Elder Beckett: Hmm. Letter from Last Week that I Never Put ON! Oops.

Letter from 7-12-10:

Hello everybody! This week has been WAY long and hot and tiring. We had maybe 5 or 6 teaching appointments (the work here is going really slow and we have like zero gators (investigators :P) right now) and they all fell through. That means the rest of the time we were out trying to find new people to teach - tracting. It got super hot; the heat index was somewhere between 100 and 110 with the humidity. Because of all the tracting we've been doing, we have decided we are full time "tractors" so you can just call me John Deer. We had 279 contacts (people you talk to and at least let them know we are sharing a message about Christ), and knocked probably somewhere around 900 doors.

Ok, I just inserted some pictures and they are from the MTC with my district, and then my two teachers (Ashleigh Adkins and James Carlson). They are so cool so if you ever have the chance to meet them (Mindy, they are going to BYU so keep an eye out) tell them Elder Beckett says hello. Alright this time I really will send another email with more pics so I can show just how great it is here =]

So Saturday night was pretty crazy. We decided to go out tracting like normal, and it was ridiculously hot. By the way I am in love with sunglasses - I went for about an hour without them and decided never to go back. That means I'm probably going to get a sweet sunglasses tan (my watch and ring tanline are already coming along) in no time. Anyway, we were walking up a driveway when we heard two vehicles come flying up a road. The first was a white car, and there was a green Dodge Dakota right on its tail. This was a residential area obviously, and so it wasn't hard to tell they were racing or something. The car in front suddenly turns into the driveway where we are and so we move out of the way and stand on the grass. There is a lady in the car with the window rolled down and she is crying and yelling out the window to us, "HELP! HELP! My abusive boyfriend has been following me and won't leave me alone! He's been trying to run me off the road!" The truck behind her slowed down, glared at us, and then sped off around the corner. In the front seat of the lady's car (her name was Amy Casada) was her little 4 year old named Nathaniel. I felt really bad that he had to go through all of this. Her car was packed full of stuff, so I don't know if she was moving out or what. We called the police and waited with her, then we had to fill out a witness report and everything. As she was backing out of the driveway to move her car, she ran out of gas right there. It's a good thing she found us! Apparently her boyfriend had been pretty abusive and broke her cell phone and would sabotage her car and was just being terrible. Six police cars ended up coming total (3 Leesburg police, 3 sherriffs) and there were some buff dudes that you could tell not to mess with. They were seriously like movie cops; reminded me of Jason Bourne. After we tried to comfort her for a bit and she felt safe with all the police, we left her and her son with a passalong card and got back to work. I was glad we were able to be there and help though.. who knows what would've happened. Elder Brown and I were all pumped up ready to defend her from her idiot boyfriend, but he took off so that was that. After that the night went pretty average with tracting in the area - there were some nice houses right on the lake.

Ok, so if I haven't already said it a bunch of times, Florida is weird! The people, climate, everything. Ha ha in church yesterday the High Counselor spoke and he was wearing a bowtie. I have never seen that in church before. The bugs are terrible... I'll send some pictures. Every day we come out of the house and there are at least 20 spiders around the doorway. We kill them so often I seriously have no idea where they come from. It's gross. The mosquitoes are also plentiful, I have learned that scratching the bites only makes it worse. They aren't always out though, so when they are I just make sure to use spray. There are these huge spiders here called banana spiders (at least that's what we call them) and they get HUGE. Like the size of my hand. Their webs are everywhere, it's gross. We have to mow our lawn and that was just nuts. There was a huge swarm of mosquitos following us everywhere we went, and all sorts of bugs and snakes crawling throughout our lawn. Lizards are everywhere, they are kind of fun :)

This week was probably the hottest I have ever been, and I have sweat more than every before! You are just drenched, and there is no getting around it. Dri-lux or not, all of your clothing gets soaked (ha ha soaked in the rain, or soaked if it's dry!) My skin is always somewhat sticky even though I shower twice a day. Oh yeah, one evidence of the craziness of sweat are the salt stains you get. It's pretty gross. I'll send a pic of one of my socks or something!

I bought a set of haircutting clippers; I'm going to learn to cut my own hair today. How exciting! Hope it goes well... ha ha. I figure I'll save tons of money that way, and then I can just do it whenever I need.

Hey, can you make copies of all the music I left on my iPod? I deleted everything but mission-appropriate music before I left, and iPods are not allowed I recently found out. It's a good thing I left it home I guess. If you could send me a burnt copy of the MoTab and BYU cd's I had on there that would be awesome! And also the Gibson's cookbook they gave me last year; I left that home on accident. Thanks!

Alright I'm going to send the pictures now to make sure I have enough time to do that but I'll write more in the next email :) Love you all!

Random Extra little notes he wrote: Crazy dog story - we were walking up a street one day and this truck drives past right next to us and next thing we know we are staring death in the FACE. Two huge Rottweilers right at face level in the back of this truck were looking and barking like crazy at us! The truck was driving somewhat slow and the dogs just about jumped out to eat us. Not a cool thing. Dogs hate missionaries, and nearly every single house here has anywhere from 2-7 dogs. Weird people... lol

One last cool story, my time is about up. We met a lady named Keneta who is awesome! She was really sincere and looking for truth. I love when people are like that. Anyway, we went to take her a Book of Mormon and were talking to her about what it was and how it was a record of the ancestors of the Native Americans, and how they knew about Christ as well. She mentioned how they knew Him as "the Great Spirit" and I was like, "Hey! That's what they even call Him in the Book of Mormon when King Lamoni is being taught!" I pushed the thought out of my head though, but it kept coming back. I pushed it away again, and then I decided to just at least find out which chapter it was. I flipped open my BOM and it fell exactly to Alma 18, where my eyes immediately read the chapter heading. Check it out :) At that point I figured it wasn't coincidence and so I shared it with her and told her to read that chapter along with 3 Nephi 11. I don't know if anything will come of it, but it was a cool experience. I'm still working hard to teach more by the Spirit, and rely on inspiration. The Spirit is key in everything! If we don't have the Spirit then we can't teach (D&C 42:14). Well, my time is up but I love you all lots! Keep writing; I love getting letters! P.S. please tell Courtnee she needs to send me an invite asap ha ha (and any of my other friends/family who may now be getting married). Thanks!

Love, Elder Andrew Beckett