SePtEmBeR 20! TRANSFERS!!

Wasup fam? (Quote from E. Phelps ;) I got like 5 letters from you all on Monday! It was way cool. Thanks so much I loved every single one of them! I also will be putting the BYU stuff to good use! Although I heard the game didn't go so well... :s

Alright... so guess what? I have been transferred. How crazy! We definitely weren't expecting a phone call on transfer calls day (the Saturday before transfer week), but the phone rang that morning during personal study. President Hall asked to speak to me first and told me I was being transferred to the Sumterville Branch! I am going to be in a branch ha ha AWESOME! My new companion is Elder Rice from California. There are about 30-40 active members there so this will be quite the experience. I am really excited. Here's the other cool part - I'm still in the same district! Sumterville is right next door to Leesburg and so I will still be way close! I've actually been to Sumterville on a couple exchanges and Elder Rice has come here as well so we already know each other. This district has been a blast though so I'm excited to still be with some of the same Elders. Elder Creer will be training this coming transfer, as well as the new district leader (Elder Bennett). Elder Bennett is just hilarious :) His trainee is in for a treat.

I am, however, sad to be leaving Leesburg and Elder Creer. He is an awesome companion and I've enjoyed serving with him a lot. Kind of a bummer... right as we were starting to see a bunch of success I get transferred lol. S and A B are coming to church every week now, and we've been teaching them more and more and they are going to get married and be a forever family someday! C has been coming to church, we have another investigator with a baptismal date, and another really great single mom living with her parents and her two children. Ah well. Such is mission life I suppose... I am also extremely sad to leave our ward! Man this is really a great ward, and I have met and learned to love a ton of the members! Sure there are weird people lol but it keeps things interesting.

Alright, so here is the weird thing (ha, THE weird thing... I mean one of the MANY weird things) about my mission so far - I have had a new companion every transfer so far, and that will likely happen again next transfer. Elder Rice has been in Sumterville for 2 transfers already, and President doesn't usually keeps missionaries in Sumterville for 3 transfers max. Apparently it does weird things to missionaries who stay there too long is what I've heard ha ha. Bring it on =] But yeah, that doesn't mean for sure he's gone, but there's a good chance that could happen. Oh, and Sumterville is pretty out in the boonies. It's more a bunch of small towns spread out over an area. I'll let you know more what it's like when I get there! Oh, and here is my mailing address for my new area:

Elder Andrew Beckett
6777 CR 609A
Bushnell, FL 33513

There you have it. This past week was good, we had some great lessons. We also had some great lessons planned and then the investigators bailed. It's always disappointing when that happens... You really start to learn how important it is to keep your commitments to people! If you say you're going to do something then do it!

So how has Mindy been doing at college? Pulling through that calc class? Keep it up, it feels WAY good at the end of the semester :) How is running Allie? Is your back better? I've been keeping you in my prayers. Hopefully you have been having fun! Have you ran your first race yet? Nate? Seth? Owning your schools? You two are awesome :) I love you both tons! I don't know if I'll be able to get back on or not... Satan is closing down the library. I love you all! HAve a great week. The church is true!



Hey fam, sorry I was in such a negative mood earlier. I think the devil was working hard on me to get frustrated with EVERYTHING. It was ridiculous - the tiniest things were really setting me off. Anyway, I decided I needed to humble myself big time, and went to a nice quiet spot of the house and just knelt down and prayed and told Heavenly Father what I was feeling like, how frustrated and stressed out I was with lots of different things, and asked for His help. I immediately felt better, and have continued to feel better. Prayer works, it really does. I know that when we are having a hard time with anything (big or small), we can kneel down and talk to our Father, no matter where we are at. What a blessing that is! I also know that when we do ask Him for help, He is there and WILL help us. I love Him and am so thankful for that.

I'm sending some pictures - one is of me with L H, the landlord of Leesburg. The next is me with my district; Elders Condie, Rice, Bennett, Creer, and me. Elder Wilson is the one sitting down; he has completed his mission and will be heading home in 2 days. I threw in another random one of a rainstorm while we were driving (pics probably can't do justice though), and then one of me with a pretty sky. I love the sky here!

Well, my time is about up but here you go! I love you all so SO much! Thanks for all of the love and support, it really keeps me going through the hard times. Remember Jesus Christ is there to lift us up, as well as our Father in Heaven. Just turn to them and they will be there. I love you!

-Elder Beckett the coolest (almost as cool as the other Elder Beckett aka Josh :P)

Letter on 9-13!! AKA Allie's birthday. :)

Hey my family! I love you all a bunch. HEY, happy birthday Allie! You are the bomb diggity. Crazy sauce Aaaaaah! Hey.... what a punk. The guy next to me (not Elder Creer) in this library just swore. Anyway... about this week :)

Ok, actually, does anybody have some good advice on telling a nice old lady she is wrong? Lol, this Sister in our ward, Sister A, is probably in her 80's. On fast Sunday the ward members bring us canned goods and little food items. Last week we had three bags, it was awesome! Sister A gave us one of them, and it was in a sam's club bag (not a throw-away one). She told us to bring the bag back and so we were like, "Ok, we will for sure. Thanks so much for the food!" Well, yesterday at church we brought her bag back and were about to hand it to her when she started telling us that it wasn't her bag. OH, but it was! Hey lady. Look, this is the bag you gave us. This is your bag.... Ha ha we didn't say that to her, but she just couldn't accept that that was her bag. We don't ever get bags like that from anyone, and we saved it right in our kitchen all week long, but she just didn't believe us that it was her bag. She told us it was ok if we lost it, although she'd won it playing bingo or something so it was sort of special. Maybe the moral of the story is to be careful about which bags you accept from the elderly. I don't know :)

We had bums on our property this week. They were chilling behind the wall in the corner of our yard. We drove up as we were leaving and were like, "Hey! You know this is private property right? You need to leave. Please take your garbage too." One of them pulled a gun on us so we drove off way fast! We went to a member's house who told us to come get him if we have any trouble with anyone. We called him on the way and when we arrived he was ready. He gave us camo jackets and little hand guns and said, "Let's go brethren." We drove back to our place and parked a couple hundred yards away. As we were sneaking up to our property they started shooting at us! We were like Samuel the Lamanite and just kept running towards them, but the bullets kept missing us. Ok, if you haven't figured it out yet I'm joking. But the bums really were on our property, we told them to leave and take their garbage, and they did. End of story :)

This week we get to go to the temple! I am so excited. Take advantage of being able to go to the temple often! We only get to go 4 times a year. I'm so glad you got to go recently. There is so much to be learned in the temple; especially when we go in the right mindset and are prepared.

We were able to go on exchanges with our stake patriarch this week, Brother R. He is a spiritual giant, and an amazing person. He reminds me of our patriarch back home, Brother Phelps! One of those people that is always reverent, respectful, wise, and very close to the Spirit. I learned a lot from him about following the Spirit and how the Lord speaks to us.

I am coming to love the ward here more and more; there are so many neat people! Brother B sounds exactly like Albus Dumbledore. The R brothers are hilarious; B R has been back from his mission for 7 months. They always are joking with us and just crazy lol. They are the ones who are going to put a gator in our house. They keep things fun :)

Quick last awesome quotes before I go, some things I have been thinking on this past week... and these were from Joseph Smith - Prophet of the Restoration.

"The Lord calls us in our weakness but He qualifies us for His work." and "Sometimes the Lord brings us low before He can lift us higher."

I thought they were both really profound. Never feel like you can't do something, with the Lord's help we can! I have seen that through my whole mission so far. There is no way I could be where I am without the Lord, I need His help everyday and without Him I am nothing. This is His work, and how great it is! I love doing this, it makes me happy and fills me with joy. There is nothing quite as satisfying as missionary work :) The second quote helps me always remember to trust the Lord - especially through the hard times. Never turn your back on Him! He is our Father and wants to bless us, we just need to qualify for the blessings through obedience. Every commandment is to protect us and help us be happy! Remember that. Even the small things are extremely important :)

Well I love you all and thank you for your support and prayers! I need them. The Lord's work is going forward here in Leesburg; our ward is becoming more active and a lot of less-actives are returning! We are helping some others progress right now as well. Please pray for C to have the desire to "just do it" (Nike, yeah :) and quit smoking, for the B's to get married soon and continue to progress, and for me to be bold but not overbearing (Alma 38:12). The book is blue, the Church is true, and I love you!

Septemer 7, 2010

Nate the Great is almost 13! WOW. Allie coming up too... :) Happy birthday Nathan Chad Beckett! You are the man. Hope you have a fantastic fun filled day!

Alright... first off I just wanted to share this scripture I found the other day that PUMPED ME UP! Are you ready? This is good.... Ok. It can be found in 2 Timothy 2:3. It says, "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Ok, I will do that! Ha ha isn't that cool? I just loved the wording. Like Allie mentioned a while back, we are defenders of the faith! We are soldiers of Jesus Christ =) Nobody can or will triumph over Him - so watch out Satan. He's goin' down.

This was a good week (like always I suppose!), and one lesson I learned is that the Lord really is there and watching out for us. I love knowing that, and that as long as I am obedient and doing His will, He is there guiding and protecting us wherever we go. Obviously we shouldn't be stupid and place ourselves in danger, but I'll tell you what - I've definitely gone places as a missionary that I never would have gone before. Namely the Ghetto areas of Leesburg.

We were tracting there this week and we walked past a park. I had a really eye opening experience, and definitely am more thankful for education than I was before. We met this guy in the park sitting alone at a table, and we walked up and started talking to him. He was sitting there with a dictionary just copying words and definitions down into a dirty old notebook. We asked him what he was doing and he just said, "Studying." After talking to him for a minute, I could tell he wasn't very bright and had grown up in poverty for sure. All he really wanted was to get an education, and he knew he needed to learn to do that. He didn't really know what or how he needed to learn, but he was trying to become successful. It really made me think how much I take for granted - knowing the things I know and going to the schools I did. Especially learning the things that I learned even just in home! Education is one of the greatest blessings we have, so don't take it for granted :)

Another day when we were tracting close by, we noticed a cop drive past. We kept tracting and saw him stop a little ways ahead of us. He waited for about 20 minutes while we talked with a contact, and then we went up to talk to him and see what was up. He was really nice, and asked us if we knew what area we were in. He said it was a pretty dangerous area to be in, and that the day before there was a robbery that turned into a homicide. Just what you want to hear, yeah? He asked us how long we were going to be there, and we told him we'd be gone in about a half hour (that's when lunch was :). He said he'd stay there and keep an eye out for us until we finished. Nothing else happened, and it was nice to know that we are being watched out for. There was also a guy we ran into up the street after that who told us to let him know if anybody in the hood gave us trouble.

I had a funny dream last night! I dreamed that me and Nolan were riding in his white car and we were jumping it in a parking lot. It was way fun and a pretty big jump. It worked out perfectly too so the landing was smooth and all. Kendra Phelps was there watching. After a few jumps, the police showed up and got mad at us. We had fun jumping it for a bit though :) Takes me back to the fun times we used to have lol, although we never jumped his car.

Updates on Gators - Right now we are teaching C, who just got out of jail. She is a really nice lady who has some WOW problems, but I am confident she will progress and be baptized. Same with a girl named A in the ward. Her husband S is a less active member, and they have a young boy named P (3 years old). This was the B family that I think I told you about before. Anyway we called her this week and she told us she had talked to her boss and he wouldn't give her Sundays off to go to church, so she decided to quit! She quit her job so that her and her family can come to church! Is that awesome or what? They even went out and bought church clothes and should be here this coming Sunday. I am super excited for them, and I know that the Lord will bless them when they keep His commandments.
That is one thing I feel I have been blessed with an incredible amount since I have been out - a stronger faith and trust in God. It's amazing what you can do when you put your faith in God. We need Him, and there is no way we could do anything without Him! He has a hand in our lives, and helps us each and every day. It's important that we watch for Him in our lives daily, and then thank Him for that. That is something I have been working on doing, and it has made a huge difference in my attitude, spiritual sensitivity, and effectiveness as a misisonary. I would invite you all to do so, and you'll notice the sincerity of your prayers will increase and it will have an overall positive effect on you. Guaranteed!

Well, my time is almost up but I'm going to hurry and send some pics. Love you all! Have a great week and remember to always trust in God (see Psalms 18:1-2)

Love you forever and always (like Taylor Swift ;)
~Elder Andy Beckett