Week 59 Email

A letter from El Cerrito week 4 of the 3rd transfer

(August 19, 2013)

All:

So update with the wrist.
Went to the physical therapist he said that I probably messed up the cartilage in my wrist and gave me some exercises , told me to ice it and keep it in the splint. I go back on Wednesday.
Things are starting to take off in the ward as far as missionary work.
And that's all for today...

Week 58 email

A letter needing a typesetter... I never know how to title these lol

(Aug 12, 2013)

 

All:

So now that I've been out for 13 months, I finally got around to bringing my notes or "reflections" on my first year as a missionary. It only took a month to remember to bring it. So here are some thoughts:

"Trust God, and believe in good things to come"~Jeffery Holland

This has become my motto. In essence faith is looking forward with hope and actions to make that hope a reality.  A major lesson I have learned is to have patience and trust in the Lord's timing. Even though it seems like nothing is happening miracles happen every day. 

Like yesterday, we needed to call someone who we heard might be interested in the lessons. We were in an area with little to no service (like pretty much everywhere in our area. We said a prayer before I made the call. I dialed the number and waited for it to connect. "Dang, no service." I said and not a second later, we had full bars and were able to have a great conversation in perfect clarity. Tender Mercies. 

For people to change, you and/or they must change their experiences.

The Results pyramid:

Results: Seen

Actions: Seen

Beliefs: Unseen

Experiences: Unseen

People's experiences lead to their beliefs, which lead to their actions, which lead to the results of their actions. This has a lot of applications in business and social aspects but also for us as missionaries. We need to help people to have experiences with the spirit so they can feel that confirming witness of the truthfulness of our message and then act on it.

Never Pray for patience because if you do you will gain opportunities to exercise it (I still may be getting the ramifications of that one)

The Path to perfection is simply making our mistakes smaller and farther apart.

Teach with the spirit, testify with power.

If you talk the talk you must walk the walk

So, be honest and upfront about your shortcomings. 

That's all I have time for

Thank you for everything, please write

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 57 Email

El Cerrito's all the way across the sky...

(Email from August 5, 2013)


All

PSA:

Christian n. 1.(a) one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ. (b) disciple.

~Mirriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel

We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

~The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 1,3,4 and 8.

For the record, Mormons, Coptics, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Lutherans, Seventh Day Adventists, Anglicans etc. All qualify as "Christian" not just Evangelicals/born-agains.

okay, any questions? No? Good. 

Just thought I'd share that, it's a common issue we run into.  

This week has been pretty interesting.

Our focus has been working with the members, and encouraging them to be missionaries. It's been really cool seeing the mood of the ward shift towards doing missionary work and being loving friends and neighbors.

We were leaving a house-blessing with a family in the ward who is British. We were asking each of them for things/needs that they would like to be blessed with. We got the four year old, "what would you like?"

"banaahnas" she replied in her little accent. It was probably the cutest thing ever. She kept saying random things that were hilarious. "...I've just been watching films"

We also discovered that "husbands don't always believe in life insurance, BUT WIDOWS ALWAYS DO!" At least, that is what I read...

Out of time

Thanks for everything, please write.

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 56 Email

Still in Corona for another six weeks

(Email: June 29, 2013)

All:

So this week was the end of the transfer. I'm staying in Corona to finish training elder Blackburn. However, they realigned the districts so that it's now just Blackburn and I and two sister companionships, which makes me the "relief society president" as the missionary parlance goes. It should be interesting getting used to the new dynamic. (I decided to go with a positive remark rather than the one I originally wrote out...)

On the subject of women. We were riding our bikes near a shopping center and rode past a woman who was obviously not very happy to be walking...
I asked her how she was doing,
"Not good!" she snapped.
"Can we help with anything?"
"NO!"
We rode on a bit and saw a car parked right in the middle of a right hand turn with it's hazard lights on. It was one of those yielded intersections where the right turn flows into the other street like a "Y". A very dangerous place to be stopped.
 We realized that the car must be the lady who was walking. we parked our bikes and waited for her to get back.
"hey, drop it into neutral and we can get it out of the intersection"
"I don't think I can do that..."
"why not?"
she went into this long winded explanation about how the engine was "revving" when she wasn't hitting the gas, so she didn't want to turn the car on.
"you can drop it into neutral without turning the car on" (in my experience anyway)
she tried, and couldn't figure it out. 
Her friend and another car showed up and they all said "drop it into neutral and we'll push it out of the intersection"
But this lady was adamant that she couldn't turn the car on, because the car could jump and crash into something... (that wasn't what was happening before she turned the car off, and there wasn't anything to crash into for 60 feet in any direction)
Finally the AAA guy showed up and we left.

There's no helping some people. There's probably a metaphor/life lesson in there somewhere. I'll let you figure it out.

So finally the story I've been hinting at for three weeks. I'm writing it first so I don't run out of time.

So we've been working with sister D'Amore for awhile, helping her to come back after years of inactivity.  We had a loose plan for our lesson, depending on whether or not her non-member husband was there. We show up and her non-member sister, Carla, is there, along with a member of the ward. And then the Spirit took over. It was awesome. We shared a Mormon message (And None Were With Him, youtube it) and had an amazing lesson on repentance and the atonement, Elder Blackburn bore super strong testimony, and we committed all of them to read Alma 36 and ponder about what things that they need to repent of.

A few days later we got a text from Sister D'Amore asking us to give her sister a blessing, it was an emergency. So we bike there as fast as we could. Sister D'Amore started by telling us about how hard Carla's life has been, especially recently. I wont go into detail, but nothing good. They had started reading Alma 36 but had trouble with the scriptural language. We opened up the scriptures and explained Alma 36, the joy of repentance, and then turned to Alma 7 and talked about the infinite nature of the atonement, and then helaman 5: 12, discussing the importance of having your foundation built on Christ. The Spirit was there overpoweringly strong. Something about the Holy Ghost, when he touches you he leaves an indelible mark that cannot be denied. Carla had hit rock bottom in her life and was looking for a way out, a way to change. Christ has that way, and wanted her to know it. We invited her to baptism and she said yes, because she realized that that ordinance was what she needed in her life to bring her closer to the savior. After the lesson, Elder Blackburn gave her amazing blessing. It was an awesome experience for everyone involved.

However, the catch is that Carla lives in Ramona, several hours away. Even though we wont be able to continue teaching her ourselves. It was amazing to see the Lord's hand move all the dominoes in place for her to be there at the same time we were. So, moral of the story: God's amazing.  

Picture from Elder Johns zone

I found this zone picture on the Riverside mission site and thought I would share it.