Week 69 Letter

Jurupa transfer 2 week 2

October 28, 2013

Adan and Maribel's Baptism!

Elder Knudsen is ont he Left, and E. Coleman on the Right.

Sister Smith, our 80 year old homeshare, and I. 

All

 

My new companion is Elder Gordon. He's an ASL missionary (he's hearing), so he's been serving in the deaf branch for the last 6 months. He's really cool. He's from North Ogden, and went to Weber State for a semester. So we know a lot of the same places, and I would often drive by his house on the way home from work/school. we don't known anyone in common yet though. 

 

Our new homeshare is pretty good. It's a little odd living with an 80 year old lady. But the only complaint I have is that the shower's water output is litereally on par with that of a drinking fountain, and there is little in between the extremes of boiling lava hot, and ice cold. lol. 

 

Yesterday I was able to Confirm Adan, and participate in Maribel's Confirmation, it was such a great experience. The Spirit was super strong. They are so amazing! 

However, since they've become members, our investigator pool is basically back to zero. But the Lord will provide. 

 

We also had the ward Trunk or Treat on Saturday. it was really fun and almost all of our recent converts came and had a good time. There were a lot of non-members there as well. However, they don't live in our half of the ward, which is somewhat annoying, but good that they were there. 

 

Working hard down in Mira Loma, land of pitbulls/german shepards, horses, Mexicans and dust. 

 

Thanks for your love and support,

love, Elder Bryce Johns. e

Week 68 Letter

Transfer Day

October 21, 2013

Okay so hopefully I'll be able to come back and write a longer email. My companion just got a call that we have to go and be with a missionary because his companion is getting transferred. 

 

I'm staying, I have a new companion, Elder Gordan. But i'm moving into a homeshare with a different address which I don't have currently... Sorry, it's in my planner which I don't have on me.

 

Sad story. One of our recent converts, mark. He was super solid and then randomly stopped showing up to church and not answering our phone calls. He decided to go back to his old (born again) church... We bore down in pure testimony in one of the most intense lessons I've ever been in, and told him that us and the prophets in the Book of Mormon would bear witness to him at judgement day that what we say is true. We challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. A few days later he called us a few days later and basically just bashed (well it wasn't really a bash because he doesn't know enough to bash) with us. "I opened up the BOM and the first thing I read is that the Book of Mormon is comparable to the bible, nothing is comparable to the bible..." It's super sad.

 

Happy story: Adan and Maribel's baptism went great, they have been really prepared. The day before and the day of their baptism they were having a really rough time but it all panned out. I also had to dunk Maribel twice, I almost cracked her head on the side the first time and she didn't go all the way under. It was a little embarrassing. But she took it well.

 I have pics but I can't send them from this lame computer at the apartment complex, they've locked the tower in so I can't plug in my jump drive and It's probably too slow to send them anyway. 

 

Hopefully I'll be able to write more later, I have some cool stuff to share, and I remembered to bring the girls letters, but b/c of Transfer day crazyness it may not happen...  8(

 

Love you all soo much! 

Elder Bryce Johns

Week 67 Letter

Jurupa Week 6 already!?

October 15, 2013

All

This week has been a blur. Scratch that, these last 5 weeks have been a blur. 

 

Most exciting news of the week. Adan and Marybell are all set for their baptism this Sunday. Elder Coleman will be baptizing Adan, and I will be baptizing Marybell. and we'll switch for the confirmations. They are so ready, we had a game night with some of the young families in the ward to help them get to know people. 

We also had a cool experience. Marybell had a question about whether or not we can eat pork (the Mosaic law forbids it), we explained about how Christ fulfilled the Mosaic law and how Peter was told that the meat was made "clean". I didn't know where that was though, so I told them that we'd look it up. She shared how the night after we left she couldn't sleep so at 12 or 1 in the morning she opened up her scriptures, found the verse we were talking about (In Acts 9 I think), and some other scriptures that answered questions she had. She told us that "I felt so good, I wanted to call everyone and tell them how happy I was, I slept well after that. God answered my prayer"

It's so awesome being a part of that.  

 

Not a lot else to report on, or time to do so.

 

Thank you for your prayers, and packages, please write,

Elder Bryce Johns 

Week 66 Letter

Jurupa Week 5

October 7, 2013

 I had a salad for two lunches this week (using fresh, organic spinach, carrots, apples, and roast beef. Yesterday I made home fries from raw potatoes. I felt very accomplished lol.

All:

So remember how last week I said we were praying (we also ended up fasting) for Adan to get work off permanently on Sundays? He did. He asked his boss (incidentally his dad. They run a small farm so they go to farmer's markets pretty much on a daily basis. Sunday is a pretty big day for that sort of thing.) and his boss allowed him Sundays off permanently. We were actually on exchanges that day so I wasn't there, but Elder Coleman told me about it.
Adan and Marybell attended the last session of general conference. They enjoyed it a lot and took a bunch of notes. They're super excited for their baptism on the 19th. We are as well.

Our other investigators Bryan and Jeffery (they're brothers and are 20 and 19 respectively) are also progressing in the gospel. They don't really have any religious background and come from a tough household situation, but they love coming to church, and they understand and want the blessings of the spirit in their lives. It's funny because the first thought you have when looking at them is "look at those punks..." but they are really cool. It's awesome to be able help people change and see them become happy. That's really what it's all about. Is helping people be happy, that's why I love being a missionary.

Cool quote from Elder Richard's training two weeks ago (I didn't catch the source)
"As a straw thrown up indicates the direction of the wind, even so the little things in our lives indicate the direction we're going" ~unknown

This last week Elder Coleman and I held our first zone meeting. It was my first one as a zone leader. It was a little weird coming up with the trainings and running the meeting etc. I'm not too sure how well it went, but hopefully the zone will start applying the things we talked about in their missionary work.

General conference was awesome as usual.  I really liked both of President Uchtdorf's talks especially His first one.
 I  really liked how bold the apostles were.

Well I'm out of time (as usual.)
Thank you for all of your support,
Elder Bryce Johns

Week 65 Pictures

Pictures from Jurupa

Nuni's baptism. 

Elder Coleman Being an amazing guitarist (literally). I love to listen to him play.

Elder Coleman making a phone call like a boss. This is probably my favorite photograph I've taken in a loooong time. 

"So, where are we going now Elder Coleman?"
"uhh.... Well... What do you think?"

One of the companionships in the adjacent zone pranked our car. It says "Just married". Some random person congratulated us earlier today. It's rather embarrassing. We'll get them back though. 

Week 65 Letter

Jurupa Week 4

(Sept 30th 2013)

All

This last week has been insanely busy.
On Tuesday there was a training for all Bishops, Ward Mission leaders and Ward missionaries (and Zone leaders). Elder Richards and Elder Hiam of the seventy spoke on hastening the work, and how to get the ball rolling.

On Wednesday we had meetings all day. Elder Richards of the seventy came and gave a bunch of trainings. It was pretty great and I learned a lot. I will bring my notes next week and share some of the things he talked about.

he talked a lot about simplicity in teaching. "Cutting the fluff" and teaching the fundamentals and testifying.
There are 4 fundamental truths that people must understand to gain a testimony.
   1st The Atonement of Jesus Christ
   2nd The First Vision
   3rd The Book of Mormon
   4th The Priesthood authority has been restored.

I'll share more next week when I bring my notes.

Two of our investigators, Marybell and Adan are progressing awesomely. We have several awesome lessons with them a week. They "get it". It's so cool, they recognize the spirit and the change that it's been making in their lives. Their holdup has been that Adan works on Sundays (an investigator has to attend church at least 3 times before they can be baptized). But he was able to make it yesterday and they stayed the whole time. They are super excited for their baptism the 19th. We all have been praying that Adan will be able to get work off permanently on Sundays.
I love being a missionary! It is so amazing to see the gospel help people's lives.

Another thing elder Richard's said which struck me was he presented an equation (it's not exactly an equation but w/e)
Happiness is directly proportional to having the spirit which is directly proportional to our Faithfulness. In other words. We are happy when we have the Spirit with us, we can have the spirit with us as we make good choices and do the things that God has asked us to.

I'm looking forward to General Conference this weekend. I invite everyone to watch it, and go with questions. I promise that those questions will be answered.

This transfer has gone insanely fast.

Thanks everyone! Please write, I'm still working on responding.
Elder Johns