October 11, 2010!

Hey family and friends! It has been another great week serving the Lord and I am loving it here in the Sumterville area. Thanks for the letters and package and everything! I love hearing from all of you. Allie, your card was pretty sweet. "I'm not gonna lie, I like those shoes" as Noo would say. Or maybe it was Danny? Hmm. Thanks Mindy and Amanda for the package as well! That is a sweet BYU shirt and we have been enjoying the candy and pics. :)

Here is something cool - when I went to Eustis to stay with the zone leaders a while back, Elder Hyer (now AP, from Smithfield, UT - he's a stud) told me to try on a suit they had in their apartment and said it was mine if I wanted it. It fitted fine, but had a little spot on the front. I took it anyway (it's a 3 piece blue suit) and had it dry cleaned for $8.35. Now it looks spiffy and you can't tell the spot is there :) 8 bucks isn't bad for a new (to me, but great shape anyway) 3 piece suit huh?

We had a great Zone Development Meeting on the importance of kneeling prayer and reading from the Book of Mormon. They have recently given us (recently meaning like right when I first got out here) a new PMG simplified curriculum, which emphasizes specific points the Brethren have determined are most important from PMG. It is awesome. Also, Elder Bennett got beat up for part of the training lol. The zone leader told him to close his eyes and think about how he feels when he is being taught by the missionaries (he was role-playing an investigator), and then out of nowhere he just tackles him to the ground and starts punching him and going crazy! Then he gets off a minute later and Elder Bennett stands up as the other Zone leader walks up and starts teaching him about the gospel. It was an awesome object lesson ha ha! That's really how it goes though - when we are gone Satan beats the heck out of people trying to progress and learn about the gospel. Then we talked about lots of awesome ways to help overcome that.

Another quick story about Elder Bennett (our district leader)... so B R from the Leesburg ward (alligator guy) married a girl from the Belleview ward (Bennett's) and so he goes to both at different times. He's been off his mission about 7 months. He was over at their place and used their bathroom. While in there he noticed a picture of Elder Bennett's girlfriend on the counter or mirror and swiped it. He gave it to Leesburg, and we all had shirts made with her picture on it ha ha. There was a custom shirt place that did it for way cheap. He doesn't even know where the picture went, but now we are all going to show up at zone p-day today with our shirts on and he's going to be quite surprised! It will be way funny. Oh, and to make it better - at our first District meeting with our new district Elder Bennett decided we needed some sort of quote or motto and he came up with "Dunk it!" - talking about baptism (and basketball ha ha). Elder Creer at the last second thought of putting on the shirts "I'd dunk her" right under the picture! Lol so some of them will have that on there as well. I'll let you know what happens next week :)

Alright, so quickly before my time is up, I wanted to share some awesome scriptures I found this week while reading in the New Testament:

- On happiness: Romans 8:5-6

- Divine Nature/Trials: Romans 8:14-18

- On "good luck": Romans 8:28 (also cool thought about "the called" :)

- Romans 8:38-39: the only thing that keeps us from feeling God's love is ourselves

- Why take care of our bodies and gain an education/learn? Romans 12:1, 1 Cor. 6:19-20

- Romans 15:4: Am I getting what I could be out of studying the scriptures?

- Coachie, Allie, Mindy, and any other runners: - last line of 1 Cor 8:24 "run, that ye may obtain."

- 1 Cor. 10:13 - temptations

- Long hair - 1 Cor. 11:14

- Be a MAN - 1 Cor. 13:11

- Uplifting conversations only: 1 Cor. 15:33

I love you all so much, hope these scriptures help you/entertain you as they did me. I love the scriptures more every day. Have a great week, you're in my thoughts and prayers! Until next week!

-Elder Andrew Beckett

Andy's zone!