Email from Week 8

Elder Johns Email from Week 8

Everyone:

 

We have a baptism tentatively scheduled for next week. We will be Meeting with James tomorrow to figure out for sure. He's an awesome guy, and is unrecognizable as an investigator at church, he even participates in Priesthood meeting discussions! (It's funny, the first ward's priesthood meetings have like 10 people there on a good day. Including the missionaries.)  

 

This week has been blessedly cool (relatively). The mornings and evenings have actually been pleasant. Which has been good while we've been out tracting.   

Clarification of the "greenie dinner". It tasted pretty good. The noodles looked like play dough but tasted normal, and the chicken Alfredo tasted like such. It was just dyed green.

 

Both wards are having a combined "Ice Cream Social: Missionary Open House". We will be conducting a tour of the building followed by Ice Cream. We have been working a lot with the wards on getting that set up. We are expecting around 300 people both members and non-members.

 

While we are getting support from the wards (including meals every day) I don't think we have had any serious referrals. That's the best way to do it folks! Tracting and OYMing is not very efficient.  

 

This week I had a scripture in 1 Nephi jump out at me. It said "Have ye inquired of the lord?" I've been thinking about that a lot this week. Especially on questions of "where should we go tract/oym?" or "what should we do with this hour now that our appointment fell through?" It is important to seek his guidance and go with those feelings. We had a good experience with that yesterday. We didn't have any appointments after dinner and our backup person to see fell through. So we prayed to know what to do. "Should we go talk to one of our Less actives or OYM". We were supposed to OYM. Elder Clark suggested "Lets OYM on Baseline" (the main drag in town). I suggested we start on the west side of town so the sun wouldn't be in our eyes. We drove down the street, but we saw very few people on the sidewalk. Once we got to a parking spot on the west side of town Elder Clark decided to have a "training moment". "What should we do now?". I threw out a few suggestions including walking up Victoria Ave but he kept saying "You decide". So we prayed to know and I felt good about walking up Victoria but I wasn't sure if I had received "an answer". But I decided to do so. So we did that and talked with 20 people in about an hour. The area was very much "the 'hood" and we talked to some interesting people, and were heckled a bit by a few guys who were probably drunk. But the good contacts we had overweighed that, and we had a referral for the Spanish speaking elders. It was a great learning experience and a good close to the day.

 

I said before that sometimes I feel in over my head with the situations of the people around me. I still feel that way, but I know and am recognizing how to speak with the spirit to try to help people. Sometimes people use their agency in frustrating ways. That makes me think how heavenly father must feel when we disobey his commandments and make stupid decisions.

 

Oh, I almost forgot about Luis! We were OYMing in an area in west Highland a few weeks ago and this guy called out to us. Excited we walked over and he started talking, and talking, and talking. He talked about his dog, he talked about his family, he talked about how life was short, he talked about life, the universe and everything. However he included some things about God and Jesus Christ. So we told him a bit about who we were and what we did and we set a return appointment. 

That return appointment came, we knocked on his door. But he had some family from Minnasoata (sp) over for a surprise visit. He then started talking about that, and finally we had to cut him off to reschedule. 

We rescheduled for this last week. We showed up, he let us in. We asked him what role religion has had in his life, and he began  talking, and talking and talking. He talked for half an hour straight before we could get a word in edgewise. I swear that man has mastered the art of circular breathing because he never paused! We spent an hour there and said about 20 words total. We found out he wasn't interested in our message though. So we wont be going back.

 

Letters are amazing, please write them. I will reply, I promise.

 

Thank you for your prayers.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

Pictures From Week 7

Yvette's baptism. The other elder is Elder Graves he was Elder Clark's last companion 

The Campos/Campana family, and the missionaries involved in Yvette's conversion.

The view from our balcony

Email from Week 7 - First Baptism

Email from Elder Johns - Week 7


All:

Yvette's baptism went great on Friday. She got confirmed there as well (she had to work on Sunday, and the bishop said that Friday would be better than the next week). She was positively glowing the entire time. It was great to see her take that step. next week we are going to go to the temple with Her and her Husband Edwin and take some "goal setting photographs" and talk about temples. They want to get sealed in a year.

I don't remember If I have talked about Alexa, but she was a great Progressing Investigator. She was staying with a family in the ward for the summer. She is the same age (16) and is cousins with one of the family. She was really interested and was reading and praying, feeling good about everything and such but she moved back to 'Frisco today and her parents are basically anti. Hopefully we planted some good seeds though and she keeps reading and praying.

We've been involved in some pretty, actually very heavy stuff this week as well. I don't have time to go into too much detail, but the lesson is: Choose the right person to marry! I think their marriage is dead but, despite what is going on, I think we've seen improvement towards repentance (at least on his part). Repentance works. It's hard, but that is what the atonement is for. We are also teaching the son in that family, he's 10 and really wants to get baptized which is great. I feel bad for him and his situation though.

We have another investigator on date for the 1st. James is an amazing guy, you wouldn't know he wasn't already a member. He wants to get baptized but wants to make sure that it is "In the Lord's timing", not his.

This week we had exchanges twice. Both times Elder Clark left me to run the area. Things went pretty well both times and I had fun working with Elders Park (DL) and Carr. I learned a lot from Elder Carr as well.

Pretty sure I have mentioned Hersey before...
We had to drop him this week. Which is sad. He said he had a dream where "the holy spirit" came to him and told him to go to a bunch of scriptures. The scriptures were basically bashing scriptures.... <sigh> we had a good lesson and explained a bunch of the scriptures and how they lead to the restoration and such. But he likes his bible, and doesn't really want to change. Very sad because he is a great guy, very spiritual. We'll see him around though I think.

Helaman 5:10-12

Overall, Life is good. The work is progressing (well, in the first ward anyway). Time is flying! I can't believe it is already the 5th week of the transfer.
Thank you for your prayers.

Please write,

Elder Johns

Pictures From Elder Johns

 Received some more pictures with this weeks email.

Elder Clark in Companionship Study

Greenie Dinner with the Smarts 

"eh bikes" read it like eh... <shrug> ... bikes

Email from Week 6 - Very Hot in CA

Email from Elder Johns Week 6


Found out something interesting about highland this last week... the big ridge that cuts the town in half is the San Andreas fault... Lovely.

The weather this week has been miserable. Triple digits every day, topping out at greater than or equal to110 degrees, and it has been cloudy/muggy too (which is odd for here). Because no one is outside during the day (except elder Clark and I of course) we've been tracting. Tracting is not a very efficient method of finding people. But it can be interesting. You are never sure what is going to happen. I've had a few doors slammed in my face already but it's more humorous than anything. We've only had a couple people agree to have us come back.

Yvette's getting baptized this Friday. I'm pretty excited. We have everything planned out. It was going to be last Friday but there was a scheduling conflict. 
Things are going good with the investigators. We don't have anyone else on date for baptism though.

Last week the Smart's (the people in our ward, not the Mission President) made me my "greenie dinner" where everything was green, green noodles, green rice, green chicken Alfredo. It was pretty good. But it looked like, as they put it "A leprechaun puked on my plate".

We get fed basically every day by the members. I haven't had a bad meal yet. However, I did have a "full but must eat to be polite experience".
We were over at an appointment with the Perez family (an older Part Member couple). We didn't have anyone on the calander for dinner, and they went and got tacos from a local church thing and got some for us. So we had like 4 tacos there, and then we got a call. It was another family in the ward and they said "are you coming over for dinner?". They had actually signed up for the next day, but made a mistake. So we were like "yeah we'll be right over". I was freaking out, I had eaten more tacos than I thought was wise already and Sister Lorentz cooks alot of food. Elder Clark as we were driving told me to do the "samoan shuffle" with him. which consists of rocking back and forth to "help with digestion" well, It may actually worked because when we got there we had another huge meal  of salmon patties (my favorite.... <sarcasm>) hot wings, deviled eggs, and other stuff. It was all pretty good. and I didn't explode which was suprising.

But anyway. Despite the heat, Elder Clark and I are still getting work done. Alma 37:6-7
Out of time to write more. There is never enough time to do anything.

Please write me letters

Elder Bryce Johns

Pictures from Elder Johns

Elder Johns sent his first set of pictures:

MTC Pictures

Elder Johns and Elder Frazier at MTC

Elder Johns and MTC Companion

MTC District

California Picture

So. Cal Sunset

Looks like Elder Johns is still always looking for a good picture opportunity.  (Hopefully he will take pictures of the people that he meets while there...)

Email for Week 4 (2nd in the field)

2nd Email from the field

For the Blog

I will grace the hills around us with the title "mountains" they are pretty dead. You know "arrowhead" bottled water? We can see that mountain from our area, the "arrowhead" is made from a rock slide. But it doesn't look like the one on the bottle. I also doubt people would drink it if they knew the water came from San Bernardino...

We've taught 20 lessons this last week. We have a lot of investigators, recent converts, and less actives to teach between the two wards (most are in the poorer 1st ward though).

We have a baptismal date (Aug 18) for one of investigators, her name is Yvette. She is married to a member (they are both my age) and is progressing well. This week we are going to go to the temple to take pictures and talk about sealing. 

We have several investigators who are older. One of my favorites, "Red"(he used to have red hair) is 85. He believes in the BOM and Joseph Smith but doesn't know if he should get baptized and isn't thinking that he's getting answers to his prayers. We have some other interesting investigators but I will have to talk about them later.

We were at a less active's home in our apt. Complex the other day. They were really happy to see us, and invited us back for dinner on Saturday. He got a $30 rib roast and made it into chili with jalapenos, and hobanaros. It was really good. But very Hot!!! So hot my nose started bleeding... (never going to hear the end of that one)

Our Mission was promised by Elder Ballard that: if each missionary got 10 OYMs (Open Your Mouth, or street contacting) aside from tracting a day (so 20 per companionship) we would have a baptism a month. Elder Clark and I have been doing our best, and are improving.

I've had a couple interesting OYMing experiences. No dogs have chased us yet (not counting when they chase us on their side of the fence. We grade dogs on how much effort they go to bark at us and following us down the fence line) But yesterday we met a guy from Manhattan (thick accent). He wasn't overly interested, but he was fun to talk to. another guy, Ignacio Jr., we OYMed into and got a return appointment. it took a couple of tries but yesterday we found him at a time he could talk. He's 25. at 15 he moved out of his house with his 14 year old girlfriend (now wife) and have been basically roughing it. However, he caught Giardia and nearly died. While he was in the Hospital they found out that he had thyroid cancer (or something similar). He can't work anymore, and smokes medical marijuana (we're in Cali). We called our Mission president to find out what the church's stance on that was and he said that if they have a perscription from a reputable doctor and get it from a legal pharmacy they can get baptized (Didn't know that, did you?) But while we were talking to him and giving him the lesson he lit up right there! We were like "uh..." (he wasn't rude about it and kept his smoke and stuff away from us) but yeah, I've now seen someone smoking weed haha.

Elder Clark and I had a "miracle" experience the other day. We had a lesson planned for a RC. She's a single sister so we needed someone to come with us. We called and called, but no one was available. So we prayed for a miracle, that things would work out. So we went over there, and she had a male friend over (from another ward) who sat in with us. Also we were there right when she needed us. Lisa lives in a trailer park with a Nazi homeowners association and her manager has been picking on her for small things. We were there right when the manager was saying some stuff and was able to calm Lisa down and teach a good lesson about charity, and long suffering. She kept saying thank you and how the things we were saying was just what she needed. It was pretty cool.

I have lots of favorite scriptures now but Alma 7:11-13 is probably the one I use most. It talks about the atonement, and what Christ did for us.

Overall, Life is good, the work is good.

May the Spirit be with you and write me letters.