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