having trouble and was up in our room. He said he left all his stuff in his class and really wanted it, he seemed kind of distressed. So I went down and saw the lady had just got to the end of the hall after locking all the doors, but I didn't stop walking and just opened his class door and got his stuff. She saw me come out and was like "How did you get in?".

The Lord is aware of even our littlest problems. This morning at breakfast there was this reddish juice that looked like it could have been really good or really bad. I got a full glass. First sip before my prayer on the food: Really Bad. During my prayer I asked that I would be blessed to like the juice. Surely someone in this country liked the juice, haha. I didn't drink the juice during the meal until I had finished my food. Then at the very end, I decided to chug it. To my surprise it tasted like a delicious strawberry-banana drink, haha! I was happy. I've also had some fish a few times that I liked. I know my taste buds can adapt if I have faith. However, I did open my peanut butter the other day and spooned down a bunch, haha.

There are so many miracles here in the mission field. As a missionary, I have the opportunity to learn at a faster rate than I ever have before. I just need to put in the focus and have faith. I'm blessed with a district who respects study time. I sang a cool musical number with an elder, an acapella mix of Señor te Necesito and Más cerca Dios de Ti. I think I'm going to sing Here Am I in Spanish before I leave. Everyone knows me as a singer because I sing all over the place. Some of the elders ask me to sing when I see them, haha. Also, there's a new elder in the new group that is really good at piano.

I've finished through Efesios in the New Testament and am finding a lot of good missionary scriptures to use. I also want to read through the BoM in Spanish before I leave but that is going to be hard. But nothing is too hard with the Lord on my side. I am so happy being here. The only thing that makes me happier is knowing I have my loving family back home and thinking about you all. I regret not sharing this gospel more with my friends in high school. But there will be time. I love you all. Love you, brothers. Love you, sisters. Love you, tias and tios. Love you, dad. Te quiero, mom. I hope you are all being blessed. We are all so blessed when we take a moment to be grateful.

Elder Jacob Johnson

Adios Elder Cabrera

Okay, so I had to say goodbye to my companion this week. We went proselyting this last Saturday together. We were on a bus driving to an area that is in the Peru Lima North Mission. I was looking out the windows and looking at the people and life going on and just thinking that we should have a loudspeaker on the bus proclaiming the gospel. The drivers here are so crazy by the way, haha. I saw a bus driver catching some sleep while waiting behind another car. He probably has to work all day... so while we were driving I looked down one street and saw a little girl on her pink little bike chasing her little dog down the sidewalk and laughing and smiling. It made me smile and laugh so much and think of Jenna chasing Daisy (our dog) around. People are the same everywhere. It made me miss jenna and jonathan and appreciate the time I had with them before I left.

We tracted all the way up toward the mountain and the mountain was green! There's so much mist all the time you cant tell from afar. I got a lot of practice doing the introduction and introducing our message. The last door we got invited into was by a whole family! This man had such a hard life but so much faith in God and Christ and you could just tell. We taught the whole first lesson and I spoke a lot. All this noise and distraction from outside and inside the house literally came out of nowhere as I started to testify and recite the First Vision. The adversary is real. This family was prepared by the Lord. It's too bad that they didn't understand the need for authority as much and thought every church was good. But they accepted Books of Mormon, the commmittment to read, and pray. It was a good day and a good last day of teaching with Elder Cabrera.

He snuck back to our room the morning they left really early. I had woken up just before 6 to see if they left yet and was getting on a white shirt and missionary clothes to go check, just as I finished buttoning my shirt he walked and and we hugged and said goodbye and good luck.





He taught me a lot and I think I taught him too. I'll get my new companion tomorrow. Today we are touring the city. I sent a letter to Alondra's address with something for everyone.

(Jacob sent me about 20 photos! I have posted all pictures from Provo MTC below and plan to post all Peru MTC photos later this week!)

Love you all!
Elder Johnson