Monday, June 30, 2014 "No hitter"

Heyyyy family!

I don't know how you do it, but every week you all sound so amazing! It sounds like you are really making the most of the summer and that you are having lots of fun.  Everyone looks so grown up in those photos!! Before too long Pete and Jack are going to be passing up Randy! That is awesome about the wedding. I am glad you got to meet some of the Taylor's! They sound like great people! Also, grandma and grandpa are looking great in those photos!

We had a couple of really cool experiences this week! So, over this past little while we have been developing a really good relationship with our bishop. Like, really good. He is such a cool guy. He is way into skating, and he is not at all like what you would think a bishop would be like. Anyways, he has been moving lately so we have had the opportunity to help him out! The last few days we worked our tails off, and I am not going to lie I don't know if I have ever been more tired than that on my whole mission. It was just furniture after bed after table after fridge. . . not to mention that it was up four flights of stairs!! Ahh man, it was killer! Saturday when we got done I just wanted to crash on the bed and sleep until the next morning. . . but, no naps as missionaries haha. . . It was a great experience though and we really gained his trust!

We had a cool experience this week towards the end of the night. We had worked really hard throughout the whole day and we hadn't seen much success. We were walking home when we saw this lady talking on the phone, it was time to go in so we said hello! and kept walking. After a few steps she yells, hey come back here! We were like, okay. . . We went back and she said, are you the Mormons? We said yeah! She said, I was taught by you when I was a kid and was baptized and it really helped me in my life. She then said, and I want the same thing for my daughters. So, follow me. She then led us to her to daughters and said, teach them and baptize them. They were watching the soccer game, so they weren't too engaged, so we agreed to come back another night and we are going to stop by and see them this week probably! Cool miracle huh?! Haha.

We had one guy on a bus that we had contacted awhile ago who actually contacted us and said, can you teach me about repentance? We then sat down on a bench and began to teach him how he could use Jesus Christ to start over and change his life. He loved it and we are going to be teaching him again next week! That never happens! When does anyone come up to you and say can you teach me about repentance??

Last but not least. . . 

High Class Weigh Set!!

An incredible miracle. . .

As I told you we had the first sighting of a baseball field not too long ago. The perfect thing is that there are a few really good neighborhoods in the area where we can knock doors, so we pass by there every so often to see if we can catch anyone playing. . . Well. . . this last P-Day we caught someone. . . 

After some hesitation we decided to go and talk to them. They were really cool and we sat there and watched them play for a minute. They were kind of a scrappy crew and the pitcher was having a hard time getting the ball to home plate. After a minute I turn to the catcher and ask, hey can I try one? Keep in mind that we are in our white shirts and ties. . . anyways he laughs and says, hey guys he wants to try and throw one! I grab a glove and start walking out to throw a few warm up pitches. I started out slow and slowly started to warm up the heat. After I hopped on the mound and started bringing it a little quicker. . . Instantly all laughs stopped and I don't know if this is true, but Elder Taylor said that jaws were dropped. I then went on to, well, pitch a no hitter haha. It was a blast and for a second Elder Taylor had them going that I was going to go and play for the redsox! Afterwards they came up to me and were like, could you please come and teach us? We could have practices! Do you have a french number?! It was super funny. . . 

Anyways, the miracle was that we went back and played again with them. Now, these guys who never would have listened to us before are completely opening up and after one of them gave us a ride home in which we were able to talk to him a little about our message. It was really cool because after we broke the barrier of them thinking we were weird from the white shirts and ties we have been able to teach a little about who we are and what we believe!

Pretty cool huh?!

Well, everything is going great and S...... is going to get baptized this week!!!!!

Love you!

Elder Beyer

Monday, June 24, 2014 "Our mission is on fire"

Salut la fam!

It is always a pleasure to hear from you! Oh my gosh. . . Hayden is already leaving?? How is that even possible?? Are you sure we are talking about the right Hayden here? Hahaha. I am so glad to hear that he did a wonderful job though! It sounds like the family is having such a wonderful time right now and as always I love hearing that! Little Hudson is so cute!!

There wasn't too much that happened this week, but it was a great one. I cannot believe how fast time flew by! I swear just yesterday our week started and now it is over. 

After the conference that we had over in Nice I fixed the goal that I wanted to have one lesson everyday for the rest of my mission. . . Elder Taylor agreed that that would be a good goal so that is what we decided to do for the rest of the transfer. We went throughout the week and after two exchanges and lots of other small tasks we found ourselves on Sunday only having taught four lessons on the week. We agreed that we would give it our all to see a miracle! Sure enough, during church we were able to teach one of our amis, bam one lesson! After church we were waiting at the bus stop and all of the sudden we found this guy, aka Elder Taylor found this guy because I was talking to someone else, so he brought him over and said this guy wants to learn more about our message! I was like sweet, so we went to the park and taught him. It was funny because in talking to him we found out that his mother is french, but his father is Korean! So, I say, anya hash mika, and anya haseyo. . . turns out that he doesn't speak a word of Korean. . . how lame huh?! Haha. . . So bam, another lesson that went really good! Sadly enough, we had to do numbers so in the end we were not actually able to accomplish the goal that we had set out to, but we were able to see that in setting this goal we were able to teach way more lessons than we would have normally.

Everything is going really good right now though. Our mission is on fire, we seem to be baptizing way more people right now than we did last year. Not to mention, our zone has not gone a single week without having a baptism which has been awesome to see. We have an incredible zone right now and it is so much fun to be able to work with all of them.

At church we were sitting in our second hour and one of the counselors in the bishopric came in and pulled Elder Taylor and I out. He explained that they made an error and they needed one of us to give a talk in sacrament. Since Elder Taylor was teaching our investigators class I was able to give the talk. I talked about faith and how that can lead us to see miracles in our lives. I did my best to reiterate the things that we learned at conference.

Life is going great right now though! I am very happy! The only thing is that it is blistering hot outside! I am going to die of a heatstroke! That is okay though!

I love you all so very much!

By the way tonight we have a dinner appointment with our neighbors and this week we are teaching a lot of our really cool investigators!! S....is still doing really good and he is going to be ready for the 5th! I seriously cannot wait for that day because we are going to make some serious mission history!

Love,

Elder Beyer

Monday, June 16, 2014 "Happy Father's Day Dad"

Family!

Happy Father's Day Dad!!

I am loving every single one of the pictures! Hahaha, everyone looks like they are having so much fun! That is incredible about Bubba's team! What tournament was that? Bubba looks like a stud in those pictures :) Haha Caders and Brockster are looking really good as well. Brock didn't write me about his idea! You are going to have to have him write me next week and inform me about what is going on! Hey nice job Coach Beyer! Sounds like you are tearing it up! You better be careful, if you keep winning they are going to send you over to take Leo's spot!

Okay, Nice was incredible. 

It seriously seems like a big dream. I swear that we never even went there. Monday flew by as we all drove down in the bus. It turns out that the buses were actually really, really nice so the ride down was more of a luxury trip than anything. The pizza in the hotel was delicious as well! The next day we got up and took the bus down to the Acropolis! This big conference center in Nice. First off, Nice is an incredible city. It was seriously so beautiful. The city itself is kind of dirty, but when you hit the nice parts of town there is not too much that can beat those palms trees up next to the beach looking over the French Riviera. 

It was a pretty incredible experience getting off of those buses all at the same time with the missionaries across the mission. I honestly thought it was going to be weird not talking to anyone that was not in our districts, but it was actually kind of cool. Everyone was quiet, and when we were all walking to the conference center there was like a spiritual force that I could have sworn was tangible.

We got in and sat down, and at this moment was where we got the special treatment. Because Elder Taylor is in the stake of Elder Andersen they pulled us out a little early so that we could take a picture with Elder Andersen and his wife. It was a really cool experience that I was able to tag along for. They gave him a little present, recorded him bearing his testimony and took a few pictures with him. I got to sneak in on one of those pictures, so maybe in the future you will be able to get your hands on that thing!

Okay, the conference. . . 

I don't even know where to begin. 

I can truly say that that was one of the most spiritual experiences that I have had in my entire life. With all of the preparation that went in we ended up with a spiritual downpour. Sister and President Roney started off and did an incredible job. Sister Roney talked about how important hands are in the work and how important the hands of the Lord are in the ways that they heal and lift people up. In the end her message was that we can never look at our hands the same again and we need to be reaching out to others like the Savior would. Next up, President Roney talked about choosing faith at all times in our lives. He shared examples in the scriptures where the disciples of Christ we given the opportunity to do something that compromised their earthy logic, and because the chose to follow Christ instead of their earthy logic they received a downpour of spiritual blessings that our earthy words cannot describe. Next up was Sister and Elder Kearon, Sister Kearon talked about in order to be a true message of Christ we need to give it everything that we can and not waste a single second. She said that we are here to do the Lord's will, not our own. Elder Kearon, (one of my favorites), talked about how who we are is far more important than what we say. He talked about the fact that he was blessed because the missionaries who baptized them knew who they were and they didn't just preach the message, but they lived the message. He inspired us all to become better and apply the things we learn and teach. He had another message about repentance and shared the scripture in 2 Nephi 32 that says the Lord's arm is extended all the day long and that it is always there to lift us up when we fall down. It was an incredible message. Then came to Sister and Elder Andersen, I could write for hours, but the main focus of both of them was faith and not living your mission without seeing miracles. They shared experiences from when they were in this mission and they set goals that allowed them to accomplish miracles. They shared many things about faith and they said this is what we are lacking, we need to develop more faith. In brief they said that we need to stop thinking our mission is hard and that we can't baptize, because they said we most definitely can. They did it, and they said if we believe there is not reason that we cannot do it. They then challenged us to baptize every month! So, we are going to raise the faith bar a little bit!

The trip back was great and we found ourselves in Bordeaux on Wednesday!

I just wanted to tell you about a few quick experiences. . .

S...... is doing really good. He is progressing like crazy and he is going to be so ready for his baptism. They announced it the other day in church and he was very excited. Right now he is at Helaman chapter 12! Not too shabby huh?!

Another cool thing that happened was that there was this boyfriend of a member that we have been trying to work with for a long time now. Long story short we were finally able to set something up and they invited us over for dinner last night! We went over and had a great time together, we were all laughing and joking around and we developed a great friendship. The boyfriend of the member has been asking a lot of questions about the church over the last little while so it was wonderful because we were able to explain a little bit more about what we do as missionaries and he said that he really wants to keep meeting with us and talking. On the ride home though, he explained to us that his girlfriend has a terminal illness and she only has 4 more months to live, as he kept talking about how sad he felt and everything he was thinking we just sat there not knowing what to say. So a little background on the boyfriend, he is not believing at all. . . He said that he was praying for his girlfriend during sacrament meeting and he had this warm comforting feeling come over him. He said he couldn't describe it, but it felt amazing. We were able to then testify to him of what that feeling was. It was such an amazing experience because he was able to recognize the love that the Lord has for him and he said he believes that the feeling came from God. We then expressed how grateful we are for people like him and we told him that people like him are what inspire us as missionaries and keep up wanting to go out and work. We were able to testify of the plan created for each of us, and although we couldn't do much we left him with a little more peace than he had before. I think that is one of the times that I have felt the most helpless on my mission. We are going back next week to teach him about the plan of salvation though :)

Well my beautiful family, I love you all so dearly and I hope that your week is excellent.

By the way, funny story.

People here see us in our white shirts and thing that we are controlling the trams and buses. . . so people get on without a ticket and they see us thinking that we work for the city and they get really scared and hop of the bus or the tram so that we don't fine them haha. . . If nothing else we are helping people be more honest!

Much love,

Elder Beyer

Saturday, June 7, 2014 "So Excited"

Hello there my beautiful family!

Okay, I just found out a few days ago that we would be emailing today instead of next Wednesday. . . So that is why you are hearing from me right now! As you know next week we are going to be making a long trip. . . So we wont have much time to do other things. . . 

Everything is going great right now though.

Right after I sent my email last week we headed on over to a family's house in Lyon that Elder Taylor had spent a lot of time with when he served there. They were so happy to have us over and they fed us and the other companionship who was with us, Elder Castillo and Elder Montgomery. It was a lot of fun and on top of that, they are an American family so it was all in English!

The next day was leadership council and that was as usual an incredible experience. It was such an edifying experience and it really got me motivated to get out and start getting to work. We talked a lot about member missionary work and contacting, but the bulk of the conference was on the Elder Andersen and Elder Kearon conference. 

This conference is seriously going to be such an amazing experience. President Roney has been pushing hard the fact that this conference is not so that we can just go and feel good, but it is so we can have a life changing experience that allows us to be more like our Savior Jesus Christ. We are focusing a lot on our preparation and what it is going to take so that we will be spiritually and temporally ready for the words of an Apostle. I am so excited, even if we have a 13 hour drive haha. We have a lot of rules for the conference, so it is not going to be a fun reunion with the other missionaries. . . we are even asked to reverently ride down on the bus to Nice, but I know that it is all going to be worth it in the end and it is going to be an incredible experience.

Other than that we had our conference on Friday that went really, really well. We have an awesome zone right now so I think we are really going to be seeing some miracles soon and especially on the 5th of July. After conference I was able to do a quick exchange with an Elder named Elder Hunt over in Brive! It was a blast and although the trains made it tough on us I finally made it back to Bordeaux in one piece!

Well. . . the exchanges, getting up at 4:15 for the plane, and the heat is taking it out of me. . . but I could not be more grateful to be a missionary at this time in my life.

I know that I am a part of one of the most fulfilling things in the world at this time in my life. I know as well that if we put our trust in our Savior that we can accomplish things that we didn't think were possible. The Savior asks us to do difficult things, but I know that every time that we respond to this call our faith grows. Now. . . the trick is to keep growing that faith!

With all the love in the world,

Elder Beyer

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 "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 "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