Monday, December 29, 2014

Sunday, December 28, 2014 "Grateful for this experience"

Hey family!!

It was so great to hear from you for Christmas! You all looked so great and sounded so happy. Thanks :) I am going to miss being able to share with others my testimony in french.  It sounds like you had a wonderful time for Christmas! We watched some movies as well. . . we ended up watching Frozen in french for the one Disney movie that we could watch for Christmas.

I think you are right. I am going to be grateful for the experiences that I have been having for the rest of my life. I have had some of the greatest laughs, cries, and amazing experiences out here. I know that these experiences have truly shaped me to the person that I need to be in the future. Elder Taylor is a great guy. I am really happy to have this opportunity to serve with him again. We all have been having a blast together. Yeah, I don't know what that crazy girl is thinking! Haha. She is going to do an incredible job though and I am really happy for her.

Since we talked on Christmas we had a few crazy experiences. We drove down to Avignon to pick up a washing machine. It was great because I got to see two old companions. Elder Ambursley and Elder Liechty. Both of them are doing really great and are really happy. After that we headed down to Toulouse and dropped off the washing machine and did an exchange with the Zone Leaders down there. It went great despite the fact that it rained literally the whole time! Haha, it was freezing! Well I guess not literally or we would have had snow.

The trip back was really tiring. We made another stop by Avignon to drop off another washing machine that we had picked up for them. It was awesome because both times that we stopped through Avignon they were eating with members and the members begged us to eat with them a little bit. So the first time we ate some amazing cake, and the second time we had lasagna with one of the families. It was not too shabby! The next morning we got up at 5 and headed back to Lyon to make it to church on time! We made it!

Everything is going great right now. I am really happy to be serving the Lord.

I know that as we learn to follow the Savior and trust that he knows better than us, we are blessed. Often times my mission president says that our job is to learn everything that Christ taught and obey it, because that is what makes us happy. I know that this is true. There is no better way to learn what he said than to feast upon the scriptures everyday. Let us all make some great resolutions to not go a single day without reading from these wonderful scriptures that we have been provided with.

I love you so much!

Have a wonderful week!




Love,
Elder Beyer

Sunday, December 21, 2014 "Crazy Week"

Hey family!!

I know! Can you believe how quick that has come! I am so excited to see all of you and hear how all of you are doing! We will be calling around 5:00! I think we are going to try and do it in the office, so hopefully the connection is good. Also, I did get your packages! The sweaters are so sweet!! Hahahaha, we were loving them! A senior couple in the office took our photo and said that they were going to send it to you, so unfortunately that is the only photo that we have and the sweaters are back at our apartment, so you might not be able to see a photo until next week! Sorry! Okay, come on here! Last year I was totally joking about opening my package! I totally waited and opened it up on Christmas Day!! Haha. . . However, I did start opening up some of my presents for this years package :) Don't tell anyone!

You're dream sounds interesting mom! Sorry that I wouldn't give you a hug, I hope that you don't hold it against me on Christmas! Maybe a bunch of missionaries are going to show up to your house this week wanting to eat, so you better be ready!

Nice! Haha! Cali again! I hope that you had lots of fun and that you were able to fill up a book of all of the Disney Characters signatures for me! ;)

The Christmas parties that we had this week were incredible. They were some of my favorite conferences that I have had since I have been out here on my mission. I asked Brock if he could let you know, but I am not sure if he did. We had David Archuleta come to our mission and sing. It was seriously so amazing. His singing sounds the exact same live as it does on the Cd's.

The whole week was a crazy one in preparing for the conference. We had lots to do and we found ourselves running around the whole week. The conferences were held Thursday in Lyon, and Friday in Bordeaux. Correct, there was only two. There were about 130 missionaries in Lyon, and 110 in Bordeaux. Thursday we had a crazy schedule getting everything ready. We were flying back and forth getting everything set up, running to the store to help pick up food, doing all sorts of other things, etc. It was a really fun, hectic experience. The conference, like I said, was amazing. David did an incredible job. He is so talented and gifted, but so humble. President, Sister Roney, and us all presented, and after each one of us David would sing and say some things. The spirit was so strong when he was singing. Our mission president says often that music and love are the two Heavenly things that we experience here on earth. 

After the conference on Thursday we loaded up the Christmas packages and everything we needed for the conference and headed down to Bordeaux. It took us a good while to get there. We rolled into Bordeaux around 3:00 in the morning. When we got there we had to unload everything at the church, so we ended up getting to the apartment around 4:00. We got a little bit of sleep and then headed to the airport to pick David, his guests, and the Roneys up. We gave them the van and then met them at the church. Once again, the conference was incredible. Our presentation went pretty well as well. We talked about the birth of the Savior and how like the Wise Men we need to lay some gifts at his feet this Christmas season.

On the way back we had to make a few detours. We stopped by Toulouse because we had to drop off a fridge and a washing machine. We then took a long drive along the coast until we finally got back to Lyon that night.

We were exhausted when we got back and hadn't really eaten the whole day, but we got a call from a few missionaries asking if we could help them transport some tables to another church. Once we finished up we headed home and just dropped dead haha. Morning came quick!

Church was great!

I cannot wait to talk to you in a few days! Merry Christmas until I can say it to you in person!

Grosses Bises! Je vous aime tous! :)



Love,
Elder Beyer

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Sunday, December 7, 2014 "Whoooh, I am Staying!!"

Dearest family,

Okay. . . I. . . am. . . staying! Whoooh! I am really excited because I really wanted to finish my mission here in Lyon. I am going to be finishing up with Elder Taylor! So we get to serve together again! I am really excited. However, I am going to miss serving with Elder Elvidge. He is headed off to Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a great guy and will be a great friend for the rest of my life. I have really been spoiled with my companions over the past little while. This next transfer is going to fly by a little bit to fast with all of the conferences and things going on. I am a little scared that before I know it I am going to be stepping on a plane not knowing what happened. I am going to be serving with Elder Taylor. . . however there is a little twist on the transfer. Seeings how neither one of us is legal to drive the car and the church is really cracking down on our mission, we have taken drastic measures. President has called a missionary to be his secretary. Someone who is young in the mission so that he is still legal to drive :) So, we are actually going to have a third member of our companionship some of the time. His name is Elder Nadauld, he is there to help us out with organization and all of the little details that go in with planning things, but he probably won't be there if we don't need the car haha. We are going to have a lot of fun together.

Hey! I think that is a great idea with the online shopping. That would have helped me to do some shopping this year. . . with that being said I am very sorry to tell you, but I was not able to buy any Christmas presents for anyone this year hahaha. Don't worry, I will just bring them with me in Feb!

Keep tearing up the slopes everyone! Oh and by the way, tell Brockster to cut the crap. We all know that they were seeing ducks all day, they just couldn't hit any of them and came home empty handed because they were so rusty. Crazy news about Shelby!!

This week was great! We spend Monday at the Roney's. We played a lot of games with all of the missionaries and had a lot of fun together. Immediately after the missionaries left we started working on the transfer. Just like last time it was a really amazing, spiritual experience seeing how the missionaries move across the mission into their new areas. Most of our time was spend doing that Tuesday and Wednesday. We spent the nights out on the town contacting and we were able to have a little bit of success teaching a couple of lessons. We made another trip to a busy area in the mission where we were able to do some contacting with all of the missionaries in Lyon which was a blast!

Thursday we had a few meetings and got organized for the upcoming week. Friday we made the calls to all of the missionaries. The most exciting is Elder Dalton and Elder Crawley will both be in Lyon next transfer! So I will be seeing a lot of both of them.

Friday night was where it got a little crazy. We didn't receive any pass along cards from the Church for the He is the Gift video like they had told us, so the missionaries were all hyped up and there was nothing to give them. So, President decided to make them on his computer and send it to a professional company and get some of our own cards made up. They showed up Friday afternoon, and the only was to get them distributed in time for all of the district meetings in a way that they heavy boxes wouldn't need to be shipped or carried by missionaries on transfer day was to take them out to all of the missionaries ourselves. So, the office Elders took the West side because they had a little bit more time, and we took Switzerland and Lyon, and we both went around like Santa delivering the cards! We had to pull an all nighter because of our schedule, so Friday night we didn't sleep at all and every time we would get to a city we would call the missionaries, they would come down and get the cards, we would hop back in and then head off to the next city! It was crazy! Haha, not to mention it has been killing us since and we are exhausted!

We didn't have any time to sleep Saturday because we were really lucky :) The senior couples came in for a conference and a little Christmas benefit to see la fête des lumières! If you don't know what that is you are going to have to go and look it up on youtube! So, we had the blessing to have a little conference with them, then after go out to dinner with them and President and Sister Roney, and then lead them around through literally millions of people seeing different light shows. To avoid losing our crowd President bought all of us swords that lit up and we let the senior couples. It was a really cool experience and something that I never would have seen as a missionary, or probably the rest of my life, if I wasn't here in this position. Pretty lucky, huh?

We ate dinner at the Roney's tonight to have one last dinner before Elder Elvidge leaves. It was great being with their family. Also, I was able to have an interview with President that was awesome. 

Life is great right now. Very stressful. Very tiring, but awesome.

I am loving being here and not believing how fast the time is going by!

In honor of la fête des lumières I thought that it wouldn't be fair if I didn't share Matthew 5:14-16. 14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

I hope that we can all be the light for those around us during this Christmas Season!

I love you!

Elder Beyer

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Sunday, November 30, 2014 "Thanksgiving"

Hey there family!

To quickly answer your question. . . we didn't eat any turkey for Thanksgiving! I will explain a little bit later why not! We were able to spend it with an American family though!

Haha I bet that that was a hilarious sight seeing Bubba tearing it up the side of the hill and you on the back trying to balance the pie crusts! I am very impressed that you didn't drop them! Haha. Ah Brock. I was hoping that in my time out here he would find his patient side and he would be getting into fly fishing to hit it up on the river with me when I get home. . . but I think that might take just a little bit more time ;) Haha, I understand where he is coming from. After a few hours all of the trees seem too look the same and they all seem like they could be the perfect one for the house. Geezzz. . . everyone is looking huge in those pictures! The only person that I am going to be taller than when I get home is mom! I sure hope that I start growing soon! I am glad to hear that the cabin was such a blast!!

I am really happy that Grandma Connie enjoyed the photos so much! I thought that she would like them!

I don't know if I have any really good photos haha. . . but, I will start looking!

Ah come on Caden! Missionaries are fun! Hahaha.

As for this week. . . it was a really good one again. It went by really quick, just like every week lately. We did a few exchanges here in Lyon though and that was a blast! Other than that we did one exchange in Yverdon, Switzerland, and we went to the district meeting of a smaller district in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was a great time being with all of those missionaries. Both of the Elders that I was able to work with are studs. One is named Elder Baldwin, he is from Logan, and the other is Elder Schalk, he is from Frankfurt, Germany. Thursday for Thanksgiving we were at the district meeting in Lausanne and although we didn't eat regular Thanksgiving food we had a feast where we ate raclette. (a french dish with potatoes, a little bit of meat, and cheese). 

Downtown Lyon
Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving for real with an amazing American family, the Heras Family. They are the greatest people ever. They had us and a bunch of other missionaries over to celebrate and they made us a feast. The thing is that they are vegan though, so they don't eat any meat or dairy. . . so we didn't eat turkey, but the food that they made us was really, really good.

Our new car
The last few days we have spent a lot of time preparing for transfers. There is a lot that we have to organize so that everything goes smooth and all of the information is organized for President when we get to his office. I really enjoy transfers. I think that it is such a spiritual process and it is very interesting. You are right though, this week will decide where I spend my last transfer! I sure hope that I stay. I would love to stay with Elder Elvidge, but the odds are not really in our favor.

Last night we were tired of working on stuff for transfers, so we grabbed the guitar in the office. . . took the office Elders and went to a really busy area and the other Elders played the guitar while the rest of us either sang or contacted. It was a lot of fun and we actually saw some good success out of it. There was only four of us, but next time we are going to try and do it with all of the missionaries in Lyon!


I fell upon a couple of great scriptures that I thought you would really enjoy this Christmas season. The first one is in 1 John 4:16 which says that God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. The next one teaches a little bit more about the importance of Christlike love, it is found in Ephesians 3:19 and it says that to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. . . The reason that I shared these is because the focus of Christmas and everything that we do is, or should be, centered around love. There is no knowledge more important than to know the love of Christ. . . and as we serve others, look for chances to better the lives of those around us, and help others to know that we care, little by little we begin to dwell in God.

Je vous aime trop!

Passez une bonne semaine!
Elder Beyer

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Sunday, November 26, 2014 "Locked our keys in!"

hey mom my favorite companion is elder Dalton. give him a lot of Christmas presents! (Elder Dalton wrote this when I had to go into the other room hahaha)

Dearest family!

Hahaha, that story of Elder Dalton is hilarious isn't it?! He was so funny that whole night! It is a blast still being in the same area as him and Elder Taylor, we have a lot of fun together. Mom! I am so impressed with your diligence with the shopping! I would not have lasted for even one hour! Every time we go shopping here on P-Day I only last about ten minutes before I am sick of it and want to go run around or play a sport. Crazy about the flight plans huh? I can't believe that I actually got those this week. 

Dad! I was impressed just by hearing that you got Caden and Bridger out the door, but getting Brock out the door at 7 is incredible ;) Nahh! I am sure that they were all great! Hats off to all of you for going though!

Ah man! What was Brock thinking trying to rough it up out on the field?! Haha, you don't have to worry about. My days of contact sports are over! However, I can't wait for flag football!

Yes I did get the camera! Thank you so much!

This week was a little less crazy than last week. We had a lot of fun though. Tuesday we has Mission Leadership Council! It was great being able to see a lot of my old companions. The meeting went great and it was very spiritual. I think that everyone is really excited and pumped up for working really hard this Christmas season. We have a lot of really cool stuff going on, the main one is the worldwide Christmas initiative called "He is the Gift." Look it up and find out what it is! It is going to be sweet! Wednesday we drove down to Bordeaux to have a little exchange with Elder Einerson and Elder Zenger. We taught some great lessons and we had tons of fun joking around in the apartment that night. The next day we had their conference and shortly after we drove back up to Lyon to finish up the night at the Roney's having a birthday dinner for Elder Elvidge and Elder Dalton. Lots of fun!

Friday and Saturday we had to deal with some crazy exchange and transfer issues so we have kind of been all over the place. 

Saturday was crazy though. It was Elder Elvidge's birthday. I started out in making him breakfast, then after studies we went out the apartment and as soon as we left the apt. we realized we didn't have the keys. . . or the spare keys. So. . . our car was locked in the garage and there was no way that we could get back into the apartment because the door locks automatically. Long story short the office elders saved us and they were nearby so they lent us their car. We took it out to our appointment with the members. Our appointment went great and we ate lots of great food! The spiritual thought went amazing and we talked a lot about gratitude. After we finished up we went to the airport and picked up a missionary being emergency transferred in. Then we headed back to downtown Lyon. That night we had a huge surprise dinner at an all you can eat Chinese buffet provided by our mission nurse, S. Povar, who is an angel to say the least. It was a great day that started out crazy and ended great!

Lately in the mission we have been talking a lot about the story of Lazarus. This is the story where Christ is asked to come and heal Lazarus, but he spends two days healing people and then goes to heal him, and by the time he gets there Lazarus has passed away. The sisters of Lazarus are very sorrowful, but they still show that they have faith in Christ by saying that if he was there their brother would not have died. Christ knew that he would be raised from the dead though, so that isn't the reason that he starts to weep in vs. 35. The reason that he starts to weep is because through him we can do all things and he wants us to have the faith sufficient to believe that. Our lives are spent trying to acquire this type of faith. The vs. that I want to focus on though is 41, the first thing that he does after the miracle takes place is that he thanks his Father. This is something that we need to apply into our lives. We need to always show our Father in Heaven that we are thankful for everything that he gives us. So, have a great thanksgiving doing exactly that!

I love you!
 
Elder Beyer

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Sunday, November 16, 2014 "Elder Dalton's Birthday Surprise"

Dearest Family!

Haha, don't you love our little massage train? We do that just about halfway through every single one of our conferences. It helps us to wake up a little bit. The only rule is that sisters can't touch elders and elders can't touch sisters! Ah Ty is such a stud! I wish that I could have been there for his homecoming. Yeah, Tyson is one of the funniest people in the world. You are going to have to make sure he applies to BYU just in case! Tell him that we are going to have to room together! Hahaha, can you believe Troy not just getting a girlfriend, but a finance! It's true, we did all make that promise with Syd. . . so when I am living as a bachelor at home for the rest of my life you will know why! Haha, Syd is so funny!

Have tons of fun in St. George! You deserve it! I haven't received the camera yet, but I will let you know as soon as I do!

This week was a fun one!

Monday was spent with all of the departing missionaries. We had a blast joking around together and eating over at the Roney's together. Dinner for us is a little bit crazy though. We spend the whole night helping serve the food, take people around, make sure everything is in order, etc. . . so for every minute sitting down we spend the next couple running around doing something. It is a blast though. After a really late night Monday from loading suitcases and a few other things, we made it to bed! After all of the old missionaries were out of there, it was off to the airport to pick up all of the new missionaries. This time was sooooo much better than the last. They came in on time! Hahaha. Yes!! I was so happy because that allowed us to be able to sleep at night instead of picking them up at the airport! 

As usual, it was a blast being with the new missionaries. They were so funny and so energetic. We got to take them contacting for the first time and they were awesome. They couldn't speak a lick of french, but they were fired up and talking to people all around them. Which made for some great experiences.

Tuesday night we got to eat at the mission home again and play some more games with the new missionaries. The best was when we played some around the world ping pong downstairs! However, we didn't play any sting!

The conferences over the next few days went great! We had one on Wednesday and we had one on Friday! The one Wednesday was with the new missionaries and the one Friday was with the missionaries who have been out for a transfer. It is cool seeing how much the missionaries grow just over one transfer. 

Okay, now for the best part.

Saturday. . . It was Elder Dalton's birthday. Elder Taylor planned it out so that we would take him to a really cool American family's house and surprise him. Although, we were brainstorming of how we could get him there surprised and somehow we came to the conclusion that we needed to kidnap him. So, Elder Taylor took them up a small alleyway and we hid behind some cars, ran out, put a sheet on his head, and carried him back and threw him in the car. On the way we fell down and got a few battle wounds, but it was well worth it. Anyways, the car ride was hilarious because we didn't say a word, but Elder Dalton was cracking jokes the whole time and it was so hard not to laugh. We carried him all the way up to the door of the apartment where some random guy just let us in. . . which was kind of strange because he didn't really even ask why we had him bagged up hahaha. We knocked on their door, they let us in and we put him on the couch, and then we took of the sheet and surprised him! He was so funny about it and such a great sport. The night was a lot of fun and we ate a bunch of pizza and ice cream to celebrate. 


I loved that quote that you sent mom! I remember you sending that to me a long time back and it helped me out a lot. The longer that I have been out on my mission the more that I have understood that the harder it gets, the more your faith grows when you get up and keep working. Which is obviously easier said than done. However, I know with all my heart that when the going gets tough, when we make think otherwise, or especially when we don't understand, but we still choose to follow the Savior, we are blessed eternally. I know that throughout our lives we are giving opportunities to show the Lord that we trust him and we show our trust in him when we get up everyday with the attitude that we are going to try again.

I love you all so much!

This week is going to be another great one! 

I promise not to kidnap anyone else! Hahaha.

Love,
Elder Beyer

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Sunday, November 9, 2014 "Transfer Week"

Hey family!

I am not going to have too much time so I might have to keep it pretty short! We are just finishing up numbers because of a few unexpected problems that came our way tonight! As you already know, I am staying with Elder Elvidge! I am really excited and I think that this transfer is going to go by way to fast just like the last one. It is crazy how fast time is going by right now.

The Elder Kearon Conference was seriously amazing though. It was so much fun being with all of them! We have a few fun things planned for the upcoming conferences so I am really excited because we are going to have some really cool experiences over the next few months. Next transfer we have another special guest. . . but this time he is going to be singing the conference to us. . . David Archuletta is coming to our mission! I totally spelled his name wrong. . . but how cool is that?! Hahaha. He is coming December 18th and 19th! So cool!

Crazy that Mark is home! Send my love! To the cute couples as well :)

This week was really special.

Like you know, we were able to do the transfers with President and Sister Roney. It was an amazing experience. Monday after we had a fun P-Day at the Roney's with everyone in Lyon we got to work. The process involves a lot of praying, guidance, and a lot of time in President's office as we move around each missionary to the place that they need to be. It was really interesting seeing from this perspective how transfers work. I found myself trying to put myself in the place of the assistants a long time back when they were looking at my picture and moving me across the mission. It was incredible to see how that worked.

Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday were spent doing that. We had the occasional lunch and dinner break, but other than that it was all work!

Thursday we had a quick meeting that morning and then we spent the day doing missionary work and planning for the next transfer. 

This weekend has been spent primarily preparing for this upcoming week that is going to be insane, as the first week always is, and trying to get some missionary work done on the side!

It is crazy how much there is to plan when there are twenty missionaries coming into our mission, trainers moving all around to come into Lyon, and all other sorts of crazy things.

One thing that was cool this week was that we asked our Bishop and his wife to pray of a street name where we could go and do some tracting so that we could find a new person to teach and baptize. We didn't have much time in the week to work there, but once we had the name we were able to put a few hours in. We saw some miracles and found 2 new investigators and taught a miracle lesson in about an hour and a half! The guy we taught was a young college student who was super cool and we will be teaching again this Wednesday! Hopefully we can find enough time!

Well. . . 

This week I am probably going to sleep a total of 10 hours haha! Wish me luck!

I love you tons!

Love,
Elder Beyer

Monday, November 3, 2014

Sunday, November 3, 2014 "Trek to Bordeaux"

Bonsoir la famille!

Wow. . . football come and gone. Just like that haha. I feel like time is going by a little bit too fast right now. I am glad to hear that Caders started fast and finished strong :) Nice work stud! Yeah, I can understand what Bubba is feeling, football takes it out of you. I feel like missionary work is like that as well. Haha, when I come home I am probably going to sleep for a week straight so be ready! Waffle bar and parties at the house! Sounds like a blast!

This week was an incredible one. As you could have probably guessed.

We spent the week preparing for the conferences, traveling to the conferences, and going to the conferences. Our special guests this time were the Kearons. Elder Kearon is a member of the 70. They are two of the most amazing people that I have ever met and it was such a blessing to be able to get to know them a little bit more.

Tuesday we made the trek down to Bordeaux. We drove a big part of the day. It took us about 6 hours to get there, maybe a little bit less. It was a really fun ride though with Elders Elvidge, Kirkpatrick and Erickson. When we got there we dropped those two off and headed to the airport to pick up President and Sister Roney. After picking them up we headed over to the hotel to go and pick up the Kearons. We then drove them into town to drop them off for dinner. It was a really fun car ride with everyone joking around. We dropped them off for dinner and then headed down to the river and got something to eat for ourselves. It was so great being back in Bordeaux. I miss that place a lot. 

The conference the next day was amazing. We learned so many things that are going to help us to become so much happier in our lives and become more like the Savoir. One of the things that was a big focus of the conference was something that you actually talked about in your email. The ability to choose.

Something that we forget sometimes is that we can change so much of what happens around us just by changing our inner thoughts. We talked a lot about attitude and how we are going to change this mission based on choosing to do so. It was a really motivating conference.

That night we took a plane back to Lyon. . . but unfortunately our plane, for us and about ten other missionaries, got delayed three hours! So we found ourselves waiting on really uncomfortable chairs wayy too long! Haha. We got into Lyon around 1 and had to take some taxis to get home and had some missionaries come and get the rest of us! It was a crazy experience!

Thursday the conference in Lyon was amazing! Everything went as planned.

We drove to Geneva that night with Elder Kearon and President and Sister Roney. Although, right before that Elder Elvidge and I were able to have a quick interview with Elder Kearon at the Roney's house! It was an awesome experience! When we got to Geneva we were able to all go out to dinner to this awesome Mexican place. It was a lot of fun again listening to Elder Kearon and President joking back and forth giving each other a hard time about everything.

The next days conference was amazing as well! After dropping Elder Kearon off again we went out to eat again and then it was off back to Lyon!

The next few days were awesome because we were able to get some regular old missionary work done and work in our sector! We found a couple of really cool people! One of the cities that we went to and found a really cool person was this city called CHATILLON! How cool is that?! We decided to go and find someone there because we thought we would run into some of our ancestors ;)

One of my favorite parts of conference was the fact that we can change our futures by the way that we act on our missions. It was mentioned often that the harder we work the more value that we add to our family and the more that we love them. I have noticed that the harder I work out here the more I love each one of you. I truly love my mission and I feel very blessed to be here right now.

Another thing mentioned was that faith has a short shelf life. Everyday we need to work to have spiritual experiences to keep us going!

I love you all so much and pray that you have an incredible week!


Love,
Elder Beyer

Monday, October 27, 2014

Sunday, October 26, 2014 "Saw a lot of the mission"


Salut Famille! 

Hey no worries at all, I got on really early this time so don't worry at all. We have all kinds of crazy things to do tonight to get ready for conference, so we are going to have a long night typing up a lot of things, translating, and all sorts of other things that need to be ready for the missionaries tomorrow. Haha, so tonight is going to be pretty crazy!

Ah, Brother Shumway is such a great man. I love him so much. 

I was thinking that my life was getting pretty crazy. . . and then I realized that I have it easy compared to you mom! With your new you new job, all of the things you are doing for the family, all of the quotes that you are finding, my application, it sounds like you have a ton going on right now so I can imagine why you were sitting in your pajamas at 10:13 haha. Thank you so, so, so much for doing that application for me. I cannot thank you enough.

I am really glad to hear that Bubba's ankle isn't broken! That is so awesome! Hahaha, Caden is a nut.

Happy birthday Grandma Peg! I love you. You are such an amazing person and have influenced me so much in my life.

This week was a great one again. As you could have guessed, we saw a lot of the mission again this week. . . 

We started off the week by doing a service project Monday that completely wore us out. We cut logs for this really cool guy from Afghanistan that we met when we were knocking doors. I thought that I was tired before we started working, boy was I wrong, I was exhausted once we were done!

Tuesday was a blast because I was able to work with some of my favorite companions from the past, Elder Dalton and Elder Taylor. It was awesome because we set it up that in the morning I was able to work with Elder Dalton, and then in the afternoon I was able to work with Elder Taylor and we taught Neson and Michael! Neson is doing so great and is as happy as can be!

Wednesday we headed over to Grenoble to do a huge a activity with a district over there. We spent the day with a bunch of different missionaries and we set the goal to pass out a whole box of Book of Mormons and teach twenty lessons together. We totally did it! However it was freezing over there!

Thursday was great! We went out to this little city called Bésiers. We went to a small district meeting with some of the missionaries over there and then in the afternoon I was able to do an exchange with another one of my favorite companions, Elder Crawley over in Montpellier! It was so much fun! :) We got some great work done as well!

Friday we headed over to Marseille and I got to watch another one of my favorite companions Elder Einerson give an amazing district meeting. He did such a great job. The meeting was so inspired and it was well needed because during the conference we were able to take some time, relax and think with some music playing in the background and set some goals for the future. In the time that I had to think I sat back and tried to pick one attribute that I thought was one of the most important attributes that can be found in all of the people that I love the most, and among others one of the attributes that came to mind was happiness. We talked about that same thing in an email a few weeks ago as well. 
One of my favorite talks is called the Abundant Life, it is a talk by Joseph B. Wirthlin.
In this talk he says that happy people:
1. Drink deeply of living waters.
2. Fill their Hearts with love. "We don't have tears here." Joseph Smith
3. With the help of their loving Heavenly Father they create a masterpiece of their lives.

I love all of these points. The first one is great because it talks about scripture reading and the importance of that. I have seen my life change as I read my scriptures. Next, we focus on love. Everything that we do is out of love. As we learn in Matthew 22, the most important commandment is to love the Lord and the second is to love our neighbor. I can testify that the key to happiness is love. When we constantly feel the love of God in our lives, we are happy. Having and feeling the love of God daily in our lives truly changes us and allows us to create a masterpiece out of the clay that our Heavenly Father has presented to us when we came to this earth. One of my favorite quotes is, "Hell is where the man I am meets the man that I could have become." Joseph Smith. We have the opportunity to become something great in this life. I know that happiness is a great place to start, and true happiness comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love you all so dearly,




Elder Beyer

Monday, October 20, 2014

Sunday, October 19, 2014 "2 days in Corsica"

Family!

Bubba what are you doing trying to break your foot?! You shouldn't be letting those big guys roll on your feet! That is so great with Caden though. Nice work big guy! Keep working hard and enjoying every second of it. Mom! That birthday sounds so amazing. I would have loved to have had the same thing for mine! Dad, you didn't spoil me like that last March! ;) I am glad to hear that you had such a great time though. I started laughing so hard when I read about your experience golfing with Brock. . . He has matured so much. . . before he never would have come back hahahahaha. I love it. I can't wait to get back and play some sports with him to see for myself. :)

This week was as usual a pretty crazy one and man did it go by quick.

Monday we worked so that we could move our P-Day to Wednesday and do something fun with the Elders in Corsica. Later that night we headed out to Aix-en-Provence to do an exchange with the Elders over there. By the way, most of the time when we are traveling it is to do exchanges, not really to speak at conferences. So, we did an exchange with them Tuesday that went really good. I was with Elder Palmer. That night we actually headed down to Toulon to take a ferry to Corsica. You would not have believed the boat that we took. It was this giant cruise ship looking thing. Not only that, but the inside of it looked exactly like a cruise ship! Minus a lot of the fun things. . . but there were a lot of similarities. Before the boat took of we headed up to the top deck so that we could get an awesome view of the coast while we we floating away. . . it was pretty sweet :) It was really dark so we couldn't see much, but it was still a really cool experience.

We slept the whole boat ride over that night and we got to Bastia in Corsica around 8:00 that morning. We then hopped in the car and headed on over to meet Elder Pedersen and Elder Castillo. Elder Pedersen planned out a sweet day for all of us so we hopped in the cars and started heading up into the mountains. In a small city we met up with Elder Powell, Elder Smart and Elder Andersen and then drove a little bit further to our destination. Corsica reminded me a lot of Utah to tell you the truth. The area that we were at looked a lot like the mountains back home. For the next few hours we went on an amazing hike up the side of a rocky mountain until we arrived at a seriously breath taking little lake. We stopped and ate lunch there. It was such a pretty place. After sitting there for a little bit we headed back down and this is where it got interesting. . . 

We were making our way down and at about the halfway mark Elder Elvidge slipped and fell and completely sliced his hand open. He walked over to us to show us the blood running down. We then quickly made our way down, so that we could shoot on over to a hospital to get his hand stitched up. As you can imagine, Corsica was not the most ideal place for that. Finally we found a hospital in a nearby little town. To keep it short this hospital was tiny, when they finally realized we were there they took us to a small room, the doctor might have been intoxicated and was wearing jeans and a tee shirt (normal for France though), and then they stitched him on up haha. . . that is definitely an experience that we are never going to forget. The whole time the doctor just joked around about how much he hated people from England. Crazy experience. However, the nurse was really nice and after joking around with her about how that doctor scares away all of the children and how we chose a bad day to stop by she gave us some free bandages for his hands. When we went to pay after everything was all finished up the nurse said that everything was all closed up, and because we were leaving that night across the Island she didn't charge us anything haha!

That night we drove to Ajaccio! The next day we had an awesome exchange and I got to work with Elder Powell again and Elder Smart. It was a blast. We taught four lessons!

That night we took the boat back again and found ourselves in Toulon again the next day.

The weekend went really quick, but we were able to do a lot of missionary work in our sector which was wonderful.

I really like that quote that you sent mom. One of my favorite quotes in PMG is that more important than speaking is listening. Now, this concerns teaching lessons, but the principle is the same. In life we have so many instances where we forget to listen. We are so busy that we forget to take a little bit of time, relax, and listen to what our Heavenly Father wants us to do. 

I know that when we take time in our lives to kneel down and try and figure out what our Heavenly Father wants us to do that we are truly blessed. Our lives change by listening instead of speaking.

I know that this church is true. I know that Christ lives and that He loves us.

Have an amazing week!  Love,
Elder Beyer

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Monday, October 13, 2014 "Mission changed my life"

Dearest family!

Wow! Football season is truly in the air! The photos that you sent out are seriously awesome! I loved them. I looked at the photo of Bubba and for a second there I thought it was Caden. . . stop growing or I won't be able to beat you up when I get home. . . Ha ha. Congrats on being a captain Caden! That is so cool! Oh, by the way I love that primary song! That is one of the best! I think that that is a great idea to try and come back in March. Were you thinking to do it the same way that you did it with Brock and just go with you, dad and me? Elder Taylor is such a great guy. I was really excited because he actually got transferred back to Lyon and he is currently serving with Elder Dalton where I used to be! So I get to see them every once in awhile! He was able to write that note because they came in to watch the last session of conference and he wanted to jump on and say a little something before I finished up.

Good luck everyone with the games this week! 

Okay. . . so, like I said, this week has been absolutely crazy! 

We have pretty much driven all over France this last week. We have been able to see so many beautiful things over this last little while. I think that my favorite part of our mission that I was able to see this last week was when we were in Switzerland. It was seriously breath taking. We got to drive through mountains, rolling green hills, all sorts of beautiful scenery for quite a few hours. 

The drive was actually pretty great too. Elder Elvidge and I got to spend about four hours talking to President and getting to know him. The more that I get to know him and his family the more that I love them. They are such great people and they have such righteous desires. It was so interesting talking to him finding out how almost every single thing that he does in life or in business is centered on moving others closer to the Savior and strengthening his family. I really loved getting to hear some of his secrets on how to have a happy family. One thing that he said that is very similar to what we have in our family is that everyone needs to be each others best friend. He talked about how you need to spend lots of time with your family and extended family to the point that they all want to spend more time together than with their friends and eventually they replace their friends with their family. So thank you for all of the family trips and times that we went up to our grandparents houses to spend time with the family. 

To answer your question. . . there are two office elders and they are awesome. We get to spend so much time with them and they help us out a ton. There are two other senior couples in the office and to thank us President and Sister Roney took us out to eat Friday night to the nicest restaurant! It was a lot of fun being together with everyone in the office. They are all so amazing because their work is so hard and tiring and yet they always have smiles on their faces!

The other day I was talking with my mission president and he said that someday you will get to a point in your life, you might already be there, where you will say and be scared as you say it, What would my life be like if I had not served a mission? My mission has changed my life so much. I couldn't imagine what my life would be like right now if I had never chosen to serve the Lord, and it truly scares me thinking about that.

This next week is going to be crazy again. We are driving down to Aix tomorrow, taking a boat down to Corscia the next day, spending a few days out there, then coming back and going to Nice. . . then finally coming home. 

This week is going to be very tiring, but I am really, really excited!

Good luck with work this week mom and dad! 

I am very lucky to be where I am at right now. I have learned so much already and I think that over the next few months I am going to learn a lot of valuable things that are going to help me all through out my life. 

I love you all so much!

Have a great week!

Elder Beyer

PS. . . I didn't get the package yet! I probably will not get it until next Saturday because we are never here!