While Sister Johnsen was in the States taking care of family, Elder Johnsen was in Palau with the other Elders. An unmentioned event occurred the Sunday Sister Johnsen was gone. The Elders drove to the church and just before church started everyone in the chapel heard a huge bang that sounded like a giant balloon popping. They all ran out to the parking lot and saw that one tire on the Elders car had a blowout. That’s the first time Elder Johnsen has ever heard a tire explode on a parked car. Sister Johnsen missed that excitement, but was here this Sunday for the second explosion. But first a little explanation:
Sister Johnsen arrived home very late on Friday night because her plane had to circle Palau for 30 minutes due to bad weather. But that wasn’t the only late flight she had; the flight between Guam and Hawaii was also late, so much so that when she arrived in Guam they had only 5 minutes to dash to the gate where her connecting flight to Palau was departing. Needless to say her luggage and that of about 15 other passengers who had to run to make that Palau connection did not arrive in Palau. So Sister Johnsen was without many things all day Saturday, including make-up. This turned out to be Ok because Elder Johnsen had taken the car (which you will recall from an earlier entry was damaged when the Elder’s backed into a tree) in to be repaired. Because there had been so much rain the repair shop had not finished painting the car and they had no car to drive.
Saturday night Elder and Sister Johnsen borrowed the Elders car and drove back to the airport to get her bag and then on Sunday morning Sister Johnsen borrowed the Elders car again so she could drive Elder Johnsen to his 8 AM meeting at the church. The car was wobbling badly but they didn’t know what was going on.
45 minutes later, Sister Johnsen and the Elders were backing out to go to church and another tire popped. They couldn’t figure out what they had run over; it sounded like a mini-explosion. Well, it was just another bad tire. So with two cars out, Elder Johnsen had to borrow the branch president’s car to come get them for church. Two Sundays in a row--flat tires. (We felt pretty blessed that it hadn’t blow out on the way to the airport though.) Elder and Sister Johnsen got home via a member’s vehicle and a few minutes later they heard the Elders outside the apartment changing their tire and then it started raining, so they went out to watch and provide moral support from their covered balcony. The Elders were getting pretty wet, but then it started POURING! I'm sorry but we were laughing pretty hard! On Thursday we got a new missionary, Elder Gubler, from North Salt Lake (I mean new- two days in the mission field) and he and Elder Wright were out there getting soaked changing the tire. This poor new Elder is probably wondering what he has gotten into. Besides that Elder Gubler put a "1" on the missionary interest form (meaning NOT interested) for his desire to learn a language. Yep! They sent him to Palau first thing. Sorry again, hope you like learning to speak Palauan!
Besides the tires exploding, the Meyun’s Elders were able to witness (from far away in the mountains), the detonation explosion of a Japanese WWll bomb. They say they haven’t seen anything cooler. The heavy sandbags on top of the bomb just flew 100s of feet into the air. They have pictures of the 10 foot deep hole and some sand bags high in the trees.
Elder Gulber and Elder Wright needed Elder Johnsen to go out with them on Monday night to go to some appointments which was possible because Elder and Sister Johnsen were carless. Elder Gubler was able to get the last laugh because Elder Johnsen fell knee deep into a watery hole while they were out going to an investigator’s place. Elder Gubler just couldn’t stop laughing.
The best part of the week for Elder Johnsen was the “explosion” of home teaching that took place as a result of our Priesthood service night. There were 8 groups of two men each, all the routes (which totaled over 100 households, were covered. The young men’s president and Elder Johnsen took Meyuns #1 and they were able to place 13 of their 14 first presidency messages in the homes where members lived, although only 7 members were actually home to receive our message. Elder Johnsen finally met for the first time two people that he has been trying to see for months. The groups had great visits with several of the families. Everyone that came back to the church was so pumped. Elder Wright set up 4 teaching appointments for later this week as a result of his visits. Elder Adams figures with Elder Johnsen’s 7 visits to less active families where a lesson was taught, his 7 and Elder’s Marshalls 6 visits, he’s set for the whole week. That’s 20 lessons taught to less active families by the “Elders” in his area. John Jr., our Elder’s Quorum President, was so excited about the success of the event that we’re sure we’ve begun a tradition that will carry on. We have it on scheduled on the fourth Tuesday in March.
It been so fun, so explosive around here, that we aren’t sure what will top it!
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