Woohoo! Letter #3 :D (With Pictures and Captions from Elder B. Himself!)

Hello my family! I love you all. This week has gone by much faster than the first week, and I am loving it here. Alright, so here is a cool tender mercy story that happened yesterday... We went to the Bookstore to get some things, and I was just walking up an aisle looking at stuff when all of the sudden I get to the end and look up and right in front of me is Elder Josh Beckett (going to Asuncion Paraguay, so I knew it was him) printed on a bag! It was the very first thing I saw too. Anyway, that was neat because even though I wasn't able to be a host I still found his bag and snuck him a little note inside :) Oh man, this keyboard is driving me nuts. Theeee program here is ridiculous (point in case with the "bad" typing on my behalf ).

Another cool experience happened the other day in class with Brother Carlson. He is an awesome teacher! What he had us do was teach him as himself (rather than role-playing an investigator). So first we got to know him for a bit, but he's pretty much a celestial person already from what I can tell so I had no idea what I could teach him. He left the room for ten minutes and let us prepare, and I just thought of two things - a scripture in 2 Ne 31:20, and temple attendance. I thought they were kind of random and stuff at first, but I had no idea otherwise so I just went with it. Anyway, he came back in and those were spot on things he needed to hear! Apparently he goes to the temple weekly, and this week he had missed ha ha. And he had been studying that scripture recently, and told me he felt like the Lord had been trying to teach him through it recently and that he needed to remember it. He had even changed one of his passwords for something a few weeks ago to be that scripture. It was just a neat experience that showed how even if I have no idea what or how to teach something, the Lord does and can show me through the Spirit.

One thing I have found interesting while here is that we haven't really been taught the lessons out of Preach My Gospel much, hardly at all in fact. I guess they just expect you to study and learn it mostly on your own, which is good. I am grateful I read through it a few times before I came, that has really helped me. One thing that we have learned a lot about though is teaching to an investigator's spiritual needs. Brother Carlson told us they are continually working on better ways to teach missionaries so that they will be more effective, and having us teach to needs is doing just that. We have watched a lot of clips from sixbillion.org

, I guess it is a website by PBS or something that went out and interviewed hundreds of people from all over the world about some of the deep life questions we all may have. From the videos we would talk about their spiritual needs, and how we could see God's hand in their life preparing them to hear the Gospel. It was really cool.

Six days and I will be in Florida. Hopefully they will have decent computers there. I'm not a fan of the Dells they are using here ha ha. Hey, could you send me my camera cord if you see it? I don't think I brought it with me. I also forgot one of my pens if you happen to see it =) Thanks. I saw the Boy Scout Rap main guy here and went up and asked him if it was him; it was. It's cool to see so many people from BYU and just everywhere really that are going on missions.

Oh I forgot to mention about Elder Beckett (Josh) who is arriving today. I tried to happen to be walking along the arrival area around 12:45 (that's when he was coming right?) "looking for a place to eat my lunch" ha ha but I didn't see him. I got there about 12:46 and didn't see him, and headed out about 12 minutes later :/ I'm sure I'll run into him at some point while I'm here though.

Ok funny story... you know how there was the whole window experience with Wesley when I lived at Wyview? The one where I looked out my kitchen window, saw him changing because he had his bedroom window open, laughed (not in a mean way or anything, it was just awkward), and then he got all mad and did some mean things before closing the blinds? Well I've felt bad about that and never had the chance to apologize to him. I did see his roommate in the bathroom on my dorm floor though, right as he was going into a stall. It was probably the most awkward convo I've had with someone, but I told him that was me and asked if Wesley was way mad at me. He said no and that him and Wesley's other friends were all laughing and thought it was funny, and that he wasn't mad at me. So thankfully the shirtless wonder got over that little incident :)

I saw Eric Hales this week, I guess he teaches English as a second language here. Sunday was interesting, each week they tell all the missionaries to prepare a 5 minute talk on a subject, and then they randomly call on a couple missionaries to speak. They don't announce it until halfway through sacrament meeting, and this week I was called on. I spoke on virtue and it went well. Sunday night for the movie my companion and I went to a talk by Elder Holland called "Missions are Forever." It was SO good! I love Elder Holland. It was really powerful. One of my favorite quotes was "Salvation isn't easy because it isn't a cheap experience. It wasn't easy for Him, so why should it be easy for us?" And "The road to Salvation passes through Gethsemane." Basically we all shouldn't be expecting easy lives, and don't think that just because we are members of the Church that doesn't mean all our trials are taken away. I was thinking about that and I'm wondering what I have coming... I hope nothing too bad. I feel I have been really blessed in life so far, and haven't had a very hard life. We'll see what the Lord has in store for me :) I am so excited to be serving a mission, and I can't believe this next Tuesday I will be going to Florida! Aaah! How exciting :) I love you all, thanks for your letters and everything else. Please keep them coming, it's wonderful to hear from you! My time is about up, so now I have to go. You are in my prayers, and I sure love you! Also, please send me Nolan's address; I haven't heard from him and I don't have his address. Thanks! - Elder Beckett

Me Pointing at the YElder Drake (a Ute) pointing at the Y. I said something like "show me how much you really love the Y by your smile" ha ha

Our district. All to Florida except bottom left 2 sisters and Elders Drake & Smith

Elder Hales & I! :)

Me and my comp @ temple

Me with on e of the signs all over BYU (this was on the way to the temple. I miss BYU too.)

Me, Elder Drake and Smith (the Nova Scotia-bound Elders)

Same (as one below) but got cut off for some reason.

MTC Matrix

The classic "point where you're going on the giant map" :)

Stratford, Thomas, & Moultrie in our room

My tag and newbie sticker :)

My district, our first night together. (L-R) Taylor Drake (South Jordan), Harrison Smith (Littleton, CO), Me, Michael Stratford (Rancho Cucamonga, CA) Camron Moultrie (West Point, UT), Bailey Thomas (Montpelier, ID)