Week 45 Email and Pictures

Week 45 Letter and Pictures

Side Note from Dad

It was wonderful to get to Skype with Bryce on Mothers day, he looks good and seems to be working hard, we are very proud of him and what he is doing.

From Elder Johns:

All

This week's been not overly eventful.

My new area is hillyer (hillier?) than Nepal. And we've been trying to contact people most of the week, whith little success. This area has a lot of potential though.

We kind of had a baptism yesterday. The ZL's were poaching from our area (long story) and she got baptized into our ward, but actually lives and is going to attend a ward in Aneheim. Pretty confusing haha.

My new companion Elder Webb is awesome. 

aaand I'm out of time. Sorry about the short entry. 

Thanks for the prayers and please write.

Elder Bryce Johns 

Elder Johns and Elder Chene

The Baptism

Week 44 - Another Transfer

Week 44

All

 

So < drum-roll please> I'm transferring to Corona today, to "step-daddy" (be a missionary's 2nd companion) and be a district leader. I leave in a couple hours. I will probably be staying in the Riverside mission. I will have served in, what will be in July, three missions. Redlands, Carlsbad, and Riverside, which is crazy. We're going to have a live transfer with the entire mission in 6 weeks to know who's going where. I was hoping to go to the Redlands mission, but It looks like I'll be staying in Riverside. We'll see.  

 

This last week has been good. Our investigator, Aaron plans on being baptized as soon as he and his girlfriend get married (which should be late June-early July). They want to get sealed in the Provo temple in a year, they invited me to go, I would probably be home by then. It has been so cool to see him progress. He's been super prepared and has seen the hand of the Lord in this whole process.

 

Veasna, a less active we've been working with forever is doing really well. There's been a special light about her the last couple weeks. She's been reading the scriptures, the ensign and watching church videos. She came to church with her daughters yesterday too. I was so excited. The gospel is finally starting to "click" for her. 

 

We also met with Nathan, the kool-aid guy the other day. He let us in and we talked about Jesus (all from the bible) for an hour. It was really good, we talked about Faith, the atonement, and basically just geeked out over the Bible.  He had some really deep questions for instance: "Did Christ suffer for us to keep on sinning?" It was really cool. I'm not sure how to proceed with him though. I didn't feel prompted to leave any invitations other than come to the ward barbeque. I guess it doesn't really matter for me though 

 

I'm going to miss the Solis family a lot. They are doing so well! they have a date to be sealed next year and are continuing to progress in the gospel. Oscar's going to be in the [bishop]-"Rick" someday, I just know it haha. We had a lesson with Oscar's sister, which was good. They have such a strong testimony about how the gospel blesses families. It is amazing.

 

It's weird, I've basically been complaining about being in Murrieta for the last 6 months that I've been here, because it's been hard or whatever. But I'm genuinely going to miss it here. Mostly the members, the Blooms, the Robinsons, the Solis' and several more. I was worrying about what the "legacy" of my service here has been. But as I was saying goodbye to everyone yesterday I was basically shown that even though we didn't do a lot as far as statistics are concerned, God has been able to touch people's lives through me. As imperfect as I am. I have made many friends that I will have for a lifetime, helped two people into the waters of baptism, worked our butts off, and seen people's lives changed. Mostly my own. They call Murrieta the "refiner's fire" of the mission. That's what it has been for me, and the biggest lesson is to let go of my desires, give it all to God and then go and do his work. Miracles happen, but often you have to pay attention to spot them. I am not exactly sure why I was supposed to be in Murrieta the last two transfers, but I know that it was for a wise purpose unto God. I hope with everything that I have that I fullfilled it despite my imperfections. 

 

We'll see what the Lord has in store for me in Corona. Of course, it's just my luck that I'm still on bike in a super hilly area. I'm not going to pray for patience this time around. But I am kind of glad that I did 12 weeks ago. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. 

 

Love you all, please write.   

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 43 Letter

Week 43 - So short, it doesn't count.

Well, I am already over time so this will be super brief. 

 

This week's been pretty good. We had a multizone conference which was great. And a lesson with our investigator Aaron that went well.

Food for thought which i may have already said "the path to perfection is simply making our mistakes smaller and farther apart"

 

Love you all. Sorry to be so brief.

 

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 42 Email

Week 42

All,

 

This last week was fairly uneventful until the weekend. This last Saturday was "Service Saturday." We started off at 8:00 in the morning painting bleachers for a kid in another ward's eagle project. Followed by probably one of the most epic yard work service projects ever starting at 10. We had about ten people (recruited from the Young Single Adult branch) over there hacking away at the waist high grass/weeds, fallen branches, bamboo, small trees with a variety of lawn weapons. We had weed whackers  lawnmowers, loppers, an electric chainsaw, a wood chipper  and even a machete. If you need a machete to do yard work  you have a problem. Luckily his yard wasn't overly large, but it was very cluttered with (massive) boats, trailers, and misc. scrap metal. We got finished around 1:30. My ears were still ringing yesterday from using the wood chipper so much. After that project was over we were going to go to get lunch with the YSA guys, but then we get a call from one of the members "can you come and help us unload our uhaul... (they were moving within the ward boundaries)" 

After sighing inwardly, I said "sure, when?" Inevitably, the answer was "Now"... 

So we helped them. We finally finished around 3 and polished it all off with a dairy queen burger. Elder Cheney and I were both dead after all of this and so I took a nap for the remainder of our lunch hour (it didn't help much) and reluctantly headed out to go tract. Elder Cheney got badly sunburned. We got a lot done though which is good.I usually go to bed tired, but that was a special kind of exhaustion that I haven't felt in a long time. 

I think a few months ago I remember telling my dad that "we don't seem to do a whole lot of service..." Life is full of ironies, the trick is to laugh at them and keep moving. 

 

Yesterday we had a good lesson with Aaron. It's awesome to see how prepared he is. everything is moving very fluidly with him. He even asked us "What is the process for me to get baptized?" Which is always a good sign.    

 

In my personal studies recently I've been re-reading the book of Matthew in the New Testament. It is really cool to see the focus Matthew puts on how the Savior fulfilled prophecies(including one that does not appear in the bible) from the Old Testament Prophets.

I also found a scripture that I've been looking for for awhile it's in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 8 (I think) "Eye hath not seen, neither hath ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him." I love that. I can imagine quite a bit, but nothing I can possibly think of compares with heaven. Then tie that in with the Savior's teaching "if ye love me, keep my commandments". It is so important that we not only accept the Savior into our lives, but also give over our hearts and our actions. So we are not obeying because we "have to" (which is better than not obeying at all by the way) but because we love God, and want to do our best to show that love. That's certainly a lifelong process, but one that we work on daily. 

 

Anyway, still working hard with little success. Big things are on the horizon though. I don't know what or where (Transfers are coming up the 1st weekend in May) but they are. 

 

Thank you for your prayers, please write. 

Elder Bryce Johns.   

 

Week 41 Email

Week 41

All:

We've had some cool experiences this last week.

 

On Friday we went to go tracting. We tied up our bikes to a pole, walked across the street and knocked on the first door. Out jumped a young man, Nathan. "Come on in guys, do you want some kool-aid?" Elder Cheney and I were a little taken aback at his buoyant demeanor, him inviting us in and kool-aid on top of it all. Three things we are not used to. Of course, we said "sure" and walked in. In the kitchen were three glasses of red Kool-aid already poured. Which struck us a not just a little creepy. Nonetheless we drank it. I have to admit that I thought about Jonestown as I drank it. but decided "well, well just have to rely on the Lord to protect us if it's spiked." Luckily It wasn't. Nathan had spotted us parking our bikes and told us "I figured that it was God telling me to let you guys in. So I poured kool-aid." We had a really good discussion about God, faith, etc. He told us about how he was doing the typical worldy teenager thing (sex, drugs, alcohol etc) when he was in a helicopter crash. During which he found God (that sort of thing will do that to you) and has since developed a really good relationship with him (he's a Jesus, not religion kind of guy). All these things were great. But he wouldn't take a Book of Mormon. Since the only way to come to know if the things we teach are true is by reading from and praying about the Book of Mormon, Elder Cheney and I were rather devastated afterwords. He has such a good spirituality about him already the gospel would really help him to expand that. Agency can be annoying sometimes. Nathan did say we could come back though. Which is a good thing.     

 

I went on an exchange on saturday and did a ton of service. We moved some stuff for a yard sale, took out and installed a dishwasher, helped an old lady use Microsoft word, and mowed a lawn with an old-school manual lawnmower. The lawnmower was legit! Forget buying a gas mower. Using the manual one wasn't much more difficult, or much less effective.

 

The most exciting thing that happened to us this week was that we found the new investigator that we've been praying for. One of the members (one of the married leaders of the YSA ward) was looking for some less-actives when he found a part member family. Nell (member) and her boyfriend Aaron(non-member). The member went over a couple times and invited them to take the lessons from us, which they accepted. We went over there yesterday (the 214th) and taught the first lesson. It went amazingly. The spirit was there super strong. Aaron had a really good questions and wanted to learn. We also had some really good members along with us who helped us out. he committed to come to church with Nell (who hasn't been in forever herself) read and pray about the Book of Mormon and be baptized when he received his answer. He even said the closing prayer. 

Elder Cheney and I are so excited. Nothing has been happening for so long and we've been working and praying really hard. I love the whole "receiving the evidence" part of faith rather than the "trial of your faith" part (ether 12:6 I think). Things are looking up here. moral of the story: trust in the Lord and be patient for his timing.    

 

Funny quote I saw on someone's shirt the other day:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think they're original"

~Donny Miller

 

Thanks for you're support. Please write.

Elder Bryce Johns.