Week 89

San Jacinto week 4

Email Date: March 24, 2014

Elders Perez, Agular, Snider and myself react to the eternally empty mailbox.

Elder Blackburn (my trainee from El Cerrito) and I back together on exchanges. In a Car!

Anyway, this week was pretty good. 

I got to go on exchanges with the zone leaders in their area today. They cover parts of Hemet, and a town called Homeland. Homeland is... and interesting place. Nearly all the houses are mobile homes in various stages of disrepair. The few houses are old and beat up. It reminded me a lot of Mira Loma, but less horses and more sketchy. We were trying to visit some less actives and we ran saw a yard with a sign over the gate that said "The House of The Lord"

I had heard about this from a couple of my companions. 

"dude, this is a cult's commune..." I said. "Do you want to check it out?" Elder McConkie asked. "Sure" I said. There was a  broken down bus, the license plate said 4Jesus.  We came to an outdoor kitchen, with room for a lot of chair in the front and a main house in back. We halloo-ed a couple times and then walked up to the house, where there was more chairs. The whole place was pretty eerie. We saw someone on the otherside working outside. He was wearing all white. We knocked a couple of times and no one answered. 

So we walked around the block to the other side of the property. No one was there. We walked up to the house again, and a woman got out of an RV behind us. Didn't see us and started watering some plants. We walked over and said "hi"

When she saw us she said "Oh Good" and proceeded to tell us about the place. She showed us in and waved down Gary. The guy we had originally seen. They both were wearing all white, had a rag on their head and a hat on top of it. While their clothing was white/cream it was very well worn, and their hats were very battered. Gary had what I could only describe was a homeless beard, and a big smile. 

They call themselves "the family of Christ" and their catchphrase I guess you could say is "No violence, no sex, no materialism." They all renounced everything for Jesus. In their 20s, they wore sheets and walked barefoot for Christ. (Now they do wear shoes) They said that they all have a different story, but they all "were called" somehow they all ended up together. They told us about"Lightning Amen" who they believe was a manifestation of Christ in the flesh who they followed until he died recently. 

We sat down and talked for awhile, they explained what their beliefs are and how they have sabbath meetings (sabbath to them is from when the sun goes down friday to when it goes down saturday). The basic gist was that everything is all about building love. Love for God, and your fellow man. Building a relationship with God, you don't need religion for that. Giving up everything and relying on him. It was pretty cool overall. You could tell that they were happy, and receiving the blessings for living according to the light they have. It is always cool to see people living the things they believe. It was a fun experience to talk to people who live in a bus and organically farm for their food (and do financial planning for seniors... lol)

We had some lessons with Tommy. He's our investigator who is waiting on 1st presidency approval to be baptized. He is super converted, all of our lessons with him are super solid. He has already finished the Doctrine and Covenants and is halfway through the Pearl of Great Price. 

One of our recent converts Trent had a great missionary experience and asked us for some advice on how to tell people about the salvation of the dead. 

So that launched me into a really fun study about it. It built my testimony about how Christ is the universal savior of all. Not just those who happen to hear about him. 

Unfortunately I've got to run. But Thank you so much for everything!

Love, Elder Bryce Johns