As Black as a White Man Can Feel - Last MTC Letter - Aug. 23

Well here i am and i have found myself in the bowels of the basement of 1M. This week was good at some points and bad at others but ill start at the begining.

We started at the trc and the lesson went really well and i can tell im learning more and more cause im able to pick up more and more what the fluent speakers are saying. we taught about the role of the spirit and this helped alot cause alot of our lessons over the next week would revolve around this. funny how things just work out like that... anyway so we taught a 30 min lesson but we had 35 min in the room with jacob and jeff, two frequent commers to the trc. after we taught the talked about their missions in haiti and how is was really crazy there. they said thier zone leader got stabed by his companion and some other missionaries got kidnapped. so im REALLY glad im not going to haiti. they also said the haitian missionaries are really teritorial and they always have to have control. they said recieving death threats by senior companions if you woke them up on time was normal.  None of us are going to haiti though cause the mission is closed to palongys (white people in tongan). Rasmussen is going to fort lauderdale florida and elser olsky and Stegal are going to tampa florida. speaking of which the tongans are leaving today. its sad to see them leave but they have deserved to leave cause they have been here two weeks more than us. now that they have left that means our distrit is like the model district now so that means the presidancy will be breathing down our necks and steal our room for leadership meetings. it dosnt REALLY matter cause elder campbell and i are only here for another week but its still nerve racking.

Our teaching has gotten so much better. our focus in class has switched less from the language to more focus on teaching. it was funny cause yesterday fre jean (the only haitian teacher) toook a whole hour in class to practice teaching with the three other elders in my district. it was funny cause he said we had 5 min of prep time and then campbell and i would teach for real, but instead he took a little detour to help the other elders with teaching, which they desperately needed. campbells and my lessons flow like a waterfall. they are so much better than before and the language is almost never a problem for me now.

yester day fre jean used some wierd sayings that i cant even remember and i gave him the wierdest look and he gave me one back. it was wierd cause in direct translation he said "are you working fire" which i was totally lost but it meant "are you warmed up?" i laughed cause it was a saying that made sense but didnt at the same time. he just called me a greenie and we moved on lol. the new haitian proverb for this week which i thought everryone would like is

"si bab komrad boule, ou kouri mete pa ou nan dlo"

which means if your friends beard is on fire you should go get yours wet. another one:

"yon dwet pa manje kalamarou"

which means a single finger cant eat ochra. (the green vegitable that we eat in couscous) its means like "alot of hands make quick work" kinda thing.

i used some of these in some of my lessons this week and i felt as black as a white man could in creole.

thanks for the package that you sent mom and i loved everything you put in there. ill most likely be calling home on next monday but be ready cause its going to be pretty early in the morning. im sad that sophie has already taken over my phone and i hope that nothing else will come to the valuables that i left behind.

so this week i have 200 note cards that im going to finish this week before i leave. its 27 words a day which is a little less than what ive been doing but im doing alot of other stuff in my scriptures so im staying really busy. my allergies have been acting up but i also think its cause im getting sick again so bottom line is i really dont know why my voice is changing pitches at 9:30 every night and i have LOADS of snot but im taking some meds so hopefully it goes away when i get to NYC. sad story is that i have to get my hair cut this week so everyone pray for the barber and that he doesnt make me look like an old man.

anyway thats it for this week and ill call home on next monday probably. thanks for everything everyone is sending and for all the mail!! talk to you guys later!!

-elder johnson-

p.s. thanks mom for the addresses and dont let sophie get crazy on my phone.

p.s. dont send me any letters past saturday cause they will probably not get to me. just wait till i give you my NY address