Elder Vance Johnson: December 19

Hello family! I am so proud of you Mom for graduating! The picture you sent is awesome although i think Drew is wearing the ASU shirt that I bought, (subsequently would mean he got into my box. :( ) But its all good. I hope nothing else got taken out of there. I dont think I want my ukulele anymore because it is against the rules to have a musical instrument in this mission and i probably forgot how to play anyways. But i am getting a new mission president in July so maybe i will ask for it then. But i would also need a tuner so i probably wont ever ask for it. Thank you though. How is Brandon doing on his mission papers?! I hope he gets them in soon, i cant wait for him to get on the mission. He is going to be an awesome missionary!

I got a letter from Lyndee today! I am sending one out on Wednesday so she can expect it in about 3 weeks. Thats how long it took to get to me here.

Mother, Bo Chapman would like my emails sent to him because I cant email him directly and so if you could forward these to him at joseph.chapman(at)myldsmail.netthat would be awesome. Thank you. Maybe once i get a new mission president i will be able to write him. who knows?

So some crazy things happened this week. Every day that something wierd happens i write in my planner so that I can remember what things i want to put in my email. haha so here it goes.

1. Everyone in my area thinks its super funny to ask us Americans for 1000 dollars. Pretty much everyone thinks we are super rich and they always ask us for money. Kind of annoying. Especially when we invite investigators to church and they say they arent rich like us and have to work on sundays.

2. My very first street contact in the mission field was a guy named Julio and he lives right across the street from my area so we gave the other elders in my ward his reference and they went and visited him. he was following through with commitments and stuff all the way up to when the elders went to go pick him up for church at 8 30 in the morning and he was drinking! We cant have a guy that is drunk in the church so they said they would come back on tuesday. on tuesday he was sober (more or less) and he told them that the reason he drinks is because a doctor put a spell on him to drink! He doesnt like to drink so he went to a wizard to have the spell taken off and the wizard had him take off all his clothes except for his underwear and washed him with raw eggs but that didnt work so the wizard gave up and said the spell was too strong. So now this guy is forced to be a drunk. But its not his fault because he is under a spell. So yeah. That was my first contact.

3. Youth give prayers in church here.

4. Last tuesday I was trying to make a street contact and a lot of times people do whatever they can to avoid us and this guy as i said hola hermano como esta jumped into the road and almost got hit by a bus and then started yelling at me! I couldnt stop laughing at him which made him even more mad. oh man paraguayans are so funny when they dont want their eternal salvation.

So that is what was funny or interesting this week. The other elders had a baptism yesterday which was pretty cool and me and my comp have a baptism date for this sunday! Christmas baptism! What greater gift can you give to the Lord than to be baptized on christmas? This year will be great. Other than that, this week was pretty normal.

Tomorrow me and my comp have to go into Asuncion for some new missionary training and we are going to stop at the one and only MCDONALDS! Its our christmas gifts to ourselves this year. I told him it reminded me of christmas at home. :)

So you should call me at NOON your time. I hope that works out for everyone. . That is 4 oclock here. I will be waiting in the bishops office at exactly 4. I am not going to try and use skype. I dont want to because it is just too sketchy. The internet isnt very fast and i think we can have a higher quality conversation on the phone. That is what its about anyways, quality over quantity.

The mission is great, my life is great. The language barrier is being broken down piece by piece. Our numbers arent high but it is better to build up Gods Kingdom than to fill it. Remember that. I love you all!!!!!!!