Hey familia!
Wow. First of all, good news! I am staying in Lake Reams at least one more transfer! The bad news is that... Elder Jensen is gone :( However, Elder Mullen will be coming, who is great! I love Elder Mullen and will be excited to work with him. I am so thankful for the time that I have had to serve with Elder Jensen. He will be one of my best friends for life! I have learned so much from him.
This has been a great week. We were able to teach M finally and set a baptismal date with him for Dec 4! We are excited for that. Unfortunately he wasn't able to go to church yesterday because he had to go to Miami for his work at the last second. However, his family is prepared to receive the restored gospel and so they will be good to go here pretty quick =] We had the opportunity to do some service for them the other week; just small stuff like change the smoke detector batteries, some light bulbs, and put in a lock on his door. It was a lot of fun, but at the same time built up a lot of trust! Serving others is one of my favorite parts of missionary work, and it is one of the best ways to actually show your investigators your love for them.
Unfortunately we haven't been able to get in contact with G :( We have been praying and fasting for her. She is a great lady, but we aren't quite sure what exactly her concerns are right now. We can't really help her with that unless we are at least able to meet with her. We aren't giving up just yet though :)
Saturday we had the opportunity to participate in a service project at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel with the Prader-Willi foundation. It was so much fun, and one of the best experiences ever! We got to help a bunch of people with this syndrome go through different activities and arts & crafts, obstacle courses, etc., while their families attended a conference. It was so fun to be able to cheer them on and help them just have the time of their lives! I really learned a lot more about just how much Heavenly Father loves each one of His children. You could feel it so much as we got to interact and help each of them through the different courses. I got to help out with the obstacle course, and there were a bunch of fun little things to go through like the "temple of doom" (a decorated little tunnel with fake snakes, ballons, etc.), the limbo, and some other things. A bunch of missionaries got to help out and it was a blast.
Yesterday I was feeling down because We had tons of our investigators bail on us for coming to church, we had some appointments fall through, and it was just a bummer. That night we were out doing some finding, and it seemed like nothing was going. Well, we stopped in the middle of the street and decided to have a prayer. We finished and went and talked to a lady we saw walking into her house. She ran in, slammed the door, locked it, and turned off her front porch light. Not quite prepared yet.
So, we went and talked to the next person we saw just a couple houses down who was walking in her house. It's kind of weird contacting people now that it's dark around 6 or 6:30, but that's why the Spirit is so important. We went up and talked to her and found out she had met with missionaries in the past. She was really nice (her name is M), but let us know that she wasn't interested in our message and her family had a church. Well, she was kind of going to leave to go inside, and then she offered us a drink. Normally I'm just like, "No thanks, I'm doing fine." or something like that (unless I'm dying of thirst ha ha..), but this time I felt (aka the Spirit told me) to say yes. I did and she invited us in and let us sit on her couch for a bit. Long story short we ended up talking to her and her husband for 45 mins or so about Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ, and their past experiences with the church. We were able to find out why they stopped investigating, and get a feel for where they are at now. And, best part, we are going back this Saturday to help them with some service =] Isn't the Lord great? I really have a testimony that if we seek to listen to the Spirit in our lives we will be able to hear those promptings better.
I love you all, and am so thankful for your prayers, examples, testimonies, and love! The gospel is true. I know it =)
I hope you enjoy the pics, I'll send you more soon! Love you tons!
love, Elder Andrew John Beckett
p.s. Dad & Mindy you should have letters coming this week (assuming I get it finished today... :P I should ;)
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