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: