Monday, October 28, 2013 "I am Staying!"

Famille!

Bonjour! Je vais. . . rester! I am staying in Gex with Elder Liechty! Actually all of us are staying in Gex! We are so excited, the only difference was moving apartments, which was actually kind of nice because it is awesome being in Gex. We are right next to the church now and I think that I going to be really helpful when we have RDV's there. Ohhhhhh myyyy goodnessssss, I cannot believe that Troy is getting married! Talk about trying to change my whole world out here! Who in the world am I going to hang out with in two years??? Everyone is getting married and dropping off the edge of the world! Hahaha but that is really awesome for him and I am really excited for him. Aren't the members here awesome? Yeah last night we had a crepe party with the members and it was seriously a blast, he asked me if I wanted another crepe and I was like no thank you, but I would love to cook one! So, he filmed it and sent it home :) That other night with the investigators was really good as well, the Aubin family is so awesome and they help us out so much. Their son is the Ward mission leader and he just got back from his mission about a year ago, he is so awesome, but the only problem is that he is in Lyon for school so we don't get to see him very often :(

That makes me so happy to hear that Jenna's farewell went so great! I knew she would do great. . . I just can't believe that she is actually going to be leaving this week, that blows my mind.

Okay, so this week was another really good one. I finally got to do an exchange in Switzerland. . . So now I can officially say that I served in Switzerland. It is truly one of the most amazing places in the whole world. Last week I was in Lausanne which is this amazing city right on the Edge of Lake Geneva and at one part of the day we were on top of one of the mountains overlooking the lake and the amazing mountains in the distance where the hills all around us were lit up by the many houses attached to the side of the mountain, ahhhh so amazing. I wish that I could stay over there for a few months.

We have been finding a few more people to teach this week, we had a few lessons with some investigators and most of the ones that we have right now are progressing pretty well. We really hope that all will continue to go well and that we can see some miracles of people wanted to be baptized here in Gex. It has been tough because the investigators that were here when we had gotten here have been taught for more than fifteen years, so we have been really bold with them this transfer and we have seen a lot of progress out of them.

I am so blessed to be on a mission right now. I will always say that this is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life, and I know that I have many hard things to come, but it has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Missions are incredible. I have a million other things that I need to learn while I am out here and I have not changed nearly as much as I need to, but I know that all of that is possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We have such a blessing to know that through Christ we can change, something that I feel so blessed to learn about every day when I am talking to these amazing French People.

Je vous aime trop! Et aussi. . . La France est le meilleur. . . :)

Love,

Elder C. Beyer

Monday, October 21, 2013

Hello family!

 

I am so glad that you liked the letter!! I was afraid that it was not going to get to you. These families here are honestly so awesome, I love them all so so much. They have been awesome lately just by taking random pictures and being like, what is your parent's address? They deserve a picture. Haha. Also, I am glad that you had a successful hunt. . . and that Caden is such a good shot. The real question is how much did mom pay you to miss the deer twice and bring nothing home? And what is the deal? Give your mother a hug and say hi to her Caden. . . :)

 

That is a really cool experience that Brock had. I will half to learn from that and apply that into my own life and my own missionary work. I am trying to be the best missionary that I can be, but there are always things that can be improved. There was a missionary who had an experience similar to that that he shared in one of our last conferences as well. Cool!

 

Okay so I have some crazy news. . . We are moving! Yeah that is right, we are moving into Gex into a new apartment! Crazy huh? So this P-day we don't actually get a P-day :( The office elders called us up last night and we like, we will be there in the morning so hopefully you can have everything ready to go. So as of tonight I will be living in a new home. We think that they are doing this so that we can be closer to the church and so that we are closer to the buses. . . so we might be losing the car :(

Elder Beyer said this is what happens when you tell Elder Crawley to buy us some pastries. He buys the whole store!

Right now I am doing so good though! We had a wonderful week and man did it pass by quick. We had some amazing dinners with the families here and I think the French food is just getting better and better. The other day we had this thing called a Raclette. First they boil potatoes that you put on your plate, then there is a giant grill right in the middle of the table that grills the meat and melts the cheese that you dump on, ahh it is so amazing :)

 

The work is really starting to pick up for us as well! Last week we found two new investigators and recommitted an ancient investigator for baptism! So hopefully all will go well with them over the next little while and they can continue to progress. So one of the new investigators that we found last week is actually from Brazil, so another day we went back to his house to teach him. As we were teaching him he would translate to his wife what we were saying. . . it turns out that her sister is a member! Her father in law as well! Crazy! So she already knew a little bit about our message and it was so amazing because they were so so so receptive :) Next week we are going to be going back to have another RDV with them :) So awesome!

 

Well this being the last week of this transfer we have planned to have a monster week where we work harder than we ever have here! So, I am going to be exhausted this week, but we are going to see some miracles :)

 

I love you so much family and I hope that you have the best week in the world! The church is true!

 

Love,

Elder C. Beyer

 

PS. . . The pictures made me laugh so hard!

Monday, October 14, 2013

Hello my dear family!!

 

I sure hope so. . . I always feel like I am corrupting my poor little companion. (I told Carsen that I thought he would be a great trainer)

He is awesome though. We have been having a lot of fun together. We haven't found too many people to teach yet, but I think we are going to have a killer week soon and find all kinds of new people to teach. . . and BAPTIZE :)

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!! I hope that it was one of the most amazing ones ever!! You will be happy to know that we celebrated your birthday in our apartment! Hahaha. . . We even had cake! That sounds like an amazing birthday though, gotta love classic Market Street. I was just thinking about that place the other day because my companion and I were talking about the day that we came into the MTC. It sounds like everyone is doing really good though! Everyone looks great! I love the grey beard!

 

Okay so I am doing so so wonderful here right now. Gex is truly heaven on earth. The members here have been incredible to work with and they have had us over very often to eat in their homes. I honestly don't know if I am ever going to be able to leave this place. Not to mention it is so beautiful here right now. At the mountains by our house it snowed up on the peaks and it looks so amazing. I tried to take some pictures, but it was just not the same. This week for P-Day we are going to hiking so I will take a lot of pictures and send them home!

 

This week was a good one! We had zone conference in Geneva and it was honestly one of my favorite ones yet. The Roney family is seriously the most amazing family in the world and honestly I cannot even imagine this mission without them. I don't know how he does it, but he can invite the spirit, while everyone is laughing, and motivate everyone in the room. So I am very motivated right now to get to work. Another cool thing about zone conference is that we are in an awesome zone! Most of the missionaries that we meet with are from Europe or Tahiti because they are the only ones that can stay in Switzerland, so it is a lot of fun being together with all of the different cultures. I hope that I get to stay here for a little while.

 

We haven't found too many people to teach lately, other than we found this awesome kid the other day from Canada who loves to ski! He is so cool! So we got talking with him and after a little bit we invited him to church and he said he would love to come. . . so he should be coming this Sunday! We need lots of prayers! We have had quite a bit of adversity lately, but that only means that we are right on the verge of a break through and that if we keep working hard (or work harder) we are going to see some miracles soon :)

 

Well my dearest family, I love you so much! Thank you for being the most amazing people in the world!

 

Love,

Elder C. Beyer

Monday, October 7, 2013 "Keep Smiling"

Well hello there my wonderful family!!

 

I am doing so so well and 1000 times better having heard those amazing conference messages. I don't think that I have ever been that alert and awake during a conference. I seriously was on the edge of my seat taking notes the whole time haha. Those talks on missionary work were amazing and I think the work here in Gex is really going to pick up. Okay, so we can totally live in Gex, in fact one of our companionship's might be moving there next transfer. The only reason we live under the family is because they probably get a good deal on the rent. We don't always work in Gex though, there are a ton of little towns all around us, so we actually only spend about one day a week in Gex. We are in a really strange area because we have one of the biggest wards because everyone moves here to work in Geneva, but there is literally no one on the streets, so we drive out to a little town for the day and knock doors. We have been having some trouble finding people at home. Usually we go together with the other companionship though because it is a lot easier to go to the same city with the car. Gex is only about fifteen minutes away from us though (by car). There are no buses around our city though, so we kind of have to have some kind of transportation, whether that be with the bikes or the car. So for Switzerland we can go in, but we have to be really careful tracting, the rules are really strict and I think we are supposed to have our passports at all times just in case we get stopped. The rules are really really strict over there.

 

Speaking of going to Switzerland. . . We got to watch conference in Geneva! It was so awesome! There is an English ward there, so we were also able to watch the conference in English. We spent all of Sunday watching and seriously it was amazing. The only thing that was lacking though was being with the Wells family and all of the brothers, I missed that so much. I am with you on that one, I hope that they never stop doing that tradition. But, don't worry, my pockets were still filled with life savers so I kept that tradition alive haha.

 

By the way our investigators showed up for conference and it was soooo awesome to see them there!!!

 

We had a cool miracle this week where we randomly called an old investigator that was dropped a long time ago and he agreed to meet up with us and learn more, then randomly one day we were contacting in a random little ville and at first we didn't see him, but out of the corner of my eye I saw someone coming out of a building so I quickly turned to go and talk to him. It turns out that was the guy that we were meeting with in a few days! He totally remembered the time and date of our RDV! It was so awesome. That was such a relief because I was kinda bummed out after not seeing much success. . . but, every time that you continue to push forward in FAITH the Lord will bless you. If we would have kept walking we never would have talked to that awesome guy and had our day completely flipped upside down.

 

Well family I love you so much! I hope that Bubbas birthday was amazing, it looks like he had a lot of fun. That is really nice what Brock said, I hope that I can be half the missionary that he is. Have fun at the dance Caders! With the thermals it might be easier to send them, but if you can't find room I can go without them and if I really need them I can go buy some, but we don't have a lot of time to buy things out here. . .

Thanks so much :) I am going to be really excited to get the package!

 

Keep smiling and have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Beyer

Monday, September 30, 2013

Hello family!

 

Ahhh hahaha where on the earth did you hear that? It started out in the MTC because Jace told my companion and my district and then it just spread like wildfire, and now sadly enough it is starting to spread in the mission too. I am not too happy about it, but it is kinda funny too. It will never die :( It sounds like you all had some amazing weeks! The real Hot Beyer was looking mighty fine with his skinny tie and his date, and little Hot Beyer was looking good all suited up. I am happy to hear that all of the games went really good this week.

 

I honestly cannot believe that Bubba's birthday is this week and that he is going to be turning 14! That blows my mind. I have no ideas for you, maybe just take him and all of his friends up to the cabin or up to Bountiful and do some shotgun shooting. I hope he has an amazing birthday though!

 

So this week honestly flew by, there were a few days that were a little slow, but all in all I swear I was just in this chair writing you yesterday. This week was a really good week and we were able to spend a lot of time working with the members. The members here are seriously so incredible and I am so blessed to be in this ward. This ward is honestly as close to a Utah ward as you can get in France. Not to mention there is so many young adults! It is so much fun! Oh, and by the way I don't know if I told you last week but we live under this Italian family who is seriously so awesome! The parents are so awesome and have fed us multiple times and the two daughters are really cool and both planning on serving missions within the next few years.

 

We still don't have too many investigators right now, but there are a couple who are getting really close to setting a baptismal date. All of the investigators here have been taught for a really long time, so hopefully we can give them that little push they need to commit to be baptized. President Roney sent us all a challenge for the next few months, he had us count up how many baptisms we think we can get before Christmas and then make a commitment to the Lord that we will do all we can to obtain our goal to give it to him as a Christmas Present. My companion and I agreed that we want to have 7. . . So we have got some work to do, but we are going to make it happen.

 

I am so glad to hear life is so good right now. You all sound so amazing! For me I am doing so so good right now and I am so happy to be out serving a mission. It is still incredibly hard, but the blessings outweigh the difficulties a million to one. I love your blessing book that you have been doing, I think that is such a good idea because if we show our gratitude for the blessings that the Lord has already given us it just makes him that much more happy to send us some more!

 

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week! Happy birthday Bubba!

 

Love,
Elder C. Beyer

Monday, September 23, 2013 "Heaven on Earth"

Well hello there my wonderful family!

 

You all sound so amazing! I am glad that you already found out who my companion is and that you were already able to talk to his family! He is such a stud! I love being with him, and especially in the apartment with the two other missionaries too. It seriously has been so much fun so far. The other two missionaries are Elder Crawley and Elder Holding, Elder Crawley was in my MTC group and I was honestly so excited when I found out that we were going to be living in the same apartment. We have sooooo much fun! Elder Crawley reminds me a lot of Bryton Wells haha. Kendal sounds like he was an amazing missionary and that is an awesome story, cutest babies ever, Caden looks so sick!, and Bubba is still as cute as ever. . .

 

Okay, so where to even being talking about Gex. . .

I think first off I will start by saying that I think I was sent to Heaven on Earth. I am truly in one of the most beautiful places in the world. We live right up by the base of a mountain underneath the most amazing Italian family in the world! They are so funny and they have had us over for dinner a few times now. We see that family all the time now. Living in an apartment with four people is a huge change too. It is really small, but man is it fun. Especially with Elder Crawley haha. So, I said that we live in the most beautiful place in the world, yeah we totally do, we are surrounded by mountains and from our house we can see Geneva :) We are seriously as close to Switzerland as you can get as an American Missionary (because we can't live inside because of visa issues). All of our district meetings and zone conferences are in Switzerland as well.

 

Also, for the moment we have a car :) That has been a huge change from walking around a little tiny ville with not much transportation. They said they might be taking the car from us though :( We are very sad about that and hope that they really don't take it.

 

So right above our house is a ski resort! Crazy awesome huh?! We are going to see if we can take it up on a P-day and do some awesome hiking. We are going to go and do some hiking today up by our house in the mountains today as well.

 

So, as for the ward. That is right, I said ward! We have one of the biggest wards in the mission full of young single adults, young families, and just an all around awesome variety of ages. About half of our ward speaks English and there are quite a few people who have served missions in either the US or England and there are a few people who are American in our ward. Everyone comes to our ward and lives in the area because it is a lot cheaper to live here and they work in Switzerland. . . So we are basically in a little American/French/Swiss mountainous ward. It was awesome because the Stake President of the ward stood up at the start of the meeting and said, We have such a blessing to have these Elders in our ward so start taking advantage of them and inviting them over. After that about five families came up to us and invited us over. Not too shabby. . . huh?

 

This week in my letter to President Roney I said the only problem that I am going to be having in Gex is that he is not going to be able to get to me to leave haha.

 

That is so incredible that you were able to talk to my last DMP, those things that he said are seriously so nice. He was one of my favorite people in the world and people like him is what keeps the church growing here in France. My DMP in this ward is a returned missionary who just got back from his mission in Canada last summer!

 

Life is so wonderful right now though, I love being a missionary! I know 100 percent that this gospel is true and I have the greatest calling in the world to tell people what we know every day!

 

Love,

Elder Beyer

Monday, September 16, 2013 "Transferred"

Family!

You all sound so amazing and it is so good to hear from you! Ashton is going to be a great missionary, that picture of Kole is so disgusting hahaha, I cannot believe that my little brother is 17, and tell Bubba to start working out so much. . . Have fun at the dance Caden!

Seriously though you all sound so good. I loved what you said at the end of your letter about just being grateful, truly just a little gratitude can change your entire outlook on your situation and it is just like happiness, we are just about as happy as we make our minds up to be.

Okay. . .

So you are not going to believe what is happening to me this transfer. . .

I am moving. . . I am opening up a new companionship. . . I am going to be serving in Gex which is right by Switzerland, but I am going to be living in Crozet. . . I am going to be living in a 4 man apartment with another kid from my MTC group. . . and we are both training new missionaries!!!

How is that for crazy?

I am so excited it is not even right. My whole mission is seriously going to change so much this transfer. Not to mention I am moving to one of the biggest wards in the mission. It is going to be all kinds of change and I am kind of nervous, but I am so happy.

The rugby game was awesome this week though! They lost though. . . And we didn't get to talk to the players after because we had to hurry home to make it in on time. Not to mention it started pouring right after the game was over so we had to run home ha ha. But, it was such a cool experience and one that I was really lucky to have.

The guy in Perigueux that was baptized we found by looking through the old area book so he had been taught a long time ago by the missionaries, we knocked on his door, he let us in, we taught him and helped him to try and quit smoking, committed him to baptism, and just a few weeks ago he was baptized!

The language is still really tough for me. It is getting better though! I am starting to understand more, and I think this transfer is going to help me a lot because I am going to be thrown in the deep end.

So, I am leaving here on Wednesday, going to Lyon to pick up my greenie, and then off to Gex!

Crazy!

I love you all so very much and wish you the best week ever!

PS. . . for my last week the entire Portuguese family came to church and the Taukafa family came!

Love,
Elder Beyer