First off, just wanna thank everyone for the birthday wishes this week. It was great to hear from many of you, and to receive notes and gifts from you. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Addi, Jayden, Garrison, Grandma, Grandpa, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, and friends who took time to send an email, write a note, or something of the sort. Also just a special shoutout to Addi for the cool sock tie, and to Jayden for the Chick-fil-a gift cards. Both are being put to good use. All of your thoughts made it a great birthday, and hey, I only have one more left before I come home haha!
Also, we got transfer calls this week, and I'm going to be leaving Montgomery (sort of). Technically I'm not really supposed to know where I'm going until I get to transfer meeting on Wednesday, but today the APs sent our district this huge long text telling us in detail what the best way for each of us to get to transfer meeting is while using the least amount of miles. Anyway, in that text I was told that I'm going to Greenville (which is just south of Montgomery, and actually in the same district) so I am actually not going to transfer meeting. I'm going to be companions with Elder Kapcsos, whom I went on exchanges with a couple weeks ago. I look forward to my time there, even though it has historically been one of the toughest areas to work in. (Many people make jokes about how disobedient missionaries get "banished" to Greenville haha). It's a struggle down there, but we're gonna go to work and see where it takes us.
We went on a couple of exchanges this week with Carter Hill. I did one with Elder Robins and one with Elder Mateus. They were both pretty fun. When I was with Elder Mateus we were walking up the street and there were some kids out playing football, so we joined in and played with them for a while. After 15 minutes or so, we left to go stop by some people. One of them was a less-active guy whom I had met a couple times before. His is a weird situation. He lives with his ex-wife and her new husband in their home. He doesn't do much except lay in bed all day every day, and his little chihuahua, Jasmine, just lays on top of him. He wears one of those hospital gowns that I don't think has ever been washed. Jasmine literally just lays on his chest or his shoulder, and eats all of his leftover crumbs and eats stuff out of his beard. It's pretty gross. Anyway, we stopped by to see how he was doing, and it happened to be his birthday! We wished him happy birthday, made sure people were still bringing him the sacrament each week, and asked if he was keeping up with his scripture reading. Everything seemed to be going pretty well, so that was good. We shared a scripture and left before Jasmine could attack us haha.
After we left his house, we were walking back to our bikes and the kids that we were playing football with earlier found us. There were 3 of them who were each like 12 years old, and literally all they talked about was stuff that no 12 year old (or really anyone) should ever be talking about. I was like, bro where are your parents? These kids literally followed me and Elder Mateus around for like 20 minutes, and I was pretty sick of them by the end of it.
We taught Robert again this week a couple of times. We reviewed the Restoration with him, and he had actually read through the pamphlet that we left. We talked about that, as well as the importance of the Book of Mormon. For the most part, Robert actually seems to understand what is going on. He's excited to learn.
There have been a lot of people we have dropped this week. I always hate dropping people, because I feel like everyone has potential. When we drop them, we are basically making the decision that they aren't ready to receive the gospel yet. It's a hard thing to do, but I guess when people aren't ready, they just aren't ready. It's one thing for people to actually listen and comprehend what we tell them, and then decide to reject it. It's another thing entirely for them to just have no clue what's going on when we teach them the Restoration. I don't know what to do about it. All I know is that I 'm going to keep telling everyone about the wonderful truths that I have come to know for myself - That Jesus is the Christ, that he lived and died and lived again for each of us, that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Church of Jesus Christ is again on the earth, and that these truths will bring more happiness to all who discover them than anything else in the world. I know those things are true, and I'm grateful for the chance I have to share those truths with others, regardless of whether or not they choose to listen. I'm just going to keep praying that they do, because when we find someone who does it makes everything worth it. There's not a whole lot of better feelings than when someone accepts a baptismal invitation (or better yet, tells you they want to be baptized without us asking); or someone tells you this phrase: "How can you read the Book of Mormon and say it's not true?"; or when you see a couple of kids get baptized by their dad, and you get to watch the joy on the faces of each of them, as well as many members who have worked for years to get them to that point. Missions suck sometimes, but they're also filled with some of the greatest experiences anyone could ever have.
Alright, I love you guys. Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes. I look forward to going down to Greenville, and I'll let y'all know how that goes next week. Talk to you later.
Love,
Elder Beach
#RollTide
#BanishedToGreenville
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