Week 72 Letter

Jurupa transfer 2 Week 5 already!

November 18, 2013

All

 

This week has been pretty good.  Junior is doing really well. He has received an answer about the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized, but we still need his parents permission. They are funny, they have said "You need to study our religion before you change" but they don't read the bible, or go to church, ever. We're praying that their hearts will be softened. 

 

We had a good lesson with a new investigator couple this week. Devin and his Fiancee Corey. They have a 1 year old son as well. We've been trying to meet with them for a long time to have an actual "lesson". But finally we did, we shared the message of the restoration, explained the Book of Mormon (which they've been reading) and invited them to be baptized in December. They said yes. Corey was really into it, she was smiling a lot and was talking about how she's willing to "try Christianity out again and see if it's something she should make a part of her life". Which was cool. She's been going through a pretty rough time because her horse died not too long ago and she was really attached to it. 

 

We played ultimate frisbee for p-day activity today, it was really fun. The field was all muddy (just like back home) which kept things interesting. We also had fun messing around on the playground equipment. They've really amped the things up since I was little.  

 

Maribel got called to be the young women's secretary in our ward, which she'll be great at. They are so awesome, and they are really good at talking to people about the gospel. 

 

 

We had a really great stake meeting last tuesday with all the Ward Mission Leaders in the stake along with the high councilman over missionary work, and representatives from the stake and mission presidency. Elder Gordon and I were asked to train on how to utilize the ward missionaries to visit members and commit them to have missionary experiences; based on a formula that I've come up with. The training went really well, we roleplayed a brief visit and then the HC over Missionary work left solid commitments with the WML's which should really help move the work forward in the stake. It was an excellent, spirit filled meeting which really drove home a big lesson that I was compelled to learn this week. Which I will have to talk about next week. 

 

Cool quote from church yesterday. "Cultivate a spirit of Charity; be ready to do for others more than you would expect from them if the circumstances were reversed" ~Teachings from the life of Lorenzo Snow manual. 

 

Thank you for your prayers. Letters are greatly appreciated. 

Love, Elder Johns

A typical patch of old town Mira Loma. Where we spend most of our time (people are outside more there, unfortunately most of them speak spanish. My companion speaks it pretty well, and I can say enough to offer a blessing so we can communicate at least halfway.)

The other half of our area, "Sky Country" looks like this.

 Jeff Foxworthy Might have something to say about these photos:

We helped this sister in our ward clean out her front porch, this is in the middle of the process. There was a LOT of spiders, and dust, and misc. junk. That we had to re-arrange so we could fit... 

 

A futon which was being munched on by a goat (that I would have sent a picture of if I could send more than one at a time <facepalm>)onto the porch. The futon was really disgusting, covered in dog hair and feces. We cleaned it up a bit, but you can only do so much with a broom. The porch looked pretty good when we left though.

 

The sad part of this story is that her son and his wife live in a tiny room in the garage and they don't help out at all with rent, or any of the yard work (which is why we help out a lot with stuff because the sister has a bad back and a lot of other health complaints). They just chill, drinking, smoking and watch tv. There is so much more to life! It makes me sad whenever we are there helping out with stuff.

 

We do a lot of service as missionaries, which is good.  

"Inasmuch ye have done this unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me."