It was a Crappy Week

Heyoooo, 

Juss gonna jump right into this here email.

This week all 6 of us missionaries here in Middletown went and helped the sisters’ investigator with preparation for her garden. We drove out to a farm in the middle of nowhere and shoveled poop into the back of a truck to take back and use as fertilizer. It was a windy day so we had to shovel with our mouths closed, nah mean? Haha it was one of those experiences that if dad were to see me he would smile and say, "it will be good for you." After flinging 2800 pounds of poopies into the back of the truck we drove on back to the ladies house to spread it. Serving in this area I sometimes forget I'm in New York because, especially as I'm shoveling poop, it reminds me a lot of small town Weiser, Idaho. I enjoyed serving, but it was kinda a crappy job. Ay-Yo! 

Halloween was really, really ok. Any appointment we had fell through, so we didn't have much going on that day. Since we didn't have much, we borrowed some rakes and went and raked a lady in the wards leaves. Tried to make ourselves useful. All the missionaries had to be in our apartments by 6 pm. Right as we got home little (key word little, not necessarily young) trick or treaters were knockin on our door like crazy.  Unfortunately, as missionaries we celebrate holidays a lot like the Jehovahs Witnesses so we didn't even think to buy candy or anything to give to kids. Luckily, Elder Judd and I both got Halloween packages with candy so we dipped into our stashes to not disappoint the niños. In the time that we weren't playing a part in rotting children's teeth, the 4 and a half open hours of the night were spent.... Reading our scriptures..... 

The bishop had all of the missionaries over for dinner last night. Bishop Guzman (if you've seen the Mormon message "finding hope" about the 9/11 survivor that's my bishop) has a dog. We had just gotten done with dinner and were sitting around talking and Elder Judd started petting the dog. I thought I would give the dog a friendly pet so I started rubbing it. I continued to pet it for a little bit and realized that the dog felt strange. Turns out I was not petting Bishop Guzmans dog but I was petting Elder Judd the whole time. Haha he didn't even say anything. I guess you could say that Elder Judd and I have been getting pretty close lately!

I had one of THE most unique experiences this week. Elder Judd and I were at the very northern part of our area called Pine Bush. There isn't much work in Pine Bush and we had about an hour before our next appointment. We whipped out our handy IPads, checked the area book and were able to search for people in Pine Bush. There were only two people. One of them was the guy we were about to have an appointment with and the other was a potential investigator from a couple months back that I guess they never got in contact with to teach him. We made the decision to look him up and started driving to the address with the phat beats of Alex Boyé on smash. We drove on a long, windy road through thick forest for a solid 15 minutes. The address took us to a Buddhist Monastery that was up in the "mountains". There were little cottages with addresses on them so we decided to give it a shot. We got out of the car and we see an Asian woman in a long brown robe give us a funny look. We walked up to her and asked her if she knew where this guy was. Confused as to why we were there she pointed to a cottage. We went over to the cottage, knocked on the door, and a really tall guy that was whiter than I was opened the door. He identified himself as the man we were looking for. He was dressed in a brown robe just like the Asian female. He got a leather jacket on and put on his Joseph Smithesque farmer hat with a feather and asked if we wanted to walk. We walked with him on trails through the forests and we talked about Buddhism and God. We had one of the deepest discussions on faith that I've ever had on the mission. This man was very spiritually in tune. Amongst all this, I never thought once that it was strange that I was talking to this tall white guy with a long brown robe on, feathered hat, in the woods on the grounds of a Buddhist monastery. It was very interesting. The best news is that he said we could comeback!!

Hope yall have a good one.

Elder Tyler J Johanson

J Chillin in Middletown