August 16... ;)

Wow, what a week full of news! My heart broke as I heard about Jake McClatchy, I loved that kid. I knew him from going over to James' several times, and I've felt pretty sick for the last few days. I have been praying constantly for the McClatchy family, and my testimony of the Plan of Salvation and God's love for us has increased. I know that families can be forever! That is extremely important. Because of Jesus Christ, we can live eternally with our families. He conquered death! Because He lives, we too can all live again and be reunited with our Father. That is wonderful and extremely comforting. We just need to remember that everything is in the Lord's hands. He has a plan for me, for all of us, and we don't always know or understand what or why that is. The important thing is that we put our faith and trust in Him and never look back. I know that no matter what happens in this life, it can all be made right through Jesus Christ and His Atonement in the life to come. What a privlege it was to be able to know Jake while he was here, he was a great example to me of someone who just loved to be happy all the time! He had a wonderful smile and was always nice to me. I can't wait to meet him again.

Ok, so I guess I'll tell you a little bit about the rest of my week, and my new companion! His name is Elder Samuel Harrison Creer, and he is from Las Vegas, NV. He is way cool! Really nice, he plays soccer, likes to ski, is the middle child, and sounds JUST like Peter Parker (aka Spiderman)! It's awesome. I make him say, "With great power comes great responsibility..." all the time. He has been out nearly a year, and will hit his year mark this week. He is still considered my "trainer" as this is just my second transfer.

We set another date this week! This was with Linda Jacskon. It was cool, we were teaching her and I had the feeling to invite her to be baptized. I did, and she accepted! Now we need to just keep following up and helping her along the way. She came to church yesterday (first investigator @ church since I've been out) and it was so stressful! Especially in a crazy-ish ward ha ha. Oh, and the lesson was on tithing - probably not an ideal first experience at church lesson lol. It went well though, and I think she enjoyed it.
We have had some problems with our water lately. The first night here with Elder Creer, the water just stopped running all of the sudden. WE didn't know what the deal was, and our landlord (Leo Hall) couldn't figure it out either. For the rest of that night Leo hooked up a hose from his house so we would have water to shower and everything else with until it was fixed. The next day a pump guy came, and I guess ants had gotten into the contact point of the on switch to the pump and were keeping it from working. The pump guy "fixed" the problem and went on his way.
The next day comes and I go to the bathroom and when I flush the water in the toilet is this disgusting brownish orange color (and I went #1 so it had nothing to do with me ha ha). We turned on the tub water and it was the same! After letting it run for like an hour (every water outlet in our house and the hose out front), things cleared up a bit. Except for one thing that was still there - little floaties. Eww. In our toilets the floaties are bigger than in the sink water (probably the little filter type things on the sinks), but there are little pieces of rust or sand or grit or who knows what floating around. Definitely not clear enough to feel comfortable drinking. We told Leo, but he is older and couldn't really see them. It was frustrating because he thought he fixed the problem for us, but the floaties are still there and he ust can't see them. I called him over again, but he just told us that he has had the well (that's where our water comes from) tested before and it was sanitary. Yeah right bro, sanitary or not it's still full of little floaties which would be disgusting to drink! He told us not to worry about it - it will clear up over time. It has pretty much cleared up by now thank goodness. Leo really is a good landlord, and we've just been praying we won't get sick or anything from the water and it's been fine.

Hahaha! Here is something funny that happened this week. We were visiting members on friday and saturday, specifically members close to Linda to try and find her a ride to church. We went to the Mathews, and they said they would give her a ride. We helped them move some boxes they needed moved, and then take some stuff and unload it at their grandma's the next day. It was me, Elder Creer, Brother Mathews, and his 15 year old daughter Emily. Elder Creer was lifting a box up and went to set it down (a heavy box, mind you) on the dolly. Emily was about 5 feet away behind him, and as he set it down his pants ripped! You could hear it and everything ha ha! Oh man it was hilarious. She politely looked away and made it seem as though she didn't notice, but I am almost positive she did. I was standing in front of him and heard the rip sound. It was probably a good 4 or 5 inches (the tear) up the back of his pants. Luckily it wasn't too noticeable unless you were looking right there and he turned wrong. He had an interesting rest of the day trying to always face the people around so they wouldn't be able to see ha ha. We didn't get home until probably 2 hours later because the Mathews took us back after we finished up at the Grandma's and fed us lunch (Bro. Mathews had picked us up from their house).

I tried out the bike for the first time, and it worked great! Especially for a free bike. Our zone committed to bike one day a week to implement more sacrifice to help us work harder and save miles. I'm not sure how I feel about that but if they asked us to then I'll do it. It was fun though, but extremely hot. Biking up a hill in the hot afternoon sun in Florida while wearing dark long pants, a collared shirt, and a tie is an experience everyone should have sometime to help them appreciate cars :) Definitely the most I've sweated since being here.

That night while we were out tracting, we were walking up to a house when about ten feet away I noticed a "Beware of Dog" sign. No longer than 1 second after seeing that (I was in front and Elder Creer was behind me. We were walking next to an SUV and just got to the front of it) this big brown dog explodes out of nowhere right at me just snarling and chomping at me! All of the hair on his neck and back was up and he wanted to eat us. I thought I was going to get bit for sure. Nex thing I knew, as I was dodging/fighting off the dog from the front side (this all happened within like a second of the dog coming out) Elder Creer grabs my backpack from the back while screaming. I thought he was trying to put me in front of him and keep me between him and the dog, but he said he was just trying to pull me bacvk ha ha. Either way it was pretty comical and got our blood pumping. Thankfully he didn't bite either of us!

Ok well I love you all so much and am keeping you in my prayers. Prayer is such a blessing; especially since we can pray for specific things! Have a great week and keep doing the small day to day things to stay close to the Savior! Probably my favorite scripture for the week is Doctrine and Covenants 64:33-34. Check it out and just think how cool that promise is!

Until next week,
Elder Andrew John Beckett
Hmm. He didn't give any description for these pics so we'll just have to guess! ;)