Elder Jackson Beach: Roooooooll Tide!

Hey everyone, I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving week and are not too full from eating too much. I was proud of myself as I did a fairly good job of not overeating at either of the Thanksgiving dinners that I attended. (Unlike last year when I went to three different ones and ate way too much at all three...)

As far as missionary work goes, and non-missionary work goes, our week definitely had some ups and downs. Thanksgiving, Iron Bowl, new referrals, those are all ups. USU vs Boise State, nobody at church, and overall kind of a slow week, those are all downs. Here are a few of the details about each:

First and foremost, Alabama managed to avoid an upset from Auburn. And they did more than just avoid an upset, they kind of spanked Auburn and it was a fun game to watch. As if he hadn't already, Tua basically cemented his spot as the top Heisman candidate. He's so good. Roll Tide. That's all I have to say about that. Funny side note about the Iron Bowl - so we live in the upstairs apartment of a couple of members, Carlie and Dakota. Dakota is a die hard Auburn fan. Carlie's family lives in the two houses on either side of them, and basically all throughout Attalla. They are all die hard Alabama fans. So we watched the game next door with them, who cheered for the winning team, while Dakota stayed home alone and watched it by himself haha.

For Thanksgiving we were able to go to the Williams', a family from the branch. Their Thanksgiving tradition is to make as many pies as they possibly can, and then to try as many as will fit in their stomachs. They said their record was 67 pies one year. Crazy! This year they only had about 25, but it was still the most pies I had ever seen at one meal. Later we got to go to another Thanksgiving meal with the Compton clan. We played a little bit of football right before we ate. Now, I don't want to brag, but I did have a pick-6, and I was targeted 3 times for 3 touchdowns on offense haha. Backyard football is something I hadn't played for a long time, and everyone was able to have fun and stay injury free.

Earlier in the week we got a call from a member who said he needed some help patching someone's roof, so we went and helped him out. He had been up there before to put a new patch of shingles in a few places, but it was still leaking. We basically just covered almost the entire roof with a giant tarp. Afterwards, we sat down and talked to the homeowner, an elderly lady named Miss Turner. We were able to share with her a little bit about what we do as missionaries, and we talked to her a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. She even expressed interest in coming to church with us, so we'll see where that goes.

We had plans to see Katelyn on Saturday morning and continue teaching her, but then a couple of days before she cancelled because of some type of family get-together. We told her that was fine, and we looked forward to seeing her at church, but then she didn't come to church either. That was a major bummer. Savannah, Katelyn's referring member friend, told us she was sick (like a lot of people we talked to this week). We'll do our best to see her sometime this week so we don't have to wait until Sunday to see her again.

We called the Baxley's a couple of times this week and they said they weren't feeling well, or they were out of town. That seems like kind of their thing - being sick or being gone. We did talk to them on the phone on Saturday night and Sister Baxley said they would be at church. They weren't. That was kind of the theme of our week haha - people not coming to church.

We were able to see Damion twice this week and teach him the Plan of Salvation. Our focus with Damion the last little while has just been the basics: faith, repentance, scripture study, coming to church. We taught him the Plan of Salvation to help him understand a little bit better why those things are so important. Whenever we mention the word "baptism" to Damion, he always tells us something to this effect: "I don't want to get baptized and then just make mistakes and go back to where I was." That's good. That means he realizes that baptism is a serious commitment, and repentance comes before baptism. We explained to him that repentance is just as available after baptism as before. However, Damion brought up some things that he definitely needs to not be doing anymore if he is ever to get baptized. We talked about repentance and choosing some alternative activities to do instead of the ones that he's doing. He seems to know that the things he's doing are wrong, but I'm not sure where his intention to change is. I guess we'll just keep working on that, and keep working on the basics as well. Milk before meat. When he has a testimony of the basics, then his desire to continue to repent will increase. Unfortunately, Damion was sick like a lot of people, and he wasn't at church either.

Daniel, same deal. He was not feeling well this weekend, as as a result he was not at church. As a result of that, neither was his daughter, Gabi, so we haven't had another opportunity to teach her at all yet.

On Thursday we received a Book of Mormon referral (meaning she requested a copy online) named Tachise (pronounced "Ta-Cheese"). Apparently she accidentally put her information into the website and requested a Book of Mormon, but she thought that she was applying for a job. Not really sure how that happened haha. When the referral sisters called her she said that she would be interested in a copy, so we went and delivered. Tachise is from Haiti, and she seemed somewhat open to learn more about the Book of Mormon. We only visited for a few minutes, but we invited her to begin reading and we set up a return appointment for this week. We'll see how things go with her.

Spiritual thought for the week:

We had multi-zone conference this week with the Bessemer zone, and one thing that we did there, as well as in MLC last transfer, was have a testimony meeting. We went around the room and every single person took about 20-30 seconds and share a brief, simple, pure testimony about whatever gospel principle they wanted to. When we had approximately 60 pure testimonies borne in that short of a time, the spirit is very strong. President talked about the difference between pure testimony vs. a thank-timony, or a travelogue, or a story-mony. He said something like, "Imagine the power that would be in our fast and testimony meetings if we had 40, 1 minute pure testimonies, instead of 5-6 of these others." I know that testimony invites the spirit, and it does so even more when our testimonies are pure testimonies. I invite y'all to give that some thought and to keep it mind at your next fast and testimony meeting.

Well, we're working hard to make sure Attalla is better when we leave than it was when we arrived. I know that the Lord has His hand in His work, and He is helping us to move it forward. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. Love y'all!

Elder Beach

#RollTide

#LightTheWorld