Elder Johnson's July 19, 2011 E-Mail

Hi Mom,

Each week I attach my weekly to the President to your e-mails. If you read these, you will be completely filled in on all the progress the area is making.  You need to read the Weeklies that I attach.  (except he never attaches them)  Attached are the last month of weeklies that President Beesley received.

Jake Babcock is a great source of information. You can call him. He'd be happy to talk to you and tell you everything he knows. He can describe in great detail my new companion, past companions, things going on, etc.

District Leaders are responsible for district meetings and accounting for the numbers of the district each Sunday night. District meetings are usually taught following a series of lessons from a Simplified Curriculum that have been given by the Brethren. Our mission president follows this too, so all of our meetings follow the same outline, same scriptures, same role plays, same questions, same everything. We know the Simplified Curriculum back, right, up, down, with/without clothes, with/without make-up, right-profile, left, shifted 360 degrees and back to 180; we can recite it in our sleep; we're reminded of it every waking moment of our missionary lives. In short, we're bored of it. At least I am. So, I've decided to spice up District Meetings up a bit. I'll send you the recording I took of our last district meeting. You'll get to hear the entire thing. I'll need to download it onto the computer.

First off, the hierarchy of the district is typically:

                        DISTRICT LEADER

                                        | 

                                        |

                                        |

                                MINIONS

No one else has a responsibility. So, I've decided to spice it up. I've called, after much prayer and consideration, a District Chef, District Services/Activities Coordinator, District Photographer/Music Coordinator, District Mediator and District Auditor. The responsibilities of each calling have been set out and determined by the body of the district. Checks and Balances were established. We don't want any King Noah episodes. The language of each responsibility will be typed after I finish this letter to you. I'll send you what I have later.

We did a hike last P-Day. The mountain hiked was called Lazy Mountain. There's nothing lazy about this mountain. It was the most difficult hike I've ever been on. Pictures of this event will come next week. The trail went straight up the mountain, no switch-backs, nothing. No railing, no stairs, no support. When you get to the top, it's pretty cool, but we were in a cloud and couldn't see anything. On the way down, it began raining very hard. The trail back down is compact ground. The rain made it like wet clay, slick as can be. I fell. And fell. I fell so many times I was tired of falling. I took some hard falls. I was hurt. Injured. There were points where I didn't want to go on, but I was wet, so the promise of being able to take off the wet clothes was greater than the pain. Do you know when your legs get so tired you laugh because you're too tired to do anything else? I was there. I resorted to sitting on my butt and sliding down the mountain trail. It was dangerous because you go as fast as you would if you were on a sled. This made me very muddy.

We finally made it back down. I was too dirty to sit in the truck, so I sat in the bed. We made it back to the Cottonwood missionaries' apartment. We wanted to take off our muddy clothes in their apartment. Cottonwood was in a hurry to make it to transfers. We did not have to go because we were not getting transferred. So we were in no hurry. They left while we took showers. When we got out. I realized that I left the keys to our car in their car. Well, they were already in Anchorage. So Elder Tonga and I sat in our towels for four hours in their apartment while we waited for Cottonwood to get back with our keys, so we could go back to our apartment, change and then begin our proselyting hours of P-Day.

Thanks for getting everything organized with the missionary cards. Be sure to order a lot of them. Everyone in the ward will want one. How I'll respond to all of their e-mails I'll worry about later.

Love,

Elder Johnson