Letter #39: Temple P-Day

TEMPLE P-DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This past week has been pretty rad (I am finally adjusting to the beach bum lingo).

So our zone was assigned to go to the 5:30am Newport Beach temple session today. We woke up at 3:45. and we were waiting for our ride outside our apartment and he was late because he slept in… but we got to the temple right at 5:30 when they closed the doors for the session. We just barely missed it. But they let us do Initiatory stuff which was exactly what I needed. It was my first time doing it vicariously (pullin’ out all the big words) and It was amazing. It is funny how things worked out perfected. It’s like God has a plan or something…

I got some pretty dope pictures of flowers outside the temple… I may have an addiction to taking pictures of flowers haha. It is a totally manly thing to do…

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Newport Beach Temple

But this past week we have had some crazy experiences. Miracles galore.

First off, we got a call from a dude in the YSA ward. He told us of a guy who was going to the YSA ward for the past month, speaks only Spanish, and he wants to talk with us. So we go (we were on exchanges) and the first thing he tells us is that he wants to be baptized on a specific date in a couple weeks. It was crazy… He is so prepared, has great fellowship from the YSA ward, and has a true desire to do what is right. He wants us to come over like everyday, and we have already almost finished the lessons. We just have to teach him the commandments. He loves the Book of Mormon, he says it is the best book he has ever read and posted that to Facebook… It’s pretty righteous…

Then my companion (on exchanges) found this other guy… super prepared wants to change and be baptized… So when we got together back after the exchange, we had two new investigators both with baptismal dates. Crazy…

We also taught this really cool 1st lesson with this really really cool college guy from Romania, that we found when we were passing by some former investigators and he was living there. It was super cool and he was to learn more and be baptized. I wish I could continue to teach him but we had to pass him off to the YSA Elders… 🙁 Oh well, can’t teach everyone haha!

Then we had this cool experience where we were walking to our car in this really big apartment complex community and this guy calls out to us from the balcony of his apartment. And tells us his roommate is interested in talking to us. He told us to come by later that night. When we came back we start teaching this guy Jerry (the roommate) and we were kinda doing it in Spanglish because he was fluent in both, but the guy who flagged us down (D________) speaks only English. D__________ was sitting in the room with us but he was playing Madden 15 online against someone. But eventually his opponent quit and he joined the lesson. It was really funny. But they both asked a lot of questions and seem super solid. We are going to teach them again tonight so we will see how the return lesson goes.

R_____ is doing pretty good. He is having back troubles so keep him in your prayers.

A_______ is doing fantastic. He always keeps his commitments and is progressing pretty well. He might be leaving to Mexico for a week or two in the next week or two. Also pray for him because he has a hard time recognizing an answer to his prayers. He has really opened up to us. He is a great guy though.

We did service the other day for one of our investigators named E_______ and her husband. He is kinda against the church but seemed to really open up to us through us doing service for him… It was pretty rad. We sanded and painted some of their doors in the house and helped with moving some stuff. It was awesome.

I feel like I am forgetting something big that happened this week. Oh well.

Life is pretty righteous right now. I am loving being a missionary. The area is picking up, my companion and I get along great. All is well!

I love y’all

-Elder Bryce the Younger