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

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

Me and my boy Elder Tyrrell.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

They were projecting a football game on the side of this house.  We decided to check it out!

Giving Thanks

Hey there everyone, hope y'all had a good week!  We certainly did.  Though it seems as if our hour to hour and day to day are pretty slow, there are definitely miracles happening in Attalla.  I know that the Lord is aware of each of His children, and He is with us in our work.

Early in the week we met a guy tracting named Kenneth.  We talked to him for a while and started to teach him about the Restoration and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon.  He told us that he hadn't been to any church for a long time, but said that he would come with us when we invited him.  We went back to see Kenneth with a member on Thursday.  We met Kenneth's significant other, Felisha, and we talked to both of them about the Book of Mormon and about coming to church.  Felisha seemed even more interested than Kenneth, honestly, but they both are looking forward to coming to church.  One little unfortunate detail: they don't have a car.  Theirs was totaled a couple of weeks ago.  And they have 5 kids.  Even if we do have a member willing to drive someone, it's kind of difficult to find a ride for 7 people.  I only know of two members that have a van, and their vans are full.  We're going to see what we can do, but hopefully they can find a car.  I know they are looking.

We were also able to continue to meet with Damion this week.  We have been talking a lot about just the basics - prayer, church attendance, faith, scripture reading, repentance.  He seems to finally be getting a grasp on things, and it's going pretty well with him.  He also came to church again this week!  For whatever reason he left after Sunday School, but he was there for Sacrament Meeting and for gospel principles, which is more than we can say for most people!  Things are going slow, but they're going.  Damion's come a long way since I first met him way back when.

Katelyn, who was a referral from Savannah last week, didn't make it to church unfortunately.  We talked to her on Saturday night and she told us she would be there, but she woke up sick and decided not to come.  However, we have talked to her since then and we are going to visit her and teach her again on Saturday and she told us she was excited to come back to church.  I've only met Katelyn once at this point, but she seems really prepared and ready to receive the gospel.  And we probably never would have met her had not Savannah invited her to church.  That's the power of member missionary work.

The Baxleys have pretty much been impaired all week.  We called them a couple of times to see if we could stop by or to invite them to church again, and they always just told us of some ailment they were dealing with and asked us not to come over.  That was rather unfortunate.  It's kind of hard to get back into church (which she has repeatedly expressed her desire to do) without being able to actually get back into church.  Please pray for their health and strength so that we can continue to visit and teach them, and so that they can make it to church each week.

This week is Thanksgiving, and we are looking forward to it.  We have been invited to have dinner with the Compton Clan (the Compton's make up like 40+% of the branch).  They are quite the large and awesome family.  I'm glad we have such great members here.  

Also with this week being Thanksgiving, I thought I'd tell y'all something that I am thankful for.  I'm thankful for all of the friendships and relationships that I have made as a result of serving a mission.  I'm so glad that I have been able to come to know and love so many different people on my mission.  There are many that I look forward to coming back and visiting again, and I'm excited for the day when I can do that.  I'm thankful for those I have taught that I have seen draw closer to our Savior as I have helped them apply His teachings.  I'm thankful for the wonderful members that have helped us, fed us, and took us in as part of their families.  I'm thankful for the great missionaries that I have had the privilege of serving with, learning from, and creating memories with.  There are so many things I would have missed out on had I not served a mission, and I'm thankful for them all.

Scripture for the week: "Worship God in whatsoever place ye may be in, in Spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you." - Alma 34:38

Well, I hope y'all have a great week.  Love y'all!

Elder Beach

#RollTide

We finally got our stove/oven installed!  #stoveselfie

After 18.5 days of not having something to cook on, this is our inaugural meal.  You can't go wrong with biscuits and gravy!

The Aggies are ranked #1 in the nation in scoring!

We love this family!  (Mom's note:  We received an email from this family this week that said, "Elder Beach is the best missionary Attalla has ever had."  Parental pay day for sure!)

Elder Vanderhoff, Daniel and me!

Can't ever resist a playground...especially one with a springy purple dinosaur! :)

Members, Missionaries and the Sons of Mosiah

Hey y'all, this has been another great week and another great transfer in Attalla and on the mission. We got the call last night that Elder Lyons and I will be staying here for another 6 weeks! (The main reason I was excited to hear that news was because we have been invited to watch the Iron Bowl with some people. I'm not sure if I would have been able to in a different area.) Haha that's not the real reason. I do love the people here in Attalla, especially the members. They are all so awesome. I'm so glad we moved near many of them so we can see them often. 

Two Sundays ago we were asked to come into Relief Society and go over the Branch Mission Plan with the sisters in there.  The Attalla Branch Mission Plan includes how each of the members can and should go about inviting those that they know to learn about the Restored Gospel.  It talks about how, as a family council, we should prayerfully identify some individuals and families that we think we could invite to church or to a church activity or to dinner with the missionaries or something like that.  Then we should take time on a fast Sunday, or anytime really, to fast and pray for these individuals to be open to your invitation, and then to invite.  Most of the people in the branch were not very familiar with it, so it was good to review it with them, discuss it with them, and invite them to participate.  We have been reviewing and following up on this with each of the members that we have visited recently, and we are seeing their enthusiasm to share the gospel build.

In fact, we received a call this week from one of the sisters in the branch named Savannah.  She is preparing to leave on her mission to Virginia next month.  She called us and said, "Hey!  I've got this friend who is going to be coming to church this Sunday, and she wants you to teach her."  Okay!  That is one of my favorite calls ever!  Savannah's friend is named Katelyn, and so we taught her the Restoration during Sunday school.  It was a great lesson, and I look forward to continuing to teach Katelyn in the future.  She accepted the invitation to read from the Book of Mormon and to pray about it to know that it is true.  She said it was a little bit odd to think about, just because it was unfamiliar, but she told us she would definitely read it.

This week we also received another referral by the name of Tim.  A member who lives in another state sent us Tim's info and asked us to go visit him.  We called Tim first and told him what was up, and he seemed happy to meet with us.  The unfortunate thing is that he works in Huntsville, and I'm not sure what exactly he does, but he told us he is "on call 24/7."  So we haven't been able to see him yet, but we look forward to the day that we do.  Tim seemed like a nice guy on the phone and seemed genuinely interested in what we have to say.

Haha cool story this week, Daniel spoke in church! One of the guys in the branch presidency was in charge of assigning speakers, and he asked Daniel to speak. I could tell that our branch president was thinking, "Why the heck would you ask him to speak?  He's only been a member for like 3 weeks!" It was pretty funny. But Daniel actually did a great job, and so it was awesome. He also got to talk to President Sickles about receiving a temple recommend, and he's almost all set.  Daniel hasn't paid his tithing since being baptized, but that's kind of our fault because we didn't explain in great detail about how to do so.  So as soon as that gets done, Daniel will receive the priesthood and a temple recommend.  And then we can go to the temple with him!  I'm so excited!  Ruby is also working on that.  We tried to explain to her that she doesn't need to wait a year to go to the baptistry in the temple, but I'm not sure if she understood haha.  She is also pretty scared of being dunked again, and so maybe she'll just have to go and do confirmations if she does decide to go soon.  However, she is very proud of the family history work that she has done so far, and is eager to get their names into the temple.

One other really cool thing about Daniel is that our YW president saw his wife and daughter at Walmart the other day.  She told us that they talked for a long time, and she also said that Daniel's wife, Sandra, said that she wanted to come to church sometime.  That was huge!  Now, neither Sandra nor their daughter, Gabi, came to church on Sunday, but just knowing that there is a chance that they will come in the future is so much more than I thought we would get anytime soon.  I know that Daniel is working hard on them, and we are trying to help the members of the branch to do so as well.  I know they have been invited to dinner at different members' homes, and everyone is doing a great job of trying to work with them.  Time will tell, but I think if the effort is sustained, the results will follow.  It just goes to show that the Lord puts people in the situations that they need to be in to further His work.  I have seen that so many times.

As a final spiritual thought for the week, I thought I'd just share a scripture.  This one comes from Mosiah, and is about the Sons of Mosiah.  As we know, they were some of the most wicked people in all of the scriptures, but then after seeing an angel, learning the joy that comes from repentance, and having a change of heart, they became some of the greatest missionaries ever.  Mosiah 28:3 describes them - "Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble."  They could not even endure the thought that someone should suffer without the peace of forgiveness that they had experienced.  The sons of Mosiah had felt the peace that repentance, forgiveness, and the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ bring into our lives.  When we feel that same power, the result that takes place comes naturally: we want to do everything we can to help others experience the same.  I know that the Savior's power to forgive is real, and that he wants to forgive.  He only asks that we come unto Him, and to help others do the same.

I love y'all!  Thanks for the prayers, the letters, the random funny emails that find their way to my inbox.  I love those!  Y'all have a great week.  Talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Beach

#RollTide

Our newest investigator...

I took Elder Lyons to see this panda, and we were shining our phone lights on it so it looked like a disco bear.  Someone called the cops on us because they thought we were doing graffiti...

Random picture of "The Celestial District".  President Sainsbury called us that last month because we had so many baptisms.  :)