I Am That Man

Blossom Valley ward is so great. The roads are not so great. Combination of four flat tires this week between Elder Giles and me. Bike repairs and more bike repairs. I am learning a lot about how to fix bikes. :) It must needs be that the evil one doesn’t want us out doing the Lords work because it is going so gosh darn well. It’s really going great. We had 7 investigators at church this past Sunday. Three with a baptismal date and more to come for sure. Things have really picked up in this part of the work and I am very happy to be here. I have been learning a lot about myself and what I am like.

Spiritual: Let me tell you a little bit about the California mindset. There is a very common mentality that happens in Cali when it comes to religion. There is an idea or a mindset that revolves on the premise that you just be "good" to people because that is what God wants us to do. The philosophy is that it really doesn't matter your flavor of following Jesus, what matters is that you are a good person be it you are Buddhist or Confucius or anything else. While being good is important there is more power and more potential that comes from knowing for certain what is right and what is wrong. It gives you identity and self-worth to know what team you are on and what power you support. Everyone has the light of Christ in them. Everyone has this little spark where they know the difference for the most part between Good and Evil. For example, murder is wrong in any country or any civilization today. The world knows the difference or at least has a head start to knowing the difference between good and evil. The gospel gives us not only the clarification or what is right and wrong, but through having faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we can have power to overcome the wrong and choose the right. We were visiting a less active member and we met her friend there. He expressed his confusion about religion and how there were so many different paths and ways to live life. He told us about the religions that he had studied and how through it all he had just decided to let life take its course. He saw that the main point of all the religions that he had studied was to be a good person. While that was true I wanted to take him and shake him. Being a good person is good, but the way with the most power and potential is the way through Christ. It is only through Jesus Christ and His atonement that we are saved. Because He did that we can take hold of the knowledge of good and evil and through that we can choose to have Christ help us through our hard times and our pains. It is through Christ that we obtain power to change. It is through Christ that we obtain forgiveness from our sins. It is through Jesus Christ that we become even as He is. He lives. He has the power to change us. Through faith in him, we can do all things.

Funny: We were biking down the street one day and a man on the side of the road starts yelling at us and telling us something. I pulled the bike over and walked up to him and started to chat. He obviously wasn't all the way there. We sat there and talked to him a bit then he told us some rather unnerving news. He said "Did you hear that there was a naked man at the mall?" We replied "No! Really?" "Yes. There were all these women looking at him. It was kinda strange. All these people looking at this one naked man. Do you know who this naked man was?" "No sir. We don’t know who that naked man was." He paused. Looked us dead in the eyes and replied with a confident grin "I. AM. THAT. NAKED. MAN." "It’s been lovely talking with you sir, we need to be going now but have a great day!" End of conversation.

Where I am at: Halloween was awesome. The Odell family made sergeant peppers sandwiches and cherry chocolate cake. Oh it was so good. We even got to answer the door for the trick or treaters and hand out pass along cards. It was so wonderful. I love this area and all the members. Things are going great! I love you all!