Elder Jackson Beach: General Conference Week

Hello everyone, hope y'all are doing well. We're going to get cracking real quick here with some stuff from the week....

Obviously the highlight of the week was General Conference. Everyone already knows about all the changes, but I'm excited for them. I know that they are inspired of the Lord, and will benefit His children. Seven temples! And one in Russia! Yeah that was pretty crazy. If it wasn't obvious enough already, the Lord is hastening His work, and is bringing all of His blessings to all of His children. It's a cool thing to be a part of.

It was also a really cool thing to be a part of the Solemn Assembly, and sustain our new Prophet, Apostles, and other leaders. President M. Russell Ballard encouraged us all to write down the things that we felt as we participated in that Solemn Assembly. I loved just watching President Nelson as it happened. You could just see his humility showing as the weight of his new responsibility sunk in. It was another cool thing to watch.

Here's one of my favorite things that I learned from Conference. It comes from Elder Larry Y. Wilson in the Sunday Morning session. He talked about how when we have problems, we often ask in prayer something similar to the following: "Please bless me," or "Please help me with this," or something of the sort. We basically ask our Father in Heaven to fix our problems for us. That's not necessarily a bad thing to do, but Elder Wilson suggested that we focus on making our prayers more like this: "What can I do to find a solution to this problem?" or "What can I do to fix it?" He said that rather than ask God to fix our problems, we should ask him what we can do to fix them ourselves, and then follow the guidance of the Spirit. We will be much more likely to have resolved problems that way. President Nelson also spoke about how to be better at receiving personal revelation. Those two talks combined can work wonders in our lives, and help us to be happier people.

I loved Conference. It was such a great weekend. I hope all of you enjoyed it as much as I did, and look forward to these new changes as much as I do. I'm so thankful to be lead by a living prophet, who literally receives divine guidance from a loving Father in Heaven. I hope y'all choose to obey the familiar primary song's advice and "follow the prophet." He counseled us to read, reread, study, and conscientiously apply the teachings from this Conference in the 6 months to come. I look forward to doing just that.

Alright, now here's some non-Conference stuff:

I told you last week how there was a guy that pulled up to us in his truck and said, "Y'all got any brochures?" We gave him a Restoration pamphlet and set up a time to teach him. On Saturday we went to that appointment, and here's how it went down: We walk up to his house and there are some kids in the yard. We ask them if Mike lives there and they say, "I don't know, but my sister is in the back and she does." So they go and grab the sister, and so she and another guy (both like 20ish) come out from the backyard. We ask them if Mike is there and they both are like "Who's Mike? I don't know Mike?" We explain the situation and that we are missionaries and Mike told us to come by. Like 20 seconds later, the guy is like, "Oh yeah, Mike lives here, he's just not here now." And then he calls him on the phone haha! Anyway, we didn't end up seeing Mike that night, but at least we know he lives there. Just FYI, this is not something that is uncommon. People think we are cops all the time, and lie to us because of it all the time haha. It's kinda funny and pretty ridiculous.

We went to see Barbara again this week, and she is pretty awesome. She, unlike most people, realizes that all of the different churches around here are NOT in fact "just the same" as every other church. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, and is eager to continue learning. We invited her to watch General Conference, and we testified about the Restoration and how there are literal prophets and apostles on the earth today leading Christ's true Church. I'm not actually sure if she watched it yet, but I feel pretty sure she watched at least some of it. We have another appointment with her tomorrow, and we are bringing the Relief Society President, Sister Ladner, with us. They should connect pretty well, and we are looking forward to seeing Barbara at church this week.

There is a guy named Royce that we have been trying to set up an appointment with for a couple of weeks. Royce is good friends with the Branch President down in Greenville. He has also listened to the entire Book of Mormon on audio. We have talked to him on the phone several times, and he has just said, "You aren't going to convert me, but I'll talk with you." Anyway, we finally got an appointment with him this week. I'm not sure what he really believes, because at times he seems like he believes what we taught him, and at times he seems like he doesn't at all. He claims to be non-denominational. We basically just taught him the Restoration, and how the Book of Mormon is evidence that Jesus Christ's church is on the earth today. Royce told us that he wholeheartedly believes the Book of Mormon, but he doesn't believe that there is a "perfect church" on the earth. We did our best to help him connect the dots, but I don't think he has yet. The reason he believes that there is no "perfect church" is because all people are imperfect, so there can't be a "perfect church." I just explained to him that by his definition of "perfect church," even the church that Jesus Christ Himself established and was at the head of during his mortality was not a "perfect church." I told him that while, obviously, people are imperfect, the church still is. The church is perfect because the doctrines, teachings, structure, organization, and priesthood power and authority are. Most importantly, this Church, unlike any other, is The Church of Jesus Christ. It is His Church. Those perfect doctrines, teachings, structures, organizations, and priesthood powers and authorities are perfect because they are His, and not the creation of man. Anyway, we just tried to help Royce connect the dots between the Book of Mormon being true, and this being the true Church. We also invited him to watch General Conference and he said he would. We'll try him again sometime, because he has a lot of potential.

Last week the Assistants sent out a text to everyone in the mission to participate in the ABM Egg Hunt. They sent out these little papers for us to print and put in some eggs and then hide them around our area. On the paper was a little note that said something like, "In order to remember that Christ is the reason for Easter, when you find this egg, take a picture of yourself with it and post it with a favorite scripture, a testimony, a favorite Easter memory, etc., and hide the egg for someone else to find. Include #ABMEggHunt." The paper also had "mormon.org" on the bottom. Anyway, we printed like 30 of these little papers and hid all of the eggs all over the place downtown. On the night following the afternoon that we placed the eggs, we went back to see if any of them had been found. Well, there wasn't a single one that we had placed that was in its original spot, and we saw several of them in various garbage cans. There was not a single post with #ABMEggHunt. In fact, I'm pretty sure if you search that, it just comes up with a bunch of missionary posts and maybe like 3 from members. So, what started out as an idea with a bit of potential to help people remember the reason for the holiday, turned into us finding our efforts to help people remember that reason in the trash. Haha, it was a bummer. It seems like the rest of the mission probably had similar amounts of success. I guess it's the effort that counts, haha.

Well, we had a good Easter and a good Conference weekend. I'm thankful that we have living Prophets and Apostles to lead and guide Jesus Christ's church under His divine direction. It's a great thing to share with others. I know that Russell M. Nelson is a prophet of God, and I know that the new changes are divinely inspired and will bring more blessings to God's children.

I love y'all! Hope you had a good Easter and a good week! Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide