Get That Alpaca!

 Elder Farnsworth just burned himself on a tack which he lit on fire.

The flame never got close to his finger, it just heated up the metal part which he was holding. He was staring at the flame, entranced, and murmured in a low voice, "Ooh, that's toxic.… MOTHER FREAKER!!!" And then blew the flame out before dropping it on the ground.

These past couple weeks were great.

We sang a song in Spanish and I played the ukulele for a Hondurian lady and her family after devouring a meal we actually helped prepare at her house. (I can make killer homemade tortillas now so hmu future wife just get me some flour and water babe our fam's eating gooood)

I played basketball and four-square with a group of kids and then they challenged me to a footrace around the trailer park which I lost because I rolled my ankle on a stick. Since I lost I had to do 50 pushups. Definitely had way too much fun with that.

We had mission conference! All the missionaries got to come together in person to learn how to be better people and improve our relationships with Jesus Christ -- then, during the social media leader meeting I ate a Jimmy John's sandwich and talked with Elder Tai from Hong Kong about his son who is ALSO into videography and then got a PICTURE WITH HIM. It was a group picture but still, I'm tight with a seventy general authority now.

We went to an alpaca farm and the owner said if we could catch one we'd get to RIDE ON IT. After a hot pursuit and some tactical maneuvers we were able to corner and grab one. One of the elders got on and the alpaca was NOT having it. He was spitting and running around with the missionary hanging on, the elder eventually dismounted nicely and the alpaca ran off quite disgruntled.

On top of the regular shenanigans that come with living in Nampa Idaho, I had more than a few spiritually-growing moments in the Lord's work. A lot of them come while I read the scriptures and contemplate big questions prayerfully but those are kind of boring to talk about so I'll tell ya about my experience with the old dude we visited last week.

So I was practicing a song one day to play for some new people we'd be meeting with that night. I felt like we needed to sing "Love at home" with them after talking about how the gospel can bless families. Right before that appointment though, we had dinner with this older couple who I'll call brother and sister Jones. When we got to their house I had a quiet thought like I should bring the ukulele into their house. I hadn't been planning on playing anything for them as I figured we'd just eat and run for the lesson we had, but I listened to the idea and brought the instrument anyway. I leaned it up against the wall while we talked with the couple.

Brother Jones was in his 90s. Sister Jones was a little bit younger than him. Brother Jones was in incredible shape physically, especially for his age. He didn't use a walker or anything, he just moved slowly and carefully around the house. His memory was super foggy though, he struggled to recall how many kids he had or what he used to do before he retired. Only 15 minutes into our visit sister Jones had to leave for a family history meeting so we finished eating with brother Jones, trying to converse with him as best we could. Their house though, it was so cool. They had all these pictures on the walls of different places and people, books and artifacts with different languages written on them. It wasn't cluttered either, they had everything neatly arrayed on shelves and organized by location with a map above them.

So we started walking around his home, and I would ask him about certain pictures which he'd look at, jog his memory for a moment, and then start talking a little bit about each photo. He pointed out his mom playing the piano, and the island family he lived with on a mission trip. He showed us some model ships among other things and then we walked outside to his backyard.

It was so quiet and peaceful there. He had a neat little garden with some trees that he planted when he first moved there 30 years ago. We walked slowly, in silence. At the end of his yard there was a large canal. We paused for a moment there, and he talked about one time when he fell in and his neighbors had to come out and save him.

I had an experience unlike any other then, out of nowhere. I felt the most powerful spirit with this man. I sensed that even while his body and mind were growing weaker his spirit was getting stronger. He was closer to heaven than he'd ever been and I don't know how to explain the sensation any other way but I could just feel his ancestors crowding around him, waiting to welcome him home.

I seriously thought about myself in his place then, nearer to the end of my life. What will that be like for me? What will there be to remember, if I can hang onto my memories at all? Who will be waiting for me when I die?

We walked back into his house, thanked brother Jones for sharing his home with us and then said a prayer with him. I picked up my ukulele and we started to walk out, but then he asked "What's that?"

I paused and said a bit bluntly, "This is a ukulele."

He smiled and looked down, "Oh, yeah I figured that's what it was." 

Then we shook hands, said goodbye and I felt a pang in my heart. What am I DOING?! Rushing out on him? No, I needed to play a song. I think.

So I awkwardly cut back before we walked all the way out the door "Would you like me to play you a song?" His face lit up immediately and I felt the spirit confirm this was the right thing to do before brother Jones even got to say, "Oh yes, please! I would very much enjoy that."

So I unzipped the case and got out the uke, brother Jones sat down in his chair across from me and I began playing and singing "Love at Home" for him. I stared intently at the music while I sang, focusing on the chords and my voice and the words -- it took 300% of my concentration let me tell ya. But when I got to the chorus I knew it well enough to glance up at brother Jones and when I did my voice caught for a second because there was a totally different person sitting across from me.

He was sitting up straight, with tear-filled eyes that were somehow crystal clear for the first time all that evening with him. He sang the last line with me quietly, "...when there's love at home…" He broke into a smile that lit up the whole room and in that moment I felt such incredible love for this man. I mean, it was overwhelming. My heart blazed in my chest and I had to start thinking about my breathing so I wouldn't hyperventilate, it was unreal.

He said to me, "That song takes me back…" Then he launched into a whole story about growing up in Arizona and he was giving all these details like the kind of boots you had to have to keep rattlesnakes from biting you and all kinds of stuff. His mind was refreshed suddenly with a kind of energy and clarity that definitely wasn't there before. He appeared 30 years younger I swear, and it was awesome.

Later, those people I had originally practiced the song for asked so many questions and our discussion ran so late that we really did have to book it out of there before we could play them anything. I was practicing that song, turns out, just for brother Jones.

The Spirit is awesome. Listen to him, do what he says and you'll never regret it.

God is real, miracles really do happen every day to people all over the world and they can happen to you too!! Jesus Christ's invitation to his disciples was never just to believe in him. It was ultimately to "come, follow me". Come, see His miracles for yourself. Don't quit before you even get to the best part of His gospel.

I know that Christ lives! He is actively engaged in bringing people to a sure knowledge of Him. We need to have the Holy Spirit in our lives. Christ does not ask nor expect us to survive spiritually without the direct influence of his Spirit. It's always been a bit confusing for me to understand what exactly that means to follow promptings from the Spirit, and I might not ever know how to do that perfectly, but one thing I've learned through practice is that more often than not we have to act on the good thought or feeling before we can know for sure if it was really sent to us from Heaven.

Love,

Elder Johnson

1. Me and my best friend Elder Gong (you'll notice I'm the closest one to them)

2. A beautiful sunset caught while my companion and I were actually very much lost on the wrong desert road coming home from a young mens activity. 

3. Gangster.

4. This is a mega inside joke but my comp says cinco ALL THE TIME. Whenever he doesn't know what's going on in a spanish conversation his go-to answer is "cinco". He also uses it as an expression. "CINCO!!" either means he's excited. Or hungry. He also says cinco instead of saying "sí", like a stronger version of sí. "Ciiiiiiinco amigo." Everyone razzes him for it, which only makes him use it even more.

5. Elder Mr Incredible

6. Representing the Jeff City Jaybirds on a rock

7. The district on our hike

8. This random dog jumped onto my lap while we were talking to some people we just met. The owners were shocked and said he's never done that with anyone. He must've sensed that I was a representative of Christ or something. Or it could be I'm just so hairy and dumb that he mistook me for one of his own.