Sept 3, 2008

hey everyone
this week has been really good. we had an AMAZING zone confernce. i talk about that in abit. just to let you know, i did just get the package. i got it yesterday. thanks a bunch. the shrew we decided to try to keep for a bit but it got loose and we tried to catch it but i accidently killed it. so it's dead now. i was telling people about it a zone confernce, and one elder named elder Moa, he was there a few months before me and he said, what are you doing to that apartment. i told him, just trying to keep it from falling apart. it's much nicer than that, just probelms come up every now and then. well we had a big rainstorm on thursday, so that may be part of it. i heard new orleans had another hurricane get close. i have also heard there is quite a few of them out there from people. that is one of the reasons the whole mission has cell phones now. we got ours just two weeks ago. it used to be all sister missionaries and thosewho live with a member, now it is everyone. my bike is brand new, and it's a yellowish color. when i send pitcures home soon youll see it.

now for the stroies this week. last wensday we went up to glen allen, and we hanged out up there for the day, and then they decided they all wanted to get slurpees, so we get a ride with a member and eventually we ended up in Innercity of Richmond and went to Belle Island, it has a bridge that go underneath the freeway over the James river. there we walked around and saw some old civil war prisions and other things. it was pretty fun, but i did not have my camera at the time, so i'll have to go there again sometime. then on thursday we had Elder Zwich come and speak with us and he talked to us for about three hours. it was amazing. he talked about all sorts of stuff like how mission calls are made, then about preach my gospel how it got made, and many more things. he told us how preach my gospel was written on the other side of the veil, so like what you said in email, and he told us about how elder maxwell wrote chapter six on christlike attributes, after he was diagnosed with cancer. and how he finished it and then passes away a few months later. it was incredible, the spirit in there was so strong. it was great.

other than that i cant think of much more to tell you. tell jill sorry her card is a little late. but it's in the mail. yeah we talked with many people on monday who told us yeah, labor day is for labor. i answered quite often, to me it was always my sisters birthday. but it was good day. elder wangemann sent me an email that told me that he is now an uncle. perfect timing. he's back home now. i can understand going without sugar, a less active meber had us for dinner on friday. she's greek. very intersting food, but it's good. she gave us a sugar free chocolate cake. so it's very bland. i'm not sure to much for birthday right now, but i'll let you know. but right now a shirt and a tie sounds good. just make sure it's not one of those shirts that you tried to iron and wouldn't, there still bad. well thats it for this week, i think it's quite a bit more than normal, but i'm sure you wont complain.
elder johnson