Three is a magic number and The Flood

Elder Bartell, Elder Gemperline and Elder Swejkoski in Laguna Hills 

Sep 9th 

I am now in the Laguna Hills 3rd Ward with 3some in appartment 3. Making 3 ways 3 is a magic number. I am with Elder Bartell from Idaho Falls and Elder Swejkoski (S'why - cos - ski) from Lansing Michigan. Both of them are new missionaries. Elder Bartell just came out last Tuesday and Elder Swejkoski has been here for 6 weeks.

We live in a Beautiful Condo with nice hardwood floors, a fireplace and windows and a large kitchen. Mirrors everywhere making it so very vain. :P The downside is our dryer exploded and our fridge went out and all our food spoiled... crap. We are going to go shopping today and buy stuff you don't have to freeze. Hopefully we can get it all fixed soon. We got lacrosse sticks from some members. We play in the morning where one of us will be offense and one defense and one the thrower and we try our best to fulfill our roles in a pass. It is super fun! I miss playing lacrosse. Great exercise too! Even if I can't lift anymore. :(


Sept 16th

Well it has been another busy busy week. I honestly don't know where to start... Lets start Monday. 

Monday I went on an exchange bringing Elder Merril who is just brand new out over to my area to see how he is doing. We saw SO MANY miracles throughout the exchange I have to say I was actually really surprised which usually... I'm not! One of these miracles is that we were going about trying our best to get into some houses we had on a list and we were also making an extra effort to contact everyone. We contacted into these 2 ladies who were sitting in their backyard (which in this part of the world is just a fenced off section of their front yard) and they told us to come on in. We sat down on their rock path up to the house and began to teach them the restoration. As we were going through the lesson everything made sense to them. They were some interesting people. One of them had been crushed by a bus and was on house arrest. Just the most approachable people on the planet. SARCASM PUNCH! Anyway, I was loving them because for some reason I have gained the capacity to do away with judgment... or so I thought. We got to talking about Prophets and I asked "How does God answer our prayers and questions?" One of them answered, "Well through others oftentimes." I asked for an example and she pointed to the other lady and explained she believed God had introduced them. 

"Great! So God gives us the greatest of friends to help support us in times of need sometimes" 

"Actually, we're married"

*Awkward Silence

I may have judged a little teeny tiny bit in that moment but I overcame it best I could!!! Don't judge me. 

Anyway, I love them all the same and I legitimately in all seriousness want to help them. We finished off the lesson without going down that dangerous path and they really liked the message of the restoration. They said to come back so we will go back tonight to see if we can build their faith a little more in the savior before..... frankly, all hell breaks loose and we have to call them to repentance. I don't know how else to say it. That's exactly what we do as missionaries. Truth will always be truth and no matter how terrifying it will be we must call repentance and look upon sin with no degree of allowance. We will do so in love, it will just be interesting. 

Planning on Friday night we began to hear a weird dripping sound. We checked to see what it was only to find the light fixture in the restroom was dripping. Great. *puff*  another apartment living problem. I undid the light and emptied it out as all this water drained from our ceiling for the next few hours. The people upstairs say they don't know anything about it but they also had  a son in the bathtub at that same time. I've been calling plumbers and the housing people and trying to make decisions. When the next morning it had all stopped I told the plumber to just not come out since it seemed fine. Then the housing people yelled at me, not because they were angry but to get the point across that I need to get the plumber out so I called the plumber and he said he would have to charge me now, but i needed to coordinate the people upstairs to be home at the same time so I talked to them and they gave us their renters number so I called housing to figure out what to do with the situation and it is just way way way too much extra stress I don't need at this busy time! I need the time to figure out what I'm going to be teaching in meetings and studies and lessons. Ah well. Ain't no rest for the wicked like me. Pah. I wish our apartment would just be ok. :P Thanks for letting me vent. 

So that is the basic scenario for this week. The ward seems to be very receptive to us now. We are expecting baptisms soon and the work carries on. 

-Elder Gemperline