Journalist Junkie: Week of stardom. No me gusta.

First off, I´m seriously being blessed right now. The ciber net place that we´re using right now is playing the whole "We sing. We dance. We steal things" album by Jason Mraz....We´ve been here from the first song...annndd it´s still going. I about had a heart attack when they played number five, Live High. I´ve seriously been craving my music a little bit..noting that I can´t handle, but it was frustrating yesterday when I had a really lively jazz song stuck in my head and I couldn´t do anything about it! This is definitely a blessing from the Lord.

Okay. Cool experiences of the week!! I contacted a man at his house named M***. We came back the next day and taught part of the first lesson. He was really interested. Partway through he looked at me and grabbed my hand. First of...WEIRD. Okay, so I´m tryin to be chill about it but he´s just sitting there like ...yea. ANYWAYS. He looks back at Hermana Waters, after releasing my hand from the captivity of old man roughness and explains that he saw me in a dream. Not in a ¨pick-up line" kind of dream but in a DREAM. He said that he had this dream three months back and he recognized me when I contacted him the day before. He recognized my person as well as my heart and faith. In the dream apparently I talked to him and he knew that I could help him. That´s why he let us come back. He said that in the dream I had on my missionary plaque and that he saw Hermana Waters and Hermana Parkinson as well, but not personaly. In the distance. I still don´t know what to think about it all, but it was cool. We have another lesson with him today so we´ll see what happens!!

Other cool thing...kinda sucky but cool at the same time haha. On the 13th Hermana Waters was feeling worse. She has strep right now, and so we´ve had to slow down. What´s funny was she started feeling worse when I started feeling better. I´m totally better now, but because Hermana Waters is sick we´re ALL suppossed to sleep in until 8am. LEGIT. We also return early so she can get extra sleep. On the 13th we stayed in ALL DAY. After lunch we returned and we literally studied and ate, and slept. I felt so bad for a while cause I was like.."what am I doing! There are PEOPLE out there that I need to talk to!!" But it turned out okay. Kinda. Yesterday her throat was feeling better, but she had a massive headache and was burning up...especially in the sun! So we call president Essig and to our surprise he tells us to leave her. With members of course, but he tells us to leave her and if we feel like we can do it to go have fun and do work! At first I was like HAHAHAHAHA there´s no way in the name of Mater, or McQueen, that I am going out there without Hermana Waters. No freaking way. Then ...it hit me. During the whole day in curch I had understood close to 80%. I literaly understood and it was like...SHABAM. I was even prompted to share my testimony in Sacrament meeting, which I did after an extra shove from the spirit. And I know they understood me. It wasn´t perfect Spanish, but it was close. And it was close enough haha. As I remembered this, I felt comforted to know that I could do this. For only two hours did I have to take the lead. So off we went. We went to the house of R***, M***, P***, and R***do and we taught a lesson! We talked about how everything we have is from God and we need to be grateful for eveything he does for us. I committed them to pray to see his hand in their lives..to look for the tender mercies. After our lesson, which really did go well, we went and did contacts. And we did more then we had done all week. It was such a blessing.

The cat´s out of the bag. Everyone knows I can play and sing now. I don´t know how everyone already knows but they do. We got a call from the Secretary of the office and he asked me if I could play in conference for our Zone. With President Essig. ...oh good glory. I don´t know how that happened so quick, and I´ll probably regret it....especially since I don´t even KNOW these two hymns...but I´m trying to help as much as a can. Even if I suck right now!! So that´s why this week was a week of stardom. I was the star of some man´s dream, I played in Sacrament meeting again, I have to play for confernce...OH! And Bishop asked if I would sing in sacrament meeting next week. ...again. JOY.

Moving on...I´ve already started my next journal. I´m gonna have to buy another one pretty soon too because this one is smaller then my previous one! Also, I ate peaunut butter yesterday. Now that was TRUE JOY. I slabbered bread in it and I just absorbed it. Hermana Perez, the stake president came over to our house this morning with breakfast and all sorts of yummy stuf...and replacement curtains! Which she actually has to hem...soo....but hey! They´re my favorite color of green!! Anyways, I put some PB and some of the homemade jam that she brought on crackers and she looked at me like a was a loon! She thought it was so funny! ..only because she hates peanut butter! I know..crazy right!? She´s a doll. She likes to have us for lunch a lot, and she brings us gringo food sometimes. Super cute.

I discovered a couple magnificant things this week.

1. If you don´t bite your nails, they grow. My nails are officially long.....not to the standards of people here, but to me! they haven´t been this long in years! Hermana Waters is really creative and decided to inflict pain every time I bit my nails...every time I BITE my nails. It´s stll super hard not too haha.

2. Empenadas. They´re probably the greatest thing ever invented. They have ones with aregano, ham, cheese, and tomatoes. ...and goodness it´s just heavenly. Literally...I KNOW they have these things in the celestial kingdom. They do. They have them.

3. I´m still far from becoming a lamanite. But I´m definitely closer. ...I still get honked and whistled at everywhere I go though....Everytime it just makes me mad!! Like seriously. Just cause I´m WHITE!! Lame.

4. People here think it´s hilarious that I´m SO afraid of spiders. And I´m still JUST as afraid of spiders as I was before. Brother Jenaro (in the photo with the fam and kids) he has an interesting hobby, which you might´ve guessed by now is SPIDERS. He thought it would just be great to show us his spider! It was the size of his hand...he starts walking down stairs and both me and Hermana Waters RUN out of their house. RUN. The kids are just LAUGHING like it´s the funniest thing they´ve ever seen. Especially when they tell me that it´s a METAL spider. That´s it´s FAKE. ...but of course I don´t believe him (as that´s something Dad would say right before throwing it in my room or something like that) anyways it was a big ordeal. They realized how scared I really was of it and finaly stopped chasing me with it at least.

5. They love American music here! Jammin to Adele right now baby that they are playing in this place while writing my emails.

6. I don´t have to think in English first and translate in Spanish anymore. All the words I know in Spanish I literally just KNOW in Spanish. They just come. It doesn´t take me quite as long to share a scripture or bear my testimony, although I´m obviously slower than Chileans haha.

7. I can wash my own clothes! Hermana Jenny washes our clothes, but we don´t get them back for a couple days. So you d NOT give all your dirty clothes to her haha. Only some. And you wear each skirt, and each shirt at least 4 or five times before anyone thinks you MIGHT need to wash it. It´s a little different, and I don´t like it so I wash mine a little more, but yea. I can wash cothes by hand now! Like a pro. I could be a proffessional clothes washer............I could be but I think I´ll stick with my career in communications and art.

Well that´s all for this week folks. I still haven´t figured out how to make this thing type a hashtag......I can see it! It´s one of the three symbols on the 3...but when press shift and 3 it does nothing. Oh well. I´ll survive....and suffer...JK. I´m happy! SOOOO fantastically happy!

LOVE YOU!

Hermana Alex Johnson