October 18 "Another week in Sumtown!"

Hello my family! And friends who might be reading this lol. I love you all. Why do the saints do that? Because you are all awesome ha ha.

Happy birthday to Grandpa and Grandma Beckett! And anyone else whose birthday may have passed or is soon coming. I don't really know birthdays, so I apologize for missing them. I am sorry to hear about Uncle Mark passing away. My prayers are with all of you, especially his family. I know he is now in a much better place, helping many people come to Jesus Christ. Something I read this past week in my personal studies was the latest Ensign that came about temples. I would encourage all of you to read it! There were so many wonderful articles and beautiful pictures in there. It really strengthened my testimony of the gospel and how families truly can be together forever! Something I have learned while on my mission is that truth is truth, regardless of who or how many people believe it. As a missionary, we pretty much get told 24/7 that what we are trying to share with everyone is false, corrupt, wrong, dumb, etc. Does it matter? No, because truth is truth and always will be. Just like Joseph, "I knew it, and God knew it." That's all that really matters.

I have also had my testimony strengthened of the importance of reading from the Book of Mormon daily. There were two days this week that I just felt completely gloomy and was in a bad mood. I had no idea why. On the second day at dinner I went into my study room and prayed and asked why I was feeling so negative. I felt inspired then to read the Book of Mormon. That's when it hit me that the past two days I hadn't studied from the Book of Mormon! The previous day we didn't get our personal study time because we had to leave early to go to President interviews, and that day I had studied something else besides the Book of Mormon. Usually I try to read at least two chapters a day, but for some reason that day I had forgotten to. Anyway, I sat down after praying and read from the Book of Mormon. I can't describe how fast and how real the change of my perspective and attitude was after doing that. There is a real power in that book that changes us! It is truly the word of God and will lift us to new heights. I love the Book of Mormon and will now be making sure I don't let anything get in the way of studying from it daily.

By the way, I am attaching a picture of all the Elders who had shirts ordered and Elder Bennett. It was pretty hilarious when we all ran out into the gym wearing them! His face was priceless! He just kept looking around and laughing and saying "That's pretty good guys.. ha ha!" He was a good sport about it. Then he had us worried for a second when he was like, "So who is that cute girl on your shirt anyway?" Lol, it really was his girlfriend though. I think. :P

There is also a picture of this spider that Elder Wilde (the ZL) and I caught in our apartment while he was here on exchanges. Nice to know things like that run around everywhere while we are asleep.

Alright, so are you ready for the greatest news of the week? This saturday we are having 2 baptisms! WOO HOO! V (13) and A (10) S will be baptized by their father who is recently becoming active again in the Sumterville Branch! They are the sisters of R and P who have recently been baptized. Their family will be a huge strength to the branch here because there are hardly any youth, and now 4 more just became members. It is great to see the Gospel influencing their lives for the better!

I love and miss you all; I know you are accomplishing great things wherever you are. Always be a light and lift those around you, the world today needs it. Never give up and keep a smile on your face! The Savior and our Father in Heaven are closer than you think. Have a fantastic week!

love,

Elder Andrew Beckett

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!

October 4th

Hello familia! Wasn't General Conference just incredible? Wow, I really learned a lot. What a blessing it is to be able to feast upon the words of God for two days! I am always sad to see it come to an end. Some of my favorite things I got out of it were:

Live a consecrated life (purity, work, respect for body, service, integrity),

"Slow down a little, proceed at optimum speed, and focus on the fundamentals,"

"We become who we want to be by consistently being who we want to become,"

All of God's children wear the same jersey,

We are here to build, uplift, encourage, and love all of God's children,

Pride is the switch that turns off priesthood power, humility is the switch that turns it on,

and "It is easier to keep the commandments 100% of the time than it is to keep them 98% of the time."

One of my favorite sessions (ok, my very favorite actually) was priesthood session. The Spirit was so strong there! I loved seeing all of the missionaries in the choir and it helped encourage me knowing I am not alone. It often can be very discouraging and you feel sort of outcast with all of the rejection so common on a mission. I also saw Ayden Jensen and Bridger Talbot from my BYU 65th ward singing in the choir! You can look on my facebook to see who they are if you really want lol. Also, I was WAY proud of (not prideful; see Pres. Uchtdorf's talk ;) when we sang High on a Mountain Top! I was singing WAY loud and told all the people around me that my great great great (I don't know how many exactly) grandfather wrote that - Joel H. Johnson. Woo hoo! It was also cool to be able to go back to the Leesburg chapel to watch that session and see some of my favorite people there (the Sumterville building's satellite doesn't work). The rest of conference was wonderfu

l as well; we were able to watch it over the internet at the B's house. They are very nice people and fed us meals as well.

Here in Florida there is a bug called the lovebug. There is a reason why it is called that. Anyway, apparently they were invented by some university to try and eat mosquitoes or something. I don't know all of the details but you should look them up if you are interested and fill me in. They are seriously EVERYWHERE. Another random thought - don't forget about 10:10 and 10 seconds on 10/10/10 this week! How cool is that? Just know that I will be thinking of you, my family, at that exciting time when it comes ;) I will be in church, so maybe I will stand up and announce it or something :P

I also got to go to Leesburg to be the senior companion for Elder Gardner and Elder Hanson (Shelley, ID) this week while their trainers were at the leadership conference! It was way fun and good to be back in Leesbom. We tracted like crazy and it was a blast. That is me with them in the picture. One night we were knocking doors and it was about 7:50, but dark outside. We knock on one trailer's door and the lights all turn out. A second later the door opens and an older guy is standing there. I say to him, "Hello sir! How are

you doing tonight?" He replies, "What do you mean how am I doing?!? Do you have any idea what time it is????" and slams the door right in our faces. It was the funniest thing ever lol! Just how he said it, and linked together how he was doing with what time it was. We got a good laugh out of that.

Question - does anybody know why certain words in the bible are italicized? I have no idea but have wondered for some time. Another question - has anyone noticed that Elder Bednar has a unique style of speaking? He constantly uses interesting word choices for sentences. He says things like, "We can come closer to God by coming to and applying in our lives church." Kind of those double thought sentence things you know? Maybe it's just me but that's what he seems to like. MAN oh man the guy next to me in this library needs a shower.

One kind of bummer deal about Sumterville is that we have to share a bathroom. I was spoiled in Leesburg, we each had our own. I can't complain though, it definitely has all of my needs provided for here! Although my shirts are going yellow - the water here is yellow. You can actually smell it when it comes out of the faucet. Our whole shower is yellow, and when you wash your clothes (yes, even after just one wash) they have a yellowish tint to them. Something is weird in the water but I haven't died yet. I am just thankful to have running water, especially hot running water! David over there in Peru doesn't have hot showers... who am I to complain ha ha. I got some letters this week hoorah! THank you all. I heard from Mom, Dad, Mindy, Destinee, Nolan, and Jake Roberts. Sweet! I still have a few letters I'm trying to catch up on and reply to lol. Nolan's letter had me laughing out loud the whole time. Have they jumped to the 2nd largest baptizing mission yet? I'm sure with Elder Blackhurst there they will be there soon if they aren't already. I'll be sending my mail home in the near future so you can read through it if you want, or just save it for me for when I get back. Unless you think I should throw it away, then you can jst do that too :D

Dad, thanks so much for those talks. I have read all of them and they are just wonderful! Wasn't that cool how Elder Jensen spoke? I was thinking, "Ha, Dad just sent me a talk by him. How neat!" They were all beneficial and have given me tons of ways I can improve and feel the Spirit more. Feel free to send any favorite talks or neat spiritual thoughts you come across; I love reading things that have

meant a lot to you, and they lift me up a lot.

I am loving being on a mission so much. I can't believe how clear things are becoming to me - much clearer than ever before. We truly are in a battle between right and wrong, and it is SO important to follow our prophet! I am disliking more and more each day Satan. He really wants nothing but for us to be miserable like him. He is doing a good job too. We have more power though, and we will triumph with God on our side! Never give up or give in. We can be that light to the world! It is so important that we base our decisions and choices on the principles of the Gospel and not on what others think. I want you all to know that I love you so much! I am so thankful for the sacrifices you have made so that I can be here today. This is a wonderful experience that I never could've had any other way. Being a missionary you get to see so many different aspects of life in such a short time. The time really is short, two years isn't that long at all. Five days from now I will be 1/6 of the way done with my mission... sad! There is no time to waste. Luckily we can be lifelong missionaries! I love you all and miss you, but remembering you helps me work hard and be better. Thanks for your prayers, love and support! Have a great w

eek! Until then,

Elder Andrew Beckett

Beautiful Sunset!
Cutest thing EVER!!

This thing he wrote just so happens to be about me. :) So... I had to put it on!! : Here is a cute little frog I caught outside while doing some laundry :) I thought I would get a pic with him just for you Al-Bal! Wish I could mail you one or something lol!

September 27

Hello family and friends! I love you all. Being in a branch is definitely different than a ward. Let. Me. Tell. You.

Well, actually, first I'll tell a little story about my first day here. Transfers take place on Tuesday mornings and are all supposed to take place before noon so we can be back to work. I was out here before then, and so we went to do a little bit of tracting. When it was about lunch time, we were driving to a member's house to go eat our lunch (which meals by the way here are tricky - we can't really go back to our apt. because everything is so spread out so we have to just bring food or buy it unless a member feeds us). On the way Elder Rice pulls over at this gun shop and says he wants to run in real quick and see if they have a gun. The gun shop recently opened up and said they had an AR-15 that he wanted to check out. We go inside and I'm looking at some stuff when this guy at the desk stands up and says, "You guys Jehovah's Witnesses?" This guy has a beard, mustache, and a mohawk/mullet thing. Elder Rice was like, "Nah man, we're Mormons." The guys face tightens up and he says, "Even worse!" He pulls out a handgun from his side and cocks it while looking right at us and says, "I think ya'll need to leave right now."

I was pretty nervous at this point and said, "Alright sir, we'll be leaving now." I turned to Elder Rice and told him we need to leave now and so I start heading for the door. The guy starts laughing and then says, "Welcome to the BRANCH!"

HAHA. Good joke... lol. No, it was pretty funny, but I was definitely nervous when he pulled out his gun and cocked it! The guy is about 25, named J B, and is the ward mission leader's son. He is less-active and lives with his parents & girlfriend.

We have 2 new Elder's in our district that our being trained. One is Elder Hanson from Shelley, ID. He said he knows Sam Paul and had a foods class or something with him. Sweet! I was like "Hey do you know any Becketts?" And he told me he knew Sam. How cool :)

By the way, the Leesburg Elders got a gator last night! It was tied to their door when they got home lol. MAN why couldn't the Russ's have pulled through when I was still there? Ah well. I forgot to tell you I got "bit" by a dog. Luckily it wasn't hard, but I definitely felt teeth on my bum. We were knocking a street and it was like 8:20 at night, completely dark outside (This was still in Leesburg). We hear these dogs come running up and when the guy opens the door he doesn't even stop them from running out! They were barking and going crazy and one ran up behind me and just bit me. Luckily no damage done :) Hey, btw, if the W's add me as a friend on Facebook please accept :D

Church was great, there was a strong spirit there and R S was baptized last week. The G family is awesome! They had us over for a meal and it was authentic. The dad is a less active, the mom's not active, the daughter was recently baptized and confirmed, and now her younger brother! They also have 2 younger sisters who are going to be baptized soon we hope. They are 17, 15, 13, and 10, so it will definitely add to the ward's numbers :)

We also have some other awesome investigators, we set 3 dates this past week. We are going to invite the G sisters to be baptized this week so we should hopefully have 5 baptisms in October! Yay! The Lord is blessing us with success.

I don't have too much time left (I want to attach some pics real quick before I go), but I will say this - there is nothing better that I have experienced yet than serving the Lord full time. I have seen changes in myself and those around me that could only come from God. I love being here :) It makes me so happy! I am learning new things every single day, and I find that when I go forth with the attitude of searching for what the Lord would have me learn each day, He teaches me more. I love you all and am thankful for your examples! I am thankful for normal people. Sometimes I wonder if I am still sane here due to the lack of normal people... ha one guy while we were out tracting asked us if we knew where midgets and giants come from. Apparently they come from angels and demons breeding with humans. A prime example...

Anyway, the Gospel of Jesus Christ keeps us all on track. Everybody needs it in their lives, and we must constantly be doing our best to progress. Remember that everything comes from God and we are nothing without Him! Have a wonderful week, I love you all!\

Love, Elder Andrew John (Dad you have a cool name!) Beckett
Elder Beckett and the W Family...I think that is his Bishop's family!

With the landlord...

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