Como Estan Familia?!!! Wow, Chile, I´m here!!!! I can´t believe it. It has been amazing so far. Where do I start? My trainer is Elder Evans. He has been an awesome trainer and really has taught me alot. He´s from Kentucky/Utah. He´s an awesome Missionary and companion.The work here has been great. We had three baptisms yesterday! It was such an awesome experience. I´m going to upload some photos for y'all and my videos from my flights.

Talking about my flight. It really hit me when I stepped foot on that plane that nobody on the plane would actually understand a word that I was saying. It was an eye opening experience I´ll tell you that. I sat next to a Chilean man from the west part of Santiago. He was way nice but didn´t really understand alot of english, but he spoke some. But back to the work.:) It´s going great.

Like I said, we had three baptisms this past Sunday. It was 2 sisters and a brother. Their Mom and older sister are members but they aren´t so we finished baptizing the family. The water was so cold that the little girl almost didn´t get baptized because she didn´t want to die when she went under the water. Haha she conquered her fear and was baptized. We have two others with a baptismal date but we´ll see how those hold up. One is very promising but we´ll see about the others.

When we contact people you don't knock on doors; you actually stand outside and yell at them. You just say HALO way loud and then they come out and you talk to them.:) SPANISH, SO FAST!!!! Wow, I didn´t know people could really speak that fast; its crazy!!! I really don´t understand any of it but I´m staring to pick up some here and there. Just have to keep on going and talking as much as you can and have faith. The spanish is coming along though.:)The people here are way nice. Sometimes they try and talk to us in english and we just talk to them in english for fun and they don´t understand a single word that we say.

The food here is way good. They put Palta on everything. Palta is just crushed up Avacado, Guacamole(Dont know if i spelled that right). Its way good. You would love it MOM. By everything I mean everything, or almost everything. They put it on the McChicken sandwiches at McDonalds. I haven´t had them but they look way good. If you are looking for spicy food, Chile is defintely not the place to come. It is very bland. They dont have enchiladas a lot or tacos. There are a lot of soups and squash and rice and chicken.

Oh Yea! So this is the layout of our day. We wake up at 7:30 because we pushed everything back an hour since the people stay out later so we don't come back to the pension until 10:00. In the morning we have Personal, Companion, and Language study and then we head off to lunch. We don't have dinner appoinments here. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. They have something at night, its called 'once' but we not really supposed to have it with members. Don't really know why. So we have lunch appointments rather then Dinner appointments and then we have our appointments during the afternoon and then come home at 10:00.

The Mission work has been awesome so far and I´m so pumped that I´m here. Please send me all of your questions, I love answering them. I´m going to try and take some more pictures this week. It sounds like everyone is doing great. Thank you so much for your email, I loved it and I love yall. So for no pictures. I have to figure out how to upload pictures so I´ll send some next week. I promise. Can´t wait to hear from yall. The Gospel blesses lives!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Rachel and Robert and their kids, Spencer and Madelyn, got to see Elder Johnston off at the Salt Lake Airport Monday. He looked great and was excited about finally getting to Chile. His spanish is really coming along! He was able to tell Robert, who served his mission in Peru, the whole First Vision in spanish. It was amazing! We are so proud of Andrew and we can't wait to hear about his first week in Chile!
Waiting for Uncle Andrew...

Checking in....

Elder Johnston and Elder Riding (his companion)

Off to Chile!

Hola everyone!

I leave for Santiago, Chile tomorrow afternoon! These past 2 months in the missionary training center have gone by so fast, it is hard to believe. My Spanish is better and I now definately appreciate all that my Spanish teacher tried to teach me in high school.

There have been some very spiritual experiences for me here and it is hard to describe how great it is to be with other missionaries who have the same goals(and hopes) as I do.

I am so excited to go to Chile and work with the people there and I am very pumped!!

Thank you to everyone that has been praying for me and writing to me while I've been here. Your examples have been a real strength to me and I appreciate everything you all have done for me.

The Gospel is true and I'm grateful for the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and for prophets on the earth who receive direction from our Savior, Jesus Christ, to lead the people of His Church.

Elder Andrew (AC) Johnston

P.S. My folks are going to try to update the blog each week with my emails from Chile!