Transfer 14, Week 6, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward

Dear Family,

This is transfer week! I am staying with Elder Till in the Desert Breeze Ward!

This week has been pretty eventful! I was sick from Saturday to Sunday and I still don't feel 100 percent today.

We helped with a move on Saturday night. Well the other members of the Zone helped while I laid down on the couch. After the move I received a priesthood blessing. Its a really different experience to be on the receiving end of a blessing, while being sick. I have not received a blessing like that since I was probably 14. It reminded me of a time when I was really young and we were visiting my grandparents in Idaho. We ate dinner and I apparently liked it too much because I swallowed a huge piece of chicken. Well it got stuck in my throat, just enough for me to continue to breath. It was stuck for a few hours. Finally, my brothers came over and gave me a blessing. Immediately following the blessing the piece of chicken came out of my throat (you can imagine how). Such a great experience! I will never forget that! It will always remind me that Gods power is real!

We were able to set Brian with a date for baptism. We still need to teach him some principles and a few more lessons but we think that he will keep progressing well!

This next week is Stake Conference with Elder Holland! We are so excited! The Stake is going to reserve a few rows of seats for our investigators/recent converts and us. We are so happy we have seats!

Well... Sorry this is so short but I'm not really focusing too well since I still dont feel better... So I love you all!

Love,

Elder John

"We may at times, if we are not careful, try to pray away pain or what seems like an impending tragedy, but which is, in reality, an opportunity" - Neal A. Maxwell

Transfer 14, Week 5, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family,

This week was fabulous! I don't know if I included this in my last letter, but President Teshima has asked all of the missionaries in the zone to visit every member of their ward and invite them to Stake Conference (Elder Holland will be there!). So I told the stake that we should make a flyer to pass out to everyone. So the stake made a flyer to pass out to everyone! They printed out 3,000 flyer's! so we divided them up and each ward has 333 flyer's to pass out! We sent around a sign up sheet in Relief Society and in Priesthood for people to write down the names of people that they Home teach so we can take their names off of the list people that we need to visit. We've been working on that this week and so far we only have 40 families left to visit (a few days ago we had over 100 families to visit). So we are super excited about that!

 

Some more excitement this week! We received a call from a missionary while we were in a meeting with the Stake on Tuesday. He said (very comely) "would you have time sometime today to take us to an urgent care?" I said, "Is it for you?" After he affirmed I told the stake we had to leave for an emergency. We pull up and he is standing outside his apartment with bloody paper towels around his hand. His companion said, 'I swear he punched first' haha. Turns out he was having some trouble with his disc brakes on his bike and as he was messing with it his finger got sucked into the brake and cut his finger. We took him to the only urgent care open, on Martin Luther King Blvd. (sketchy place) and they couldn't stitch it there so we went to the E.R. So that was a fun filled day! I'm glad that we went to the E.R. though because we ran into some nonmembers that wanted a blessing for one of their friends the previous day. I cant explain the whole situation (it would take too long) but it was really a miracle that we ran into them, seeing that it was us who sent the referral to the missionaries in the area.

 

Brian came to church! He is the Johnstons brother. He seemed to like it and bishop welcomed him from the pulpit!

 

We also set Sister Worku for a date for baptism; the 22nd of February. She has only come to church once and she hasnt been reading the Book of Mormon as much as she should... so its a pretty soft commitment. but hopefully she can 'man up' and get moving!

 

I had a great realizatjion a few weeks ago. We were talking in sunday school about God being our Heavenly Father. And it hit me harder than it ever has that when I go to be judged I will not want to be in the presence of God knowing that I willingly sinned against Him. I know we cannot be perfect but I know that we can improve. That is what we are asked to do. Improve. Sin can be referred to as 'missing the mark'. As we come closer and closer to God and understand him more, we get closer and closer to 'the mark' and farther and farther away from sin. I realized that with some of the 'small' or 'petty' sins that I choose to keep doing I am still missing the mark, no matter how small the divide between the 'mark' and the sin. I thought "Am I going to let this get in the way of mee living with my Father in Heaven?" Because at that time that I get to the Judgment, I know that no unclean thing can dwell with God. So what am I doing to do to willingly give up sin?!

 

Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder John

 

"If we do not build our house of salvation on a true foundation, we will never make the spiritual progress that will prepare us to enter the Eternal Presence." - Bruce R. McConkie

Transfer 14, Week 4, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward

Dear Family,

This week has been great!

The ward reported 90% Home Teaching in the last quarter, with our help :). So I told the bishop to give us a list of people that were not visited so we could hit 100%! Also Elder Holland is coming to our stake conference in a few weeks so the stake president asked all the missionaries to visit every member of the ward (starting with less active memebers) and invite them to come. So I made a flyer to pass out to everyone and invite them to Stake Conference! So we should hit closer to 100% home teaching in the ward this quarter! I spend a ton of time inputing all of the people on the ward list into my gps, but now we can have a digital list of people that we have not visited and sweet through them super quick! I'm excited! We are really trying to inspire the zone and motivate them to take this challenge seriously and make the effort to visit everybody!

 This week was pretty slow. We had leadership training this week from 9am to 4pm. It went pretty well and we learned a ton!

We found out this week that one of our investigators is living with his girlfriend and so we will need to teach him more and prepare him more for his baptisimal date of February 22nd. Its amazing to see the transformation in him so far! As of 2 weeks ago he had no belief in God, only in a higher power. But now he is praying and reading the Book of Mormon! So cool!

Sorry this is really short but we are running low on time!

I love you all!

Love,

Elder John

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feaast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow"- Ray L. Huntington

Transfer 14, Week 3, Lakes Stake, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family,

So I'm going to have to make this super fast! We don't have much time! Today we are moving from the Stake Presidents house to another members home in the ward.

This week was great! We had the baptism of Savannah! It went great! Spencer  is so happy to have his wife a member of the church and they are preparing to go to the temple next January!

We had the baptism of Byron last week. Brother Johnstons brother came to the baptism and we ended up meeting with him this past Tuesday! He is great!  He has no real belief in God, only a higher power. We taught the first lesson and taught him/asked him to pray. He has never prayed before but he gave the best prayer Ive ever heard! So much better than any of my prayers!

We also were able to meet with the Worku family! We have brought up baptism and she brushed it off and said that she has already been baptized. But this last time we were able to get her to understand the meaning of the Restoration in her life! She said that she would be willing to make baptism a goal but she said that she isn't ready yet! So exciting!

We also met with Conrad, our new investigator from last week. He is very kind and is willing to listen. He does have a problem with prophets; men getting in the way of god, as he puts it. So we will need to help him understand that... but overall its been a great week!

I love you all! I'll try to make next weeks letter longer!

Love,
Elder John

"I believe when we determine within our hearts that by and with the blessings of God our Heavenly Father we will accomplish a certain labor, God gives the ability to accomplish that labor; but when we lay down, when we look at the top of the mountain and say it is impossible to climb to the summit, while we never make an effort it will never be accomplished" -Heber J. Grant

Transfer 14, Week 3, Lakes Stake, Desert Breeze Ward

Dear Family,

So I'm going to have to make this super fast! We don't have much time! Today we are moving from the Stake Presidents house to another members home in the ward.

This week was great! We had the baptism of Savannah! It went great! Spencer  is so happy to have his wife a member of the church and they are preparing to go to the temple next January!

We had the baptism of Byron last week. Brother Johnstons brother came to the baptism and we ended up meeting with him this past Tuesday! He is great!  He has no real belief in God, only a higher power. We taught the first lesson and taught him/asked him to pray. He has never prayed before but he gave the best prayer Ive ever heard! So much better than any of my prayers!

We also were able to meet with the Worku family! We have brought up baptism and she brushed it off and said that she has already been baptized. But this last time we were able to get her to understand the meaning of the Restoration in her life! She said that she would be willing to make baptism a goal but she said that she isn't ready yet! So exciting!

We also met with Conrad, our new investigator from last week. He is very kind and is willing to listen. He does have a problem with prophets; men getting in the way of god, as he puts it. So we will need to help him understand that... but overall its been a great week!

I love you all! I'll try to make next weeks letter longer!

Love,
Elder John

"I believe when we determine within our hearts that by and with the blessings of God our Heavenly Father we will accomplish a certain labor, God gives the ability to accomplish that labor; but when we lay down, when we look at the top of the mountain and say it is impossible to climb to the summit, while we never make an effort it will never be accomplished" -Heber J. Grant