Week 30 Letter

Week 30 Letter (1/28/2013)


All

We got a phone call from the bishop to go see a lady in Old Town Murrieta to "evaluate her needs" whatever that means. So we went there on Thursday and met Cathy. We spent the next 15 to 20 minutes listening to her myriad of problems. She was explaining about how the only thing that worked in her body was her heart, lungs and her kidneys. Everything else is shutting down. She is getting dementia because her liver is poisoning her blood stream, her stomach is filling with fluid, her throat is all messed up because she dry heaves up acid all the time, and her throat has swollen to the size of a childs, she has broken ribs because of the dry heaving, and a number of other things, including an extremely low sodium diet that she doesn't know how to cook for and she has to use the restroom every 15-20 minutes or so so she can't sleep and she has to eat 2 ounces of food 9 times a day. Because of all these health problems, her daughter has to watch her 24/7. They can't afford a caregiver. So the daughter is going crazy trying to cope with all of the stuff for her mom and can't make any money. All stuff that the doctors are having difficulty treating especially on her budget. On top of that, her roof is leaking (that pun may or may not have been intended). It is doing that partially because two of her neighbor's trees fell on it and partially because the contractor who added on to her house ran away with the money and did a crummy job. But wait, there's more. Because of former renters leaving a ton of junk, and her father dying last year her house looks like a hoarder lives there (she hates that). There was some other stuff as well.
Cathy was crying when she was telling us these things. You could defiantly tell that she was ill and that there was issues with her house. We sat there wide-eyed as she told us her story. Frankly, I'm surprised that she's still alive. We told her that we would do whatever we could for her. We told the bishop and ward council about all her problems and their expressions matched ours. We've got people working on figuring out what all we can do for her now, It's going to be interesting to see what all happens.

Oscar's baptism on Saturday was simply amazing (despite my companion suffering from food poisoning.) Oscar wanted it small, and it was. Only a few friends from the ward and some family members. Including his brother in law (his wife's sister's husband) Mark and his family. It was Mark that performed the ordinance. I can't really describe the talks on baptism and the gift of Holy Ghost, simply that they were what needed to be said for Oscar, and invited the spirit beautifully. Oscar came up out of the water and sobbed for a few minutes. There were only a few dry eyes in the entire room. The Spirit was so strong, I can't describe it. As someone there said, "we could feel the weight of a thousand prayers, this baptism is a miracle." They are right, Oscar has made a 180 degree change in his life to follow Christ and you can see the happiness in his life and family now. As he said "You just have to put it all on faith and God will take care of the rest. You give what you can give, and he will do the rest."
His confirmation the next day was also very spiritual, and set the tone for the whole meeting.
Words fail to describe the joy I've felt and seen in their family (and I'm not doing a very good job describing what happened either). But, I"m grateful that God gave me the opportunity to be here and serve.

We spent last Monday, p-day, with Oscar and his family. His son, Zay, races motocross and he took us out to the track in riverside. It was pretty cool watching Zay fly around on all the jumps, and teasing the rest of the family. Later in the day we were all sitting around eating sandwiches at Quizno's and Oscar said "this is the happiest time of my life."

It was back to work after 6:00 that day. This week has been pretty eventful. We met and had good lessons with a few less active members that we have been trying to meet with for weeks and they all came to church this Sunday. Which is really good.

We also had a multi-zone conference. Our mission president talked mostly about how important it is to be obedient. To quote (or perhaps paraphrase) the prophet Samuel, "To obey is better than to sacrifice." In other words, the blessings that come from being obedient outweigh the rewards of doing it "our way". We've been seeing the blessings that come from working hard and being obedient. As Josh Smart would say, "you can't beat the Lord in a giving contest."

God has defiantly blessed us here in Murrieta. We weren't able to meet with any of our investigators last week for lessons (aside from doing some service. We cleaned up Terry and Gina's backyard, which was like a redneck paradise. No joke).
But we have found a golden investigator. Her name is Elise, and she is twelve. Her family situation is kind of confusing, but the short version is that she spends the weekend with people in our ward and comes to church with them. She's been going to various wards for most of her life. When we first met her she told us "I'm going to get baptized, even though I'm only twelve." We had our first lesson with her yesterday. She wanted to be baptized as soon as possible so we set a date for the 16th. When we asked her "who God is to her" she basically explained the whole plan of salvation. We're pretty excited to see what happens. We are pretty sure that we are going to make our goal of two baptisms this transfer though.
All in all, things are going great here in Murrieta. Sorry about the jumbled letter. I had a too much to write and too little time.

Thanks for all your support. Please write.
Elder Bryce Johns