Week 22 Cogeo

Magandang magandang umaga po family,

I believe one of the best feelings here as a missionary and representative of Jesus Christ and His Gospel is leading and watching other missionaries succeed in this marvelous work. We as missionaries are united together in one purpose: to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the  gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end...how great is my calling?!

On Sunday I was able to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting in the Cogeo ward. I reflected on my first year in the mission and how grateful I am to be here in the PQCM! This mission is flying by and couldn't be more grateful to serve my Savior for another year.

Last Tuesday I gave a workshop on teaching; on how we can become better teachers when we teach the lessons. I focused mostly on lesson 1 - The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how we as missionaries teach it literally all the time sometimes 5 times a day! I invited one of the Returned Missionary's brother Al Tabios. He's so magaling at teaching, like I've told y'all before he's the master teacher. We did some role play on how we can teach new investigators that we just met lesson 1, but at the same time teaching them according to their needs. Essentially it was a teach people not lessons workshop. We practiced how we can incorporate "our unique message to the world" in every situation kahit sino ka or whatever a person's situation is. It went really well and my companion and I have really been striving to apply it in our daily work. But, it takes continuous practice, which is one thing that I love about being a missionary; every day we have the opportunity to learn and grow.

Elder Garcia really came out of his shell this week; he's exploding! (in a good way haha). He's not as shy or timid and has gained a ton of confidence; he's a stud! It's been a lot of fun this week. We've been on the finding grind!! We found 18 new investigators and are giving baptism dates for the future months. I've been really working my hardest to leave Cogeo A as solid as possible for my companion and the future missionaries that come here. We've been applying the 4 month projection and trying to have weekly baptisms for the next weeks/months (that's the new goal and vision for our mission).

I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with one of my best friends this week...my MTC companion who is now in my district again...Elder Sanft!! It was such a blast, we had a great time. He hasn't changed at all...the same magaling missionary as in the MTC. He's still better at tagalog then me haha. And his teaching is crazy good. He really is a "special boy" like Elder Christofferson told him in the MTC. Even though he's still a junior companion, and has had a rough time with his companions his whole mission, he really a special guy. I'm so grateful to have met him.  I will cherish our relationship that we have for the rest of my life.

The DeGuzman family just texted us this morning. Bad news talaga. We don't what's going on but we will visit them later and figure it out. Keep them in your prayers please.

I love y'all, ingat po kayo

Love,

Elder Johnson