Farewell Attalla

Hey everyone, we don't have a whole lot of time, due to the fact that I need 
to get packed and we need to get lots of other stuff done today, so I'm just 
going to get right to it.

We got the calls last night that I will be leaving Attalla.  I'm pretty sad to be 
leaving right before Christmas, especially because of all the relationships that 
I have made over the past 5+ months here, but I am ready for a change and I 
look forward to whatever is in store next.  President also called this morning 
and let me know that I will be a Zone Leader this upcoming transfer, so at least 
I know that I'll have a car!  Haha should be fun.

This past week we had a mission Christmas party in Huntsville.  The mission 
actually had 2 parties, one for the north half and one for the south, so we went 
to the north one.  One of my favorite things is just seeing missionaries whom I 
have served with, served around, or just met and come to know in other ways.  
We had a talent show type of thing as part of the pary, and Elder Vanderhoff did 
the Napoleon Dynamite dance, complete with wig, glasses, "vote for Pedro" shirt, 
and moon boots.  Haha it was pretty funny.  

This week one super cool thing happened (or I guess will happen) - we get to go 
to the temple with D to do baptisms!  He received the priesthood on Sunday 
(which was quite the stressful experience).  We found out on Sunday morning like 
15 minutes before church started that D's receiving the priesthood had to be 
sustained in Sacrament Meeting.  The plan originally was to do it in Elder's Quorum, 
but our Stake President said it needed to be done in sacrament.  So we called D 
and told him to drive really fast so that he could meet with our branch president could 
meet with him really quick and then call for a sustaining vote.  Anyway, D showed 
up to church like 15 minutes late, and when he finally showed up we just walked into 
the chapel, gave our Branch President the nod that D had brought his tithing, and 
then he got up and called for the sustaining.  (Tithing was the only thing keeping 
D back from having this done several weeks ago when he had his original interview 
for priesthood/temple recommend).  So we just gave the thumbs up to President Sickles, 
and he said that everything else was all set, so Daniel was sustained and then he 
received the priesthood and a recommend after sacrament meeting.  It was stressful 
haha, but we got it all done.  And now we get to go to the temple with him tonight!  Pretty 
awesome farewell gift to me!

We saw D on Saturday night, and talked to him about some stuff.  The lesson 
focused on the correlation between obedience and blessings.  We have been really 
straight up with D about how there are so many blessing available to him (and 
everyone) if we will just follow the commandments.  D&C 130:20-21 says, "There is a 
law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which 
all blessings are predicated - And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by 
obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."  We talked to D about 
coming to church, partaking of the sacrament, and the blessings promised from 
doing so, specifically the blessing promised in the sacrament prayers that we will 
always have the Spirit to be with us.  It was the best lesson that we have had with 
him in a while, and I know he felt the spirit.  He told us he would be at church, but 
lo and behold, he wasn't there.  I'll be interested to hear about what becomes of 
D with Elder Lyons and his new companion.

Alright, one weird story to close this up - we sort of almost got kidnapped today....  
We were walking home from the post office after grabbing some boxes to send stuff 
home, and this guy waves us over to talk to him.  As we cross the street to talk to him, 
he immediately gets mad at us because we didn't use the crosswalk.  He seemed drunk, 
but didn't smell like alcohol so I don't know what his deal was.  All I know is he was 
acting weird and I didn't like it.  He told us that he was an excommunicated member 
(which may or may not be true) and that he wanted us to come in his house to teach 
him some stuff.  When I asked what he wanted us to teach him, he said, "Just come 
inside and we'll talk!"  I asked if we could talk outside, and he just started getting mad 
at me and told me no, we had to come inside.  I just kept telling him that we didn't 
want to go inside with him, we wanted to go home, and that's what we were going to 
do.  The whole time I was trying to see if he had a weapon on him, because if not I 
was going to book it out of there.  I couldn't tell.  I asked him where he lived, and he 
pointed to the house we were right outside of.  I knew who lived there.  It's a less-active 
named M, so I asked him if she was home.  He said yes, and all the while he was 
still just up in my face, all but forcing us into the house.  When we stepped inside, M 
was sitting in the front living room, and she had no idea why we were there.  I went up 
and shook her hand and whispered to her, "We need to leave and go home.  Tell this 
man we need to go."  She told him that we needed to leave, and right at that same time 
we got a phone call.  So I just said, "We're gonna take this," and we peaced on out of there.  
I was relieved and surprised that the guy didn't follow us.  We did get his name, and 
Elder Lyons is going to ask the members around here about him and what his deal was.  
I'm not sure what his intentions were, but it was probably the weirdest and freakiest 
experience I've had in Attalla. Good way to go out, I guess!  But we are still alive and 
everything's fine.

Alrighty, well we need to get going.  Hope y'all have a merry Christmas, know that I love 
you, and I look forward to skyping in next week.  Y'all are always in my thoughts and 
prayers, and I very much appreciate yours in my behalf.  I love being a missionary, 
I love seeing people change for the better as they learn about, accept, embrace, and 
live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Nothing else can compare.

Love y'all!

Elder Beach

#RollTide

#LigthTheWorld 

 

Noccalula Falls - with lots of water!

Random dog we met at the gas station.

Elder Vanderhoff at the Christmas party.

Elder Nielson at the Christmas party.

Missionary cookies.

These were flying over Gadsden for some reason.

Our "stash".  (Christmas presents and stuff from home.)

Dakota gave us Auburn ties.  Not sure why.  Anybody want it?  I'm not going to wear it...

Alex, Dakota, me, Garrett.

The Primary gave us Christmas cards.

Elder Lyons and me at the branch Christmas party.

Brother R's 1957 Thunderbird.  So cool!

The nativity my mom sent.

The "Celestial Diskrick".

No Bad Days

Hey everyone, this has been another week that has seemed to fly by, and we are here to yet another Monday.  I hope something in my comments can be beneficial to somebody who reads them.  It feels like I was just writing a weekly email, so we'll see if I can think of some stuff that happened in the last week.

We had another lesson with T this week.  We were able to teach her about the Restoration of the gospel and invite her again to read the Book of Mormon.  I think that it definitely helped her to understand a little bit more background about what the Book of Mormon is, what it's about, and why it's important.  Since the reason we met her is because she accidentally ordered one, the last time we met with her we just kind of introduced the Book of Mormon to her, and we didn't really explain a whole lot about the Restoration.  Plus she asked us a lot of random doctrinal questions.  But this time we taught her what she needed to know to understand why we have the Book of Mormon, and why we need the Book of Mormon.  She committed to read, and we'll continue to teach her in the future.

We also saw D again last week.  We are struggling to know what to do with him.  We brought a member with us to the lesson, Brother K.  Afterwards, we were talking about how it went and Brother K said a few things that I've been thinking about since.  He said that he felt like D seemed as if he letting his pride get in the way of really knowing the things we teach him are true for himself.  Like he is willing to listen, but not really willing to learn, if that makes sense.  It made sense to me.  When we taught D about praying sincerely to know that what we taught is true, he just seemed kind of indifferent to it.  I don't know.  I love D, he's a great guy, and I want so bad for him to progress in the gospel.  But if he is ever going to, it's going to take some effort on his part.  I just wish I knew what to do to help him be willing to put forth that effort.  He didn't come to church Sunday either, though we called him on the phone multiple times between Saturday and Sunday morning.  There are times when I feel like he is understanding and willing to learn and change and progress, and others when I feel like he just doesn't care.  We are going to keep working with him, and we'll see where it goes.

Some of the "leadership" from our mission had a great meeting on Saturday. (I don't know how they decided who went to this meeting, because there were some district and zone leaders that were there, some that weren't, and some that didn't hold either position currently like me.  Either way, it was a great meeting).  Elder Costa and Elder Johnson of the Seventy both came and taught us a lot about how to use members to do missionary work, and how to better focus all of our efforts on 3 things - finding, teaching, and baptizing.  That is really our responsibility.  Read Matthew 28:19-20.  Known as "The Great Commission," this is our duty as missionaries and as members of the Church.  To find, teach, and baptize.  Elder Costa told a lot of cool conversion stories, missionary stories, bible bashing stories (my favorite haha).  He told his own conversion story, and many awesome stories from when he presided over a mission in Brazil.  One of the best was when he told a story of when he, as a Mission President, went with two Elders to teach a lesson.  When they arrived, some leaders from the church of which those they were teaching formerly belonged to were there.  Elder Costa proceeded to more or less bash with them until the leaders were confounded and had no comeback argument.  They then left, and Elder Costa and his two Elders taught a great lesson and invited the family to be baptized.  The funniest part was when he was explaining the arguments that were taking place between him and the leaders of this other church.  Elder Costa said, "The spirit told me, 'Do to them what Nephi did to Laban.'  I started looking for a sword, but couldn't find one."  Haha, it was so funny.  Then he said, "The spirit told me, 'spiritually cut their heads off.'  Oooohhhh, that makes more sense."  So Elder Costa then got out his Bible, roasted these professors of religion, and they had no choice but to leave.  It was the greatest thing ever.

Another one of the coolest things he taught us was when he said this:  "Ever since my baptism 41 years ago, I have never - NEVER - had a bad day in my life.  Why?  Because I understand the Plan of Salvation.  Sure, I have difficulties, but I have never had a bad day because I know who I am, I know who God is, and I understand His plan for me."  It was a cool lesson, and one that I hope we will always remember.  None of us need ever have a bad day when we remember the Plan.

Unfortunately we have had minimal contact with some of our people this week.  The Bs have been not feeling well, though we have spoken to them on the phone a few times.  They have yet to come to church.  We were told by K's member friends to just give her some time, since we had invited her to a few things (church, a baptismal service, etc.) and she just ignored our invitation.  We thought we would be able to see M this week but he has been super busy with work.  Hopefully we can catch him at home soon.  

We did have the opportunity to meet with S a little bit on Sunday.  He has been coming to church fairly regularly, because he has been dating a member.  (Rumors are they are getting married soon, but I haven't heard anything official).  Anyway, S and J (the member he's dating) came to gospel principles and participated and enjoyed it.  He's a really cool guy, and I would love to teach him.  Every time we have reached out to J in regards to meeting with him she has kind of just ignored us or shrugged us off, so that gospel principles class was a good icebreaker for us with them.  

We also were able to set a date with D to go to the temple and do baptisms.  We will (hopefully) be going on the 18th!  That is going to be a hectic day, as it will be our p-day and I'm likely going to be packing for transfers.  I look forward to going to the temple, even if only to the baptistry.  Our mission temple trip for this transfer was postponed to January, so we haven't been for a while.  I miss going and I love having the opportunity to attend.  It's definitely something I look forward to doing more often when I get home.

I love y'all!  Hope you have a great week.  I'm slightly jealous that Mom and Dad are going to be partying on a cruise ship for the next few days, but that's alright.  I'm living it up, spreading the good word in Alabama.  I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.  Thanks everyone for the thoughts, prayers, notes, and emails.  They are all awesome.  Keep 'em coming!  Love y'all!

Elder Beach

#RollTide

#LightTheWorld

PS - Tua didn't win the Heisman.   But that's okay because he's going to win a national championship instead!

After traveling 12,000+ miles (back and forth from Utah to Alabama 4 times), my Thanksgiving package finally arrived this week! :)

Fun sign we saw in someone's yard.

Friends I got to see at MLC this week.

My boy, Elder Maness. (Can you find me in the background?)

Read and Believe

Hey everyone, hope y'all had a great week!  As usual, our week had its ups and downs.  I'm going to try and remember as many of them as I can in the next few minutes as I put this email together.  Hopefully it works out.

First, in a most unlikely turn of events, Jalen Hurts became the hero and led Alabama to a crazy victory over Georgia in the SEC Championship.  We didn't have the opportunity to catch any of the game (I will explain why in a moment), but we have caught up on all that happened and it was quite the game.  Alabama is heading into the College Football Playoff undefeated.  Roll Tide.

As the game started, we were trying to figure out what to do.  I know that the white handbook says that "Saturdays...are a great time for proselyting because most families are at home and are together."  What the white handbook doesn't say, is that that statement almost does not apply in Alabama during football season.  But anyway, nobody had invited us to watch with them, and we didn't have anyone specific to see, so we started knocking doors.  From some inside sources, I had hear that the score was (I believe) 21-7 for Georgia in the 2nd quarter when we started knocking.  We hit a few doors, and most didn't answer.  The few that did quickly turned us away because the game was on.  We finally happened upon a 34-year-old guy named M.  He told us that he didn't care much for football, and he immediately let us know that he had just completed a 14 hour shift as an ambulance driver.  We hardly had time to respond to anything he said before he just started telling us story after story about his past 10 years as a firefighter, EMT, ambulance driver, etc.  Super cool guy, but he barely took a breath for like 2 hours while he just told us these stories haha.  By the end, I said to him, "You know, we've been here for 2 hours and I don't even know your name."  He told us, and we introduced ourselves, and we told him a story of our own - the story of the Restoration.  It was brief, but he seemed genuinely interested, we exchanged phone numbers, and I look forward to seeing him again in the future.  (Side note:  While we were talking with M, I couldn't help but wonder what the score of the game was.  However, his neighbors a couple doors down, ones who had just turned us away, were watching the game.  They were VERY loud, and so I could tell that Alabama was doing better even though we couldn't see it.  It was funny to hear them just cheer and complain at random points while we were talking on the porch.)

The last few weeks we have been struggling to get people to church.  I'm not really sure why.  We have had 4+ people who we are expecting to be there each week, and none have come.  I'm not sure what exactly the reason behind some of them are.  The Gadsden Elders had another baptism on Saturday, and we invited lots of people to that as well.  None came.  The Bs told us, "If we aren't at the baptism, we'll for sure be at church."  They weren't.  We invited K to the baptism, and she just ignored our message.  We asked her member friends to reach out and invite her to it, and to church again since she hasn't been for a few weeks.  They told us they would, but she didn't come to either.  D told us he was out with his friends on Saturday night until 5 AM, and that's why he wasn't at church.  I'm not really sure what's up with G, but while her dad is consistent, she still has only been to church the one time about 6 weeks ago.  We are working on people, loving them, teaching them, and helping them, but it's still just frustrating sometimes when people choose not to live the commandments we invite them to live, and thus miss out on the blessings promised from living them.

D is interesting.  At some points, I feel like he is understanding things really well, and then sometimes he seems like he's completely clueless haha.  He's really limited in his basic gospel/biblical knowledge.  We read part of 2 Nephi 2 with him this week, and we talked about the Fall of Adam and Eve.  We talked about its purpose, its consequences, and how those consequences (sin and death) can be overcome through the Atonement of Christ.  It was a little bit deeper than I had intended to go, but D was understanding things, asking great questions, and it was going really well.  But then he stops us and says something like, "Wait, Jesus was born after Adam?"  Yes D.  Everybody was born after Adam.  He was really confused by that, and we had to spend some time explaining other things again haha.  It was quite the adventure.  But honestly his retention is better than most people, and he is slowly but surely understanding things better and better.  Now we just need to help him put his knowledge into action.  Like James says, faith without works is dead.  Gospel knowledge, without gospel living, is dead also.  I know, like John 7:17 states, that "if any man shall do his will, he will know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."  We learn gospel knowledge, we put it into practice in our lives, and then the spirit confirms to us that that specific doctrine or practice is from God.  And then we naturally will want to learn more about it and live by it more as well.  What a cool cycle!

On Sunday morning, one of the members on our street came to church and said that the tree in between them and their neighbor had fallen on their neighbor's house.  We organized a cleanup crew pretty quickly and met after church to help get it cleaned up.  Luckily the tree didn't split their house in two, as it probably could have.  it fell on their porch and destroyed the corner of their roof above it.  We chopped and sawed and cleaned up what we could, but somebody with some heavier equipment is going to have to finish the job for us.  But it was a great opportunity to minister to a nonmember neighbor, especially since there are a whole ton of members on that street.  They were very appreciative.

We also were able to go and visit T again this week and have a lesson with her.  We mostly talked about the Book of Mormon and its importance, and how it goes together with the Bible to testify of Christ.  We also talked about how it is evidence of the Restoration of the gospel to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith.  She had lots of random questions about Jesus, about science/religion, and about Adam and Eve.  We answered each of them, and invited her to keep reading the Book of Mormon.  We also invited her to church with us, but she told us she was Catholic and that she goes to church with her dad on Sundays.  She did tell us that she might visit sometime though, and she said we could come back again and teach her more about the Book of Mormon.

Like I said earlier, the Gadsden Elders had a baptismal service on Saturday for a couple named C and N.  They are super awesome.  Some of the coolest people I've met.  They were actually met by Sister missionaries about 9 months ago, and they just kept meeting and learning and reading until they were finally able to enter the waters of baptism.  I know that people like C and N, D and R, and others whose baptisms I have witnessed, are out there.  Sometimes it seems that they are few and far between, but they are out there and they are waiting for the gospel to be proclaimed to them.  Something that C said at the service (and something that D told us a couple months ago) was this: "The more I read [The Book of Mormon], the more I believe."  How true that is.  It always strengthens our testimony, and brings us closer to the Savior.  The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and His mission more clearly and powerfully than any other book.  Anyone who reads with a desire to know the truth will be able to say, "The more I read, the more I believe."

I love y'all!  Have a great week!  Hope everybody had a chance to watch the First Presidency's Christmas devotional last night.  It was awesome.  Go watch it if you haven't.  

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide

#SECChamps

#LightTheWorld