Letter #4! Yahoo!

Hello my awesome family! Wow, this has been a really long week with me not having a P-day and all last time. Sorry about that. I'm glad I get to write you now though; you have no idea how exciting this is! Plus this is on a high quality keyboard that doesn't insert little dumb things and stick and other frustrating things like this. I'm typing on this bad boy at like 85 wpm. At least ha ha.

Alright so these pictures I'm sending are of me freezing in my room at the MTC (they always had the AC on and you couldn't change it. My alarm's thermometer said it was around 62 degrees most of the time), Elder Beckett and Elder Beckett =], and me and my awesome bedmaking skills. I'll send some more pics in another email, but the max is somewhere around 5 pics at a time I believe.

Alright... so I have tons to say ha ha. Here goes:

Tuesday morning we were up by about 4:15 finishing up our packing, getting ready for the day, grabbing some cereal from the MTC cafeteria (the whole building was pretty dark and there was us and one other group going to Canada in there), and then we headed to the travel office to turn in our locks, keys, and swipe our blue card one last time. It was weird but really exciting to be leaving! They had a nice bus waiting for us that we loaded all of our luggage on and then headed out. We drove right past Wyview and I told everyone, "HEY I lived there last year and that's where my sister is going to live! Awesome!" It was pretty fun seeing that area. We arrived at the airport and that was just CRAZY. Nobody really knew exactly what we were doing, it was our first time in public as missionaries, one of the sisters hadn't weighed her luggage before we left and so she had to repack a bunch of stuff right there on the spot which took like an extra half hour, and there were people in lines all around as well. I would say it was less than ideal. However, we did make it through security and finally got to call home which was SO GOOD to talk to you. I hope everyone is doing super, and that Dad and Nate got off to scout camp alright!

On the plane I got a window seat, and there were missionaries all around me so I didn't really get to do much converting. It was still a good plane ride though and I got in some good scripture reading, PMG studying, and a nice little nap. We arrived in Florida and had to go on a shuttle to pick up our luggage. When we stepped off the shuttle is when the humidity really was noticeable. It's definitely different than Utah ha ha. It hasn't been terrible yet though, it mostly just feels like I forget to breathe sometimes, and then I'll take a few deep breaths and realize that it is because of the humidity. I'll get used to it eventually. The heat is probably the worst though, and it's not even that hot yet! I'm getting used to being sweaty and walking around in the sun all day long. Except for when it's rain-tracting time. I'll tell you about that in a minute though :) So at the airport we were met by President and Sister Hall! They are so nice. They met us and took us to go get our luggage, where we happened to run right into Jerry Sloan, coach of the Utah Jazz. It was pretty cool. He was wearing a John Deer hat ha ha! The AP's came to pick us up and take us to the President's Home where we stayed for the night. It was way nice and we had an awesome meal.

The next morning we got up, ate and got ready, had a meeting, and then headed over to the mission office to meet our trainers. After sitting through some long orientation things, our trainers all walked in (except we didn't know who was who and which one was our trainer). They had us guess, and I was I think one of only 2 who didn't guess theirs. I guess I wasn't feeling the Spirit or something.. lol jk. Anyway my trainer is great! His name is Lancaster (cool huh?) Joel Brown from Kaysville, UT. He is very tall - 6 foot 7! And he still wants to grow. He is hilarious though, and even more than that he is a great missionary! He is the District Leader and really works hard and is obedient. I was definitely blessed to have him as my trainer. After we met our trainers we went out to the shed to see if there were any good bikes for sell. There was one in there and Elder Brown called the owner to see how much he wanted and he said that I could just have it! Sweet huh? But my area right now isn't a biking area, so we just drive everywhere anyway (thankfully). Although that doesn't mean I won't be using it later on. Mom, can you still leave some money on my card? I still will need to get a couple things like some new tires, hand grips, a helmet, and a light, and I'm not sure when I'll be buying that.

We left the mission home and before we even went to the house we went out tracting! My first door was pretty scary... but after that it was SO much fun! I love telling people that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and have a message to share with them. It's really cool even though some people get mad and tell you to go away. One lady was way ticked and I had no idea why and she was swearing at us and yelling stuff we couldn't understand and then Elder Brown told her what church we are from and she apologized and calmed down. She thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses. A lot of people get mad at us when they think we are from there, and are a little nicer after that. You get some of the funniest excuses though about why people can't talk to you. It's very entertaining.

After that we stopped by Walmart to grab me enough food to last until P-day (Monday). Our house isn't super nice... I was pretty hesitant and let the better side of my clean-freak self get to me for a bit. We have tons of spiders and mosquitoes and all sorts of bugs around the house (outside luckily). Inside isn't too bad. I've heard sirens outside every single day so far. It's much nicer than some of the other places we could be living. I think it was just kind of a big change coming straight from the mission home. I'll send some pics if I have time.

That night we got to go on a temple tour, where a guy named President Herzog taught a little presentation at a church right by the temple and explained all about it. It was really neat and the Spirit was powerful! We attended with a less active member named Barrett Brown.

The next day (Thursday) was my first rain-tracting experience. We were out knocking doors and it was cloudy, and then it started to sprinkle. We looked up and saw... THE WALL. The wall is when you can actually see a gray wall of water (rain) coming towards you. It's way intense. It's coming, and then WHAM you are in it! It was worse than if I was showering with all of my clothes on.. I think within about 45 seconds of that I was soaked completely. After that it was way fun and I just kind of laughed and looked at Elder Brown like, "Seriously?" And he just laughed and was like, "Welcome to Florida Elder! You have now experienced rain tracting." That was fun and it actually felt pretty good :)

Dad - you said I shoudl get a multivitamin or something? What kind? Is a "mature complete multivitamin" an ok type? Lol who knows maybe I"ll just not get vitamins. What do you think?

Darn... I only have five minutes so I will try to quickly send some more pics. I love you all and love being here! It was hard and slow and really discouraging at first but now that I'm getting more used to things it's a little better. I really do love the work and it makes me super happy! It is so fun talking to people about Jesus Christ and His restored church on the earth today. You get to meet all sorts of different people, yet they are all God's children. I'm really trying and praying to see people with more Charity, to have sight like the Savior did. It helps me be much more sincere in preaching the Gospel. We met some cool people, I'll tell you more next time. One man was named Darnell, he had gold teeth, and tear drops tatooed under his eyes on each side (two on each side). Isn't that like a gang thing where however many tear drops is the number of people you killed or something? I don't know maybe that was a rumor. He seemed way cool though! We brought him a book of mormon and he was really interested. Anyway I love you all and the Gospel is true! I haven't gotten any mail here yet; I'm assuming it just takes a while. It takes longer to go through the mission home - while I'm here (I'll let you know if I am transferred) you can just mail it to:

1615 Michigan Ave

Leesburg, FL 34748

Love you!

- Elder Andrew John Beckett