Week 93

San Jacinto transfer 2 week 3 

The Noodle Incident + Hippy Cult Commune

Email Date: April 21, 2014

Bryce at the Temple

The Noodle incident

All

This has been a really, really eventful week. 

Starting with...

The Noodle incident:

Last P-day, my companion and I went to our old apartment (that we had moved out of) to do laundry. We still had the key, and the lease wasn't up yet. So we were there doing a load of laundry and playing a card game. After a while, my companion needed to get a drink so he went into the kitchen and 

saw the right side of the sink overflowing with foul water. It looked and smelled like someone had puked into our sink. It flowed into the second sink and filled that one as well. We ran the garbage disposal which made a horrible sound and quit working. It did at least get all the water down. 

We went back into the other room and heard the water spilling over onto the floor. Unfortunately we had appointments, so we had to leave it (there were no supplies in the apartment to try to clean it anyway.) 

We returned to the apartment a couple hours later to the scene in the photograph. What you cant tell is that the floor is under about half an inch of water. Noodles were everywhere. Luckily we had armed ourselves with a plunger, a mop and a bucket. Elder Snider bravely dove in. He began bailing out the putrid sink, and plunging it. Noodles and other half dissolved foodstuff was EVERYWHERE! After three buckets full of noodle water Elder Snider cried in despair "Where the 'fetch' did all these noodles come from!?" We were dumping the buckets out into the yard, as I tried to mop up all the water. At the end of the evening we had emptied the sink, and got most of the water off the floor.

The next morning we returned and saw that our efforts were in vain for the sink was again full, the floor flooded, the carpet saturated, and noodles everywhere. A member of our ward (a plumber) came by and told us that the main line was clogged so whenever the people upstairs sent anything down their drain it came out of our sink. He went outside and unscrewed a cap so that instead of coming up our sink it flowed into the backyard. Then we went to the temple. 

The next day we got our roommates and began the long, arduous process of cleaning up. Later, the plumber came and roto-rooted the drain out and reprimanded our upstairs neighbors for dumping noodles, and rice down the drain. 

So moral of the story, Do not dump noodles, rice, or egg shells down the drain otherwise it will cause noodlepocalypse in your downstairs neighbor's kitchen. 

In the midst of the noodle incident, I went to the Redlands Temple for the last time as a missionary. It was a great experience as always and received some answers I was looking for.

On Wednesday, Tommy (our investigator who has been waiting for first presidency approval to be baptized) had an interview with our mission president. We had to wait for the other zone to finish their interviews as well so we were there for awhile. THen Tommy went into his interview and was in there for a loooong time. (the interview before was only about 20 minutes). Finally, President and Tommy came out. Something was off. President Smart was beaming from ear to ear (usually he is very stoic) and Tommy was teary eyed. Before I had time to process this information Tommy told us, they got the letter. He can be baptized! We were so excited! He has been waiting for so long, and is so ready. Every time I am over there I think of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's. That is Tommy to a T. Converted to the Lord. He tells us about how he is constantly repenting, he will roll out of bed and start repenting. He understands the atonement so well. He was telling us "I feel like a snake, shedding off all of this stuff". He is getting baptized this Saturday, I am so excited. 

I had my second to last interview with President Smart. It was good, as always. It is weird to think though that the next time I will have an interview it will be my outgoing interview. 

Saturday was also very eventful. We moved last of the appliances out of the old (now really smelly) apartment. and later in the day went to the Calvary Chapel Easter pageant. Calvary Chapel is a major born-again church in the area and noted for being anti-Mormon.  One of our investigators was in it and invited us to come. We showed up at the outdoor amphitheater it was at and the guy at the door asked us "why are you here?" We stuck out like sore thumbs and everyone was giving us funny looks. We were only there for 20 minutes or so (we had another appointment which I will tell you about next) and saw a few scenes and songs. It was about as cheesy/well acted as most Mormon productions. However we saw the scene when Nicodemus comes to Jesus and talks to him in John 3. They have the conversation about "how can a man be born again when he is old?" but they skip the "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be ^aborn of ^bwater and of the ^cSpirit, he cannot ^denter into the kingdom of God.

and went straight to "Ye must be Born again"

 So that was pretty funny. Baptism guys, it's necessary. 

Then we left and got a free NKJV New Testament. 

Remember the benevolent cult, the "Family of Christ" that I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well the Zone leaders and us were invited to go to their Sabbath (which for them is Saturday) service. So of course, we went. It was really interesting. There were about 20 people there dresses mostly in white and wearing white hats. We had a all vegetable meal. Homegrown beets, carrots, potatoes, millet, sprouts and some other miscellaneous vegetables. It was really good. They are really nice. They told us some stories about their travels "on the road" and showed us their bus that they used to tour in. It was really cool on the inside, they built a deck with removable panels for storage and they had a kitchen in the back. 

After the meal, they sang. Everyone had a hymnbook full of songs that "Brothers and Sisters" had written. There was no music, just the lyrics. Everyone took a turn picking a song and they sang that song. It was all acapella and there was no real tempo or rhymes to the song. They just flowed and sang. It was a pretty interesting experience. Some of the songs were really fun and catchy, except for the ones singing the praises of Lightning Amen. It was a fascinating experience, and a glimpse into a very relaxed and Christlike lifestyle. 

Easter went well, nothing really special to relate though. This week (a midst all the craziness) I have been studying Christ's last week in the Gospels. Something that really stood out to me was John chapter 15 where Christ teaches that He is the Vine and we are the branches. Everything we do that bears fruit is through him. We must bear fruit in order to be saved at the last day, and he tells us how to do that later in the chapter. Love one another. How do we show/develop that love? Serving others. I've been really focused on serving others as often as possible. 

Also, we have been sharing the "because of him" video all the time. The message in there epitomizes the message of the atonement. http://easter.mormon.org/ 

 

This week has been crazy but a testimony builder all the same. As we use the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives we can have second chances, clean slates, and there is no such thing as "the end".