Report from Elder Johnson–MTC Week 2

Mom, ---  Thanks for the notes everyone. I love reading anything you have to send to me.   So much to do, and so much I wish I had time to do. Like learn Albanian. . You are the best!  Also, when the Travel Office called you, I was standing right there as he talked to you. It was the weirdest thing. I miss you so much, Mom!   You're my girl. Love, Elder Johnson.

Megan, Soccer sounds awesome. I am so excited for you! Are you excited for school? There is so much food here and a different meal for every day, so far. My favorite so far was a Gyro, which is what I will be eating a bunch in Albania! It was delicious, so I'm excited to get there! I have learned a bunch of Albanian, too much to say over email. When I skype for Christmas, I will say anything you want me to. My companion is so cool. He and I work well teaching lessons together, I think. I love you!

Luke, Thanks for the letter. and awesome Pokemon card of me! I am going to use that scripture power attack a lot! Who helped you make that? It is really cool. I love the picture of you and me. I miss you too! "Oh!" and (P.S. - D.S. stands for Dual Screen because the DS was the first Nintendo handheld to have two screens.)  I love you all and I miss you all! Sounds like you're getting busy with school and everything! Exciting stuff! You won't even realize I'm gone! (*winky face*)  Love you, Elder Johnson

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Hey Everyone!

20 missionaries total are going to Albania. (It was supposed to be 21, but one of the sisters got engaged and didn't show up) We are split up into two districts, with 4 Elders and 5 Sisters in our district. An amazing group of spiritually strong Elders and Sisters.

There are lots of funny words used here in the MTC... and not just the Albanian words.

Here at the MTC there are the 3-weekers, 6-weekers, and 9-weekers!

• 3-week-ers: English Speaking
• 6-week-ers: Learning a Language
• 9-week-ers: Learning a Hard Language (That's me)

And of course my companion, Elder Benson, has his classic phrases: "Oh, that's just plain precious." and "Let's bounce."

Devotionals are amazing. Yesterday, Elder Holland's son spoke to us about Joseph Smith. And, guess what, next Tuesday, Elder Holland is speaking to us. We are so excited.

Every Sunday, we watch a movie or talk after Devotional. The movies include stuff like Meet the Mormons and Ephraim's Rescue. The first week we watched the Character of Christ because everyone told us too. It was powerful. I took four pages of notes when I watched it. I love everything Elder Bednar says about turning outward and his comparison of the natural man to the cookie monster. I definitely have a lot to learn. This week, we watched Ephraim's Rescue, which was awesome, but also hilarious, because there was a kissing scene, and all the Elders FREAKED OUT! They went crazy! It was hilarious! The Elders went crazy every time it showed the girl. (I can't remember her name)

Also, as my companion likes to say, DearElders are like manna from Heaven! And packages are the best thing ever! Thank you so much for sending that package. I didn't realize how amazing packages and letters were until I got here. Every day, we ask Elder Schneider (Our District Leader) if he has checked mail, and he hands out letters and package slips and there are cries of excitement (I got a package!) and groans of dismay (My family doesn't love me.) I mean I don't care. You don't have to send packages and DearElders everyday, I just wanted you to be aware of the situation. And I promise I will send you letters home.

Everyone thinks my companion looks like Anikin Skywalker and I definitely agree. They also say he looks like Barry Allen, the Flash, and I definitely agree. (Mom, what do you think?)

Time is scarce here. We barely have time to study our scriptures or write in our journals because there is so much language study and other stuff and lesson plans to do. But, it is a good busy. Our motto at the MTC is Stress + Rest = Growth. But, we are tired every day. During lessons, someone is always nodding off. It is pretty funny, actually. Choir Practice and Devotional can be really hard to stay awake during.

This week, we learned how to use cases në Shqip. Our favorite words are Përshendetje (Hello) and Shqipëria (Albania).

We have the funniest elder in the other Albi district. Elder Nielsen. He just has this low funny voice and everything he says, especially në Shqip, is hilarious. One time, he just walked into our room and not one saw him and he said "Përshentedje" in his low funny voice. It was hilarious for some reason. Now everyone says Përshendetje just like that. It is so funny. But, at the MTC, to tired Elders who are isolated from the world, EVERYTHING is funny. Here is how a conversation with Elder Nielson goes: "How are you doing, Elder Nielson?" "Drinking a coke." "No, HOW are you doing?" "with my mouth." It is so funny. Also, he has the exact same pillowcase and socks as me, but mine are BYU and his are UTAH, so that is funny.

Yesterday was the biggest MTC Choir EVER. There were almost 2000 missionaries singing. We sang Praise to the Man and it was powerful!

I had an amazing experience yesterday. After we got home, Elder Schneider asked us to give him a blessing because some health thing came up. He should be fine. But, I anointed him and his companion, Elder Gardiner, sealed the anointing. It is so cool to be involved with experiences like that, especially after watching Ephraim's Rescue, where Ephraim heals multiple pioneers!

I love you all! Good luck with your regular lives.   I love it here!   Elder Johnson

Bubbles at the end of Summer

We did bubbles for one of Katie and Emily’s summer camp activities.  With so many boys it was nearly impossible to have a full bubble without it being popped so I made up the Bubble Ninja Game.  If the bubbles touched them, they were out and had to sit on the rocks.  It worked like a charm – they were ducking and rolling and squealing as the bubble approached.  When that lost some of it’s excitement that we made a new rule – you couldn’t move your feet but you could still try to dodge the bubble as best you could.  It was really fun. 

When the rest of the boys decided to head for the Lego, Luke, Matt, Andrew and Carson continued to try and pop bubbles.

Later that night the boys used up the rest of the bubbles…

Report from Elder Johnson–MTC Week 1

Hey, Family    ---   My first day has been awesome and I have loved my time here and the lessons I have learned. 1 day down. 9 weeks to go. I will write a really detailed letter on P-Day (Monday), but right now I am just supposed to tell you that I am alive, I am being fed, and I love it here. Also, I have an awesome companion, Elder Benson. The food is awesome. Albanian is a really cool language. It is so fun! There is no place I would rather be. I love you all!    ---   Love, Ryan

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Përshëndetje, Familje --  The MTC is AMAZING! I love it so much. It has been amazing, incredible. Where to begin?

Well, my companion (shoku) is awesome. His name is Elder Benson. We have the BEST District. and the best Zone. There are two districts that speak Albanian. We are known as the Albys in our Zone. Elder Benson and I share our room with two other amazing missionaries, Elder Schneider and Elder Gardiner. Literally the best group of friends a guy... (My bad. Elder. That is probably the hardest rule here. Everyone accidentally call us guys, but immediately says, "Sorry, I mean Elders and Sisters") Literally the best group of friends an ELDER could ask for. Very spiritually-minded, ready to learn, and exactly obedient (and not everyone is). I am learning a lot from them. The sisters in our district are cool too. Motra (Albanian for Sister). Motra Dunn, Motra Bland, Motra Miles, Motra Haggard, Motra Suckow. We are all having fun learning the language together. Because our district is so amazing and exactly obedient, we get unlimited email privileges on P-Day. So I can take more than an hour to write. Seriously our zone is the best. The Hungarians, the Dutch (going to Suriname), and the Turks will get here on Wednesday. (And we won't be the newbies anymore. I don't feel like a newbie at all. We actually know what we are doing now. But, the first day, we had an orange dot on our missionary tag, so anyone who passed us said, "Welcome to the MTC!", but now we will be able to say that to the 900+ missionaries coming in on Wednesday.) Our zone leaders (Fischer Elder and Ballard Elder) were awesome, but they got released yesterday, and I bet the new ones are going to be awesome too.

Let's set the record straight. The food IS delicious. Even things that I wouldn't initially choose to eat, are actually amazing. So, I am being fed... probably too much. I'm trying to keep it down to one Orange ice cream bar per day and only two cups of Sprite per day.

One of the coolest parts of the MTC is talking with all the other missionaries. There are so many different languages on all the tags. People are always asking us what language ours is and where we are going, and we are asking everyone else the same thing.

So, the Shqip language is awesome! (That's Albanian for Albanian.) (It sounds like Shcheep.) Our teacher is amazing. I'm saying the word amazing too much.

We love it already. The only difference in the alphabets is that Shqip has a ç (c with a tail) and an ë (e with two dots) and doesn't have a w. It makes so much more sense than our alphabet, but it is still gonna take some getting used to. All the sounds are so cool. My missionary nametag will say Elder Xhansën or Xhonsen, I still haven't decided which. I wish I could show you how to say a bunch of words and pronounce things, but It'll have to wait 'til I can call you. On Friday morning, we taught our first lesson to an investigator, në Shqip. Um, yeah it was hard, but it was good. We are starting to get this language. It is awesome. Our teacher just speaks mostly Shqip. We have to figure out what she is saying. We actually teach ourselves mostly, during our study time. We can now pray, bear testimony, and introduce ourselves as missionaries of the Church all në Shqip. We are working on memorizing our missionary purpose në Shqip now. Also, Shqip literally means Language of the Eagles. Albanians love Eagles more than Americans do, what with the flag and the language. The word of the day yesterday was besim (which means faith.) we used it a ton in our second lesson with the investigator. Our third lesson will be tomorrow, I think. Also, the investigator is actually one of the return missionaries on the prepare to serve website, so that's cool, but I don't think we are supposed to know that yet.

I went to the temple today and will every P-Day. I love it. It is so close. Exercise Time is awesome. Class is awesome. Study is awesome. Everything is awesome. Sunday is especially awesome. Everyone kept saying, Just make it to Sunday. And I was fine before Sunday, but I can definitely see why they say that. Sunday is amazing. We had an awesome choir practice (The choir director is hilarious and choir practice is on Sundays and Tuesdays) and devotional with an amazing speaker. (Devotional is also on Sundays and Tuesdays.) No Apostles yet, but I bet I will get to see one or two by the end of nine weeks here.

The other thing everyone said was to watch the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar. If you can find it online, just wow... mind-blowing. Ok gotta go.

Ok, that's all for now. I've got to go do my laundry. Keep asking questions. I love you all so much!   Love, Elder Xhansën

P.S. DearElder letters are awesome. Tell everyone to write using those. That will be alot easier. but also email too. Also, if you could copy this letter and send it back to me as a DearElder, just so I can have it, that would be great. And it would be awesome if you could include pictures in all your emails. Even old pictures. Just any pictures so I can see them. Sound good? good. OK, bye, love you!

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Katie, I love you to death.  Thanks for the email. I did get those hidden notes and was thrilled by them. Thanks so much! I miss you all, but I am very happy here. I have an awesome companion. The food is amazing, and I am learning so much. It is so weird that I have already/only been here 5 days. It feels like longer, but also shorter than that. Time is flying already. Wow, we will be so close, yet so far. You cut your hair? Scary... just kidding. Have fun! You are THE BEST! Love, Ryan

My favorite sister, Emily   Love you! Thanks so much for the email. And thanks for the questions. I wish I could answer them all right now, but alas, I'm a busy bee at the MTC. Check out my full email to get all the answers. Love, your favorite brother, Ryan

A Season of Baseball

Luke and Matthew played baseball for a YMCA league this summer and had a great time learning to play.   Fun summer saturdays.