1-7-13

1-7-13

Ahoy there family,

This week has been the dankest for sure.  Not a ton has been going on.  It's all been pretty sick no doubt.  This week we finally had our Christmas party together with all the missionaries on the island.  We were supposed to have it a while ago, but then the cyclone hit and so we couldn't.  It was pretty sweet though.  We played a pretty gnarly game of dodge ball which was tight.  

And then that night our house got struck by lightning.  It was so LOUD.  It was the craziest.  I think there's a statistic about it, but I can't remember...

Yeah, but this week was cool.  The work here in Leauvaa is pretty slow right now.  We're having trouble finding new people to teach.  We taught this one guy, but then when we committed him to read the Book of Mormon and pray, he just told us straight up that he wasn't going to.  We've been working with a lot of inactives lately, which is pretty good.  We had a couple of inactive guys we're working with come to church, so I was stoked on that.

But really right now we only have one investigator, Malia.  But she's not going anywhere cause the guy she lives with doesn't want to get married.  He's a member but she's not.  So we will continue working with her, but we can't do anything until she gets married.

The power finally came back on yesterday.  It was sort of weird, actually, cause I got used to doing everything by candlelight.  I think if there was a natural disaster in Utah, I would totally kill it.  In the last little while I've learned to live without electricity, running water, a bed, washing machine, walls, any kind of privacy whatsoever, and lasagna.

This week we're moving back to our other area in Lepale for two weeks.  That's the missionary house that's haunted.  The work over there is pretty tough too.  But it's cool.  We'll just work our hardest to be crazy obedient and work hard and see what happens.

Transfers were this week.  Me and Faitau are staying, as well as everyone else in the zone.  So that's good.  I didn't think either of us would get transferred anyway.

The other day we found a crab hanging out in our room.  Talitiga, the kid we live with, was like freaking out like it was the scariest thing in the world.  Haha, I was surprised.  I figured Samoans would be used to stuff like that.  My comp was scared of it too.  I was the only one that would pick it up.  There were like, "No!  It will eat you!"  Haha, silly boys. I don't know how it got here, though, cause we're like miles from the ocean.

But anyways, brothers, that's all I got for you.  Keep it extra bones this week.  You'll feel an extra desire to spunk the gnar at a max level.

Keep it safe,

Elder Eric "King of the Mississippi Also" Johansen

12-30-12

Sup Stinker Bones,

This week was just lovely.  All my Christmas presents were just great except for the maroon sweater you sent me.  You know, I hate maroon.  (I think he's making this up--we didn't sent him a sweater.)  

Christmas was tight.  On Monday night (Christmas Eve), we had a family home evening with the zone that was super sick.  We sang Christmas songs, read from Luke 2, bore testimony, and ate food.  It all had a real nice "romantic" feel to it cause the power is still out, so we did everything by candlelight.  It was sweet though.  The spirit was strong.  And one of the dudes in the zone has a super good singing voice, so we had him do a solo--it was nice.

And calling the fam was sweet too.  I was stoked that it was a good reception this time.  Most especially it was fun pranking Becca.  I'm glad I did too cause now I have a lot of important data I can use in the future.  

Also, the other day I finally achieved one of my mission goals--I finally ate bat like I've always wanted.  Actually, it was pretty good.  It was all cooked up and looked like a dinosaur.  I ate its tongue to prove that I am a warrior.  

And our baptism for Selina was way tight.  Selina is the dopest.  I'm so stoked for her.  We had to do the baptism in my last area in Aleisa cause our water is still out and we weren't able to fill up the font in Lepale.  So we just packed everybody into our van and spanked our way over there.  I got to do the baptism.  It was the dankest of all.  Good day for sure.

Oh yeah, I guess I haven't written anything about my comp.  His name is Elder Faitau.  He's a short little Samoan dude.  His head probably only comes up to my shoulder.  He finishes his mission in April, so he only has a few months left.  He lives like fifteen minutes from our area.  We drive through his village like every Monday.  He is a funny little dude, but he's a good missionary.  We get along super good, so it's good.

Thanks for all the packages and everything.  I was mega stoked.  I gave my comp the "Payson Utah" shirt.  He was so stoked on it.  He looks like a true Davis when he wears it.  

Keep your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground.

"El-Dare" Johansen

PS  If you ever send a package, send me those Welches Fruit Snacks--the big box.  Those are the best.  

PPS  Send me white chocolate--candy corn M&Ms.

12-23-12

Hello there neighbor!

"Well hullo Arthur, I was wondering where you were hiding...You don't want them to think you're a little kid anymore..."

--Mr. Fred Rogers

This week was tweakin' crunk dankness with some definite skunkgnar powermax with all the crystals.  I wish I had tons of bones and tons of time to write, but I'm Slapmaster Ice, the rollerblade king.

This week was sickness like always.  We had a ton of good service projects--just cutting down trees and doing lots of work with machetes.  If there is ever a hurricane in Utah, you will all thank me for the machetes I've given you for Christmas and your birthdays...they're quite useful.

Also this week we have continued to teach Selina.  (Did I write about her last week?)  Selina is the awesomest, an  absolute golden investigator--more golden than a golden galleon.  After we taught her the restoration and the Book of Mormon, that night she read the Book of Mormon til like one in the morning (her mom  told us the next day) and then she prayed for like forever long.  She said she had received her answer and she knew it was true.  And she was all crying and stuff when she was telling us.  The Spirit was really strong.  I'm super stoked on her though.  We taught her later on in the week and when we had her look for the scriptures in the Book of Mormon relating to the Plan of Salvation, she already had them all marked.  So teaching her has been so easy cause she goes and looks up all the scriptures in the back of the pamphlets and reads them all.  And she reads all the pamphlets and has started with the Book of Mormon as well.  Pretty much she just understands everything before we teach it.  She has a ton of faith, and on a different night when she was praying, she said that she felt the Spirit and it told her she needs to be baptized and become a member of the Church.  I was totally stoked--she's the best.  So she's gonna get baptized this Saturday, December 29th.  It's gonna be so tight.

Everything is the sickest.  I'll probably call you on Christmas--that will be cool.  The power is still out, so I'll probably have to do some real searching to find a phone with which I can call you guys.  But it's cool.  I guess you don't need water and power when you're the Fresh Prince of Samoa.

Keep it all double spankfest,

Elder Johansen

12-16-12

Rah-rah-roo family bones!

So this week was absolutely NUTS.  It was nutsobutso, man.  A lot of stuff happened this week, but I don't really have time to explain everything.  For sure you know by now, but on Thursday, December 13th, which would be your Wednesday December 12th, we all got spanked with tropical cyclone "Evan," which, in my opinion, is a wimpy name to give a tropical cyclone.  It should be like "Tropical Cyclone Buck" or "Hurricane Doug Davis."  

This week was by far one of the craziest of my life though.  It was like a gnar party trippin B's in 1996.  Everyone had their blades strapped on and were ready to sesh the quarter pipe.

So it started out just normal.  Elder Faitau and I had lessons and stuff on Tuesday.  We even picked up a new investigator and hot her to agree to be baptized the following week.  Totally dope.  Edler Ofisa (my last comp) and I baptized her grandpa, two brothers, and her little sister back in August, but she was off at school at the time.  We still don't know if her baptism will go down on the scheduled date or not just cause of the storm and everything.  But if things go as according to plan, she should get dunked this week.  So I'm stoked on that.

And then on Wednesday we did a split with some elders in the zone.  My comp went to the other area with the one guy and then I stayed in Lepale with this big Samoan dude named Elder Sua.  I was honestly not really looking forward to the split, but then it ended up being really good.  On Wednesday we went out and made some visits.  It totally poured on us and we got super soaked.

On Thursday morning we got a call from the APs telling us not to go anywhere and to stay at the house cause a cyclone was gonna hit.  And then around noon or so on Thursday was when it hit us pretty hard.  It ws pretty crazy.  Trees were getting blown over everywhere.  It was pretty tight.  I was juswt taking pictures and videos the whole time.  I was stoked on it.  Pretty much the whole day on Thursday it was really strong.  We stayed in for most of the morning, but then got ancy and decided to go out and see if anyone needed any help.  Walking around in the storm was wild.  The wind was super crazy strong.  It ws like pushing me over part of the time.  Some of the houses we passed had been flipped or completely topped down.  Luckily all of these houses had been evacuated earlier that morning.  A lot of the houses we passed were already empty and the people had gone to safer places to stay.

A lot of power lines had gone down too.  A few were just hanging close to the ground and some laying across the road.  It was sketchy bones for sure.

We pretty much spent most of Thursday checking if any of the families needed any help and then driving families back and forth to the church building to stay.  And then on Friday it was pretty much over for the most part--just normal rain and storms.  That morning I woke up and realized that I had been sleeping with one of those big poisonous centipedes.  It came slithering out of my sheets after I woke up.  Luckily it didn't eat me.  That would have made things miserable.  

Friday night was like one of the craziest nights of my life.  I don't have time to tell the story, but it was crazy.  Basically we got asked to go give a blessing at like 10:00 at night.  We get there and the girl is in super bad condition--unconcious and hardly breathing.  So we gave her the blessing and then haul her into the van and drive her to the hospital.  I was honestly flying down those roads and there were like downed trees in the road, telephone wires hanging in the road, and it was like sotrming and raining too.  But I was going like 80,90, 100 kph, which is probably like freeway speeds.  We were crazy super lucky not to have gotten in a wreck or anything.  There were a few times where I think in normal circumstances we would have for sure destroyed the car, but we were protected.  The Lord was watching out for us that night.  I was just really worried the whole time that the girl was going to die in the car or something--she was in real bad shape.  Anyways, tons of crazy stuff happened.  I don't have time to write the whole story--it filled up like 10 pages of my journal.  But is was NUTS.  Eventually after a ton of crazy stuff going down, we got her into the hospital and she got the treatment she needed and was okay.

This week has been the craziest though.  We also went bat hunting as well cause there's tons of bats around.  This big dude killed tow of them within 5 minutes just by chucking big rocks.  All the fruit trees are all blown down.  So all the bats are out looking for something to eat.  

There's tons of nutsobutso stories and cool stuff that happened, but we're out of time friends.

"Cowboy up"

Elder Johansen