May 13-Climate change of heart

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Well... Laguna Beach is weird. It is definitely the most different from any area I have served in thus far. Having served in all the coastal zones now, I have come to realize that none are the same. I expected San Clemente to be like Newport, and Laguna to be like San Clemente, but they are all so different. The ward here is awesome. We meet in this super cool little building in downtown often referred to as "a glorified relief society room" It is tiny. 

This week we were able to have a lot of cool interactions with people. On Tuesday we met with a bunch of young recent converts and held a Q and A session. They wrote anonymous questions and Elder Burrows and I did our best to answer them with the help of a couple ward members. It was an amazing spiritual experience to see all of these young men and women have their questions of the soul answered. Elder Burrows walked away knowing that we could have only answered those questions if we were worthy for the spirit. On Thursday we met with two young guy who Elder Burrows met at a gas station the week before. We invited him to our Come Follow me study and we had some really amazing conversations about God's plan for us and following the light he guides us with.

My favorite lesson, if you could call it that, was with a man that lived alone in north Laguna. He was incredibly friendly and loved the company. He asked us a question I have never heard before "what is the church's stance on climate change?" I humbly asked him for further explanation on what exactly climate change is. He proceeded to give us a brief 2 hr discourse on what it was. I will not lie, I stopped understanding what he was talking about after the first 3 minutes. I felt like I had a the capacity of a shot glass and he was dumping Niagara Falls knowledge on us. He was very passionate about this topic and went the entire 2 hours without a breath. Eventually when we realized that we might be there all night, Elder Burrows cut him off mid thought. We did the best we could to deliver a message by reading Alma 30:44 to him. We were flabbergasted with what happened. We left feeling unsuccessful and wishing we had controlled the situation better, but upon thinking about the situation again we realized that this man needed to be ministered to. This man had lived alone for a while and needed someone to vent to. We just needed to love him by listening to something that he loved. Sometimes I can get caught up in turning potentials into new investigators that I forget what my calling really is, to be a representative of Jesus Christ and to love others like he would.

A huge focus of the week for us has been love. We volunteered at a interfaith prayer breakfast where the main focus was also love. 

John 13
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

True disciples love. I hope to go forth with a renewed desire to serve others out of a sincere love for all men. As a recent convert of this week said "We can't distinguish between the different types of love - brotherly love, sisterly love, neighborly love. It is all the same, just the pure love of Christ." He certainly has a point, when we start to look at others the way Christ looks at them, our hearts will be filled with compassion for our fellow man.

keep loving

Elder Judd

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