Yeah it's been a minute since I've typed one of these so a lot has happened and it's kind of overwhelming for me to try and put it all into this email so I'll just send you videos and pictures this time. Have fun figuring out the stories behind them.
Actually I'll write a little bit.
First of all, wow thank you so much everyone for the kind birthday letters and emails! I do not deserve to have anyone remember my birthday since I rarely remember or send anything for anyone else's. The emails and cards made me feel really good though. It feels good to feel loved and remembered.
SO, my very good friend reading this, I am sorry for sucking at hyping you up properly on your past birthdays.
Transfers happened this week, so my trainer Elder Cattani left and now my new companion is Elder Farnsworth. He's a homie but I miss Cattani and now I'm the only one who knows what's going on in our area so I have to fill my new companion in on everything oh and also teach him spanish.
Which is crazy. Because I still don't feel like I really speak Spanish. I mostly grunt in Spanish, teaching the gospel sounding like Donald Trump because I still don't have a huge selection of adjectives yet. "The gospel is very, very good. Read the scriptures very, very much." But I know God's only giving me this opportunity to work my spanish muscles even harder and grow in the language faster, so I'm very very grateful for it.
Easter was awesome! We watched general conference with Rosa and she gave us bunny ears to wear while we cooked breakfast and dyed eggs so that was cool.
Read this talk from general conference. It's awesome:
I met LOTS of truly incredible families these past few weeks, I mean seriously they had some of the most inspiring stories I've ever heard about overcoming challenges and living their best lives despite having all the odds stacked against them... Somebody should come out here and make a Netflix series about the nature of happiness and overcoming challenges and stuff or something like that but idk just throwing that out there.
I successfully accidentally drove from our apartment to the church with the rear door wide open and the car was packed with garbage bags of canned goods. It was only a few blocks away, but my heart still jumped into my throat when I heard the crashing sound of stuff rolling out the back and realized what I'd done. Farnsworth and I retrieved the bags from the road without getting killed and we finished delivering the food safely.
Thinking about love now. We love being loved. Everyone craves feeling appreciated and wanted, but unfortunately feeling genuine and complete love from another person can be really hard for a lot of people to find. This can be for a number of different reasons, the first of which I think is because these people haven't yet figured out how to give and receive perfect love.
There's a lot to sincerely love about everyone, turns out. It doesn't matter how different you might be in age or interest or opinion or if they treated you rude at first, anybody can genuinely love anyone if they get to know them right. If they know how to feel perfect love.
I talk to all kinds of people every day. I get to make videos of them now, which is cool because it gives me an opportunity to hear them open up about themselves through stories and stuff.
One thing I've found is that there are plenty of conclusions you could draw about anybody from a first look or conversation, but behind the skin of every human being there's a whole universe of a soul that's been amassing hundreds of millions of seconds and moments and memories which are entirely their own. That's just INSANE. Like an intricate machine or symphony or painting, who else but their creator can fully appreciate every detail of the creation?
Paul, an apostle who wrote lots of good stuff in the Bible, said that the greatest gift anyone could have is charity. (1 Corinthians 15)
Moroni in the Book of Mormon defined charity as "everlasting" and "perfect" (8:17), "charity is the pure love of Christ" (7:47).
In other words, Charity is the purest form of love because it is the love of Christ, the love of our creator.
And the coolest part is we can have that love. The ability to love anybody perfectly, including yourself, is a gift which can be given to us by God.
So freaking follow God! Look for Christ's teachings from his own mouth in the scriptures and the mouths of his prophets ancient and modern and do what He asks you to do. There is no greater feeling in the world than looking into somebody else's eyes and feeling your insides get all warm because you feel real, complete love for them for no other apparent reason than they're just a child of God and gosh dangit they're awesome.
You are awesome. I love you. God loves you. :)
- Elder Johnson
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