Elder Jackson Beach: Exchanges and Such

Hey everyone, this week had its ups and downs but it was pretty good so I'll give y'all the highlights. They are as follows:

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had exchanges with Greenville, Elder Henrie and Elder Kapcsos. On Tuesday Elder Kapcsos and I went to visit a guy who we had made an appointment with a few days before. His name is Bob, and he is an older guy who wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon. He really just wanted it to learn more about our beliefs, he had absolutely no intention of changing or adding to his. Anyway, we went to go see him, and he just started asking a bunch of questions about a bunch of different things, and we just answered them for him. One thing that he asked that many people ask is something along these lines: "Well y'all believe that you are saved by works." It's more of a statement than a question, but it's brought up a lot. It's something that a lot of people get confused about. Here's the scoop - There is absolutely nothing we can do on our own to earn celestial glory. We NEED a Savior. That's why He came to the Earth. We cannot do it on our own. Grace is absolutely necessary. However, He cannot make us go to the Celestial Kingdom. We cannot just do nothing. There are certain things that we must do, which include making and keeping covenants, and living "by every word that proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God." We must live the Gospel. Grace and works are both necessary, and anyone who fully understands the scriptures will understand that. Just a little Southern misconception that I thought I would clear up right quick. You can't just pray once and "ask Jesus to save you" and then do whatever else you want to in life and expect to go to Heaven because you're "saved." There's a little more to it than that. We explained that, and a lot of other things, to Bob, and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. Also as part of our exchange we went down to Greenville so that I could give a baptismal interview to a 9-year-old that they have been teaching. Her parents are both less-active members, so she was never baptized. Between her and the Cockrells, I'm starting to see that part member families are the place to be to find solid baptismal candidates to teach.

On Thursday and Friday we had exchanged with the Zone Leaders in Prattville. I went with Elder Jacob (whom I had exchanged with before when he was the DL in Montgomery) and we had a pretty good time. The only thing that kinda sucked was we biked a LOT. I haven't been biking a whole lot, only every once in a while. But when I was with Elder Jacob, like all of our appointments and stop bys fell through so we basically just biked from house to house to house and that's it haha. My butt was pretty sore for a while haha.

Friday night we had dinner with the Cockrells. Now, these were some different Cockrells, so let me explain. Randy Cockrell is the father of Morgan and Megan. Randy has an older brother named Mike. Mike somewhat recently married a nonmember named Janet. Mike and Janet are who we had dinner with. Mike and Janet are also 2 of the people in our crazy Gospel Principles class last week, and Janet was one of the hecklers. However, dinner was actually very good, and we had the chance to clear up a lot of confusion with her. I guess she and Mike have lots of gospel discussions about certain topics. Janet is pretty stubborn in her own souther-baptist-turned-non-denominational beliefs, but she likes hearing what other people believe. She may not be ready for change right now, but we and Mike will keep working with her on that. For Gospel Principles on Sunday, we also decided to just teach the Restoration, so that people could understand why we believe what we believe. Our church teaches a lot of unique doctrine. True as it is, it is often misunderstood by outsiders, so we decided to clear those things up. Unfortunately, there was nobody in the class this Sunday that was there last Sunday. So though we had probably the best gospel principles class ever, it didn't reach all of the ears that it needed to.

On Saturday we went out to Tuskegee and we met Phyllis who I told you about a couple weeks ago. She moved from Georgia and the missionaries there told us that she was super solid and to go visit her. Well, we called her Friday and told us that we could come by, but she wasn't sure if she would be home, so she told us to call again Saturday morning before we came. We called her like 4 times, left 2 messages, and she even called us back in the middle of that but somehow we missed the call. Anyway, she knew that we would be out there and would try to stop by. So we went to stop by even though we hadn't really been able to make a solid appointment with her. She lives way out in the boonies, but we eventually got there and she was home. We pretty much just got to know her and talked about her experience with the church and the missionaries in Georgia. It went pretty well, but we were kinda just struggling to think about getting her a ride to church. There are literally 3 active members in Tuskegee, and we were unsure as to whether they would be willing. Anyway, we leave Phyllis' house and like 10 minutes later she texts us and says something like, "Sorry Elders, my mom is pretty mad that you guys just showed up unannounced and I don't want to anger her. It's probably not a good idea that you come by any more while I am here. It's kind of scary." I was like what the heck? Phyllis is literally like almost 60 years old and her mom is like in her 80s. Plus we met her mom when we were there and she wasn't mad at all at us. We just told Phyllis to keep reading the Book of Mormon, and let us know if she needs anything or if her mom changes her mind. It was kind of a bummer to get dropped like that, but it is what it is.

Sunday we were tracting for a bit, and we met a guy named Robert. He let us into his home and we were able to share the Restoration with him. We have another appointment with him on Tuesday to see how his reading has been going, so that's good. After we got into Robert's house, literally nobody wanted to talk to us, so Elder Tyrrell and I invented a new strategy to knocking doors. It's called "Aggressive Tracting." We have been taught that when we are tracting, we always should talk past the first "no" and then if they say no again we can leave. But on Sunday we just decided to talk past every single "no" that we were given haha. Obviously if people say no a couple of times they aren't just going to change their mind, so we just would keep talking and talking and talking, getting as much teaching and as much truth in as we possibly could until we either couldn't any more or they just shut the door on us. It was one of the more entertaining things I've done while knocking doors haha. Aggressive Tracting was pretty funny.

Well, that was pretty much our week. Oh, also I heard some awesome news this week! Do y'all remember Daniel Cantu from Scottsboro? He is a Lakota Indian and his real Indian name is Two Blades Dear Man. Anyway, his wife Aimee is a member, and Elder Marshall and I began teaching him way back when. Well, Aimee messaged me a few days ago on Facebook and told me that old Two Blades is getting baptized this week! That's pretty cool, and I'm pretty pumped for them up there. I hope to hear the same news about Deana some day, too.

Alright, love you guys! The work is tough here in Montgomery, but I'm enjoying it. I know the things we teach are true, and they are necessary for true happiness. I love sharing them with others. Thanks for all of your prayers. Talk to y'all again next week.

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide

#AgressiveTracting

#TwoBladesIsGettingDunked