Friends and Family
Hey. Service this week was poppin'.
Roundup @ the ranch:
One of the families here in Ft. Stockton did their biannual roundup with about 200 head of cattle. I'm in love with cows. Really, I want to be a cowboy so bad. Anyway, we rounded up the cattle and then had to get them all separated. We had to separate the calfs from the older cows, and then the steers from the heifers. Luckily the bulls were in a separate pasture. The sorting was fun. I was handed a plastic pole, and was told to hit the cows if they weren't moving. I got to poke and smack the cows with my pole, and yell at them for like a whole hour until we got them all separated. We were fed lunch, and had to leave before they branded the few cows they needed to mark. Tons of fun.
Also met a cowgirl who shook my hand harder than any other man had shaken my hand before. I went to introduce myself to her, and standing there in her boots, and spurs, and hat, I swear she stared into my soul. She asked what my name was, and I squeaked out... elder j j j j j johnson. I'm still not sure if I was attracted to her or intimidated. Probably a good mix of the two. Scary.
Bingo:
This week, bingo was extra exciting. The activities director for the nursing home quit, so Elder Pastrana and I are the new OFFICIAL bingo coordinators for the local senior center. I yelled out the numbers, and distributed prizes, while Elder Pastrana sat at the Spanish table, and helped a few of the old folks.
We had an emergency when our good friend Tito peed his pants. Only one accident though, and the nurses quickly got things cleaned up. We also only two breakdowns this one. One of our good friends, Sammy, had a breakdown when they had no straws left... therefore, he couldn't drink his coffee. We quickly got a straw from the kitchen before he started screaming. Our other good friend, Hazel, yelled at us for not doing a black out round. She was very upset, but we didn't have enough time to do all of the blackout rounds she wanted. She was very cranky.
Transfers were alright. I had to wake up at
4:45 last Tuesday and get to Odessa by like 7 for transfers. I was at the transfer sight from like7:15 to around
4:30 that night. I got to the transfer sight, and there were a bunch of missionaries hanging out that didn't need to be there for like 3 hours. I had a chance to practice my prodding, and get those missionaries out of there. We had a few missionaries who forgot things, and forgot to get on the car that they needed to be on, but through all of the craziness, I'm pretty sure that everyone got to their new areas. Long day.
Also got my new comp, Elder Pastrana. He's originally from Uruguay, and speaks fluent Spanish. We've been finding a lot more people in Spanish, and plan on teaching a lot more Spanish families. We get along great, and I'm super excited to have him.
Our Missionary Leadership Council was
Friday. We drove up to Lubbock (Like a 3 1/2 hour drive) and then played some Zone Leader Basketball the morning of. We met together and received instruction from the leaders. It was super good to hear from everyone. Lots of past comps and friends I've made. We also got word that the sisters in our zone had lost their phone, so we picked up a new one, and drove it back down to them. We got to their trailer at
9:30, and they weren't home. We thought that maybe they got kidnapped or something, so we went to eat dinner to calm our nerves, and tried back at like
9:45. Their lights were on but when we knocked, they didn't answer. Eventually after a good while of knocking they figured it was us, and said sorry, they were scared and didn't know who it was. We gave them the phone, and on our way we went. Got back pretty late... crazy day, but it was a good one.
General Conference was soo good! The Iraan elders had nowhere to watch it, so they came in yesterday to watch a few sessions with us. We watched it at a member's house with the recent converts, John Gonzales, and Earl Buchanan. They're doing super good. I am super grateful for the love of the leaders in this church.
A topic brought up in MLC was which way do you face?
Lynn G Robins gave a talk in which he spoke:
“Which way do you face?” President Boyd K. Packer surprised me with this puzzling question while we were traveling together on my very first assignment as a new Seventy. Without an explanation to put the question in context, I wasbaffled. “A Seventy,” he continued, “does not represent the people to the prophet but the prophet to the people. Never forget which way you face!” It was a powerful lesson.
It was a good reminder that I don't represent the Ft. Stockton zone to the mission president. I represent the mission president to my zone. I represent the Savior to the people here (I almost choke every time I say that). It's a powerful, and heavy load/calling... the calling to represent the Savior is sooo much bigger than little Carter Johnson with my faults and imperfections. It's blessed me with a testimony of the atonement. Without the atonement, I would never be able to fulfill this calling to be a missionary, or the other assignments in leadership that I receive from the Mission President.
Another Busy week coming up. #WhileDaringGreatly
Love y'all,
Elder Johnson
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