Email 1-30-12

Hello EVERYBODY,

How are you all doing? I’m doing awesome.  This week was a little tough for me and my companion but in the end it all turned out ok.  One of the families that we found the week before last week came to church.  It was sooooo legit.  In the end we had six people come to church.  We were soooo excited.  We worked really hard during the week and didn´t really have much success when it came to lessons and so we were feeling a little down, but in the end; it all ended good because we had 6 in church.  And we also had some super powerful lessons on Sunday too with some of the members.  It was crazy because I had to teach a class on Sunday with all the investigators and new members.  Principles of the Gospel, the lesson was Agency.  Adam, Eve ya all that good stuff that we try and stay away from because it gets complicated.  I had to teach it.  It actually ended up really good.  I focused more on how we really have 2 choices in the end.  Follow Satan, or Follow Jesus.  Every simple little decision that we make can come down to that ultimatum.  It’s rather interesting because I found myself talking about really what the prophets tell us; in that we can´t have one foot on both sides.  When we know what we should do we should just do it; instead of switching teams and dribble the ball out of bounds.  It was good because I don´t think that I confused the people tooo bad.  Just a little bit...  hahaha
My companion is progressing soooo fast with his Spanish its crazy.  All the members keep telling me.  It’s so cool to see where he came from and where he is going to be if he keeps his desire up.  Sometimes it gets hard for him in lessons because he gets lost in the conversation, but when he is sharing and talking his Spanish is almost flawless.  He has just a few little problems here and there, but nothing so extreme that the people can´t understand him. 
It’s been sweet because the goal for this year as missionaries is that we are going to find families to baptize.  Yes full families.  We want to teach the mom and the Dad.  At first I thought it was going to be hard to find a mom and a dad that would both listen to us.  But as we have changed our teaching methods and find methods to be more focused on the family, we have been able to see the fruits of our efforts.  We are finding a lot of families.  Some aren´t ready to progress, but hey someday they will be.  We are here to plant the seed.  But, we are here to plant, grow and harvest too. 
We had a lesson on Sunday with a guy named Braulio.  He wants to marry one of the sisters in our ward.  She told him that if she was going to marry him he had to get baptized, come to church every week, and they had to get married by a judge.  Well that is a lot of stuff to do for a Paraguayan but he said yes.  I guess he must really want to marry her.  We started teaching him.  He has ALOT of stuff that he needs to change in his life.  Drinking, smoking, beating his kids, and he says he is way active in his church.???  But hey anything is possible through Christ, that isn´t an excuse though, that we can just lay back and take it easy.  We talked about the restoration at first trying to get him to get a baptism date.  He kept saying that he had already been baptized with the baptism of ACTS 23 something like that.  We invited him and he said that he had already been baptized with that baptism.  I was just like ¨look dude,  Do you want a baptism like Jesus or a different baptism?¨ After that we just sat there in silence and the spirit was just working on him.  You could tell that at first he wanted to say that he was already baptized but the spirit was working him.  He said ¨yeah I want a baptism like Jesus¨ So we got him with fecha.  It’s hard because he works during the week until like 10 o’clock at night so we never have time to go and meet with him during the week, only on Sundays.  Well I guess we will just keep chuggin along with him. 

Quick Shout out to my man Theron Joe  ¨Air Native¨  Keep it going man. I got your letters.  Keep having fun and playing ball I will be back before you know it. 

 
This week looks like it will be a good productive week.  I think what I have learned from this last week is that really you can´t judge a missionary on how good his numbers look.  It’s really by how hard they are working to be the kind of missionary that the Lord wants them to be.  It’s the same with being a normal person.  Sometimes we judge people because they aren´t as spiritual as they should be.  We should not judge them because they may be trying.  We should be worrying about if we are being the person that God wants us to be.  I love you all and hope you have an awesome legit week.

Rohyhu mi familia
Elder Beatty

(No pictures this week because Presten is afraid that it might erase all his pictures)

Pictures 1-23-12

Just a quick note... the two pics of food are of the cow brain and horse head that he spoke of last week. ugh.... He also got some scripture covers made and got a new name badge in Guarani!

Email 1-23-12

Well what a great and awesome week we had.  We started off the Week by having Divisions with the Zone leaders actually.  I had to stay in my area with Elder Ponce.  He is an Elder from Honduras.  It was a great opportunity to brush up on my Spanish and make sure I could still talk decently.  We had some great success.  We found some new people to teach and we placed 3 with a baptism date.  The sad thing was that on Sunday none of them could come to church but it’s ok, we will keep them progressing.  

This last 2 weeks Elder Bingham and I have been ON FIRE!!!!!!!!  We have found 6 families to teach in the last 2 weeks.  I AM SOOOO PUMPED..........  I really hope that we can stay focused on the needs of the people that we are finding to make sure that they progress.  The Family that looks the most promising is the family Bareiro.  They are a super young family with 4 daughters.  They just barely moved here from... I don´t know where.... and we found them in a street contact and set up an appointment for the next day.  The next day we went back with two of our best Youth in the ward and the Young women’s leader.  We talked about families and how they can be together forever through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And also that through the Gospel of Jesus Christ the family can be more united and be happy no matter what is going to happen in this life.  They were sooo nice and our youth and young women’s leader bore their testimonies about their families and through the gospel they are happier.  Ariel and Tanya really liked the message and the young women’s leader talked about the young women’s program and the primary in the ward and how it’s supposed to help kids learn more about Jesus.  They really liked that.  I´m sooo excited because this Wednesday we are going to invite them to be baptized and come to church.... ahhhhhh I hope that I don´t mess it up.  But really its soo awesome to have a good ward like we do with awesome members with strong testimonies willing to help us.  In my last area it was hard because the members really didn´t want to help us and so it was pretty tough.  But here we are going to have even more success.  

We also found a family Pereda.  The dad is the brother of one of the members from another ward who actually lives in our area.  Weird, but ok.  We went and taught them with the member of the family.  We taught about prophets and about today we have a prophet to guide us and the families so that they can follow the path to live with god.  It was an awesome lesson because after the member bore their testimony about how the prophets really are here to guide us towards Christ.  In the End we invited them to come to church with us and they said that they would love to.  AHHH I´m so pumped, and it doesn´t end there.  

We had a sweet lesson with a guy that came to church with a Hermana.  He wants to get married to her and so we got him to come to church and afterward we had a lesson.  He has a lot of stuff he has to change in his life, Drinking, smoking, among other things.  But we promised him that through a baptism and through Christ he could start over.  The Hermana bore her testimony about how messed up her life was before she came into the church.  But, after she started meeting with the missionaries She picked herself back up and started on the path towards the good.  She started crying and the Spirit was sooooo strong and It was tough because this guy was really stone cold, but I think he felt what this Hermana was saying was the truth because he accepted his Baptism date and to pray to know if the church is true.  

Wow........ Elder Bingham and I are truly trying to work our butts off and we can see the fruit.  We just need to keep working as hard as we possibly can, and when God is ready to give us a baptism, he will.  But we have to meet him halfway.  This last week I have been really thinking about repentance and what it means.  It is a change of heart.  As described in Alma chapter 5.  In this chapter Alma really is talking to the members of the church.  He is talking to them that they really haven´t gotten that same change of heart that the people had after the King Benjamin gave his speech.  We as missionaries have to have a change of heart towards the work.  We need to set aside truly everything else and go to work.  As we lose ourselves, we will find ourselves, but only if we have a change of heart.  President Callan was talking to us in the last Zone conference, right before Christmas.  He said that the best gift that we could give to God was our will.  We need to strive to make His will, ours as well.  

I love you all and hope that you all have a super fantastic week this week.  I know that I will for sure will.  You all are in my thoughts and in my prayers.  

Rohyhu mi familia

--
Elder Beatty

Email 1-16-11

HOLY COW...I´M TRAINING!!!!!!!!!

Yes; it is true, that Elder Beatty in Paraguay is training.  My trainee is Elder Bingham from Queen Creek Arizona.  He didn´t know a lick of Spanish before his mission and now he is my ¨child¨.  We got to work on Wednesday afternoon and haven´t stopped working till now.  It was sweet because we found 4 families and 15 people all together.  YES!!!  He doesn´t really have good Spanish but wow he really has no fear in talking to people.  It’s great to see that the MTC has come such a long way; even since I was there, in preparing young men to serve missions.

A little of what happened to me before Elder Bingham got here.  We had an FHE on Monday night and we gave a sweet lesson on how and what it means to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ.  The Spirit was super strong and the family was even more committed to come to church.  Which they did.  But the best part is yet to come.  We had to eat the food they gave us.  I thought mundungo was bad............  We ate.............. Cow brains and Horse head............ Yuck....... At first I was lucky and when they said ¨Seso¨ in Spanish I didn´t know what it meant and so I was just starting to eat it.  It definitely wasn´t the most favorite thing I have eaten here but I could at least get it down.  And then the son of the family knew a little bit of English and was laughing at us and told us that we just ate Cow brain..... ugh..... I felt so sick when he told us.  Then what do they do to us..... They pull out the Horse head.  I couldn´t really tell tooo well what piece that I had gotten because I’m not really an expert on the subject of horse anatomy.  But, from what I could tell they had given me the throat section with the trachea and everything.  I think it would have been ok if they would have cooked it with fire but they just boiled the meat in a big pot and then just give it to us and we are expected to eat.  When I told this story to my new comp he was pretty happy because he got here after that awful experience.  (What he doesn’t know is that I’m planning to go back there the next week for FHE hehehe)  

Everything has been pretty good so far…  I felt really bad when he got here because we really don´t have anyone that is really close to baptism but I thought about it for a sec and decided that it doesn´t matter because I´m gonna teach this kid to work even if we don´t have anyone close.  We worked hard.... we found 15 people..... that’s a good amount.... and we had the most lessons in our district..... This is impressive from 2 young guys like us.......  

We had a big meeting on Wednesday with all the trainers who went to Asuncion to pick up their new people and the President gave us an orientation.  I met some of the other elders who came in my group who are training as well and so that was awesome.  But the president started talking to us about the new people we will be training and said that they truly will be like little kids.  Willing to learn, and always watching for your example.  

He said some other things that I will have to share later and then came the part where we were waiting for the new elders to come in.  I had a ton of butterflies in my stomach..... I was scared but excited at the same time.  I didn´t know if I was going to training a Latin or an American.  They came in and sat down and then the president called out Elder Bingham’s name and then said that I would be training him.  AHAHAHAHA I was sooooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We sat down and listened more to the president and then we left the office in the taxi to our area.  hahaha I made my newby sit in the front seat and talk to the driver.  (not my idea)  He actually did fairly well.  

We have already gone through so much and learned so much from each other.  That was one thing that the President told us.  That in the end of the time that we are with our new missionaries we will have learned as much or even more than they have.  It’s been true thus far.  I have learned a ton from this experience.  I can´t wait to see what the next 2 months hold in store for us and all the adventures we will have.  

The one thing that has touched me the most is that even though Elder Bingham can´t speak much Spanish, every single time he bears his testimony the spirit comes in like a rocket.  I can feel the power in his words.  So can the people that we are teaching.  It helps me to remember that it’s not us that converts people.  It’s the power of the Holy Ghost.

We had a sweet lesson with a man named Marcos.  This was the first time that I have ever taught him but Elder Van said they taught him 3 times before but he would never accept a fecha for his baptism.  We found him outside his house and decided to share with him.  We talked about the 3 things that we need to do to know the truth of the message we have.  

1. Pray asking God a specific question, having faith to receive an answer.

2. Read from the Book of Mormon.

3. Come to church.  

We explained and he understood these 3 things and we invited him to come to church and be baptized and he said YES..... I was so pumped because my comp gave the invite and everything and it went sooo well.  

Well I gotta go; but before I go, I just wanna testify that I know this work is the most important thing that I could be doing right now.  And I’m grateful for the opportunity that I have to help another missionary become the best that he can possibly be through the help of the Lord.

I love you all and wish you the best

Rohyhu familia

--
Elder Beatty

Email 1-9-11

Just an FYI everyone... Presten could really use some letters!  Here is the addresses to send letters (only) to:

Elder Presten Beatty
Paraguay Asuncion Mission
Casilla de Correo 818
Asuncion, PARAGUAY

(It costs about a dollar to mail this way)

or pouch:  This must be a Single sheet of paper folded into thirds and taped shut, then write the address on the outside of the paper and put a stamp on it! (only costs 44 cents)

Elder Presten Beatty
Paraguay Asuncion Mission
PO BOX 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130 

Thanks for all your love and support!
Mamabee
You can also send pouch via DearElder! So Easy and it's free! Just type and send!

Hello everyone.  I hope that you had an awesome new year and break from school and work thus far.  hahahaha You know us as missionaries, we really don´t get a break, but hey it isn´t work anyway so we don´t need a break. hahaha This week we got lucky and didn´t have to deal with any crazy wedding/baptism plans in 3 days.  But to tell you the truth I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have minded.  We really had to focus on finding "news" this week.  It’s been pretty tough because everyone has been shrugging us off.  Which is really weird for Paraguay?  The problem usually isn´t finding people to teach.  It’s finding people who will progress.  But this last week we just had a tough time finding people at all.  When it gets hot people get really nervous and excited and usually don´t wanna talk to you.  Which is weird again?  The thing about the people in Paraguay is that; because they don´t have a ton of stuff temporally, they will usually take joy in just talking to people and being “tranquillo”.....  Oh well we will just keep moving forward I guess.  Venancio is coming along AWESOMELY!!  He got his interview to receive his priesthood and so this last Sunday he got his priesthood.  Plus it was testimony meeting and he got up and bore his testimony without anyone telling him too.  Plus he told the bishop that he wants to serve a mission.  Wow!!! This kid is really amazing.  I think that the biggest example that he has been to me, is that he really doesn´t need an explanation about the things that are spiritual.  We tell him how something is and he just accepts it.  He doesn’t question- he doesn´t need an explanation.  He truly is like a child; ready and willing to learn and be touched by the spirit.  He is progressing at an awesome rate.  The dad in the Aldama Family got confirmed this last Sunday too and had his interview to get his priesthood.  Really its awesome to talk with them because no matter what we start talking about; the subject that we always end up on is-- temples.  They want to go to the temple so bad.  They keep talking about all the stuff that they have to do to prepare to go there.  It is really awesome to see them and that they have set their goal and nothing is going to stop them from getting it.  We all should learn from their example-- not only in spiritual goals but in temporal goals as well.  Don´t lose sight of the prize in the end.  We have found 2 new families this last week that we are hoping will progress.  They look and say that they are super catholic and so that kinda scares me a little bit.  But I have to remember, that really there is nothing that God can´t do to help us if we have the faith.

This last week I have really been thinking about stuff that has happened in the past; experiences in High school, college, in the family.  As I have been contemplating about those experiences; I have found that the moments when I really slowed down to take things in, I can remember the best, as well as enjoyed them the most.  I think of times, like sitting with Theron Joe after football games in high school after we won, waiting for everyone to leave and just talking about life.  Moments like that, where I really could just slow down and get the big picture of what was going on in my life and where I wanted to go.  Sometimes here in the mission we get caught up in the moment.  We forget the big picture.  We don´t think with the end in mind.  When we forget that, we stumble.  Being able to slow down and cherish the good moments in life, have made me more grateful as well for what I really do have.  Take a look around you.  We are so blessed to have what we do.  We have bodies, brains that function, families, cars, money, food, sports, a prophet, the gospel, the priesthood.  In Mosiah, King Benjamin talks about how we need to be thankful for all that we have because we are created from the dust out of the grace of God.  All that we have is a blessing.  At first when I started thinking about the blessings that I had I could only think of a few but as I started to focus, memories began to flood my mind of moments in school, with my family, in the church.  Every moment that passes in our lives is a gift. 

There really isn´t anything I would rather be doing right now than serving as a missionary.  Even though it’s tough..... it’s worth it......
....every single sweating moment of it.....
I love you all and am so thankful for your love and support that you give to me and to your families.
Rohyhu mi familia
--
Elder Beatty

A LOT of pictures....long awaited

So these are the long awaited pictures!  So have fun looking through them!

Email 1-2-11

Well,  wow!! what a week it has been!!

We thought that we were going to get a little bit of a break after the baptism of the Aldama family, but nope.  We were teaching one of our golden investigators and we told him that his baptism date had been moved back a week because he didn´t come to church.  When we told him that he was probably the most bummed I have ever seen a person here in Paraguay.  It was crazy because he was bummed that we had only moved his date back a week.  His date didn´t drop just moved back and he was on the verge of tears.  We told him if he was willing to do all that we told him we could move his date back to this Friday which means that we had a ton of stuff to teach him and only 3 days to do it all.  He said he would.  Well, that was when it started.  We started teaching him about all kinds of stuff that we still needed to go over.  When we came back the next day to teach him again; he would have to review what we gave him the night before and even have more awesome comments to give us.  We taught him about the commandments and about the law of chastity and word of wisdom and he said that he would always follow those laws.  We got to tithing and we were a little scared that he wouldn´t like it as much because it means giving up some of your money to some church that you hardly know.  We explained what tithing was; and that if we paid tithing, the Lord would bless us enormously.  We asked him if he would follow the law of the tithe and why it was important.  He said he would follow it for his whole life, and he would do it because he NEEDED the blessings from God.  Wow........  So we got his baptism all set up.  We made a cake.  I was definitely careful not to make it on top of the stove.  Hahaha!!! The cake was ready and we had to empty the font by hand with buckets from the week before because the pump is broken. So we did that and then filled it back up, right before the baptism was supposed to start.  Vanancio passed his interview with flying colors.  We finally got to the baptism and it was already half an hour after it was supposed to start and no one was there!  Only a few of the youth and 1 family had come.  We were sooo worried because one of the reasons that Venancio said he wanted to be baptized was because he wanted to be a part of the ward and for everyone to know him.  No one from the ward practically came.  So we started anyway.  We got to the baptism and he came up out of the water and was soooo happpy...  it was a crazy testimony to me that even though the members don´t come to a baptism, that doesn´t mean we aren´t performing a sacred ordinance that will bring the spirit.  Wow.......... So anyway we are super dead and tired from just running around 3 days stressed all the time about Venancio and everything.  Buts it’s super worth it and I can´t wait to see what’s up next with us.  

Really we don´t have anybody up in line for baptism so I guess we have to so dome hard core searching this next week.  That’s always fun.............  

This last Sunday we went and ate with some members and it was crazy because they just try to give us as much food as we can possibly eat.  One of the Hermanas that I’m always just joking around with, put a HUGE pan of sopa (it’s like cornbread) on the table after everyone was finished eating.  She said that it looked like that I didn´t like the sopa while I was eating.  (Which was a lie because I ate a ton of it and she knew it.) She said that she was sad because I didn´t like it.  I didn´t know if she was joking around or if she was telling the truth and so to show her that I liked her sopa… I ate half of this huge pan of sopa all by myself.  It was torture.  I would just cut another piece without even really thinking about it and put it in my mouth chew and do it all over again.  I had my goal at half the pan and I knew I could do it but I was miserable.  But in the end the Hermana was happy, so I guess my misery was worth it.  After that we watched the movie about the building of the Salt Lake Temple.  It’s crazy to think that these people will probably never see it in real life and its only 5 hours away from my house.  Wow...... ....

Quick shout out to all my buds who are serving the mission and reading this letter Jake, Jaden everyone.  You’re in my prayers and thoughts.  Shout out to Elder Northcott in PERU...... Keep going man we are in the service, nothing better than that!!!!

We had an experience with one of the ladies that we found this week while clapping at houses.  She was in her house.  We were teaching her son and she came out later.  We had shared Mosiah 2:41 about keeping the commandments and being happy forever.  We had a bunch of the youth there and they all bore their testimonies about how happy living the commandments had made them and their families.  This woman then interrupted us and said pretty much ¨Really how can you be happy?  If I came and told you how life really was you wouldn´t be happy. You guys are all just painted fake and are just so young and so you don´t know about life.¨ We then bore testimony about Jesus Christ and how He is always there to help us, no matter what the situation. She said that she prayed everyday and Christ didn´t get rid of her cancer, didn´t stop all the problems in her family, didn’t give her son his surgery, didn´t give them food, etc.  She just kept going on and on about how miserable her life was and how miserable our life should be.

  

After we finally got out of the appointment, my comp. and I started talking about what she had said.  Yes, life is hard.  Anyone who says that life is easy, is kind of not thinking strait.  But, there is NO problem or situation in life that can´t be fixed through Jesus Christ. If we have Christ in our lives, we are happy, because we have the knowledge and feeling that through Him, life is easy.  How blessed are we to have the knowledge that we do about Christ.  I hope that we never take for granted the blessings that we have of the Atonement and the peace that it brings to our lives.

I love you all and hope that you had the best holiday season that you have ever had.  You are all in my prayers and thoughts.  Jesus lives, Never forget it!!!

Rohyhu mi familia

Elder Beatty