I experienced a couple of firsts this week at church. Our branch president was out of town this weekend, and so Elder Porter and I as his counselors were pretty much in charge. I conducted sacrament meeting, which was a little weird. Nothing too strange, I just hadn't ever done that before. Second, I set a new record for smallest congregation that I've ever attended. Normally there are about 30 at church in our branch, but on Sunday there were only 17 including us. It was pretty sparse. Lots of people have been sick lately, so that's probably why. Or maybe they just heard that I would be conducting, haha I don't know.
On Sunday evening we were just stopping by some old people in the area book. Our area book is crazy. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of people that are in there that were tracted into, and then there is no indication that they were ever followed up with or dropped. So there's basically just a ton of people that we need to follow up with, even though it might be months or years later. We need to at least establish their interest level, and either start teaching them or drop them so we don't just have an area book full of people that we need to follow up with. That's what we've been doing a fair amount of lately. Anyway, there was one family that actually had been met and taught a little bit last summer, but for some reason the missionaries stopped going by. We went over to meet them, and it was quite the visit haha. The lady we were looking for I guess lives there with her husband and his parents. We met the parents, and the dad wanted nothing to do with us. He was very rude. The wife was really kind, and we visited with her for a few minutes. The whole time, her husband would just interject and say something like, "I don't want to have anything to do with the Mormons!" or "Some Mormon missionaries told me that if I don't believe John Brown was a prophet I'm going to hell!" He was quite rude, but we did our best to correct some of his false beliefs in the little time that we had, and the wife said that we could stop by another time. We'll see what her husband says if we ever do.... It was just another one of those interesting experiences that you see as a missionary all the time.
I'm grateful for the fact that in our doctrine, we don't hate on or bash other religions like they do to us. Other churches sometimes even have classes devoted to teaching "the truth about the Mormons." Though we do believe that we have the fullness of the gospel, we do not condemn others in the least bit for believing in God and following the Savior regardless of their religion. Elder Anderson even said to us last year when he came to our mission, "If you leave the Church, don't leave the Savior. Go be a good Baptist or a good Methodist or something else, but never abandon Christ." That's what we teach, and that's what we believe. I love that. We don't tear down other's beliefs. We say, "Bring what you have, and we will give you more."
We also had our zone conference this week in Tupelo. It was the first time I've been to Mississippi, and so I had to take a picture with the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign. I now have one with Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. There's only one area in our mission that has a tiny sliver of Georgia, so I can bet that most missionaries here will never have that chance. Pretty cool. Anyway, I think my favorite part of our zone conference was when we watched a talk called "Stand Forever" given by Elder Lawrence Corbridge at BYU a few weeks ago. A while back, one of his assignments as a General Authority was to read pretty much every bit of anti that he could find. The talk that he gave at BYU a few weeks ago was more or less his response to all of the anti and all of the critics of the Church. It was a really good talk, and I invite you all to check it out. You can find it at speeches.byu.edu. I've listened to it about 3 times this week. Below are his concluding paragraphs, and I though I'd share them with you:
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world. I know this by my experience—all of it. I know this by the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming. I know it by study, and, most surely, I know it by the spirit and power of the Holy Ghost.
Joseph Smith was a prophet of God who laid the foundation for the restoration of the kingdom of God. I know this by my experience—all of my experience. I know this by the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming. I know it by study, and, most surely, I know it by the spirit and power of the Holy Ghost.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God on the earth. I know this by my experience—all of it. I know this by the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming. I know it by study, and, most surely, I know it by the Spirit and power of the Holy Ghost.
And with that I know everything I need to know to stand forever."
I, like Elder Corbridge, know for myself these four eternal truths. I know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's Kingdom on earth.
One last story: The Haleyville Elders had a baptism this week. We had something going on in Tupelo on the day of the baptism, and we had to drive them. So we got back to their church building a couple hours before the service to fill the font and set up and stuff. We helped them do that, as well as pick up a couple of things because we have a car and they don't. Anyway, about 30 minutes before the baptism started, we started driving home to finish the night in our area. We got about 2 minutes down the road and the 'nader sirens started going off, plus it was already dumping rain, so we just decided to attend the baptism and wait out the storm. We called President and told him what the plan was, and then we got to witness the baptism. It was pretty awesome. It was for a guy named John that they were teaching. He called himself "John the Baptist," but now he's "John the member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Haha, it has a little better ring to it, don't you think? Anyway, it was a good service and we are excited for John and his dedication to follow the Savior.
Okay, well, I love y'all, and pray for you often. Hope you have a stellar week!
Love,
Elder Beach
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