Week 70 Letter

Jurupa transfer 2 week 3

(Nov 4, 2013 email)

All:

This week has been pretty interesting.

Sister Smith Our homeshare, is the sweetest old lady. Super kind, almost to a fault. We got our shower fixed, and we made spaghetti for her (and us) the other day. It went pretty well. (the fire alarm going off actually wasn't our fault, something had spilled in the oven and was burning when we put in the garlic bread). I do miss the apartment, but I'm happy about our living situation. 

We find the coolest random stuff as missionaries. Like this whiteboard.
We were going through the ward list visiting less-active members when we stopped by the house to the left in the picture. Out front were two dressers and the whiteboard (pictured). E. Gordon's said "dude, I want that whiteboard" and I agreed it would be pretty sweet. So we knocked on the door.... aaand no one answered. Dejected, we walked back to the car and began to write a sticky note saying "hey, we want your whiteboard, call us" when a van drove by and dropped off a kid in front of the house we had just left.
Elder Gordon jumped out, and yelled "hey! Are you selling that whiteboard?" and the kid said, "let me go ask my mom."
He walked inside, and came back. "two dollars". We only had a 5. He went back in to get change, and we saw his mom walking around to get her purse. We said hi. I hope she felt akward for not answering the door (So rude!)
Moral of the story, We scored a sweet whiteboard for only $2.

 Halloween was pretty good. We spent most of the day planning and preparing our zone meeting the next day. But we went out and talked to people in the afternoon.
Our beloved eterni-gator Anne took us out to dinner. She's 70 years old, and has been coming to church for 5 years. She believes everything, and wants to get baptized, but flatly refuses to set a date. We tease her relentlessly about it (and she reciprocates).
After dinner we went to the stake center and set up for our zone activity. We got permission to watch the movie "Ephraim's Rescue" (we got a projector, and hooked it up to the sound system in the gym, so technically it was about as close as we could get to a movie theater.) It was a great movie (granted, I haven't seen any for a long time, but still), I certainly recommend it. It's about the Martin Handcart company and one of the rescuers, a true story, and a tear-jerker. 

We had a little miracle that day as well. We were pulling out of the church before the activity started (we needed to run home and grab something) when we ran into Bryan and Jeffery walking the other way. We haven't been able to meet with them for weeks. We flagged them down, and set up an appointment. Bryan really wants the gospel in his life, he's been reading the Book of Mormon even though we haven't met in awhile. Unfortunately, his parents are... frankly, they're jerks. They've slammed the door in our face a couple times. But they didn't let Bryan come to church yesterday because they were cleaning. It's rather annoying.

I had the privilege yesterday of Conferring Adan to the Aaronic Priesthood. It was an awesome experience (although I messed up the wording and had to start over). They are progressing well in the Gospel. They also gave us a whole flat of Strawberries (Adan's family runs a farm out behind their house)!

I also got an email today from the Solis' (my recent convert family in Murrieta) They are doing great and are going to be sealed on the 25 of January at the San Diego temple. I've got permission to go from my mission president, and I am super excited (I'm looking forward to that even more than Christmas). It's crazy that it's almost been a year since Oscar's baptism.  It is amazing to know that I had the privilege of helping to bring that family together forever.

The Gospel is so true, I know it and see it day after day, time after time. Although we experience trials and hardships. The Lord will strengthen us, lighten our burdens, and give us the words to speak. And the Only way we can know is if we follow the invitation of the Savior "Come and see".

Thank you all for your prayers and letters.
Love,
Elder Bryce Johns

Maribel, Aden and I in their greenhouse.