Short Week

Hey everyone, it's been a short week due to Pday being on Thursday last week, so unfortunately I don't have a whole lot to report. Anyway, here goes.... 

First off, I want to thank everyone for the birthday gifts and wishes. It was a great day, and I'm so grateful for everyone I have on my side providing love, support, and prayers while I'm on my mission. I love and pray for y'all too. The Rowe's, who used to be in our ward in Logan, had us over yesterday for dinner. I didn't know that they knew it was my birthday, but they discovered it somehow and we had a little party. It was awesome. I love having friends out here who will make days like that special. 

This week Elder Erickson and I were asked to speak in the Tuscaloosa ward. My assignment was to explain how both the Fall of Adam and the Atonement of Christ were evidences of God's love for us. If you want a copy of my talk, just ask my mom. As always, it was basically General Conference worthy haha. 

I can't remember what I said last week about William, but things have kind of been off and on with him. His work schedule is 8 AM to 11 PM from Monday through Friday. We were able to have a really good lesson with him on Saturday, and he was really excited to come to church on Sunday. We had everything planned for him to be there, and he asked us to call him on Sunday morning to wake him up. We did, about half a dozen times, but he never answered. We also called him multiple times after church was over, and we stopped by his house on Sunday evening, but were never able to get in touch. I'm not sure what the deal is, other than he probably just sleeps all weekend because of his work schedule. Every time we have a lesson with him, it is awesome. I've hardly met anyone on my mission who wants to learn and wants to do what God wants him to do more than William. It's just that we are very off and on with being able to get in contact with him. It's pretty frustrating sometimes. One bit of good and bad news is that coming up soon, William is going to have to have surgery. He has a big fluid buildup in his leg and is having it taken care of in the near future. Due to that, he will be off work for a few weeks, and so we will (hopefully) be able to see him more often. Just pray that his surgery will go well and that we will be able to seem him more often. I know that William will get baptized at some point, I'm just not sure when. It depends on how much we can see him.

On Friday we had interviews with President, and they were fine. We didn't really have a whole lot to talk about haha. This is his last round of interviews with everyone, and I just told him that everything's going well and he said he appreciated everything I've done for the last 22 months. I do not envy mission presidents haha. They have lots of responsibilities. I'm grateful for everything that he's done, and I've just done my best to make his job a little easier. 

On Friday night we also had to drive up to Fayette so Elder Erickson could to a baptismal interview for a dude named Bird. That's not his actual name, but that's what he goes by. He's 18, and he's a stud. He actually has a friend who is getting baptized next week, so we are likely going to have to drive up to Fayette again. But Bird got baptized last Saturday, and he also received the priesthood on Sunday after his confirmation, so now he gets to baptize his friend this week. It's a pretty awesome story for them. Another cool thing is that the church building in Fayette used to be a bank, so it's pretty weird haha. What used to be the vault is now the library, and it's just a weird floor plan. I like little branch buildings like that, they're fun. 

Another cool thing that happened was that there was a member who texted us a week or two ago named Brother Doane. He just moved here about a month ago from Clanton, AL. He is semi-active and told us he wants to get back in church. We stopped by and visited with him briefly, and he asked us for a Book of Mormon to give to his non-member wife. We are hoping to see them again and maybe even teach them. Unfortunately, our contact with them has been about like William. They rarely answer texts/calls, and we have tried to stop by multiple times with no luck. We are hoping and praying for them. 

Anyway, hope y'all have a great week! It's cooking down here in the South currently, but we are surviving out on our bikes. Heat or no heat, the Church is still true, and the work still moves on! Also, speaking of bikes, I got a nasty screw in my back tire last night, and I'm hoping that my patches hold. How about that for a birthday present haha. Fingers crossed for the patches too! Love y'all.

Elder Beach
#RollTide

Happy birthday to me!

Some friends from the YSA Branch.

The patch jobs on my tire after I ran over a screw.

Bird's cool car.

Elder LeBaron, me, Elder Erickson, and Elder Robins.

Here we are again!

Hanging out at "The Club" on p-day.

My family celebrating my birthday at Bear Lake without me.  This is only the second time in 20 years (the two times being the two years I was on my mission) that I haven't celebrated my birthday at Bear Lake.  I look forward to celebrating there next year!

Scriptures

Hello everybody, hope y'all had a good week. Today we had our temple trip p-day, and so due to our travel for that, as well as another trip we need to take to do a baptismal interview, I don't have a whole lot of time to write. Here are the highlights of the week:

We were finally able to get back in contact with William this week. We have been calling, texting, and stopping by for quite a while with no luck. On Sunday night we stopped by and he finally answered. We learned that his work schedule has been crazy busy lately, and will continue to be for a while. With his current schedule, he is at work from about 8 AM until around 11 PM on Monday through Friday. The bad news is that we can't really teach him anymore except on weekends, but the good news is that he should be coming to church this Sunday. Last time we saw William we had given him a pamphlet about the Word of Wisdom, and when we saw him this week we were able to talk about it a little bit. He was a little confused and concerned that even coffee and tea aren't allowed. He didn't understand why. We just explained to him that while there are definite health benefits to living the Word of Wisdom, we don't usually know the reason behind each commandment given. We just know that the Lord has asked us to live them. We also spent some time teaching William about the blessings given when we live the Word of Wisdom. We are promised that we will have an increased ability to feel the spirit, and we will also receive wisdom and great treasures of knowledge. The Lord often gives commandments and promises blessings, but often doesn't give us the reason for certain commandments. Sometimes it might just be to test our obedience. William seemed satisfied with that answer, as well as our explanation of the blessings of keeping this commandment, and he told us that he would live the Word of Wisdom. We are grateful that we were finally able to re-contact him, and are looking forward to continuing to teach him. 

I told y'all about Rick last week. He's a dude that we tracted into and he seems pretty interested in our message. We talked to him a little bit about the Book of Mormon, and we set another appointment to come and share more. We did, and the lesson went about as well as it could have gone. We taught him the Restoration, explained that truth has been restored, as well as priesthood authority and the governing organization of the Church of Jesus Christ in former times. We taught about how the Book of Mormon is evidence of these truths. He seemed interested to read it, and we made another return appointment to share more with him. We texted him an hour or two before our appointment to confirm, and he responded with something like, "I'm okay with discussing things and hearing your point of view of stuff, but don't expect me to convert or anything." With that in mind, we went to our scheduled lesson with him, not exactly sure of what to expect when we got there. When we arrived, he was very obviously home but he didn't even answer the door. We left a post it note on his door that just said, "Our goal is to help you come unto Christ. We know that the Book of Mormon is true and will help you do that. Pray about it. Thanks." We haven't heard from him since, and likely won't. It's too bad. I'm not really sure what triggered that. Though Rick's family goes to a Methodist church, he doesn't consider himself part of any denomination. He basically described himself to us as someone who was looking for truth. Yet, when it came quite literally knocking on his door, he turned away from it. Interesting how that goes sometimes. Makes me sad. Not just because I want to help people, but because they need to be helped, whether they realize it or not. It's sad when they turn from the good that we offer. 

Changing gears a bit - as part of his weekly letter this week, President asked us to share with him three things that we have learned as a missionary, as well as one missionary miracle. That letter to him will be included in the ABM's "Mission History" (I'm not sure if that's going to be publicly available at some point or not, but I hope that it is). Anyway, I just want to share with you one of the things that I have learned and that I shared with him. I've probably shared it before, but it's still true. I have learned during the course of my mission that everything we teach, everything we believe, everything that the Church states is doctrine has its basis in the scriptures. Now, our doctrines have been expounded upon by those whose calling it is to do so - living prophets and apostles. But the foundation of all of it is the scriptures. Everything we teach can be taught using the scriptures. I love using the scriptures. I love studying the scriptures. I love teaching with the scriptures. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's true church because it's teachings - all of it's teachings - are found in the scriptures. 

It was also a joy to go to the temple today with our zone. I love going to the temple. I'm grateful that we have been able to go fairly often as missionaries. Worshiping in the temple is a blessing. 

Alrighty, well I love y'all. Have a great week!

Elder Beach
#RollTide

Bessemer Zone at the Birmingham temple.

Temple trip this week.

Prove All Things

Hey everyone, it was good to talk to many of the fam yesterday. I had many fun conversations with people, and I am looking more and more forward to hanging out with everyone at the family reunion this summer. It's gonna be sweet. I received some advice from my cousin Cameron to just go hard and be a legend for my last little bit of the mission. His personal experiences involved street preaching, as well as carrying a staff everywhere he went for the last week of his mission. I don't thing that's quite as realistic for me personally, but I'll see if there is something cool I can do like that haha. Any ideas of something I can do that would be legendary (but still missionary appropriate) would be appreciated. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to report on this week. We had a church tour scheduled with William on Wednesday, and he texted us like 10 minutes before saying that he got called into work and had to cancel. We set up a different appointment with him that he also cancelled later. We called, texted, and stopped by his house all week long with basically no luck. It's not that he's not interested anymore, I think it's just that he's super busy and when he's not at work he is sleeping. It's definitely frustrating when you are unable to get in contact with the person who you are most excited about and who has the greatest desire to learn. Keep William in your prayers. We need to get in touch soon so we can help him receive the blessings of the gospel in his life. 

We did meet one awesome guy this week named Rick. We met him while tracting in the rain this week. Not very fun, but is was about the only thing we had to do at that point. He's going to school right now for computer science, and he doesn't really seem to have a home church, which is awesome for us. His sister lives in town, and he has been going to her Methodist church lately, but I don't think he's really a "member." We talked to him for about 15 minutes about the Book of Mormon and about the Church, and he was super excited to learn more about it and to read it. We made an appointment with him for Tuesday this week, and are hopeful that he will continue to be open to learning. 

We were able to meet one more time this week with Mason, the lady that the Sisters are teaching. It was a fun conversation, but to tell you the truth, it was almost useless. We kind of got stuck at an "agree to disagree" spot about several topics. Mason is basically too smart for her own good. She claims that she doesn't know everything, and claims that there may be some things that she believes which are wrong, yet acts as if she already has all the answers and is not open to new truth that we share. She had continued questions about eternal marriage, temples and freemasonry, the fallibility (or infallibility) of the Bible, the nature of the Godhead/Trinity, the eternal nature of agency, and the laws that God operates under. There were lots of things discussed. Perhaps the one useful thing we did do was just when we put to rest many misconceptions and misunderstandings that she (and that most people) have about the Church. There were several topics that we were able to clarify for her, which was good. However, the main bulk of the conversation was just us all coming to the realization that we "interpret" or understand the scriptures differently, and are each unwilling to change our views. The issue there is that our "interpretation" or understanding comes from living prophets, whose prerogative it is to help us understand the teachings in the scriptures, while her understanding comes from her own study and own speculation. It all comes down to this one question: Is the Book of Mormon true? If the answer is yes (which it is) then Joseph Smith was a prophet, and Russell M. Nelson is a prophet, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and its teachings are true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. Anyone who reads it with an open heart and a desire to be taught by the Spirit will come to know of that truth for themselves. If we read it with the "this book is false, prove me wrong" mindset (like Mason) then we will never come to knowledge of the truth. The witness comes after the trial of our faith, not before. God isn't going to change our mind if we have already made it up. Be open. Have faith. Believe. Paul said, "prove all things; hold fast to that which is good." When we do, the truth will come. 

If there is one thing I've learned on my mission, it's that everything that the Church teaches finds its basis in the scriptures. What the scriptures teach, we teach. I have a strong testimony of that. The scriptures have been expounded upon by living prophets, but that doesn't change what they say. It simply helps us to understand them. 

We are continuing to work hard here in Tuscaloosa. So far, the fruit of our labors has seemed small, but I know that the Lord is blessing us for our efforts. This is His work, and he's laboring with us. I know that people are out there ready to receive us, and receive Him. 

Again, it was great to talk to much of my family yesterday. Keep being awesome. I look forward to the end of July, but I'll try not to dwell on it until it gets here. It will soon enough! Love y'all!

Elder Beach 

#RollTide

PS - We had Zone Conference this week, and I thought I'd share a quote of the week from President Sainsbury. He was paraphrasing Elder Uchtdorf, who talked about how the Church is not a showroom where members can show off, but rather like a hospital where people can come to get better. President was joking about how some people tend not to realize that sometimes, and he said, "This hospital sucks, there's a sick person next to me." Haha it was so funny. Just remember to not be like that. Everyone is trying to get better. Let's help each other out, not tear each other down. 

Tracting in the rain.

Bessemer Zone Conference.

Missionaries in Tuscaloosa with Elder Peter Johnson who was recently called to be a Seventy.  He is from the Tuscaloosa ward, but will soon be moving to Salt Lake City for his new calling.

Elder Erickson ran over a nail.

Talking to my parents on Mother's Day.

Only in Alabama...

"Why Should I Desire More?"

Hey everybody, hope y'all had a great week. I feel like I don't have much to talk about, due to the fact that it was a short week, and I just don't really remember a whole lot. Anyway, here goes. 

William has continued to progress well. We have been teaching him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so as we taught it, we began teaching about the sacrament. The sacrament kind of ties all of those things together, because it includes enduring to the end, as well as continues repentance after baptism, and the sacrament is how we remember our baptism. In addition, we are promised in the sacrament prayers that we will always have the Spirit to be with us when we strive to do our best to keep the commandments. We stressed the sacrament as part of one of our lessons this week because William hasn't been to church yet. He works on Sunday, and so we asked what he could do to switch his schedule around or something so that he could come to church. We half expected him to have a problem with that and maybe resist just a little bit. But he immediately just said, "Yeah, I'll just ask my supervisor if I can do a double on Friday so I can take Sunday off." I was blown away by his enthusiasm and his faith. He knows he needs to get to church, and he'll do anything to get there. We are going to have a church tour with him on Wednesday morning, to show him around and help him be more comfortable. He's excited for it, and we're excited for him. We are also going to teach him about the Word of Wisdom soon, and he has a few problems with that, so we are praying that he can have the faith about that as he did about attending church. 

This week we had a cool chance to visit with the Sisters and with someone they are teaching named Mason. She is going to school here, and the sisters have been teaching her for a month or two. During our district councils, the sisters have brought up some stuff about Mason that they didn't really know what to do about. Basically Mason is very smart, intelligent, and intellectually capable, and she had a lot of deeper level questions about the Church and our more unique and peculiar teachings. The Sisters didn't really know what to do about some of her questions, so they asked Elder Erickson and me to come with them to a lesson so we could explain some things. We have both spent a fair amount of time on our own and together learning about some of the things that Mason had questions about, and were really excited to meet her and talk. Our discussion, which happened on Friday, was one of the best just plain discussions I've had in a while. Most of the time, people who have questions like she does (questions on eternal marriage, deification of man, the separateness of identity yet unity of purpose of the Godhead, etc.) ask them in an attempt to argue. However, Mason was asking with a sincere desire to understand what we believe and why we believe it. There are definitely some things that she believes that are different than what we believe when it comes to the basics, which makes explaining these complicated matters a little more difficult. But we did our best, we each taught our views and shared scriptures to teach them. We testified of truth and invited her to pray about the things we taught. Though our views on things differ, we had a great discussion and were able to teach and clarify many things that she had questions about. She actually invited us and the Sisters over to dinner tonight (Monday) to continue our discussion and we were really excited to go, however we couldn't find another male to come with us so Elder Erickson and I won't be able to attend. But we'll give the Sisters a few pointers on difficult questions if they come up again, and hope that they do well. 

Also, one awesome thing this week. On Saturday we got home for the night, and I noticed that I had a message from Laura Villalobos. She said, "Not sure if Joey told you, but we freaking did it! We went through the Temple last night and got sealed to each other and the kids. We just might be getting it together now, kind of...." Haha it was such an awesome thing to hear. The Villalobos fam is one of my favorite bunches of people I've met on my mission. They're so awesome, and I was so glad to hear that they made it to the temple. We've been bugging them to get there for quite some time haha. This month marks 2 years since they joined the Church, and I'm just so happy that they went. I can't wait to come visit them again sometime soon. Maybe we can arrange something before I come home, even though they live in Montgomery and are moving to Huntsville in a week or two - both a pretty good ways from Tuscaloosa. We'll see what happens. I'm just so happy that they made it to the temple and were sealed as a family. The blessings of being an eternal family are awesome. One of the joys of being a missionary is being a part of things like that. 

Pretty much the rest of our week was spent trying to find the elect. I know they're out there somewhere, and there are a couple people we met that we've begun to teach, but things are just slow and steady I guess. I'm just grateful to be a missionary, and though I'm excited to get home and back into "normal" life again, I love doing what I'm doing. I plan to finish what I started, and leave it all out here. There's nothing greater I could be doing. Like it says in Alma 29:6, "Why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called?" Right now, I don't really want anything more than that. Why would I? Being a missionary is awesome!

Alrighty, love y'all! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. Have a great week!

Elder Beach
#RollTide

Hanging out at "The Club" on p-day - the ward building that also is used as the Institute.

My parents met with other ABM parents in Salt Lake for dinner.  Left to right - Elder Johnson's parents, Elder Vanderhoff's parents, my parents, Elder Tribe's parents, Elder Murphy's mom (short one in the front), Elder Stanger's mom behind her, and Elder Ashton's mom on the end.

Ghosted But Still Solid

Hey y'all, hope everyone had a good week. Ours as a whole has been a little bit more bummer than stellar, but I'll try and pull a few highlights out and give you the entertainment that you've been waiting for since last week's email. 

Mostly the bummer of things is that we have been "ghosted" (as Elder Erickson puts it) by almost everyone we meet. For those of you not up to speed with the lingo, it just means that we like talking to people a lot more than they like talking to us, and as a result we get ignored a lot when we attempt to get into contact with them. I guess that is kind of the story of missionary work sometimes, but we're doing our best to work through it. 

We were able to have two good lessons with William this week, and he continues to show signs of progression in the gospel. In fact, this week he accepted the invitation to be baptized! The invitation may have been a little bit premature, but we are hopeful that William can continue to repent and grow in his faith to the point that he can make that commitment. He has yet to come to church, and his current work schedule makes coming to church all but impossible. He assures us that his schedule will calm down a little bit in the near future so he can make it, but work still seems to be as busy as ever for him. There have been many lessons that we've had to postpone or cancel because of his unforeseen overtime work, and it just makes things tough. Please keep William in your prayers. I've hardly met anyone who wants to learn and understand the gospel as much as he does, there are just a few things in his way right now. I believe that as long as we can continue to see him regularly, and his work schedule calms down, he will eventually get baptized. 

This Sunday we had a "missionary fireside" which was supposed to be a cool thing that people could invite their friends to that featured lots of music, church videos, and testimonies from recent converts that would provoke interest in learning about the Church. It wasn't something that we missionaries were in charge of, but we were asked to sing in the choir for it about a month ago. We had only had two practices total, and we had never had a full run-through of the program. To make matters slightly worse, two of the people who were supposed to share their testimonies didn't show up, so there were a few things that we had to wing. Fortunately we weren't in charge of the whole gig, so it wasn't really up to us to figure all that out, but luckily there were some people who stepped up and made it a great program. We invited William and he told us he would come, but when we tried calling/texting to remind him he never responded and he never showed up. However, it still turned out awesome. Nick got asked to step in and substitute for one of the absentees, and he shared an awesome testimony about how reading the Book of Mormon over the past several months has helped him to be happy, and out of some dark places. He also mentioned that every day when he reads, he takes notes both for himself and for his parents, in an attempt to help them understand why this is a good thing. I don't think that they even know yet that he's been baptized, but he is headed home this week for the summer, so I'm sure they'll find out soon. There was another lady named Kenya who was baptized in the Northport ward about a month ago, and she shared and awesome story and testimony about how she was looking for the truth from God, and one day she had a dream in which she was approached by two guys in white shirts and ties who were able to offer that truth to her. Not more than a day later, the Elders knocked on her door and she immediately knew that they had what she needed. I've been able to visit Kenya a couple of times for her baptism interview and at other occasions, and she is so awesome. There are not many people more happy and joyful than someone who has found and embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time, especially after seeking it for ages. I love recent converts. I hope that we all can have that fire with us always. Never take the gospel for granted. Most people don't have it. Living the gospel brings us to Christ, who is the source of true joy. All in all, it was a great fireside, even though it wasn't as well planned or well attended as I would have hoped. 

Hunter seems to have been "ghosting" us as well, but we were finally able to get in touch with him on the phone the other day and make an appointment to teach him. He said he's been spending some time in his hometown lately, which is actually Attalla. Tiny little town, but it's a place that I know well and love lots, so it's cool to make a connection there. 

I just want to wrap up today with my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration. I know that Joseph was a true prophet of God. By no means was he a perfect individual - he was a dude just like me. But he was called of God and did everything that God asked him to do in order to get the blessings of the gospel back onto the earth. I know that the events in connection with the Restoration (the First Vision, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, etc.) happened in the way that Joseph described, and that those accounts are true. There is a lot of material out there antagonistic towards Joseph. Believe me, I've seen it. But he was a prophet nonetheless. I know that from my studies, experience, and from the witness of the spirit - time and time again. Whenever you read the scriptures that were brought forth through Joseph Smith, then you will too. 

Alrighty, well I hope that y'all have a good week. Thanks as always for your thoughts and prayers. Love y'all! 

Elder Beach
#RollTide