Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Monday, September 29, 2014 "Transfer will be crazy"

Chère Famille!

Great work with the football games! It looks like you are well past getting your feet wet this season and are starting to play like a real team ;) Hahaha. Bubba, you have got to play the piano on the sides. No ladies are going to want someone who is only good at sports!

Okay. . . 

So this week was so crazy! I feel like from now on life is going to be a little bit crazy. On Wednesday I was on an exchange sitting in a lesson when all of the sudden my phone started to ring and I look down to see that it was President Roney calling. I was like, Ah! I better go grab this one. After talking to President for a sec he completely shocked me changing where I thought I was going to be going. He said, "Since you have been such a bad mission for so long we have decided to bring you in as one of my assistants for a couple of transfers." I was so shocked that I had no idea what to say. Haha. . . I was not expecting that call at all. Especially because neither of the assistants were finishing their missions. Now, one of them is going to finish as a zone leader teaching us all how we can baptize one person a transfer and is really going to set the tone for all of the missionaries. This new transfer is going to be crazy!

I will just give you a quick recap.

Thursday I went to a meeting at Presidents. Elder Elvidge, my new companion, and I were running a good part of it. Once we were finished running over the first week with everyone involved we had planned to leave so I could get back to my sector and finish working, but President pulled us into his office and we started going over the plan for the next transfer. We then spent the rest of the day going over the vision of what we need to accomplish and change in our mission. It was really cool seeing how that inspiration works from the other end. It is very obvious that Sister and President Roney are very inspired. We occupied ourselves with some little things for the rest of the night and we found ourselves heading home around 11. We were then back the next morning at 7 to start working on the transfer calls and calling every missionary. It was pretty funny listening to how some of the missionaries would respond in the calls because President would say the funniest things to them. After we were done with calls we ate with the Roney's and then got back to work. The rest of the night we spent getting things ready for the next transfer. We created the calendar, the roster, started preparing conferences, and all sorts of other things. 

We tore up our shirts with the mission and made titles of liberty!
Saturday we were able to go to a baptism! Well. . . actually 4! 4 people here in Lyon all got baptized in the same meeting! Sébastien was one of them! It was awesome seeing him all dressed up in white along with a couple of others! The baptism went great and Elder Taua, Elder Elvidge and I actually sang a trio for it that went really great. We sang our mission song, Les Anges dans nos Campagnes. Elder Taua played the Uke and we all sang. It actually went really, really well. Later that night we were able to go over to our mission nurse's house and she fed us! 

Sunday went great! After church we headed home to finish packing and unpacking. Once we were done we headed over to a members house to have some fun with them and eat some crepes! It was a blast. Shortly after we headed on over to the Roney's to have a last dinner with Elder Taua. We had a lot of fun eating and playing games with their family. I think that has been my favorite part of the last few days. I have gotten to spend so much more time with the Roney family and I have come to love them even more. They are truly such amazing people and I feel so blessed with his opportunity to spend more time with them and to learn from them. These next few months are going to be huge growing months for me!

We finished off Sunday night doing numbers until 2:30! We were so exhausted by the end of it haha! It was a refresher finishing those up. We are going to be pretty exhausted this week. We have a crazy week planned with the new missionaries and the departing missionaries. . . so wish us luck! I love you all so much!

Bonne semaine!

Elder Beyer

Monday, September 22, 2014

Monday, Septmember 22, 2014 "Miracles took place"

  Hey there family!

Sorry to be coming into you so late! We spent this P-Day at the Roney's house and seeings how we don't have a car we snagged a ride from the office Elders and they left a little bit earlier than we are thinking. . . unfortunately I am not going to have a ton of time to email, but I will do my best! Lyon is treating me very well though! I am loving it here and I sure hope that I get to spend a few more transfers here! That is so awesome for Rachael and Carlos! Tell them congratulations and that I am so so happy for them! That is so great! That sounds like a great dinner to be having!

Ah man! I can't believe that the Darts couldn't pull through! How about those little Kaysville boys! Not too shabby! Caden! Sickest tie ever! Too classy. I hope that you two had fun. Classic, heading over to the Gee's after. Can't Caden and his friends come up with anything original?!

Well. . . 

As for the miracles that took place this week. . . 

I am going to start out by telling you what happened with Neson.

So, in church last Sunday we announced his baptism. We thought for sure that he was going to be ready. Neson is only 17 though, so in order for him to get baptized we had to get hold of his mom in Nigeria. We found ourselves a Friday night not having been able to get in touch with her, the baptismal interview already having been completed, but our time vanishing away quickly because the baptism was the next day and without permission he wouldn't be able to be baptized. It was around 4:00 and we headed over to the local store to buy a calling card to see if we could get hold of his family. We went back to the church and Elder Dalton, Neson and myself all pulled up chairs and put the phone on the table in the middle of us. I don't know how, but he had the number of his mom. We punched it in. . . a few rings. . . and nothing. . . 

We started getting kind of nervous. We tried again. . . nothing. . . We figured one last time, and again nothing! We were starting to get a little sad because this meant that he wouldn't be able to be baptized. We were sitting there not knowing what to do when all of the sudden Elder Dalton saw another number on his phone with the same area code as Nigeria. It turns out it is his Aunt's number. So we gave it a call. Sure enough, she answered! They were so excited to be talking to each other and Neson was screaming he was so excited. That was the first time that he was able to talk to his family since he has been here in France. The best part that he mom was actually in the room at that same time so he was able to talk to her as well! We quickly called the member here who speaks their same language so she could make sure they were okay with it, so we put them both on speaker and they talked for a minute. . . and the first thing that the member said to us was that we will see you tomorrow at 2:00 at the baptism! Total miracle!

So, the next day. . . 

We met Neson around 1 and then headed over to the church. We had a great service, half in English and half in french. Neson was then baptized by the member from Nigeria here! 

The funniest thing was that the Elders in Ecully who filled up the font for us in the morning because we don't have a font at our little apartment building actually made a huge mistake. The water was going down slowly so they tried to fix the plug and then they left. It turned out that they completely knocked it out of place. When we went in to do the ordinance there was only about three inches of water left hahaha! I started laughing so hard and then watched while those Elders ran in with buckets with panicked looks on their faces saying, ohhhh man, we are soooo sorry! We we get it filled! So we went back in, finished the other talks, and then with a bunch of missionary efforts they were able to fill it enough that Neson could be baptized!!

After the baptism we had my favorite senior couple from Switzerland named the Muller's come out of nowhere and bring chili for everyone! Ah it turned out great in the end!!

Oh, I was going to tell dad! There is a Korean student in our ward who I made so happy when I told her hello in Korean! She has taught me a few other words, but you are going to have to tell me some more so that I can tell her every time that I see her!! Judging by her, Korean people are so stinkin' nice! Haha :)

P-Day at the Roney's was so much fun today! We played baseball, volleyball, and football and at BBQ chicken sandwiches! Not too shabby!

Transfers this week! Hopefully Elder Dalton and I stay together!

"Christ is as close to us as we allow him to be." This was one of my favorite things that was said by Elder Ballard when he came and talked to our mission. One of the greatest promises in the scriptures is that as we look for Christ and move closer to him he moves closer to us. So, now we just have to find everything in our lives that keeps us from getting closer to him and make a change :)

I love this gospel and I feel blessed to be a missionary at this time.

I love you all!

Elder Beyer

Monday, September 15, 2014 "Interesting Week"


Hey there fam!

Wow! I cannot believe that Caden is that old. . . There is no way. . . We have no had that many chop chop timbers since he was born! You might want to bring out that birth certificate just to check and make sure that there have not been any errors made. That is too bad about football. Keep working hard and having fun! Keep kicking butt too! Nice work! Keep sending pictures please!

Haha yeah I heard that Nick and Cambria got it good with the roast. Haha ahhh man that is hilarious! I can't believe that those two are married! If you run into them you are going to have to tell them congrats for me!

Nice work with the singing mom! That is so so awesome!

This was an interesting week. . . 

We had kind of a tough week. Over the last little while we have had a really hard time staying in contact with all of our investigators. We have had a few that have moved and we have had a few that are just not responding. That is something that is really devastating as a missionary. We had about 5 people lined up for baptism and they are dropping off like flies. . . although, we are putting up a pretty good fight and over the next two week we might have a couple of baptisms. We fasted last Sunday again for our investigators. . . so hopefully everything works out this week.

Yes! I got the package! It was amazing! I love all of the treats and I have been wearing the shirt everyday for my workouts! It has been motivating me to work out harder!

Last P-Day was a lot of fun because all of the missionaries in Lyon met up at this huge park that we have in our sector and we played some football and soccer all together. Not to mention right before that we went to one of the only bagel shops in France that was completely full of things imported from the United States! There was everything that you could think of from Lucky Charms to Big League Chew! The only problem was that everything cost an arm and a leg. . . so we weren't able to get much! Haha. The bagels were amazing though! We are probably going to be heading back there pretty soon. . . 

We taught this lady that was really, really awesome this week. She is from Madagascar so we taught with this guy in our ward that just got back from his mission over there! It was awesome because they actually lived in the same city so there was a great connection made. She was one of the nicest older ladies in the world! We are going back to see her this Wednesday so hopefully everything keeps going well!

We had our zone conference this week that went really good. We were able to watch a broadcast from Elder Ballard coming into our mission a week ago. One of my favorite things was that he said our attitude determines a lot of the light that we have as missionaries. If we are negative and we murmur like Laman and Lemuel, then we will not have any light with us and no one is going to want to talk to us. That is one thing that I have gain a huge testimony about on my mission, attitude is key to success in this life. We need to be like Nephi and in all things choose to follow the Lord without giving a second thought. The Lord wants us to show our faith so he gives us opportunities to follow him, but if we complain the whole way than it is as if we never even followed him in the first place. Mom, I really liked that quote you sent because it reiterates the importance of always choosing to be obedient and not asking a ton of questions about why.

We had a General Priesthood meeting this week with all of the wards in Lyon and President Roney was one of the speakers. About 30 minutes into the conference I get a text from President saying, "Elder Beyer, I may ask you to give a 2 minute summary of lesson 1." I text back saying, "No problem at all :)" Then classic President Roney I get a text a few seconds later saying, "And for Elder Dalton the Dead Sea Scrolls." I looked up at him and I about lost it laughing. He is a really funny guy. In the end Elder Taua, one of the Assistants, showed up and I didn't end up doing it though. The best part was that after Elder Taua went President Roney had everyone in the audience write down a referral on a card and pass it to the missionaries. We haven't gotten any referrals this transfer, after that though in total we had about 30 cards with names on in for the stake of Lyon. . . Not too shabby huh?

Well, life is great over here. I know that this is truly the work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I love and miss you all!

Love,
Elder Beyer

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Monday, September 9, 2014 "Be enternally happy"

Salut fam!

Hey there! It is so great to hear from you! You all look so great and I am glad to hear that you are taking care of the most important things right now. . . football! We are actually going to a huge park today to play football with all of the missionaries in Lyon! It is going to be a blast! Caden got a pic! TOOOO SWEET! Way better than I had my senior year! That is awesome with little Bubby! Bubbs! Stay away from those babes! They all have cooties! Brock was lookin' really good on the camera as well!
Sign me up!!
No way! Brother Shumway saw Elder Visser!!! He is one of my favorite people that I have met on my mission. He is seriously one of the hardest working, nicest, most Christlike person that I have ever met. He was my zone leader in Bordeaux and then he was the AP for awhile so I was able to work with him a lot and it was a blast!

I remember Carlos I just didn't know that the wedding date was set and all! That is awesome!

I loved the story that you shared about the primary kids giving you hugs! Sounds like you are still as awesome as I remember mom!

Okay. . . this week did end up being pretty crazy!

First off. . .

Elder Dalton has had some serious pink eye going on so I ending up doing a lot of exchanges this week so that he could stay in the office a little bit and rest his eyes. Because of that we had to go to the hospital on Monday to go get some medicine to help out a little bit. After we finished up we found ourselves with not too much time left to do something fun for our P-Day. We decided that we were going to run over to the park as fast as we could and see if we couldn't play a little football before we needed to start working. Long story short we were playing and then these four guys starting throwing a football next to us that was wayyy nicer than ours so I knew that it came straight from the states. I asked them about it and told them that they are the only people in France who play football. They were really cool and after talking for a little bit they said that they wanted to play with us. We then taught them the rules, set up the field and starting playing. It was such a blast! We had so much fun playing with them, and the best part was that at the end they asked us for our numbers and they wanted to play with us again. Some of them were really cool and I think that after we get to know them a little bit better they would gladly accept the missionary lessons.

Unfortunately this week was the week that we had to pass our really awesome investigator over to the other missionaries. It would have been awesome to work with him until his baptism. . . but we are all on the same team :) I am really going to miss teaching him! He is cool and elect! I think that we will still be able to go to his baptism though!

This week we had a combined working day with the Paris Mission in where we tried to find 1000 new investigators and we would pray every 30 minutes together so that we would see some miracles. Although we didn't quite get there we found about 400 new people to teach! How awesome is that! The Paris Mission taught a million lessons as well. I was on an exchange, but we found 4 new investigators and we taught 5 lessons! It was pretty awesome!

We had a family night with Neson this week and another Nigerian family in one of the other wards in Lyon and it was such a blast. We had so much fun together! Neson was so happy too! The coolest part was that they are both from the same city so they speak the same dialect and they were able to speak together in their native language. That really strengthened my testimony in the importance of working with members, and especially teaching our investigators on their homes, because the spirit was so Strong and the investigators are truly touched. Fun time! Not to mention Neson was singing on the bus on the way home and it was hilarious! Good thing that there weren't too many people!

We helped 2 random people move this week! That was kinda fun! I am starting to realize that I don't need to do morning workouts if we are going to be doing that throughout the day! Hahaha.

I did an exchange with Elder Vira, Elder Kirkpatrick, and Elder Pedersen this week!

Well, life is great right now.

I am really happy and I know that I am engaged in a good cause!

I really like that quote you sent. There is nothing quite like the happiness that comes after you know that you made someone else happy. I think that that is the most rewarding thing of missionary work, when you see other people touched by the Savior's love and them becoming happier in their lives. One thing about the gospel is that we are never going to prove that it is right and true. . . never! But, we can prove through the fruits of living the gospel that it is true. I know that those who truly live the gospel are so much happier than they would be without it. I know that this gospel is true and that it teaches people how not only to be happy right now, but be eternally happy.

I love you all!

Elder Beyer

Monday, September 1, 2014

Monday, September 1, 2014 "Homemade Jam!"

Hey there fam!

Oh my goodness!! What are you guys doin' letting Bubba get behind the wheel?! I have seen that boy drive a four wheeler and I don't know if I would let him hop behind a car. . . Hahaha! That is so crazy! Bubba is getting so stinkin' old and so stinkin' tall! Too much class! He is looking European! That is awesome about the football games! Nice work everyone! I love that picture with Ty as well, he is such a stud!

Our Zone!!
Perfect! I am glad that you got it off with the right address! That is really reassuring! Haha, yeah we were just finishing up a teaching appointment and he had his phone out sending an email so I asked him if he could send our address to Elder Dalton's mom because he kept forgetting and once we found out it was missing a few words I asked him to send it to you. The funny thing was is he was like I will just call them! That will be way easier, I know that they will love that and I call the U.S. all of the time! He is such an awesome guy! I am glad that dad was able to talk to him! I guess if there was any place to be in missing that call the temple was a good place to choose!

Well, this week went really well!

There were some days that we a little bit longer than others, but as usually it is always incredible how fast time flies by because I swear that just a few hours ago I was in this chair writing last weeks letter. Crazy stuff. 

Pétanque! It is exactly like Bocce that we play camping!
At the start of the week we were really busy in teaching a lot of lessons. It seemed like we were just going back and forth on the metro. Although, the end of the week wasn't at all the same and it seemed like we were struggling to find people to teach. There was one day where Elder Dalton and myself were like we need to find some new investigators! So, we spent a good part of the day contacting and trying to talk to everyone. . . and finally at the end of the day we found a really cool guy who we will be teaching tomorrow night! We have a few investigators who are doing really well. . . the only sad thing that I think that I told you last week is that one of our strongest investigators is moving into another sector :( So. . . I think we are going to have to pass him to the other missionaries. . . we will see what happens though. 

N...., S...... and J...... are all doing really good! As of right now they are all progressing really well and they should be baptized before this transfer is over!

Sweet view out of the apartment!
We had conference this week that went really, really well and it was so much fun seeing the whole zone. We did 3/4ths of it in English and 1/4 in french because there is a french sister in the zone! That was the first time that I have ever taught a part of conference in french! Crazy stuff!

The other day we were able to do a service project for the neighbor of a member that went really, really well. We cut down thorny vines all day that we hanging on a wall. I pricked myself so many times haha. It was a good one though and at the end of the day we were absolutely exhausted. However, the neighbor was so grateful and we are going to go back again this week and help her out. She is a nice lady with three kids who is about middle aged. At the end of the service project she brought out some jam for us to take home that was seriously so great! It had been Way, Way to long since I had eaten homemade jam!

This week is going to be a crazy one because we have 3 exchanges planned. . . so basically this whole week were are going to be on an exchange. . . I am going to be so tired at the end of this week hahaha.

Life is going great! I am happy and loving Lyon and my companion!

So, you asked about Elder Dalton. He is from Portland like you know. We were in the MTC together. He loves football and basketball, so we are going to go and play pretty soon. He has three brothers and one sister and he is the youngest. He is hilarious and we have been having a blast together!

I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Beyer