I'm not gonna lie...

Howdy everybody back home, hope y'all are doing well. This week has gone alright. We're doing what we can to find people to teach, so that's basically been our week.

We were knocking some doors earlier and met an older lady named Mary Dean. When we knocked her door she immediately let us in, before we even introduced ourselves. We sat down, and she just started talking to us. She spent a good 30 minutes telling us about all of her medical problems, and then just said "Alright, tell me what y'all are here to tell me." She let us know that she used to have missionaries like us come by every week a while back. (We never did quite figure out if she meant Mormon missionaries or Jehovah's Witnesses or something else haha). Anyway, we just said to her that we would share some things with her and see if any of it was familiar. After taking about 5 minutes to very briefly and simply explain the gist of the Restoration, we paused. I asked her, "Do you understand? Can you put what we just said into your own words?" She just said, "I'm not gonna lie (her favorite phrase), I have no idea." We started over, explaining it even more simply. She seemed to understand a little bit better but still doesn't get it completely. I feel like I've run into this problem so many times before (not so much in Scottsboro, but here down south) where people just don't get it. We explain things so simply and people just can't seem to either grasp what we are saying, or can't connect the dots. I honestly don't know how to be more simple than something like, "If the Book of Mormon is true, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is Christ's true Church on the earth. The way you can know that this is true is by reading, pondering, and praying about the Book of Mormon." I've said a phrase similar to that many many times, and added my testimony of this truth.  I just pray that one of these days it will 1) make sense to somebody who hears it, and 2) be something that is important to them.

We also met a lady this week named Melissa.  She is a less-active who Elder Kapcsos had met at a store a few months ago, but her address was wrong in the area book so they could never stop by her place.  Anyway, we found the house and met her and her boyfriend.  They were both really nice, and I guess missionaries used to hang out with them quite a bit a few years ago.  She described herself as "very inactive," and that's what she is.  People like her I don't really understand.  She spent a good bit of time basically bearing her testimony to us of how she knows the church is true, knows the Book of Mormon is true, she even told us a story of how she defended the Church against some people who were anti, and stuff like that.  She also is good friends with several of the members, and asked us how each of them were doing.  Yet she also told us that she smokes, drinks, and hasn't set foot in the church for years.  I've met a handful of people like her in my time here in Alabama, and each of them still just kind of blow my mind.  But I guess the scriptures are true when they say, "Faith without works is dead."  It's great to have a testimony.  You should always hang onto that.  However, faith is a principle of action.  If our faith doesn't drive us to do something, it doesn't benefit us at all.  We told her that she is always welcome at church, she just responded, "Oh, I know."  I don't really understand being less-active.  It's a pretty foreign concept in my mind, but I'm trying to love them, serve them, and help them see the blessings of activity in the Lord's Church.

Alright, well today (PDay) we finally got to come up to Montgomery for PDay and for an exchange, so we'll be in my old area for the next couple days which will be fun.  Thanks so much for your prayers, keep 'em coming.  Greenville is tough, and we are trying hard to find people to teach.  I know that there's someone out there, just gotta find them.  Love you guys!  Talk to you next week.

Elder Beach

#RollTide

PS - Happy Father's Day yesterday!  Love you Dad!

Working hard!

 

Found this gem in the closet of my apartment.  Someone sent it to one of the previous missionaries for Christmas...  Maybe it will help me forget about the heat!  :)