Monday, May 26, 2014

Monday, May 26, 2014 "I'm.........Staying"

Dearest Family. . . 

I am. . .


Staying!! I get to spend one more transfer with the great Elder Taylor. I am so excited and we are going to have so much fun this transfer and even see a few baptisms. Not to mention. . . Both of my sons who I trained are coming into our zone, Elder Einerson and Elder Ambursley! So I am going to be able to do a couple of exchanges with them!! Haha yeah that little girl was pretty awesome and this guy we are teaching right now is seriously incredible. He is so prepared to hear the gospel and he is getting really excited for his baptism the 5th of July!

Congrats Caders! That is seriously so cool! Hey, don't stress the football. Just keep working hard and trust that it will all work out. Geezzzz!! Bubba and his friends are getting so dang tall! I was blown away when I saw those photos. The fact that Bubba and Caden might be getting stronger than me motivates me to do my morning exercises. . . Don't worry though, I could still take them :)

That is amazing for TJ! I am so happy for him! If you see him send my love his way! Crazy for Adrian! Tell her congrats! Yeah, that is seriously so crazy!

This last week was a good one for us. . . 

We were able to teach S...... a few more times! Everything is going really well with him and he is very receptive to everything that we are teaching. It is super cool because he always reads way more than we ask him to which makes our RDV's a lot more spiritual and useful. Not to mention, he spoiled us again this week and took us out to a really good Chinese restaurant. Seriously, he is like the coolest guy ever!

C.... is still doing really good to. She has been to church every week since she has been baptized and she has been helping us a lot in teaching our other investigators. Right now we are just trying to get her to go to institute. . . for some reason she doesn't really like it.

Okay,

I don't know if I have told you. . . But on June 10th we have an apostle of the Lord coming to our mission!!!! Elder Andersen is coming to visit us with his wife. We are all seriously so excited and I think that is going to seriously motivate our mission to work really hard and have some baptisms soon. We also have Elder Kearon coming as well. 

It is going to be one of the coolest experiences of our missions because the Monday right before we are all taking buses all the way over to Nice to the conference. Our whole mission is going to Nice to take part in the conference! The only thing is that we have lots of rules and we have to make sure it doesn't turn into a big reunion, so if we see people we know we just have to smile and wave, we can't talk to anyone that is not in our district. 

Anyways, with him coming this whole transfer is focused on preparing for him and having as many baptisms as we can in the mission on July 5th at 6:00! It is going to be one of the coolest life experiences to be a part of this mission wide effort. It is going to be one for the record books. So this transfer, our job as ZLs is just to get everyone on board and stoked to be a part of this huge event! Ah I am seriously so excited! To prepare we are reading all of his talks and working our butts off to learn all of the things that he has been teaching over the past few years!


So I learned something kind of cool the other day. I was reading around and I found something in the bible dictionary. It kind of goes with the scripture that you sent. Under Fear the bible dictionary states, The immediate result after Adam transgressed was that he became afraid, ever since that event God's children have been afraid and he has been trying to persuade us to come back and humbly ask for forgiveness. I think that is so interesting. I have noticed that one of the biggest factors that Satan hinders us in this life and especially right now as missionaries is that he wants us to be afraid. He wants us to think that we can't do it, that we are not good enough, that we cannot be forgiven, but the truth of it all is completely contrary to that. God want us to feel loved, cared for, confident, be faithful and trust him. There are many ways that we can acquire these attributes and one of the biggest ways is that God gives us opportunities to grow our faith, by testing our faith. I have noticed that on my mission I have been scared to do things. . . actually that happens a lot. . . and through these opportunities, but choosing to act on my faith it has grown instead of diminishing. That is where I have gained the personal testimony that trials help us to grow! 

I love my mission so much and despite the fact that it is one of the hardest things that I have ever done, it is one of the most rewarding!

I love you all so dearly!

Love,
Elder Beyer

Monday, May 19, 2014

Monday, May 19, 2014 "This week was a great one!"




Hey there wonderful family!

Hahaha I was loving that story about Brad and Brad and it got me laughin' over here in France so I can only imagine how much you were laughing over there! I am sorry to hear that the Lacrosse season ended like that. That is never fun :( As usual though, I am stoked to hear that Caden played so well! Hey by the way, I loved your joke to! I feel like Grandpa Gene might have told me that one. . . 

This week was a great one though. I have a lot of awesome things to tell you.

Okay, so a few weeks ago we met this really cool guy named S.... when we were knocking doors. He let us right in and we were able to explain our message, give him a Book of Mormon, set up a return RDV and leave in about 15 minutes. We went back a few days later to teach him the restoration. We taught him and the spirit was really, really strong and I asked him to be baptized if he came to know our message was true. He was shocked by the question, absolutely shocked. He said, we have only met a couple of times, and I said, I know. He thought, and he thought, and after about 5 minutes he said, yes, I would. So we fixed a date and told him that we were going to have to start seeing him more often so we can help him prepare. He thought that was a great idea, so we taught him a few more times, he came to church, he loved it! Then he invited us out to eat on Monday night, we had an amazing Bordeaux meal and he bought us books about Bordeaux, he wrote us really nice letters thanking us with Book of Mormon scripture references on them and he explained to us that he believes our Heavenly Father put us in his way to help him. The teaching is going great right now, he has been to church two times, and as of right now he is going to be baptized on the 5 of July, but most likely we are going to be moving up his date. . . Pretty cool huh?!

This week we had district meeting and the sisters in our district are both from the South and are really, really good at cooking. So, after district meeting they made homemade fried chicken with mashed potatoes that was seriously to die for! So I am pretty excited for district meeting this week :)


I have a cool story for you. . . 

So I was on a bus standing there a little bit scared to start talking to people, they were all looking really scary that day for some reason. I swallowed my fear though and started contacting. . . The first person told me no immediately and said they were too tired to talk, I went on to the next person. . . who ignored me. . . then to the next. . . who did the same! At this time there is someone up front laughing at me, so to prove him wrong I talk to another person who immediately shut me down! I was just like, man it is not my day today! So not knowing what to do I look behind me at the cutest little girl in the world, she looked at me with this huge smile on her face and she blew me a kiss! Hahaha isn't she just the nicest little girl in the whole world? I would dare say that that was one of my favorite experiences on my mission.

That is really cool what you said about music. One thing that my mission president said is that music and love are common denominators of heaven. Most things in this life do not correlate with the things that happen before and after, but there is something special about these two things. There is nothing stronger than listening to spiritually uplifting music while in am ambiance of love.

There is a cool quote that I heard one time that kind of goes with what you said, "Hell is where the man I am meets the man that I could have become," Joseph Smith. So, the invitation to us all is to never let minor obstacles get in the way of your divine potential.

I love you all so dearly and I hope that your semaine is excellente!

Bises,
Elder Beyer

Monday, May 5, 2014

Monday, May 5, 2014 "This week flew"


My dearest family!

I am diggin' the photos of Bubba playin' ball. He seriously looks like such a stud out there. Keep those photos coming and make sure that you are filming some of his games. . . Caden's included. . . So that I can watch them when I get home!

Hahaha that story about Kim is so funny. I bet she was such a great sport about it. Andrew and Steve are seriously so funny. When I offered the prayer at their house, that was a funny night. Stephen, being the oldest man there was put in charge to call on someone and he said Carsen, would you like to say it? I was like yeah no problem. Kim was like, you can't pick on the guests! Pick someone else! Stephen then responded and said, no I am choosing Carsen. That just kept going on and on and then Stephen said, "Mom, I am sure that Carsen is completely capable of offering a prayer" and then we all started laughing, and Kim looks at me with an apologetically look, and I said it. It was really funny. Tell Stephen that I will say them in french for him in a little while! Also. . . That it goes without question that he is coming on Sunday. . .(Call at Mother's Day)

As for the baptism. . .

C.... was Baptized!! It was seriously one of my favorite experiences on my mission  I will tell you all about it when I talk to you this Sunday, but it was pretty sweet.

This week we have interviews with President after conference that went really well. Conference was awesome and then during my interview I was able to talk to him about goal setting and planning out you life. . . and accomplishing the things that you plan out. . . I will tell you more about the interview this Sunday because he said some really nice things.

So this last week for us was absolutely crazy. After we got done with our conference it was chaos because the members that were making a meal for another zone completely bailed so Elder Taylor and I offered to help out. We went the day of the baptism and made food for the other conference and then afterwards cleaned up the huge mess. It took us so much time that we were there all up until the baptism at night.
The baptism was such a success though. C..... was really excited and she even showed up a little early for her baptism. We all changed up into white and she was able to meet Sister Roney and all of the other missionaries there which was pretty exciting. She was really nervous, but all went great. Elder Taylor and I both gave talks and then I baptized her, and then we went back in and I was able to play that Hie to Kolob rendition that I played at Brock's homecoming that she really, really liked. So all went well.

This week flew by though! I honestly cannot believe how fast it went by. One minute we started the week and the next it was over. I am having so much fun right now and I am loving being with Elder Taylor. He is an incredible missionary and he always keeps me laughing. I really, really hope that we get to stay a couple of transfers together. . . But we will see. . .

For the photos that you are going to send yeah 30 would be perfect. Make sure there are some copies or something like that just in case they get lost in the mail. . . I don't know if you can make copies though. . . 

By the way, that package that you sent me was seriously amazing. Everything inside was top notch! Elder Taylor and I have been loving eating the candy when we are walking around. 

Well my dearest family, I love you all so very much and I am so excited to be able to talk to you so soon! Yes, I will probably only have one hour so like you said, come prepared. . . Also, we are going to be calling around 5:00 our time! So be ready. I hope that doesn't interfere with church. If it does I am sorry. . . We might call a little earlier or a little later and I am not sure if the family that we are Skypeing with has two computers or not. . . So I will try and send you and email next Saturday or Sunday if possible to clear out some details, but I am not positive if that will be possible.

Bises à vous tous!
Elder Beyer