One thing he mentioned is that he would LOVE pictures! I have posted (above) his letter address and his package address. You can also find it on the side bar under Current Address.
He did tell us that most disgusting thing that he's eaten down there is Cow tendon. They boil it for hours and hours and then serve it cold. Sounds REALLY gross. His day usually goes as follows: (let me know if anything is wrong) Get up at 6:30, say prayers and do a few exercises; take a quick shower; eat breakfast (usually oatmeal-plain they don't have brown sugar down there); scripture study; language study; usually out of the house at 9:30; visit appointments and go door-to-door; usually eat lunch with a member; then during the "siesta" they try to find people to visit but it's really hard because everyone is sleeping. Then they go for more appointments and usually dinner appointment too. They have to be home at 9 unless they are teaching a lesson, then they can be home at 9:30.
The temperature there is 118 degrees at 70% humidity. Definitely hotter than anything we've experienced.
The monthly baptism goal is 133 for the mission! The hard part is that most of them, once they're baptized, go inactive.
Elder Beatty bore his testimony and it was beautiful. He said that he KNOWS that being on a mission is a million times better for him than anything he could be doing here at home. He also hopes that you all can see (or I guess in this situation: read) the change that has happened in him since he left for the mission. He bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon and how we can learn so much from it. He bore his testimony about the Savior and how he knows how we feel. Even if we slam our finger in the car door, Jesus knows how much that hurts.
We are so thankful for our Elder and the hard work he is putting into the mission. We love him and love getting the letters and Emails from him. We hope that you can feel the spirit from his emails too and hope you enjoy reading them :)
Here's the email from the day after Christmas:
2011.Dec.26
Well wow what a week it has been......... There is just so much to say and so little time to say it. We got 3 baptisms this last week...... Ya..... We didn´t have it planned when we started the week but then in the end it came. There is a family here in this area that has been taught by the missionaries for 12 years..... They pretty much know all the basic stuff about the gospel. We had passed by a few times and taught them, but their biggest doubt was getting married. I guess about 4 months ago the elders had got them to have the desire to get married. They had everything all set up so that the marriage would be awesome and that they could be baptized right after they were married. But I guess the family thought that the elders were just rushing them too much and so didn´t go to their wedding and didn´t get baptized and vowed to never come to church again. 3 months later here comes Elder Beatty and Elder Van and started helping them feel the spirit again. We talked about the commandments and how they were living all of them except one. Adultery........ They said that they knew that they needed to change but still they didn´t feel ready.... so we just kinda let it go, and thought that they still weren´t ready to progress. Well we just got out of a lesson on Wednesday night when all of a sudden we got a phone call from Rokue. (That’s the dad.) I picked up and asked him “what’s up”. He said. ¨hey we have decided to get married and want to do it this weekend. Can you guys get everything ready? ¨ Of course I said yes without even thinking because I was so overwhelmed..... I hung up and looked at Elder Van and said ¨you will never guess what just happened! Rokue and Celeste want to get married this weekend¨ Wow we were both just shocked from what that meant for us and for them. We had a ton of stuff that we had to do. We had to get all their papers put together. Set up a judge. Clean up the chapel from the night before when we had a ward end of the year dinner, empty out the font because the pump is broken. Set up the marriage in the cultural hall and do some cool decorations. Find 4 witnesses and make sure that they have copies of their ID´s and make sure they come. We had to call all the ward members and invite them to come. We had to make sure we have a cake for after the baptism. We had to get money for the judge. We had to get them interviewed for their baptisms again.... It was just crazy!!!!!!!!!!! Wow..... In the End we got it done. We got them baptized and married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The whole family didn´t get baptized but the parents and the little girl did. The younger 16 year old son wasn´t ready for baptism and so we thought it would be better to wait. Plus the dad will be able to baptize him anyway. Which will be more legit. All in all what I have learned is that even though we really didn´t do anything as far as convincing them to get married, God did. And when God wants something nothing is going to stand in the way of getting it done. But that still isn´t an excuse for us to be lazy. We have to give the Lord our all to make sure that what He wants will happen. He will work through us!
Just one quick thought I want to share. We were in church and for the final hymn we sang “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”. It isn´t a statement of belief, it isn´t a thought or general pass of feeling, It is a knowledge!! A knowledge that we gain from a constant testifying from the Holy Ghost. We can´t see Jesus, we can´t touch Him or smell Him or hear Him..... But we can feel His love.... The Holy Ghost is going to “talk” to us in words that our heart recognizes as feelings. Those feelings drive us to gain a knowledge. A knowledge of something that we can´t see, hear, or touch. What are we supposed to do when we come to this knowledge? Is it good enough just to know that our Savior lives? No... We have to push forward... We use that knowledge that we have gained through the Holy Ghost to help us to push through the difficult things and difficult times. If we have gained this knowledge through the Holy Ghost and all we do is nothing; we are not worthy to know. With more knowledge comes more responsibility.... With our knowledge of the Savior and what He did for us we have to push forward with faith in Him and His promises.
I hope you all can have an appreciation for the knowledge that we have here in the church. It is a knowledge gained through the Holy Ghost. I love you all and wish you the very best and most happy Christmas this season in remembrance of our Christ and Savior.
Rohyhu mi familia
Elder Beatty
No comments:
Post a Comment