Elder Jackson Beach: 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.