4-Strings

Hello to all of my fam, friends, neighbors, and others who may be finding themselves reading this letter.  I hope it finds y'all well.

First off, I just want to say happy birthday to my big bro Garrison (other Elder Beach) serving up in Minnesota.  It sounds really weird to say that he's 20 years old.  Also, as of yesterday, he only has 8 months left being a missionary.  :(  That probably makes him more sad than me, but it still makes me sad.  I know he loves it, as do I.  

Unfortunately, as has been the case here in Scottsboro for the last couple of weeks, this week was pretty slow as far as finding and teaching goes.  That being said, it was still a fun week, we were able to find several potential investigators, and we did get to make some good memories.  

Last Tuesday and Wednesday we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders over in Huntsville.  The Zone Leaders (as well as a few other companionships in the zone who live close by) go to this place called Rock Steady Boxing like once or twice a week.  It's basically a crossfit gym, but they also use it as a boxing gym for people who have Parkinson's.  Boxing/working out in general apparently is really good at slowing the progression of Parkinson's.  So every once in a while they all go over there in the morning to work out and then volunteer and help the Parkinson's people with their workouts.  For our exchange we got to go there and help out.  It's really fun, and it's nice to actually do a good workout.  (Here in Scottsboro we have no gym at our apartment complex and we have no weights in the apartment.  It's hard to do good workouts sometimes, but we do our best.)  So anyway, that was really fun and I was actually sore the next day for the first time in a while.  They also gave all of us these bright yellow Rock Steady shirts which we all wore to the zone activity today (Oct. 23).  After we went to Rock Steady, we planned for the rest of the day and then we went out and hit it.  I went with Elder Fotu this time and Elder Hastings went with Elder Krupa.  We had a solid exchange and Elder Krupa and Elder Fotu told us that it was one of the best nights they had had there in a while.  Elder Fotu and I didn't have a whole lot of luck knocking doors or meeting up with potentials, but we did go to the mall to do some finding and were able to talk to a bunch of people (several of them already knew some of the members in the ward), we got a bunch of phone numbers to go talk to them again, and invited several people to church.  Elder Hastings and Elder Krupa went to the park to find, and they had some funny stories to tell that night.  They met like 4 different couples (2 of which were on their first dates), along with a bunch of other people, and they were able to place like 4-5 copies of the Book of Mormon.  All four of us finished the night at Arby's for $1 sliders and cookie butter milkshakes.  At Arby's, Elder Fotu also got the number of the cashier, and I'm pretty sure he said we could come teach him.  It was a solid finding night.  However, the non-missionary work highlights of the night were after we got back to the apartment.  Like a month ago, I bought a bunch of those invisible ink pens that you can only see under a black light.  Se we have been decorating our apartment here in Scottsboro pretty good.  Well, I brought a couple of them to the exchange and we decorated their apartment too.  Also, Elder Krupa acquired a ukulele, so now all four of us have one.  So, obviously, we had a solid uke jam session and we also officially started a band called 4-Strings.  (It's pretty much the best band ever).  Our first album will be coming out shortly...  Anyway, that's pretty much it for the exchange.  We had fun, did work, and were able to get Byrd Springs (that's the ZLs area) like 12 new potentials.  

This week we met with Roger a couple of times.  He showed us this video called "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus."  It was really weird, and it wasn't very true in regards to Jesus Christ's true church.  The video kind of just threw down on all these man-made, somewhat hypocritical churches.  I don't know why he showed us that, but he did.  Anyway, we kind of just put that aside by explaining to him that while that may be true for some churches, this is literally the church that Jesus Christ established and that he still is at the head of today.  Roger has also been continuing to read the Book of Mormon, even though he hasn't been to church in a while.  We asked him why he reads and he just told us "to get more knowledge and insight" or something to that effect.  We asked him if he felt like he had received that knowledge yet, and he just told us that he wanted to know the purpose of life.  Well, what do you know, the Book of Mormon has the answers.  I turned to Alma 34:32, read it, explained that the way we prepare to meet God is by living the Gospel.  And so I invited him to be baptized again.  He sat there for like a solid 3 minutes just thinking, and then he just said, "Can I be honest with you?"  He then told us that there were things that he felt like he hadn't yet been forgiven of, and that he felt like he couldn't forgive himself for.  I asked him, "if you ever get to that point where you do feel forgiven, is baptism something that you want to do?"  He told us that it was.  We committed him to CPR (Church EVERY week, Pray and Read the Book of Mormon EVERY day).  He told us that he would do that, and we just promised him that forgiveness comes through doing those things--being obedient--and putting your life in line with God's will.  

This week we also met Larry and Sandra again.  Larry has been reading the Book of Mormon a little bit, and we have to find time to teach them in between them talking.  They LOVE to talk, and it's hard to get away sometimes (haha there's a lot of those people in Scottsboro).  We had plans to invite them to church, but Elder and Sister Dance (one of the senior couples) called while we were there and said they were at our apartment for inspections, so we had to cut it short.  Larry and Sandra are great people, I'm just not sure if they feel like what we share is that important right now.  But we'll keep teaching them unless it gets to the point where they don't want to progress.

This week Dustin had us over one night for dinner.  While we were there, some homeboy named Timothy just walked into his house, sat down, and started talking to us.  He also helped himself to some food.  It was really weird, and we could tell that Dustin didn't really want him there.  But Dustin didn't kick him out, so we kept talking and teaching.  We ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet, and he told us we could come over and talk to him some more sometime.  So that was cool, and we also got dinner and a review of the Restoration with Dustin.

We met a couple of new people who we were able to teach a little bit and give away copies of the Book of Mormon to.  Unfortunately, almost every one of our return appointments fell through.  It was kind of a bummer, but we'll just go back another time and hopefully catch them when they can talk for a bit.  Also, like I said earlier, we committed Roger to come to church yesterday, and he said that he would be there.  He didn't show up.  He did call us during Sunday School, but when we called him back he didn't answer.  We also called him one other time a couple hours later and texted him, but no response.  I'm not sure what his deal is, but we do have an appointment with him tonight.

One more highlight of the week:  Sister Williams from the branch told us that she would get us some food or something like that.  Well, we went over to her house at the time when she told us to come get it, and she basically just told us, "I haven't had time to go to the store, so just go through my pantry and take what you want."  She is really serious about food storage, and so she had a lot of stuff.  I kind of felt bad taking all that food, but even as we were leaving she kept insisting on us taking more and more.  She, and all of the members here, really love the missionaries.  All of them are great member missionaries as well, and we love all of them.

Anyway, though this week has been a little rough we did get to do a lot of fun things, see people we love, teach the gospel, and invite people to come unto Christ.  I may not be able to see a whole lot of the fruits of our labor right now, but we are seeing some.  I know that this is the Lord's work, and He will have it go forward no matter what.  I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to assist Him in it.  Like us missionaries say every day, "We are steadfast in Christ!"

Much love, 

Elder Beach

#RollTide

#4Stringz

People

Howdy to all of my friends, fam, neighbors, and others reading this letter.  I hope it finds you alive and well.  This week has been alright, though it has been a little slow as far as finding/teaching goes.

Well, I have realized (after being told several times) that in these letters home I don't really talk a whole lot about people that we meet with.  Honestly, the truth is that we just don't have that many people that we meet with.  We have a few "investigators," but lately we haven't been able to catch a lot of them for various reasons, and we may end up dropping several of them soon.  Finding is also a struggle out here, as Scottsboro is not that populated, and Elder Hastings has been here so long that he has knocked a lot of streets that he doesn't want to knock again, so we are a bit limited on where we can find.  Anyway, we just don't have that many solid investigators, though we are doing our best and having faith that we will find some.  That being said, there are lots of people that I have come to love.  So Dad, as you asked, here are some of my favorite people here in Scottsboro (in no particular order) - 

Larry and Sandra - These two are a couple who are probably about 70ish.  They love us Elders, and they sure love to talk (especially Sandra).  Sometimes it is hard to teach them because they just love to talk.  We met them while we were knocking doors several weeks ago, and we have been back to their house several times.  One week they just decided that they wanted to take us to lunch, and that has continued about every week since then.  We've eaten some great food with them.  Larry loves football, and loves Alabama, so that's always a plus.  They both love to travel, and they have both been to every single US state except Hawaii.  We know that Larry reads the Bible every day, and we gave him a Book of Mormon, which he has been reading a little bit.  Sandra doesn't read the Bible, (or anything else) and she said that she probably wouldn't read the Book of Mormon (just because she doesn't like reading).  I'm not really sure what they believe as far as being affiliated with a denomination.  They told us the reason that they don't go to any churches is because they don't like big crowds of people.  I guess our branch would be perfect for them because we only have like 50 every week.  Anyway, they are great people.  They love us, and we love them, and we hope that they will read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, come to church, and do what is right.

Alex - Alex is a 19-year-old kid who lives with and takes care of his grandpa.  He is a total redneck, and he is hilarious.  He also is kind of tough to teach because he kind of just wants to hang out when we go over there.  He is going to school right now to become a welder, and he loves to work on cars.  He has like 3 trucks and jeeps in his backyard that he has just taken apart and is in the process of putting them back together.  That's usually what he is doing when we go over to his house.  He loves us missionaries, and if I'm ever back here after the mission, I'm definitely going to see him.  He is just a crazy redneck boy who loves "cone life" and "soy sauce sugar wieners."  (Both of those things are just really stupid inside jokes we have with him).  Either way, we love him, and we are doing our best to help him see why the things we teach him are important so that he can experience the blessings that come from the Restored Gospel.

Roger - This is not the same Roger that I have been telling you about for the last few weeks.  This is a different Rogr who is, in his own words, "Not a professional weed smoker--well, yeah I am a professional weed smoker--but I'm also a professional weed grower, and now I'm a professional weed eater."  Yes, Roger eats marijuana.  He spent like 40 minutes telling us all about it.  It was a pretty interesting conversation.  If we rewind about 3 weeks (before we knew about all the weed stuff), we taught Roger the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon.  The day we learned about the weed, I literally just said to him, "Roger, we know you love this stuff, and that's why you have told us about it so much.  Well, we have something that we love, and we want you to enjoy, and that is the Book of Mormon."  I committed him to read just the introduction (which he did), and he really liked it.  He told us that it was so interesting that he would keep reading the Book of Mormon.  I hope that he does.  I'm not sure that he will decide to change his life, but we are here not to make people change, only to invite them and to help them to.  Roger is always a hoot to talk to.

Dustin - I've told you a little bit about Dustin in the past, but I don't remember what I said.  He is just a crazy dude who lives in the projects down here.  He lives with his wife Joan and 2 little kids. Colton and Little John.  He is kind of ADHD and he gets really distracted really easily.  A couple of visits ago he started doing this thing where he just gets on his tablet, gets on YouTube, and starts playing some random General Conference talk.  He says we can't start our lesson until we guess 3 apostles in a row just by the sound of their voices.  All of the living apostles are easy, but he always plays talks from like 1970 and I have no idea who they are.  We can usually get 3 in a row without difficulty as long as he plays recent ones with living apostles.  Anyway, we taught the Restoration to him a long time ago, and like 2 weeks ago we taught it to him again, really emphasizing that he needs to read the Book of Mormon, because if it is true, then everything we had just taught him is true, too.  After, he was like, "So what are you guys, like Baptist, Methodist, Church of God, what?"  I just said, "We aren't any of those.  We believe that this church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is literally Jesus Christ's church.  He established it while He was on the earth, it was lost for a time, and has been restored through Joseph Smith.  Jesus Christ continues to run this church through a prophet."  That sums up basically the whole Restoration, and that is what I told him.  At that lesson we committed him to read the Book of Mormon to know that for himself.  Since that visit, he has lost his Book of Mormon and hasn't tried very hard to find it.  We told him that he could just get the Gospel Library app, but I don't know if he will.  He also tells us sometimes that he doesn't have time to read.  Well, he spends almost every day just sleeping or sitting on his couch watching TV.  I love seeing him, and he loves us, but he is just really lazy.  He needs to read the Book of Mormon.

Jerry - I don't think that I've told you about Jerry.  He is probably about 35-40, bald, kind of looks like a frog, and he is the funniest guy ever.  He also lives in the projects, and we love him.  He's hilarious.  He is pretty much an eternal-gator, but we still see him every once in a while and talk with him, read the Book of Mormon with him, and have a laugh.  He loves telling us jokes, and he has literally called us on the phone multiple times (once at 3 AM) just to tell us a joke.  The time he called at 3 AM we didn't answer because we were asleep, but he left a message.  I couldn't even understand what he said because he was laughing so hard.  It was hilarious.  I put a picture in my drive a couple of weeks ago with him. 

Roger - This is the Roger that I have been telling you about.  This week we have tried to see him a few times, but he is avoiding us.  We caught him outside last Tuesday when we went over to his house, so we got to talk to him.  He let us inside, and we had just decided to go back to the basics to see where his testimony was at.  So we watched the Restoration video with him, and talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  He told us, as he had done a few weeks ago, that he believes the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  We committed him to read the Book of Mormon every day, and he told us that he had been, and would continue to do so.  I felt like that lesson went really well, but we have not seen him since then, though we did stop by on Friday and Saturday.  (On Saturday we could actually see him inside when we knocked, but he just ignored us).  I'm not exactly sure what his deal is.  We love him, and we want what's best for him.  We want to see him again to just help him connect the dots between the Book of Mormon being true and Joseph Smith being a prophet (which he knows to be true) and doing what he needs to do to prepare to enter the waters of baptism.  We planned to help him connect those dots and set him a baptismal date on Friday/Saturday when we saw him, but he didn't answer and he won't answer calls or texts.  I want him to do the right thing, but even if he chooses not to, I wish that he would just tell us.  I want him to either progress, or just tell us to stop coming by.  I hate being in the middle of those 2 things.  Either way, we will still continue to love him and pray for him to do the right thing.

Whelp, those are a few of my favorite peeps from out here in Scottsboro.  There are a lot of people out here to love, and those are just some of them.  

This week we went to Huntsville 3 times for various reasons.  On Wednesday we had to go so I could get my A1C, which was kind of a pain because Sister Dillard (the mission nurse) was the one who set up the appointment, and the people at the lab that I went to had lost the fax from the doctor who gave the orders for me to get an A1C check.  I ended up calling Sister Dillard like 5 times, talking to her, having her talk to the people at the office, and lots of other phone calls were made.  While they were getting it figured out, Elder Hastings and I went to lunch with the Zone Leaders.  By the time we were finished they had figured everything out and I got to go do my A1C, so that was good.  Thursday we went back to Huntsville again for interviews with President Sainsbury.  It was a short and sweet interview.  He basically just said to keep it up, keep working, and all that good stuff.  He also told us what we pretty much already knew: most likely next transfer Elder Hastings will leave Scottsboro and I will stay here with a new Elder.  We had kind of figured that much already, and it still isn't guaranteed, but that's what I have to look forward to at this point.  On Friday we went to Huntsville again for a multi-district meeting.  (For whatever reason, we aren't allowed to have Zone Meetings anymore, but we still do, we just call it a "multi-district meeting" instead.  Haha, whatever).  That was really good, and lately the whole mission has been working a lot on extending specific commitments and invitations in a "1) Will you...?  2) I promise...  3) I Testify..."  pattern.  I've really been working on that recently because in that way our commitments are very specific, and people are able to see the blessings that can and will come to them if they follow through with those commitments.  It's a good way to do it.

Funny story this week:  we were out knocking doors one night, and right as we knocked this one door, Dustin drives by in his truck and yells "Elder Beach!  Elder Hastings!"  and then he revved his engine super loud.  I don't know why, but because it was Dustin, that was hilarious.  I was really glad that the person whose door we had just knocked didn't answer because I was just bent over laughing.  It would have looked very unprofessional.  So, a few days later when we went over to Dustin's, we decided that we were going to deny that whole incident.  He told us that he saw us a couple of days before and yelled at us from his truck, and we were just like, "What are you talking about?  We never saw you.  You must have yelled at the Jehovah's Witnesses or something."  We had him going for like 5 minutes before we finally came clean.  Haha, sounds stupid but it was hilarious.

So on Friday night since Roger didn't answer the door we kind of didn't have anything to do for a little bit.  We went to the store to try and talk to people, and there was a lady who was just chilling in her car in the parking lot.  She yelled to us, and we went to go talk to her.  She asked if we were JWs, and we told her no.  We ended up talking to her for like 20 minutes, got her info, address, phone number, and she said she would be at church on Sunday and she told us we could come by her house and teach her sometime.  Her name is April, and we were pumped for that little miracle that happened on Friday night.  She actually didn't come to church, which was a bummer, but we are going to go see her later this week.

Well, that's about it for this week.  We have been doing our best to teach, invite, find, work, and serve.  I'm thankful to be here, despite it being a kind of slow week for teaching.  I know that the Lord will provide for us if we put forth our best effort and be obedient.  I love all of y'all, and hope you have a great week.

Much love, 

Elder Beach

#RollTide (future 2017-18 CFP champs, haha)

We went to a cave called Cathedral Caverns for p-day.  It was cool!

Another Quarantine

Hello to all of my fam, friends, neighbors, and all others who may find themselves reading this letter at this time.  I love you all and I hope you are doing well.

This week there was another storm (hurricane Nate, I believe) and I guess down south of us it was pretty bad.  Up here in Scottsboro it wasn't bad, there was just a lot of rain.  But on Saturday night we got the call from the Zone Leaders who told us that President Sainsbury asked the whole mission to stay indoors until he said we could go out.  So we didn't get to go to church on Sunday, which was a bummer because we didn't get to take the sacrament for the second straight week (last week was due to Conference).  We called President Bennett (our Branch President) and told him that we wouldn't be at church because we were told that we couldn't leave the apartment.  He thought that was pretty dumb, but we have to be obedient, so we didn't go to church yesterday.  It was a pretty boring day.  We didn't do a whole lot.  We got up at 6:30 as usual, I ate breakfast and then went back to bed.  After a couple hour nap, I read "Jesus the Christ" for a while, we cleaned our apartment, played some mini golf, and we basically just did nothing all day.  We read, studied, cleaned, golfed, played the uke, and that's about it.  We called some of the other missionaries in the zone to see what they did.  A lot of them did the same things we did.  The Sparkman Elders said that they built a pillow fort, so that was exciting.  We actually did a couple of other things:  Elder Hastings said that the bunk bed we have is the only bunk bed in the mission.  Well, he was sick of climbing onto the top bunk every day, so we took apart the only bunk bed in the mission and rearranged the bedroom so that it would fit both beds.  That was pretty exciting.  

So Sunday was pretty boring, but there was one thing that we did which was really cool.  Last Wednesday we had a Zone Conference and President Sainsbury proposed an idea to all of us missionaries.  (He actually put the idea out to the whole mission).  The plan was that each fast Sunday, the whole mission would set aside an hour, from 4-5 PM, to just pray.  It's called our "Mighty Hour of Prayer."  So that's what we did from 4-5 on Sunday, was just pray.  It was actually the quickest hour of the day, believe it or not.  It was a great experience.  We are going to keep doing it every month now as a mission.  It was not something I had ever done before.  The longest that I had ever prayed was maybe 20 minutes.  But during that hour I found so many things to be grateful for.  And so many things that I am dependent on our Heavenly Father for.  And so many things that I need to do better.  I almost wish that we did it for longer.  I invite all of you reading this--not every month, but at least one time in your life--to try a Mighty Hour of Prayer.  I promise that it will be a revelatory experience for you.

I mentioned Zone Conference.  Last Wednesday our zone (Huntsville) and the Madison zone got together to learn about missionary stuff.  Last Monday President Sainsbury sent us something on our emails that was really cool, which he wanted each of us to think about in preparation for Zone Conference.  He said:

Baptizing converts is the goal

Repentance is the process

Obedience is the price

Faith is the power

Love is the motive

The Spirit is the key

The Restoration is the message

The Members are the means

Christ is the reason

Joy is the reward

President asked us all to prepare a 2-3 minute talk about one of those 10 lines, and he chose a couple of us to share.  I wasn't chosen, but the assignment gave me a chance to think about each of those things.  They are all absolutely true.  We talked about a lot of things at Zone Conference, that being one of them.  We also talked a lot about how to stay out and be productive until 9 PM.  The sun goes down at like 6:45 PM right now (which means it will probably go down at like 4:30 in the winter), and something that is really weird to me is that when the sun goes down, everyone goes to bed.  And everyone who isn't in bed tells us that we are out too "late," even if it's only 7 o'clock.  Basically, it's just really hard to be productive in the evenings unless you have appointments scheduled.  But we have been doing our very best to be as productive as possible in the evenings.  It's hard, but we're making it work most of the time.

We've been really excited about Roger for the last couple of weeks.  Last Tuesday we taught him the Word of Wisdom.  We practiced a lot beforehand in companionship study, and I felt like the lesson went really well.  We really focused on teaching him about specific blessings that come from keeping it, and we also focused on letting him know that we didn't want him to keep the Word of Wisdom out of obligation to us, but out of love for Heavenly Father, and as a way that he can draw nearer to Christ.  We also asked him to pray to know if this really was a commandment from God, and something that Roger felt like he should live.  We committed him to live it, and it really felt like he was going to do his best to.  He told us that he would come to the Book of Mormon class the next day (Wednesday), but he didn't come.  We tried calling/texting him several times, but he never answered/responded.  We felt like he might have just dropped us because he decided that he didn't want to live the Word of Wisdom.  Anyway, we couldn't get a hold of him for a few days, and we were pretty bummed.  Finally on Saturday night we just stopped by unannounced at his house.  He let us in, and we talked with him for a while.  We reiterated what we had told him about deciding for himself if he should keep the Word of Wisdom.  We don't want him to do it purely out of obligation to us.  We also talked about coming to church.  We didn't want him to feel like living the Word of Wisdom was a prerequisite for his coming to church.  We also taught him about how taking the sacrament is a great way to remember our Savior, ask for His help, and commit to doing your best to follow him.  Roger is kind of questioning his testimony because of this whole Word of Wisdom thing.  When we asked him if we could expect him at church, he said, "I don't want to say no, but I don't want to say yes either."  We prayed with him, but when we left his house he pulled out a cigarette and started smoking again.  I'm pretty sad about Roger.  He knows this stuff is true, he just has a hard time with one thing, and because of that one thing he is questioning everything.  I know that he can find the strength and desire to do what is right if he just keeps reading the Book of Mormon, keeps praying, and keeps coming to church to take the sacrament.  Soon after we left his house, we got the call that we had to stay inside on Sunday, so we had to let Roger know that we wouldn't be there at church.  I don't know if he went, but I'm pretty sure if he had any desires to go, they were lost when we told him that we wouldn't be there.  Roger took up a good chunk of my "mighty hour of prayer" yesterday.  I hope and pray that he will decide to do what is right.

This week I have been really working on loving people more.  For my 2-3 minute Zone Conference talk, I chose the line "love is the motive."  Then I realized that most people would probably pick that one, so I switched to "the Spirit is the key."  So basically I wrote short talks for both of them.  But the reason that I have been focusing on loving people more is because I have noticed that sometimes during door approaches and stuff I find myself sort of debating people, not necessarily to prove them wrong, but to prove myself right.  I know that God works with prophets, I know that Jesus established His church when He was on the earth, I know that His church was lost after He and His Apostles were killed, and I know that His same church was reestablished through another Prophet--Joseph Smith.  I want so bad for people to know this that I just try so hard to prove it to them.  In my mind, the entire first lesson (the Restoration) is just so logically complete, that it's frustrating when people don't see it.  That's why I have found myself not really arguing with people, but just trying too hard to prove to them that that is what really happened.  I have recognized that I really just need to love them, and not infringe upon their agency.  Most people choose not to listen or act upon the things we teach them.  That's okay.  If I loved them, taught them, invited them, and gave them every opportunity to come unto Christ by receiving the Restored Gospel, and they chose not to, then I don't need to be frustrated.  I did my part, and that's all I need to do.

Dad asked me a couple of weeks ago to share some of the blessings/things I've gained from choosing to serve a mission.  Here are a couple that I have thought about:

1)  I've strengthened my testimony so much.  It's definitely possible to gain a strong testimony without serving a mission.  But as I take time each and every day to study the scriptures, to learn from them, and to teach people about the things that I know, I have just gained such a strong testimony that what we teach as missionaries is true.

2)  I've learned that the Savior loves us.  Much in the same way that I expressed in my paragraph above, Jesus has invited all to come unto Him and then he sees many who choose not to.  Yet unlike me, He loves us perfectly.  He'll never give up on us, and never keep inviting us until we are home in His arms.

3)  The Book of Mormon is true, and like President Nelson said last week in Conference, it "contains the full power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."  I've tried really hard recently to help people realize this fact: if the Book of Mormon is true, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is literally Jesus Christ's church on the earth.  I know that there is power in that Book, and there is doctrine and power contained in its pages unlike any other book.

4)  I've learned the power of prayer.  There is no way that a bunch of 18-22 year olds could carry on this work without Divine help.  And that Divine help is unlocked through prayer.  We should never hesitate to get on our knees and pour out our hearts to our Father in Heaven.  He is there to listen, and there to help us.  This was powerfully reiterated to me during our Mighty Hour of Prayer yesterday.

Those are just a few of the things I have learned and some of the blessings that I have seen from deciding to dedicate a small part of my life to the Lord in His service.  I'm so thankful to Him for all of the lessons that I have learned and all of the blessing that I see, both in my life and in the lives of those we come in contact with.

Well, I hope all of you had a solid week.  I'm so grateful that I have the chance to represent our Savior Jesus Christ here in Alabama and bring people His true Gospel.  I'm so thankful for all of the people who read these letters, who love and pray for me and those I have the opportunity to teach.  I love this work, I love our Savior, and I love all you.

Elder Beach

#RollTide

Training!

Conference and More

Hello to everyone back home, working, going to school, serving missions, doing whatever you do.  I love you and hope this letter finds you well.

This week we were able to go to another one of our Book of Mormon classes on Wednesday.  This week was focused on 1 Nephi 6-11, so most of what we talked about was Lehi's dream, and then Nephi's dream (which was the same one, just in more detail).  They were each about the Tree of Life.  I learned lots of stuff and gained a lot of cool insights into things that I hadn't thought of before.  For instance:  Nephi tells us that the Tree is a representation of the love of God (1 Nephi 11:25), but he never tells us specifically what the fruit itself represents.  Well, we learn in John 3:16 that God so loved the world, that he gave his Only Begotten Son.  Therefore, the tree, or "the love of God," is a representation of the Savior Jesus Christ.  Well, if the Tree of Life represents Jesus, then the fruit of the tree represents his fruit.  And what was Jesus' most important "fruit?"  The Atonement.  I know that the blessings of the Atonement are "the most desirable above all things," and "the most joyous to the soul."  There were a lot of cool things I learned on Wednesday, but I think that was the best one, so I thought I'd share it with y'all.

Unfortunately Roger didn't make it to that week's Book of Mormon class, and so we called him after and asked him what was going on.  He told us he was just feeling depressed a little bit, so we asked him if we could come over and he said we could.  We were a little nervous about what the situation might be when we got there.  Was he just sick?  Did he run into some anti?  Was it just problems at work?  We hoped that it wasn't too major, but we were a little bit worried.  We got to his house and asked him what was up, and he just told us that a couple of his kids had birthdays right around this time.  Roger is divorced, and his kids don't live with him.  I don't know a whole lot about it, but I don't think that he gets to see them very much.  Anyway, he was just missing them, and was feeling pretty sad.  We got to share with him a Mormon Message which was based on a talk from Elder Holland that we had just listened to in the car that day.  It's called, "Like a Broken Vessel," and it just talks about dealing with feelings of depression, and how we can find light/hope in the Gospel and through Jesus Christ.  He really liked it, and after we watched it we were just talking for a little bit.  At one point I got his attention and eye contact and I just said, "I want you to know that we love you, Roger.  And as much as we love you, you have a Father in Heaven and you have a Savior who love you even more."  I said a couple of other things, but I just wanted him to know that we cared for him and that we would do our best to help him if he needed it.  

The highlight of the week of course, was General Conference.  There wasn't a single talk that wasn't just incredible.  It was the best General Conference that I have ever listened to.  I don't think that I could pick a favorite talk because they were all so good, but here were some of my favorites:  The one from President Russel M. Nelson in the Saturday afternoon session about the Book of Mormon.  He said in that talk, "The Book of Mormon contains the full power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."  I'm going to try and do better at helping people to know that, because it is absolutely true.  I also loved the talk by Tad R. Callister in the Sunday afternoon session about the  Book of Mormon.  He basically just showed how there is absolutely no way that that Book is not the word of God.  It is literally impossible for Joseph Smith to have written it.  There are a lot of people who say a lot of things about the Book of Mormon.  If they read that talk, they might just understand how ridiculous all of the stuff they say is.  I loved the talk by President Uchtdorf in the Priesthood session about "light."  I'm going to start doing some topical guide study on that subject, and see what else I can come up with.  It was a great talk.  Another great talk from the Priesthood session was from Elder Renlund.  In it, he talked about how the Priesthood is like the delivery system for all of the benefits and blessings of the Atonement.  Without the Priesthood on the earth, we couldn't access those blessings.  There were so many great talks.  It was sad news to hear of the passing of Elder Hales.  I wonder if they will call a new Apostle soon, or if it won't be until next Conference.  It's hard to think that President Monson will be here by next Conference, too.  There will probably be a couple of new faces in Church leadership.  It was awesome though, to finish Conference with Elder Anderson's talk.  He said a lot of good things, and I thought it was awesome that he got to quote Elder Hales' final address that he never got to give.  His talk was one of my favorites as well.  I also very much enjoyed Elder Holland's talk about being perfect.  We don't have to be 10,000 talents worth of perfect right now.  But we can always be 100 pence worth.  Elder Holland is always such a good speaker.  I loved Elder Oaks' talk about the Family Proclamation.  I know that that document is not just Church policy, it's doctrine.  Nothing will ever change that.  He was very blunt, straightforward, and I enjoyed it.   

I feel like there were several themes that went on during Conference.  One of them was that we have a home in Heaven, and our Savior will not give up on us until we are there.  Another was that the Book of Mormon is true, and we must study it every day.  Another was that we need to sustain our church leaders.  Each and every one of them is called of God.  There were a few other themes that ran throughout Conference, but those were the major ones that I saw.

On Saturday night for the Priesthood session, all of the guys from the branch had a BBQ dinner right before the session.  We had invited a lot of people, and were looking forward to a couple of them actually showing up, especially Roger.  We called him like an hour before and he said that he would be there.  However, we got a call right before dinner from him and he told us that his tire went flat literally while he was driving to the church.  That was a little bit discouraging.  However, there was a talk just that day in an earlier session about "divine design," and that there are no accidents/coincidences.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that, but we took the fact that Roger couldn't make it to the session as "divine design."  We decided to go see Roger last night to show him how to watch Conference since he missed it.  Well guess what?  He had been watching General Conference ALL DAY.  He got on YouTube and had started the Saturday sessions.  He had watched Saturday morning, afternoon, and the Priesthood session.  He had also watched the 2 hours of intermission videos in between each session because he didn't know that those weren't actually part of Conference.  We told him that he didn't have to watch that part, and we got him started on one of the Sunday Sessions.  He had been watching for over 7 hours that day!  He's so solid.  We're going to teach him the Word of Wisdom this week, and I'm sure that will either make or break him.  He has a testimony, and he knows that this is right.  Dad, I appreciate the stuff you sent me about the man who had Word of Wisdom issues as well.  I think that insight will help us as we help Roger to get past this obstacle.  

One experience (which is actually a bunch of little experiences) that I thought about a bit this week.  When we knock doors, occasionally people will open the door and say, "I'm not interested," before a single word comes out of our mouths.  That happened to us several times one night this week.  I understand that people have their agency, but I find it hard, nearly impossible, to believe that someone can 100%, honestly, truthfully tell us that they are not interested in something before they even know what that something is.  A couple of times before the door was slammed in front of us, I would ask people, "Not interested in what?"  Elder Hastings says that I shouldn't say that, and he's probably right.  But I do have a legitimate question.  What is it that they are "not interested" in?  We literally haven't told them a single thing to be uninterested in.  Sometimes agency is frustrating, but I'll just keep sorting out the wheat and the tares.  I guess that's just one of the tough things about missionary work that I'm going to have to deal with for the next 22 months, and I guess when people say that right off the bat then we don't waste time with people who are uninterested.  It helps us find the ones who are interested that much faster.  

We met a lady last week who we went to go see again last night.  Her name is Dee and she has a pretty tough life right now.  Her husband has Alzheimer's really bad, and she is getting worn out from taking care of him.  We talked to her about how Christ suffered EVERYTHING that we have.  She understands that he died on the cross, but she doesn't understand what we do about the Atonement.  Because of the Restoration, we know that not only did He die for us, and not only did he suffer for our sins, but he literally took upon Himself every single pain, affliction, bad feeling, temptation, and heartache that we would ever feel.  I'm so thankful for that knowledge that we have as members of His true Restored Church.  We tried to help Dee understand that, with the help of the Book of Mormon, but she just kept insisting that "Jesus never had Alzheimer's.  He never had to deal with it."  Well, no, He didn't have Alzheimer's.  And no, he didn't have to spend every waking minute caring for someone who does.  But He knows what it feels like to do that.  He knows EXACTLY how Dee feels, and He alone knows how to help her.  We left her with some stuff in the Book of Mormon to read, and I hope that she finds comfort in it.  

All in all, this has been a good week.  General Conference was incredible, and I can't wait until we get the Ensign so that I can read those talks again.  So many of them were just so good.  Anyway, I love you all, and I hope that you take the time to study the Book of Mormon every day, and reread the words of the Prophets.  They truly are inspired from God.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true.  I know that Jesus is the Christ.  I know that He restored his true church to the earth this day, and that He is at the helm of it.  He leads it through revelation to prophets, and He will continue to do so until He returns.  

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide