Week 23 Pictures

Pictures from Week 23

This notice makes you feel safe to live here.

An abandoned grain silo in old-town Murrieta.

Us putting up Christmas lights

the (blurry) Christmas lights including the Mercedes sleigh 

Elder Plaster ready to go...

Always love to be at the Temple.

Week 23 Email

Week 23 Email

All

Things are really slow here in Murrieta, we have been doing a lot of tracting with no success.

We also discovered that about 1/3 or more of our area (most of the south end) is all industrial/commercial buildings with no houses.

 

We did get to meet with an investigator (not the one who bore her testimony, still working on scheduling that one) and we had a good lesson.

We did get a new investigator. A semi-active sister asked us to come over and give her room-mate a blessing. So we did, and she said that she would be interested in taking the lessons. Trying to get into the schedule though, which is hard for people here. 

 We also helped them set up their christmas lights. It's a rather eclectic setup, but it was fun.

 

People actually work here, which makes finding them home difficult. I am VERY grateful for a good bike though to get around (I do miss the car though).

 

All in all things are going pretty good. Tracting all day is no fun, but we're toughing it out. Elder Plaster and I get along well still.

 

Thank you for all of your prayers, Please write! I promise to return the letters.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

 

Mormom.org/christmas

 

http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages?lang=eng&id=2012-01-014-the-will-of-god#2012-01-014-the-will-of-god

 

Week 22 Pictures

Week 22 Pictures - New apartment pictures and Elder Plaster

Pictures of new Apartment and Companion

Week 22 Email

Week 22 - First week in Murrieta

All

Murrieta is a very affluent town. Our area is basically all rich white people. We are covering the Murrieta ward which is relatively small, about 9 by 4ish miles (ballparking the width) Large portions of which are buisness districts. We've been using the bikes, I've already almost killed myself about twice (mostly exaggerating) and had a flat tire (ran over a goathead). My legs and behind are rather sore. 

Goodness, where to start... 

So we got here in murrietta, at a homeshare with the blooms. Who are amazing, but we had to move out of there last saturday because their daughter's family lost their house and had to move back in, so we are in a brand new "luxury apartment" It's a few blocks out of area, but it's pretty sweet. 

Being doubled in has been pretty hard. From all accounts all our predeccessors did was walk around. We didn't have any real lessons last week(Not counting a couple lessons with active people). That's not for a lack of trying though, we've been putting solid hours into finding and many miles on the bikes. The area book had not been updated for at least a transfer so we are trying to figure out who is in our teaching pool. However, a few investigators have shown up from the woodwork, we are working on scheduling an apointment with them. One bore her testimony at sacrament meeting yesterday, which is probably a good sign. 

Once we get our bearings I think things are going to pick up. The ward is very strong and actively engaged in missionary work (or so they say anyway). But everyone in the ward we've met so far is really cool.   

Elder Plaster and I get along pretty well. He's from a small town south of Houston Texas and is largely a sterotypical Texan haha. Although he does hide his accent and doesn't like sports. He has a big deisel truck and a tractor and wants to either run his family's resteraunt or be a rancher. 

Even though we don't have many common interests we have a similar sense of humor, which is good. We're working hard and doing well together.

The weather here has changed finally, It's cool and overcast with the occasional drizzle. I feel right at home 8). Murrieta is actually green! I don't know if it's usually that way or if it's just the season, but the hills are green and there are real trees around (not to many of those fake palm tree things haha).

Got to go no time,

Thank you for your prayers. Anxiously awaiting your letters ;)

Elder Johns

Week 21 Pictures

Week 21 Pictures

Highlands Apt Ready For Christmas!

The Baumans, an Awesome family from the Highlands 2nd Ward

Long Awaited Week 21 Letter

Week 21 Letter

Sorry about the long delay.  I got a little behind in updating, so today you will get the last three weeks letters and postings. (Elder Johns Dad)

All,

 

Thanksgiving went pretty well. We started out at the stake turkey bowl. Which I must say was fairly fun. I made a touchdown at least. Basically it amounted to two hours worth of sprints for me. (which I paid for the next two days) 

For the whole week we had three thanksgiving dinners. We had a thanksgiving dinner the day before, another one on thanksgiving (obviously) and one yesterday. We went over to our thanksgiving dinner ate and talked with people for a bit. Around 4 we went back to our apartment and hung out. I drew and set up the christmas stuff (see pictures). It was pretty fun. 

 

On Tuesday we met with a guy on the street and had a really cool conversation. He's Iranian. His mother was Jewish and his father a Muslim, and he considers himself both. We talked about his beliefs (many of which were very similar) and our beliefs and gave him a book of mormon. He talked a lot about how important it was to be open-minded, the sanctity of the body, and praying for your family. He was a really cool guy, and he invited us over for thanksgiving dinner but his (Christian) wife said no.  

 

On friday we had a first lesson with a promising new investigator, (Rosie) which was really cool. See asked a lot of legit questions and even took notes(hopefully for the right reasons). 

Saturday was interesting. Elder Graves (one of the spanish guys) got sick, so Elder Everett and I took turns going with Elder Villalobos to appointments and staying with Elder Graves.  

 

Then came transfer calls. (Drumroll please). I'm getting doubled in along with my new companion E. Plaster to the Murrietta ward in Murrietta.... on bike. Basically right after I'm done emailing Brother Smart will be giving me a ride there. 

 

It's kind of a bittersweet feeling, On the one hand I want to experience something new, but I also feel bad leaving all the people I've come to love here in Highland. But I do know that the Lord needs me down in Murrietta, so that's where I'll go. 

 

I've been reading in Alma about Ammon and Aaron, and the Anti-Nephi-Lehis. Their conversion was worth more than their lives, they NEVER fell away, they were truly converted. Sometimes we need to step back and think about our own faith. Do we have the faith to keep the commandments no matter the consequences?       

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/05/as-many-as-i-love-i-rebuke-and-chasten?lang=eng&query=god+gardener

 

Have a great week everyone! Please write.

Elder Johns

Week 20 Pictures

Week 20 Pictures

Yay, Smog!

a Sunset (yay, smog!)

The Lincoln Shrine

The bust that is the centerpiece of the shrine. 
 (There's are really long story about why it is a "shrine" and not a museum.)

A flag at the shrine. 

In the 1800s the government only mandated the stripes, 

whoever made the flag got to pick their own pattern of stars. 

So this regiment went with a star pattern.

The Lincoln Shrine

Most of our Zone

Can I tell you about the Mormon Church?

The Lincoln Shrine

Week 20 Letter

Week 20 Letter

All,

Well, it's the last week of the transfer. I think that I will get transferred this time. I've finished being trained and I've taught Elder Everett the area. We'll find out where the Lord wants me now (or if he still needs me in Highland)

This week has been fairly uneventful. We only taught less-active members. Went on exchanges which was fun, first with Elder Graves, and then with one of the Zone Leaders.

Last week I think I said that the weather has been in the 50's through 60's. I meant 50's - 80's. It was 90 one day last week. pretty crazy stuff.

My brain is kind of in a fuzz right now. I'm wiped out from basketball this morning (I'm still horrible but I'm improving, mostly I just run all over the place). So sorry about the brevity of the letter. 

I'm not exactly sure what we are doing for thanksgiving. I'm sure It will be okay. I'm worried that this week (being the week of thanksgiving) won't be very productive. But people will probably be home at least.   

Today I went with Elder Villalobos and most of the zone to the Lincoln Shrine in Redlands. It was fascinating. It's the largest repository of lincoln and civil war manuscripts west of the Mississippi river. We were there for a long time (the tour guide talked forever), but I had a ball. Did you know that only 500 californians (and only 1 known to be from So Cal) fought on the battlefields of the civil war? They were veterans from the mexican american war "the best" of the union cavalry and had the lowest casualty rate. They had to be shipped down to panama and then to massachusetts, where they fought in a massachusetts regiment (and after the war they had to make their own way back to california). There were a lot of cool artifacts and information. I think it was boring to most of the other elders though.

Here's some random food for thought. (courtesy of Bro. Smart)

Good conversation boils down to at least one of three things:

Mutual edification

Obtaining/clarifying information

Searching for solutions   

If your conversation isn't doing one of those three things It is probably not worthwhile (gossip, whining, etc).

Alma 8:10

Hoping to receive some letters. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Elder Bryce Johns.

Week 19 Letter

Week 19 Letter

(This was from Tuesday Nov 13)

All.

 

Okay, to finish the story.

 

So, Tex was faced with a decision. Does he stay an Eagle, soaring freely in the air; or does he go back to being sage hen on the ground...

What do you think?

 

 

 

He went back to being a sage hen. That was what he knew and was comfortable with. Most of the time people are like that. We go and teach people how to be eagles. How to live up to their potential. But because it is unfamilar they don't want to change themselves to improve.

 

So remember, You want to be an Eagle. Not a sage hen. Stretch yourself to become the person your heavenly father wants you to become. It may be difficult, but after all "why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?" Following our heavenly father is always worth it. No matter what the seeming cost.

 

Do you think that you can bless your own life more than the Lord can?

 

So there you go.

This last week was pretty good. We did some service and had a couple good lessons. Mostly with Recent converts and less actives.

 

We are basically out of investigators at present.

Our Fijian clan seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. We haven't been able to get in contact with them for over a week despite our best efforts.

 

Remind me to share the story of how we rescued a giant tortoise last week.

 

We also have a new contacting method that is really cool. Which I will have to share next week.

 

Hope to recieve your letters soon. Thank you for your prayers and support.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

 

Week 18 Letter

Letter for Week 18:

All.

Busy busy busy. Unfortunately, or number of lessons and investigators is starting to slack off.

No one is coming to church, and it is starting to get hard to meet with people. Consequently we are focusing on finding people.

It was kindof funny, we were tracting on "Temple ST". We ran into a Born-Again who just wanted to argue ("Are you followers of Joseph Smith? The trinity, etc other anti rubbish. His parting "shot" if you will was "My God's stronger than your God... It's sad how people don't get it.), A dude who offered us a "bowl" and lightly heckled us, and a bunch of cranky people (suprisingly a rare thing in Highland). There were a couple of people who were interested, but It was still ironic.

 

Our Haloween wen't pretty good. We had a good lesson with Daisy and Abraham, and did a lot of contacting. We aren't allowed to proselytize after 6:00. The span-m's invited us over to their branch president's house for pizza. We also got permission from president to watch the Lion King! It was a lot better/funnier than I remember haha. After the movie we went and played basketball/volleyball at the stake center. The Yuciapa zone also came (I'm in the Redlands zone). It was pretty fun all round.

 

Here's a cool quote I heard from a talk:

"When it comes to religion, question with boldness. Question everything. Honest questions, fix reason firmly in her seat. For if there be a God, he must surely prefer honest questioning over blindfolded fear" ~Thomas Jefferson.

 

Okay, I also have time to write out a story (courtesy of Brother Smart, ward missionary extraordinar) So here goes. (I would normally make it prettier but I don't have the time, so you get the bare-bones)

 

There was once an eagle. She would soar from mountaintop to mountaintop over the desert looking for food to bring back to her nest. She had four eggs there to take care of.

 

One day while the eagle was away from the nest, a vulture swooped down and stole one of the eggs. He knew that he had to fly away as fast as he could or else the eagle would get him. He sped over the desert, not taking the time to look back. Eventually, he figured that he had gone far enough and landed on the desert floor. He set down the egg and looked over his shoulder and WHAM! the eagle got him and took his body back to her nest to eat. 

 

The eagles egg was left forgotten on the desert floor. It was there that a mama sage-hen found it. A sage-hen is a fairly small flightless bird, also called a prairie chicken. This mama-sage hen being a fairly maternal bird took the egg home and cared for it like her own.

 

In time, the baby eagle hatched with the sage-hens. His "Mother" named him "Tex" because he was so big. Tex grew up and was taught the way of the sage hen, he pecked around on the desert floor, flipping over rocks and things looking for worms. He would look up from time to time and see the eagles soaring overhead and think "man, I wish I could do that."

 

Eventually one of these eagles looked down and saw Tex on the ground. Curious, this eagle swooped down to see what was going on.

"What are you doing here on the ground with all of these sage hens?" he asked.

Tex was startled, "What do you mean? I am a sage hen. Please don't eat me!"

The eagle was perplexed, "what do you mean you're a sage hen? Look at how tall you are! Look at how long your wings are. You're an eagle!"

Tex looked at himself. He was pretty tall, his wings were pretty long. He was an eagle!

They spent the rest of the afternoon teaching Tex how to soar from mountain top to mountaintop. It was the time of Tex's life doing the thing that he had never though possible.

 

however, Tex had to make a choice at the end of the day. Would he stay an eagle, or would he go back to being a sage hen?

 

Learn what happens next week. I'm waaay out of time.

 

Thanks for the letters and prayers.

Elder Johns.

Week 17 Letter

Letter from Week 17

Pictures:

Elder Everett "crooning" (in a very similar style to Alfalfa on that one lil' rascals episode we watched on hulu plus) to elder Villalobos who had crashed on the old mattress we were throwing away.

 

"The Elder Johns Hat" I got from a recent convert while cleaning out their garage. The other guys said it had my name written all over it, and I like it. (Elder Graves is in the background)

 

Ivan's baptism (sorry about the really crummy quality, it's not from my camera, I think the shutter speed was slow because of the lighting)

 

All.

Probably the most exciting thing that happened this week was Ivan's baptism. We met him awhile ago and handed him over to the Spanish Missionaries a couple of weeks ago. He accepted the invitation to baptism that I extended in our last lesson with him. He asked the Span-Ms if he could move his date up! There was an issue because he is about to get his divorce paperwork and he would have been (technically) breaking the Law of Chastity by living in the same house with his wife. So he moved. Just like that. It was really cool. I could only understand one word out of forty five the entire service (we had to leave right after the ordinance unfortunately), but the spirit was very strong there. I know that he will do great.  

 

Our ward harvest festivals (Halloween parties really) were both very succesful missionary-wise. We had a lot of investigators and less actives show up (mostly talking about the first ward there, but both were good). Good seeds were planted and sprouting testimonies were watered. Also some good fellowshipping went on.  

 

We have had some lessons with new investigators this week, which is cool. We will have to see how committed they are though. No one showed up to church this sunday.  

 

I have some cool analogies I want to write out (mostly brother Smart's but a couple of my own.) but I don't have time (I'm also really tired for some reason.) Hopefully next p-day.

 

Thank you all for your prayers. Letters are awesome, please write them.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 16 Pictures

Pictures from Week 16

Elder Clark and Redlands 3rd
(Elder Romney and Elder Passey)

Our Zone Pre-Transfer

The Last Time I saw Elder Clark

Week 16 Letter

Week 16 Letter

A little late with Elder Johns' email this week. but here it is with the pictures.

All

 

My new companion, Elder Everett and I get along pretty well, we are a lot alike. He likes cartoon style drawing and is really good at it. 

We've been visiting a lot of people this last week and are staying busy.   

Between us and the Spanish elders (Villalobos and Graves) the apartment has been pretty lively. It's good though we all get along well.

Not much time to write today. The work is progressing slowly but surely.

 

"May we be doers of the word not hearers only"

If something was not hard, it would not be great. Our promised blessings are great, we have to work and endure hard things to earn them.

 

I love letters, please write them. Thank you for your prayers. 

 

Elder Bryce Johns

A thank you to Elder Clark from Bro. and Sis. Johns

Elder Clark - Thank you

Elder Clark checking the weather and looking at airplanes.

As the parents of a new missionary, we would like to give a hearty thank-you to Elder Clark who finished his mission and went home this last week.  

To Elder Clark: 

When we were praying for a good trainer for our son, we wanted him to get someone just like you.  Thanks for showing him how to work hard, and how to follow the spirit.  We appreciate you helping him to have such a great start to his mission.

Thanks for being a faithful and obedient missionary and for loving our Heavenly Father.  We wish you the best of luck as you return home from your mission and may you always continue to love and serve the Lord.

With our deepest gratitude and love,

Bro. and Sis. Johns

Week 15 Pictures

Pictures received from Week 15

Elder Johns sent several pictures this week as they were getting ready to send Elder Clark home.  Hope you enjoy them.

Matelita, Elder Clark, and Elder Johns

Darth Vader
(Pavel and Daniel's cat. His name is Darth Vader)

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!

Fatboy, Compos Dog

Most of the Zone

The Campana/Compos Family

The Smarts

Daniel messing around

Jada, Walter's Dog

Lisa, Karena and Elder Clark

"Contact Jesus"

Elder Clark with Walter and Maria

Week 15 Letter

Week 15 Letter - Received October 15, 2012

All

 

Well, E. Clark is still around for another few hours.

 

I'm still in Highland! My new companion is E. Everett (sp?) I will meet him later on today.

 

We are also getting a set of Spanish speaking elders to do Spanish work in Highland. That means that we're going to have to share the apartment... We're going to have to move the furniture, and move some things around. It should be interesting though. One of the Spanish Elders, E. Graves, was E. Clark's last companion (Elder Clark trained him for half a transfer). So in the parlance of the mission he is my Mother (My trainers companion before me) and my Brother(Another of my trainer's trainees)... It's not a perfect system haha. Oh yeah, Also am "killing"(sending home) my "father" E. Clark. So you could say that our family has issues. We fit right into Highland.

 

It's been awesome working with Elder Clark. He's been a great trainer. I've learned a lot. Especially about being charitable, It is so important to love your instigators  God, and your companion. Because if you aren't you are wasting your time. 

Another thing he taught me is the importance of being obedient. "Mission rules are commandments" and we are only blessed if we follow them. It's been great working with him and having all of our inside jokes.

I want to wish him(you, when you read this E. Clark) luck in life. Never lose your testimony.

(remember to send me your wedding announcement when you find "Her" in four weeks or so haha)

 

I think the next couple of weeks are going to be a really telling time for me as I get E. Everett acquainted with the area. 

Oh well, trials build character. right?

This last Saturday we had a combined highland 1st and 2nd ward Ice Cream Social/missionary open house (we've been planning it for . It went well. We had about 45 nonmembers there. They were taken on a tour of the church to different rooms where the auxiliaries talked about their organizations. Then we had ice cream in the gym and answered a few questions. It was pretty good. we didn't get any return appointments out of the deal, but there is some potential there for sure.

Unfortunately our teaching pool has been shrinking. One of our investigators (Matelita) is on date and on fire, but pretty much everyone else is kind of lukewarm. I think my new companion and I are going to focus on contacting and visiting part member families. 

 Last week we had an amazing break in the heat. It was cloudy and rained. It got down to 65 during the day and 55 during the night! I was so happy. It was just like home. I even had to wear my raincoat. It's back to the 90s today and yesterday though...

 

Well, I don't have much more time to write. There is so much!

Please write. Thank you for your prayers. I will need them these next couple weeks as I run the area...

 

Elder Bryce Johns

 

Week 14 Letter

Week 14 Letter (received Tuesday because of the Columbus Day holiday, and posted late because of Dad Johns being slow).

Apparently the library closes for Imperialism day... I mean Columbus Day so that's why we are emailing on a Tuesday.

 

The weather has been cooling down! It's actually been pleasant the last few days (70's - 80s throughout the day). It's awesome. On the other hand it has also been really smoggy/hazy, considerably more than usual, which is saying something.

 

Our week  has been, as usual, pretty crazy.

 

So the other week we ran into a Fijian woman (early 20s) named Matelita in an apartment complex. Her cousin from Fiji is serving a mission right here in Riverside. Anyway we talked for a bit and got her in contact with Elder Kolingata (forgive my spelling on all these names) but we've been teaching her and her roommates. Matelita had many of the lessons in Fiji is really prepared and basically ready to be baptized. She has already through prayer overcome drinking and partying of her own accord! It's amazing that we found them so prepared. We'll see where that goes. Somewhere good as far as I can see.

 

I think I talked about Ivan before. We met him OYMing and taught a couple lessons. He's also really solid, but we handed him over to the Spanish missionaries this week because he can express himself better in Spanish.

 

We also had another lesson with Tammy. I'm not sure If I have mentioned her before (it's all starting to run together). Which was interesting to say the least. She claims that she's a long time inactive member with autism and that she was coming back to the church because of a dream she had. (A very long, very weird, very intricate dream involving all seeing eyes, tigers, big women and people with swords. Elder Clark and I were pretty much deer in the headlights.) We invited her to conference though and she came to the Sunday session and said she enjoyed it. The ward missionary we brought with us is a psychologist who says she is schizoeffective (a step up from scizophrenic apparently). So we will see what happens.    

 

The highlight of our week was general conference. The following are some thoughts I had about it (at least what I could come up with without my notes handy).

The overarching theme that I got out of conference was "discipleship". Essentially the enormity of the commitment that we have made to follow Jesus Christ and the blessings that we can receive from them.

 

I especially liked the talks that talked about our potential. Especially President Eyring's and the Prophet's. We and everyone we come in contact with has such potential if we learned to be in tune with the spirit. Our Heavenly Father wants to be able to use us, we have to let him and if we do we will see His hand in all that we do.

 

I also liked the message that: If you don't know what to do, do /something/ and the Lord will correct you if needed.

 

Overall I really enjoyed conference and the lessons that I learned from it. Hopefully I can use them to become a better missionary. Especially as Elder Clark leaves this next week. We'll see what happens with the next companion. I know that the Lord knows what he is doings and that he will be the person that Highland and I need.

 

John 3:16-17

 

Thank you for your prayers and letters. I love you all.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 13 Letter

Letter for Week 13

All:

Well, the wedding didn't go through. They couldn't get enough money for the wedding license. We did our best though, and we feel that the right thing happened. We are still working with Angela and the kids. They say they want to get baptized and we set a tentative date. But they need to start coming to church (a couple of the older boys have a few times)

 

This week has been (like most weeks) very busy.

Karena (the handicapped girl, who is afraid of water) said she wanted to be baptized last friday. So we got everything ready for a (very) small baptism on saturday. However, we were there for a couple hours working with her (E. Clark was in the water) but no dice. She needs to overcome her phobia through counciling before she can be baptized. (There has been much discussion on whether or not she needs to be baptized.)

 

Last wednesday I went on an exchange in Redlands with Elder Passey. He came in this transfer, and is from Tri-Cities, Washington. I finally got a chance to ride my bike. It was an interesting experience working in someone elses area. But we met some interesting people and had some good lessons/contacts.  

 

Today for P-day activity our zone went bowling (yay.... 8/) and afterwords Elder Clark and I went to Trader Joes in Redlands. My mom shops there a lot and It was just like home.

 

Well, I'm out of time. Thank you those who have written me, I really appreciate the letters! I love the work and I love you all.

 

Elder Johns

Pictures of Elder Clark Expounding the scriptures:

Week 12 Letter

Week 12 Letter 

All:

Another busy week.

Taroon left to college which is sad. He wants to get baptized when he comes home for winter break. Hopefully I'm still here. He's doing great and we're going to send the referral up to the Elders where he's at.

 

We OYMed into a guy over a month ago named Ivan and we got back into contact with him the other day and taught a lesson. he came to church and said he enjoyed it. Hopefully that goes somewhere. he just got divorced though and is moving in a couple weeks. We seem to be good at finding people about to leave ha ha.

 

I don't know if I wrote about Fabian and his family at all. But they are awesome, and hopefully we will be holding a wedding for him and his fiance tonight so they will be living the Law of Chastity (they have had 6 kids together, who are all awesome). It's all last minute and too long of a story to write at the moment. But I pray it will all work out . We've been running around like chickens with our head chopped off. But if there are wedding photos next week you'll know what happened.

 

We had a great talk last sacrament meeting. about climbing mountains of life.

A great thought that came out of that is that "Nothing very vauable can come without trial, work, and patience.

Alma 32:21

 

Love you all. Awaiting your letters.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

 

The Plunger Prophet

The Plunger Prophet

The Story of the Elder Who Broke the Baptisimal Font

Daniel got permission to be baptized from his mother. He asked me to baptize him, and Elder Clark to confirm him. So we got everything ready for the baptism. Chairs, programs, got dressed, filled the font, etc. The font in the Highland building is old, and the rubber gasket around the plug is missing. So Elder Clark stuck a plastic bag around the metal plug to plug the font (as we have done previously) and filled the font. We had a great program. The first councilor bro. Young gave a good talk on Baptism and Brother smart gave an amazing talk on the Holy Ghost. Then it was time for the baptism. So Daniel and I got into the font, and performed the ordinance. That was really awesome. Their was a great spirit there. As we were walking out of the font, i reached down to pull the plug. (the plug had a flip-up D ring for you to hold onto). It didn't budge... I pulled harder. Nothing. I twisted and pulled and much to my consternation nothing was happening. Everyone had been watching this. But elder Clark (while laughing) closed the curtain. I continued to pull, and pull. I even grabbed a string to get my weight behind it. The plug didn't budge. I continued to try for what seemed like forever. Finially I gave up and got dressed. I sat down next to E. Clark who said.

"you didn't get it, did you."...

The rest of the program went well. After the service, I got back into my wet whites, and went back for round two (much to the amusement of my companion, brother smart, and the bishop). But it still wouldn't budge. I couldn't even get a pocket knife or a screwdriver head in between the plug and the hole. We also tried to get a siphon going but no dice. So Brother Smart went and grabbed the toilet plunger. He handed it to me and said

 "here, run this through the ring and try to pry it up"

It didn't fit. But He and Elder Clark took the opportunity to take pictures of me with the plunger in the font. Brother Smart finally said.

"Stay there plunger prophet, I'll go get a prybar from my truck"

So I did. That was probably the closest I'll get to swimming on my mission. He came back with the prybar and some rubber so as not to scratch the tile.

I ran the prybar through the D-ring and levered the plug out. The plug came out. However, the D-ring snapped. So I, Elder Johns, broke the baptisimal font. How many people can say that?

 

I love the mission and I love working with the investigators and members of our wards. Go out and find the Elect. Every member a missionary.

 

Awaiting your letters,

Elder Bryce Johns.

Some Additional Pictures From Baptism