Elder Jackson Beach: Former Investigators

Hello to all of y'all back home, at school, serving missions, working, or wherever you may be. I hope all is well with ya.

This week we had a bit of good fortune and a bit of not so good fortune with finding and teaching people. Several days ago Elder Fotu called (he used to be our zone leader and previous to that he served in Scottsboro) and he told us about a couple of people that he had met that we could go see. Neither of them were in the area book for whatever reason. Well, one of them lives in an apartment complex and Elder Fotu didn't know which number. We have been told before by the managers of those apartments that we aren't allowed to knock them, so I'm not sure what we're going to do about that. The other one he told us about was a 20s age guy who lived with his grandma. Elder Fotu said that the guy had actually passed away just last week, and so we should go stop by and see the grandma. When we went to stop by, her next door neighbor rudely told us that "she just had a death in the family." We were just like, "Yeah, that's why we're here," and we introduced ourselves and told her the situation. She just let us know that the grandma we were going to see wasn't at home right now and we should probably just give her a couple of weeks. Nobody looked home, so that's what we'll do.

So last Monday we were supposed to have a lesson with Drew, but he called us like an hour before and told us that somebody from work didn't come in when they were supposed to, so they called him to fill in. It was too bad, but what happened next made it all okay. Since our lesson didn't work out, we went to the store to see if we could meet some people. Well, we saw Deana there! She is the one who was super solid and was going to get baptized and then like 3 months ago she texts us and says that she saw a video of somebody "exposing Joseph Smith," so she didn't want to become a Mormon anymore. Well, we met her at Walmart, and she pretty much told us that she wants to start coming back to church and to Book of Mormon class and stuff like that. I was super pumped. After we talked to her for a bit and after we left, we called Elder Hastings to tell him the news. He was pretty excited as well, and we got to talk with him and Elder Deschamps for like 20 minutes. It was fun to relive previous transfer's memories and to tell each other about our new ones. We also got a hold of Drew that night and made a new plan for the next day (which also fell through, more on that later). One more thing: While we were at Walmart that night, some guy came up to us and said, "Where are you missionaries from?" He was pretty nice, and obviously a member, but I had never met him before, and so we asked him who he was. He told us his name, and we chatted for a bit. After we went our ways, we realized who that was. He was one of our "no contacts" on our branch roster. In fact, we had called him just last week to invite him to our branch Thanksgiving lunch and he was super rude to us and told us never to call him again. Well, since we met him at Walmart, I guess we aren't on such bad terms after all.

We haven't been able to get over to see Carol Anne this week. We've called her and texted her and stopped by her house but we have only received like one text back and it was just to tell us that she was busy that night. I really want to see her again so that we can keep teaching her and so that we can invite her to be baptized. I think she is ready for it.

We saw Dustin on Saturday night, and we were just giving him one last reminder to be at church on Sunday. We were finally at a point where we were expecting him to come, and he was planning on coming. Well, when we get there he tells us that he just planned a last minute road trip to Ohio to see his sisters and to do something else, so he would be gone for a couple of days. That was too bad, but we were able to teach him a little bit and help him understand that it's good that he has been reading the Book of Mormon. However, we taught him that he should choose a purpose as he reads, or choose a question to answer, and then focus his reading on accomplishing that purpose or answering that question, and he would get much more out of his reading. It was good, and we are expecting him to be at church this Sunday.

Thanksgiving was awesome. We were planning on going to Mama Reyes' house, and the Fort Payne Elders were going to come up as well. Well, as we were planning in the morning, the Howes family and the Williams both called us and invited us to their Thanksgiving dinners. Of course we had to go to all of them. It wasn't the best idea we have ever had (eating 3 Thanksgiving meals in one day) but it was fun and it is always good to get into member's homes, build relationships with them, help them with their missionary work, and encourage and invite them to help us with ours. They are all solid member families, and we love them. Brother Howes is in the Branch Presidency and he actually served his mission here in Alabama and served part of it in Scottsboro. Kinda weird/cool. Anyway, he told us a couple of things and gave us some advice on ways we can improve our missionary efforts, so that was good. (PS on that - we found out that Cager Howes is turning 8 and getting baptized in a couple of weeks, and the Howes want us to teach him a little bit to help him get ready, so that will be awesome. It's also great to invite investigators to baptismal services, so we are excited for that).

Saturday was the Iron Bowl. Man, Alabama looked terrible the whole time, and Auburn just played fantastic. It was a pretty sad game. Yes, we watched most of the game. Probably shouldn't have, but we were back and forth between the Olsen's (members who invited us over to watch) and Larry and Sandra's, who invited us over to watch and help them put up their Christmas decorations. So while were were setting up trees and lights to help them out, we peeked at the game haha. Also, during the game like nobody wants to talk, so we figured we would spend our time with the people who actually want to talk to us. Sister Olsen spends a lot of time going through the branch roster, visiting less actives and such, so we got some good referrals from her on Saturday as well, and we are excited to go out and see them. It was a good Saturday.

Alright, back to the Drew situation. We were going to have a lesson with him Monday, and that didn't work out. We got a hold of him that night and he said that he would call us Tuesday when he got off work. That didn't happen, either. We texted and called him several times last week, but never saw or heard from him until last night. Recently Drew got a girlfriend, and he was with her when we saw them. He told us that they had gone to her church that day. He told us how much he loved it, and how awesome their band was, and their guitarist was just jumping around and jamming the whole time and it was awesome. I was pretty bummed about that, because that is not how church should be, but that's what people like. Rarely do people want to do what is right, they just want to do what's comfortable and makes them feel good about themselves. It's frustrating. Either way, we set up an appointment to teach him tomorrow, so that should be good.

All in all, this week has been pretty good. We have had a lot of good things happen, and we've made a lot of good memories. I look forward to what this week has in store for us here in Scotty B. I love y'all. Have a good week.

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide