Greatest Athletic Achievement of My Life and Other Stories

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Good morning my friends! This week has been incredible. I'm going to talk about it all out of order so brace yourselves. 

In reference to the title, we've started youth activity night in Elubo. Every Saturday we go play soccer with the youth in the branch and their friends. Random kids walking by also join in sometimes. We're hoping that it'll be a good finding opportunity and also strengthen our youth. Most of them are recent converts. 

Anyway, around 40 kids usually show up so I'm usually a spectator/facilitator but because of a rainstorm our usual field was flooded so we had to move to a new field. Because of that, less people came so I was able to play. 

The problem is, I've never really played soccer before except in Ghana. I found out that I'm bad at scoring so I just stand on the defensive side and whenever the ball comes to me I just kick it as hard as I can away from our goal. On Saturday I was doing that and by some miracle, I kicked it all the way across the field and scored! All the 11-16 year old kids were hyping me up. It was awesome. 

So that was the greatest athletic achievement of my life. Now for the other stories. 

Isaac got baptized on Saturday! It was so wonderful. He was so happy and I'm excited for him to continue in the gospel. The members really showed up to support him and it went so well. There were some struggles to make it happen including a very dirty baptismal font, but it all worked out in the end. 

I'm so excited for Isaac. He's told us before that he feels lonely and that he doesn't know anyone in Elubo since he just recently moved here for work. Now he has a church family and the Holy Ghost! I hope you'll add your prayers to mine for Isaac to continue faithfully in the path he's chosen. 

Another exciting piece of news is that Gifty is back! You may remember her from previous emails. She and her daughter Lordina were regularly attending church and preparing for baptism a few months ago when Gifty unexpectedly travelled. She's back now though, and we've started teaching her again. She's such a sweet lady with such strong faith. She can't read or speak English and she said in her last lesson that she sometimes feels left out at church meetings. We're working with her to learn the tunes of some of the hymns and so hopefully that all works out. 

Speaking of prayers and tunes, I'm also the branch accompanist! Grandma, you were right. I wish I was better at the piano. I can't play the hymns as written so I've just been trying to learn the top hand and then play the chords with my left. I played for the first time on Sunday and it went sort of well but not too well. We'll see how that goes. 

Elder Ngulube is also great. We've had good discussions. I've been seeing more and more that the gospel works. Today we taught a blind man who is so sad. He just recently lost his sight and is too embarrassed to go to church. He believes everything we taught but is too stuck to act on it. He's waiting for things to change before he'll act. We told him that's not how God works. We have to act first, then the miracles come. And God's will doesn't change. As my wise cousin Hermana Cobian says, "He (God) is unmoving. Sometimes we need to adjust ourselves to be in line with him. " I want to find and follow God's will for me. I love you all!

Love,
Elder Johnson

1. Pretty sky
2-3. ELUBO NSUBO
4. Fufu with our homies Vivian and Richmond and Lawrecia. Richmond (the small boy) is my best friend and Lawrecia and me are enemies but I know one day she'll warm up to me. 
5. Fufu!
6. Us and Gladys, our most powerful young woman. She helps us translate all the time. And yes, I wear this hat every day. 
7. Me pounding fufu
8. Elder Ngulube ZONKED while I'm practicing the piano. 
9. Us looking fresh for golden hour










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