Solid Week

Hello to all my fam, friends, neighbors, and others who may be finding themselves reading this email.  I hope it finds you well.  

Last week I told y'all about Steven.  We messaged him on Facebook shortly after meeting with him for the first time, and he told us, "I want to be baptized."  We had an appointment with him last Tuesday, but he had to cancel because of something.  We set up another appointment for Thursday, and so we went over to his house that day.  He has that Vivint Smart-Home thing at his house, so there's a camera and microphone at the front door so the people inside could talk to us without opening the door.  Anyway, someone (not Steven) was talking to us.  The microphone didn't work well, and we could hardly hear her, and it seemed as if she couldn't hear us at all.  We kept trying to say that we were there to see Steven, but she didn't ever really respond to that.  We finally hear the words "not interested," a familiar phrase to us.  That was a bummer.  We left, and tried to get a hold of Steven over Facebook for the last several days, but he has yet to reply.

Sometime early in the week, not sure what day, we met with a referral named Barbara.  She had requested a Bible and a Book of Mormon.  We introduced the Book of Mormon to her, gave her a Restoration pamphlet, and set up another appointment for later in the week.  A little while after we left, we added her on Facebook and were talking to her through that.  She told us that she had read the pamphlet already.  Usually people never do, let alone do it right after we leave, so that was a pretty big accomplishment.  At our next appointment, we taught her the Restoration and we emphasized the necessity of Priesthood authority.  Given all of the Restoration lessons we have had where people just don't get it, we thought that emphasis would be the game changer.  Barbara understood better than most people have recently, but still didn't quite get it.  We're excited to keep teaching her, and she enjoys learning from us, so we are going to do our best to continue to help her learn and understand.  

On Wednesday like right after we got home at night I started to not feel great.  I'm not sure what is was because I had felt fine all day.  Anyway, I went to bed and like an hour later I woke up with "the plague" as my brother calls it.  I spent a good 3 hours in the bathroom that night.  It was not very fun haha.  I have no idea what I might have eaten or what I might have done to cause that, but I'm pretty much over it now.  If nothing else, it helped me to not eat as much for a few days so that I can keep losing some weight haha.

On Thursday we went to give a blessing to a less-active member, Sister Gilbert, who was having surgery the next day.  I had met her and her son once previously, but her husband was there this time, so I got to meet him, too.  They were great people, and I enjoyed visiting with them.  Brother Gilbert used to be the Elder's Quorum President in a different ward before, as well as Young Men's President.  Since that time, he has had some changes in work and he now drives trucks, which makes him unable to attend church.  That's too bad, but he still has a strong testimony and shared much of it with us.  I got to give Sister Gilbert a blessing, and afterwards she just said, "I love that feeling."  I do, too.  It's such a great thing to be able to not only give people blessings, but just to be a blessing to them.  I love it. 

On Friday we were going through some old Bible referrals in the area book and there was one named Randy.  He said that he remembered meeting a couple of times with missionaries before, and he invited us back to meet with him again.  We went back on Saturday and taught him the Restoration and invited him to read the Book of Mormon.  He drives trucks pretty much all week, is home on the weekends, but will be gone next weekend, so we made another appointment with him in two weeks.

On Saturday we were trying to go see a bunch of old Bible referrals who have no information in the area book as to whether they were ever contacted or not.  We tried a ton of them this week, just so we could either give them a Bible, start teaching them, or drop them so they don't have to clutter the area book anymore.  Anyway, we saw that there were like 5 on this one street, so we went to try them and some others in the area.  As soon as we park and get out of the car, this guy pulls up in his truck and says, "Y'all got any brochures?"  We gave him a Restoration pamphlet, told him about it really quick, and set up an appointment to see him again this upcoming Saturday.  That was pretty cool, so hopefully something comes of it.

Sister Bentley came to church on Sunday!  She showed up like halfway through Sacrament meeting, and stayed for the rest, so that was good.  She really enjoys coming, and I'm glad that she does.  She told us that church is her boost for the week, and that was a great thing to hear.  She's pretty solid, it's just that she works a ton, lives 40 minutes away, and her family isn't nearly as on board as she is.  Brother Bentley has yet to come to church, and I'm not sure why.  I wish that they both would just come and bring their kids.  We've been encouraging them to for weeks and it hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, this was a pretty good week.  We have some new people to teach, and we are still working on our old ones.  The area book app is still a pain to enter in, but it is getting faster and is becoming more helpful.  I'm thankful for all of your support and your prayers.  You're always in mine.  Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide

We rode the sky ride after doing service at the zoo.

Technology and Such

Howdy everyone.  I hope all is going well with y'all, and I'm thankful to all of you who anticipate these letters every Monday and take the time to read them.  I hope that they continue to have a positive effect on your lives in one way or another.

First things first, Happy late Birthday, Mom!  I know you don't really enjoy being celebrated, but you are awesome and I love you.  Thanks for your letters each week, your thoughts, your prayers, your help with everything.  I listened to a talk yesterday from the October 2015 Conference titled, "Behold Thy Mother" by Elder Holland.  It just made me think of how awesome you are, Mom.  One line from the talk says this: "No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child."  I know that to be absolutely true.  I've seen it in you, Mom.  Love you! 

This week we have a few funny things to report, a couple of bummers, a bit of potentially really good things in the works, and some testimony.  That being said, here goes...

This week, the Alabama Birmingham Mission received technology.  I feel like we are one of the last missions in the US to receive it, but that's alright.  We had a District meeting on Wednesday where the tech assistants brought everyone their phones and helped us all to get them set up, and then on Thursday we had a Zone Conference/Tech training on how to use them.  We will be a Facebook mission, though there wasn't a whole lot of training on that.  They basically just said, "If you feel like what you look at, post, share, like, etc., is helping you fulfill your purpose, go ahead."  So go ahead and send me a friend request if you feel so inclined. (My name is just "Jackson Beach", no "Elder" included).  

Turns out that getting phones is kind of a bummer for this first little bit.  We have to enter our entire Area Book (which is basically the records of every person who has been taught in the last like 4 years) into the Area Book app on our phones, and it takes forever.  It's even worse because our area has 2 full area books for some reason, and most of them are not filled out very well.  It takes forever to enter it all in.  President Sainsbury told us to spend about 2 hours per day entering in our paper area book into the app until it was finished.  He said that it should take anywhere from 14-20 hours.  Well, I can tell you right now that ours is going to take a lot longer than that haha.  It's pretty crazy.  Once it is all in, however, it should make things a lot easier for us.

Here is one of the potentially good things in the works (partially due to this brand new technology):  We received a referral this week for a guy named Steven.  He had requested a Bible and a Book of Mormon, and so we called him on Saturday and set up a time to deliver the books on Sunday.  We went to his house, gave him the books, taught him like a 40 second restoration lesson, told him our purpose as missionaries, and introduced the Book of Mormon to him.  We set up another appointment for Tuesday.  We asked if we could add him on Facebook and he said sure, so after we left that's what we did.  Right after we did, we messaged him, and one of the first things he says was, "I would really like to be baptized."  Awesome!  Obviously there is a lot that has to happen before that event can, but if that's something he wants, awesome!  We just have to do a good job helping him understand what being baptized entails, why baptism by proper authority is necessary, and all that jazz.  Should be good.

Funny story time: We got our phones on Wednesday evening.  Like an hour before that we went to go visit a lady named Brenda who is one of our potentials.  As we were walking home from her house, we saw 2 kids playing basketball in the skreet (this is what the Alabamans call it...), so we started to just shoot with them for like 10 minutes.  The older one was like 9 and the younger one was like 6.  The younger kid was clearly better than the older one, and the older one was clearly bugged by this.  At one point, the older one goes up for a layup, and the younger one kind of gets in his way, and so he missed the layup.  Well, the older kid is like, "Boy, you gotta move!" and then he grabs the ball and just smacks the younger one right in the head.  Haha it was so dang funny, and Elder Furgeson even got it on video.  We've watched it like 20 times since then haha.

Last Tuesday we had an appointment with a lady that we had tracted into the Saturday previous.  We biked over there, and surprise surprise, she wasn't home.  So we tried to visit the Stockmans really quick (they are a really old couple in the ward) because they lived right up the "skreet".  Well, they didn't answer either, but as we were walking back to grab our bikes from where we locked them up, we saw an old guy mowing a lawn, and so we decided to go say hi and ask if we could help.  As we got closer, we were like, "Hey, that's Brother Stockman.  Mowing his neighbor's lawn?  He's like 85 years old."  Well, he had just started mowing, and so we just took the mower from him and did it.  After we finished, he says to us, "Come down to my house and I'll make you a sandwich."  So we did and visited with him and his wife for a bit, and then went on our way.  I think that was the first time I mowed a lawn in a tie before, but I hope I get to do it more this spring and summer.

Vernell had to go back to Union Springs this week and so we haven't seen her since probably Thursday or so.  Well, the Sister Missionaries have talked to her over the phone and it hasn't been all that great.  Here's the backstory:  The last time that Elder Furgeson and I saw her, she asked us if it was okay for her to go to other churches while she was in Union Springs, because it's like a 45 minute drive to get to Montgomery to come to our church.  We didn't tell her that she couldn't (because we can't infringe upon agency) but we did just let her know again that this is the only true church, and if she was going to come to church, this is where she needed to be.  It is worth any sacrifice.  I guess when the Sisters called her on the phone, she was just kind of mad that we (and they) told her that she shouldn't go to church.  She kind of dropped us due to that.  We haven't spoken with her since that last in-person visit, so I'm not sure what is to come of all of this.  It's a bit of a tough situation, and I hope we can still hold on to her.

I'm not sure exactly what the situation is with the Bentleys or the Rachids.  Neither of them were at church on Sunday.  We called the Bentleys on Saturday and they (sort of) told us they would be there...nothing.  The Rachids we had got in touch with a couple days before that, but again...nothing.  It was too bad, because there was also a baptismal service right after church for one of the recently-turned 8-year-olds in the ward, so that would have been great for all of them to attend.  Also, there wasn't a single Chiu-theory (Brother Chiu teaches the class) in Gospel Principles haha.  It was a actually a good lesson!

Yesterday we went to go see a couple, the Gordons, that we met almost 2 months ago.  I probably told y'all about them - they are an elderly couple, and the wife is a devout Baptist, while the husband is an even more devout atheist.  Well, they were really nice people (even though they have absolutely no intention of listening to what we have to say), so we visited them for a bit just to say hi.  We talked with Mr. Gordon mostly, and he told us how misled we all were for believing in God and all that stuff.  I really just feel bad for him, because though he is a great guy, there are so many things that he just doesn't know, and refuses to know, because he already "knows" that there is no God.  We just bore our testimonies over and over about different things that we know (really know) to be true.  In his own little way, he just rejected all of it.  That's okay, because we did our part.  At some point, he'll stand before God, and then he'll "know" what the truth is.  Mr. Gordon was also talking about one of his role-models, Stephen Hawking, who is basically a genius who also "knows" that God doesn't exist.  Anyway, afterwards, we were just talking about him, and Elder Furgeson said that the whole time he was talking, a scripture just kept running through his head.  2 Nephi 9:28-29 - "28 O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. 29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God."  Those two verses basically sum up our experience with Mr. Gordon.  Great guy, just really misled and really stubborn about it.

I just wan't y'all to know that I know (not "I think I know," but I actually know) that there is a God.  I know that he is our literal Father in Heaven, and I know that he loves us.  Because he loves us, he sent his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for us, and provide us the opportunity to be truly happy in this life, as well as receive eternal life in the world to come.  Their way is the only way for that to happen.  I know that it is our job to use righteously the agency that They have given us if we are to experience those, the highest of all blessings.  I love the Savior, and for the chance I have to represent Him and help others experience those blessings and that joy that I have felt.  It's a wonderful thing.

I love y'all.  Thanks so much for all of your thoughts, prayers, letters, notes, support, and encouragement.  Haha it's been fun to get all of the emails from my uncle Steve about the family March Madness tournament.  I didn't even take the time to make a bracket, but it's still funny to just see everyone talk smack to each other.  That makes my day whenever one of those emails comes in.  Anyway, love you again.  Hope y'all have a good week.

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide

District P-day.

Training on our new technology.

Training!

Our new phones!

Just before this brother smacked the other brother with the basketball...

Mowing the lawn with Brother Stockman.

Just another day at work!

Fun Week

Hello to all of my fam, friends, neighbors, fellow missionaries, or what have you.  This has been another good week in Montgomery, and I've very much enjoyed being here.  Here are a few highlights (and low-lights) from the week:

Last week I told y'all about Andre, and how we met him and taught him and it was awesome.  We have kept in touch with him over the phone, but he recently started a new job and hasn't quite figured out his new busy schedule.  We haven't met with him in person, but we have hopes that we will be able to this week.  He is still very enthusiastic to learn more.

Here's an interesting story:  We received a Bible referral out in Union Springs (which is almost an hour away) maybe 5 weeks ago.  Her name is Vernell.  If you remember my email from back then, she's the one who said "it's like Vietnam out here!" haha.  Anyway, we gave her a Bible, as well as taught her the Restoration briefly and gave her a Book of Mormon.  We haven't seen her since, though we have tried calling her about once a week since then.  We weren't ever able to set anything up with her.  Well, this week a missionary from Mormon.org (the one who sent us the referral) calls us and is like, "Elders, I've been teaching Vernell over the phone for like the past 5 days, you guys need to go see her.  She is such a sweet lady, and she loves the gospel, and she loves Jesus, and she said she wants to come to church.  She's also up in Montgomery taking care of her aunt so she should be closer to you than Union Springs."  Well, we just looked at each other and started laughing.  Those things about Vernell are true, but she's also just kind of clueless haha - more on that in a bit.  So we call up Vernell on Friday night and set up a lesson for Saturday morning.  

We taught her the Restoration again, and basically just said, "This is the only true church.  The only one.  There are only 2 churches - The Church of Jesus Christ and not the Church of Jesus Christ.  This is the Church of Jesus Christ."  We knew from our lesson before when we first met her that things didn't really click with her, so we were just really blunt.  I'm not sure if she still gets it or not.  However, she still enjoys having the Sister from Mormon.org call her and read the "Book of Moron" to her.  Vernell told us that she would come to church with us on Sunday as long as it wasn't raining.  It ended up raining Sunday morning, but she still showed up, telling us, "I ain't gonna let that devil hold me back!"  We discovered that Vernell's interest in our church mainly stems from the fact that, while she is taking care of her aunt, she lives like 2 blocks from the church.  She sort of accepted the invitation to be baptized, but that seems to be her only motivation behind doing so - because it's the closest church to her.  It's kind of a weird situation, but we are teaching her and helping her to "get it" and continue to learn.  She even came to church on Sunday and went and talked to "the pastor" afterward and thanked him for his "sermon." haha.  We're working on her...  :)  

On Saturday after our lesson with Vernell, we went out to Tuskegee to visit some people.  The whole time we were planning on seeing the Bentleys and teaching them, but Sister Bentley had to work all day, and she told us that Brother Bentley was busy, too.  That was a bummer.  So we didn't get to see them this week (except Wednesday night at the church - more on that later) and they didn't come to church either.  We also went to see a less-active named Alphonso that we usually see when we go to Tuskegee.  On Saturday he was really drunk and we had a really interesting experience with him.  He kind of just talked and talked and talked and wouldn't let us leave, but eventually we got out of there haha.  It was weird.

Alright, here's another weird story for ya.  Sister Bentley is usually at the church on Wednesdays to meet with Bishop (it's part of their deal they made for some welfare needs or something, not exactly sure).  Anyway, we always have coordination with Brother Chiu, the ward mission leader, on Wednesdays, so a couple weeks ago we were like, "We need to just meet with Sister Bentley on Wednesdays."  So we did.  We had like a 10 minute lesson with her, and then Brother Chiu walks in (as well as Caleb, a 19 year old, very slightly handicapped, ward missionary).  Well, those two are both known for having not-very-doctrinal thoughts about things, and our lesson kind of just went all over the place haha.  It wasn't very good.  We tried to save it by answering her questions by an appeal to the Book of Mormon, but things were still just all over.  As missionaries, we are told to have a member present in all of our lessons with investigators.  This seems good on paper because of fellowshipping and other good reasons.  However, Wednesday night (as well as a few other similar experiences) have made me a little hesitant to invite members to be present with us in lessons.  The best way to do it is to get with the member beforehand, share with them the lesson plan, invite them to have a very specific part in it (like bearing a testimony about a certain principle) and then maybe even role play with them beforehand.  If these things aren't done, you have no idea where the lesson might go.  Anyway, I'm just glad we got to meet with Sister Bentley and have a half-lesson with her on Wednesday since we didn't get to on Saturday.  While it wasn't great, it was better than nothing at all.

On Friday, we had a team-up with Caleb, one of the ward missionaries.  We were a little nervous to have him help us teach an investigator, due to the Wednesday night thing which I just explained, but we also wanted him to have a chance to teach and to have a good experience.  A couple in the ward, the Slaters, had signed up to have us for dinner that night, so were just thought, "We'll just take Caleb with us to dinner, and then have a pretend, practice lesson with them afterwards."  So that's what we did.  We asked him on Thursday to read through the Restoration lesson in PMG, and then on our way to the Slaters we asked Caleb which part of the lesson he would be the most comfortable sharing.  Our lesson went pretty well, and we just took it point by point.  Caleb taught about the Apostasy, and also about the Book of Mormon, and Elder Furgeson and I took the other points of the lesson.  It was good practice for Caleb.  I'm sure I was probably about as good at teaching as he is before my mission, so I commend him for coming out with us and doing his best.  I'm sure it was a good experience for him, and helped him to be more excited about his own upcoming mission.

The Rachids didn't come to church this week.  Not sure why, but that was a bummer.  Neither the Bentleys nor the Rachids were there.  But hey, Vernell was, so that was cool.

This week was a pretty good week.  We had some interesting experiences (one involving a guy who was very anti that we met downtown - I won't expand on that in this email).  We had some lessons that went well also.  I've learned this week just how much I love to share my testimony.  I love to tell people what I know to be true, even if they reject it.  I have a very strong testimony of the Savior, of the Book of Mormon, of the Prophet Joseph, and of this marvelous latter-day work.  It's a privilege to be a part of.

I love y'all!  You're always in my prayers.  Thanks for keeping me in yours.  The power of prayer is real!  I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide  

Transfers!

Hey there everyone who may find themselves reading this.  I want you to know that everything is going well and that I love you.  I'm thankful to be a missionary, and I love doing what we do.  Thanks to all of you for your love and your prayers.  They are very much appreciated.

This week we had our transfer calls, and I will be staying in the Capitol Ward with Elder Furgeson for another six weeks.  I've enjoyed my time and my service here so far, and I look forward to the weeks ahead with optimism and enthusiasm.

Last Wednesday we went to the zoo as usual to do some service.  They were draining this pond and so they had us take all of the rocks out of the pond and put them on a trailer to haul to somewhere else.  Most of the rocks were pretty huge and they weighed a ton.  When we loaded up the trailer, the tires on it were basically flat, so they had us unload like half of it and we ended up taking 3 trips to get all of the rocks moved haha.  But then they invited all 6 of us into one of the buildings with all of the zoo employees and fed us lunch.  I guess all of the hours spent at the zoo are paying off!

We had an appointment with Amir this week, and he is so fun to teach.  He literally has like no Christian background, and everything we teach him he just loves.  As I have often said or thought of this week, Amir is not "tainted by the foolish traditions of his fathers" (like the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon), and because of that he really enjoys everything we have to say.  This week we just talked to him about who God is and our relationship to him.  We also taught him how to pray, and he prayed at the end of the lesson.  We also quickly introduced the Book of Mormon to him and just invited him to read the introduction before our next appointment.  Later in the week (Saturday) our next appointment with him fell through, but he told us that we would be able to meet again soon, so we'll see.  I like teaching Amir, because he just soaks it all in, instead of trying to argue with us or give us their opposing point of view like most people do.

On Thursday we went to the Rachid's for dinner and a lesson.  While we were there waiting for dinner to get finished, Brother Rachid was like, "Do either of you play any instruments?" and I just told him that I play the uke.  He goes, "Really?" and proceeds to pull out this super nice ukulele.  He tells us that he just got it recently, he has sort of been learning, and that it is the only instrument in the house.  He happened to glance at it behind the couch which prompted his question.  Anyway, I ended up just jamming for like 5 minutes right before dinner, and Brother Rachid just says, "Well you're a lot better than I am."  Well, after dinner we started asking Sister Rachid about her experiences with the Church and the missionaries and the Book of Mormon.  She told us that she grew up Catholic, but now considered herself non-denominational.  She told us that she had read the whole Book of Mormon, but that she kind of just thought of it as stories and not really as something that actually happened.  At some point, she said these words: "I know that the church is true," but then she proceeded to tell us all of these non-denominational beliefs that she has.  When I questioned further, I discovered that she basically believes that any church that teaches good things and has good people and is just "good" overall, is (in her mind) "true."  We just very simply bore testimony that our unique message to the world as missionaries is that Jesus Christ established His Church.  Over time, that Church was lost, but has now been restored to the earth.  His Church is this Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It is, as so designated by the Lord Himself, the "only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth."  The Book of Mormon is the evidence of this wonderful truth.  I'm not sure how much she is willing to accept, but it was good for both Elder Furgeson and myself to bear short, powerful testimonies of what we know to be true, and then invite her to discover that truth for herself.  We invited Brother and Sister Rachid to read the Book of Mormon together every day.  I'm interested to see how it goes.

Last week I told y'all that we had an appointment with Dawn and David.  That was scheduled for last Monday night.  When we got a hold of them to confirm our appointment, Dawn just said something like, "I don't think you need to come over anymore.  We'll read your book, but I think it would be best for us to just do it on our own."  While I wasn't overly surprised at that, it still hurts when you have a great first lesson with someone, they feel the Spirit, and then later decide to run from it.  When that happens, all we can do is leave them our testimony and an invitation.  We just said to her, "We hope that you keep reading the Book of Mormon.  We know it is true, and will bless your life more than anything else.  Let us know when you're ready for us to come by again."  We didn't hear anything more from them, and haven't since.  We'll probably stop by in a few weeks.

That same night that they cancelled and dropped us, we ate dinner with the Lloyds.  Brother Lloyd is a former Bishop in the ward, and they are great people.  As we talked after dinner about the Book of Mormon, the impact it has had on each of our lives, and other things, Brother Lloyd brought up a thought that he had.  I'm still not sure what to think of it.  We were discussing just some of the beliefs of other churches, and here's the gist of what he said:  "One day, every pastor/preacher of all of these churches out there is going to stand before God and be held accountable for keeping His children from a knowledge of the true Gospel."  All I can think about it is, "I'm glad I'm not the judge."  I have no idea what is going to be the post-mortal state of those individuals.  I know that they are doing what they know to be right, and they are in fact helping people to draw closer to their Savior.  However, oftentimes the way that they go about doing that is just the wrong way.  They don't have a knowledge of the true, complete, restored Gospel.  And because of that, they are keeping both themselves and those in their congregations from a knowledge of the complete truth.  I know that the Lord is merciful, but he is also perfectly just.  Any thoughts on that topic?  Please send them my way!

We got a Bible referral this week named Andre.  We went over to his house on Friday and gave him his Bible, and also talked to him about the Book of Mormon.  We ended up teaching the whole Restoration to him, and we also talked about a bunch of other stuff.  He had tons of questions, and so I just kept giving him tons of answers.  It was really awesome during the time we were there, but then afterwards we were talking about it and I was just like, "Crap, I really overloaded him with info, and probably should have just shut up a long time ago and just kept it really simple and to the point, and told him that I would answer his questions later."  Anyway, we finally brought it back at the end of the lesson so I hope that he remembers that stuff which was most important.  We have another appointment with him tomorrow.  

One fun thing this week:  There are two little kids, ages probably 7 and 4, named Joshua and Kobe who live next door to us.  We went to take the trash out one day and started talking to them and then also played basketball with them for like 15 minutes haha.  It was fun and they are funny kids.  Maybe we'll meet their parents sometime and introduce them to the gospel.  

This was a good week.  I'm excited for the things ahead.  I look forward to another 6 weeks here in the Captiol Ward with Elder Furgeson.  I love you all, and thank you again for your prayers.  You're always in mine.

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide

PS - just realized that I forgot to mention this... Sister Bentley came to all three hours of church!  It was awesome!  We are still working on her husband (or I guess her "almost husband").  He didn't come, but we have been in touch with them and they are working on the whole marriage situation, so that's good.  Keep them in your prayers!  Love you again!

Another great day in the ABM!

This is what we look like after a long, hot day.

Turtles!

Montgomery's history is amazing!  This is Martin Luther King's church.

The Capitol Building.

Capitol Building.

Martin Luther King Church.

Downtown Montgomery.

Rosa Parks bus.

Here you go!

"Middle of the block, sign of the clock" - just like home!

We met some children in the park.

A little basketball with our neighbors!

A little work at the zoo.

A little jam session.

Chillin' at the park.

Is it hot enough for ya?

March has arrived in the great state of Alabama!

I guess that also means baseball!


Please don't steal the trees!


Hey!  I found my license plate!