Email 2/25/13

Sounds like it was a rough week for Elder Beatty, but the testimony at the end is priceless!  Thank you for your prayers and love and support!

Hello everyone.

Well, really I feel like this week I just have existed and not really done anything. This week was a little harder for us. We spent the majority of the week just looking for people to teach. We started out the week really really excited and we were pumped to just go out and find some new golden people who were going to be baptized. We were doing pretty well until Wednesday.

Really to tell you the truth I went on divisions to another area on Tuesday and so I wasn´t in my area. They had found 2 people and put them with a baptismal date and so I came back and we were pretty excited to start working. We went and visited first our investigators that were supposed to get baptized next week. We talked with them about the sacrament and why it is just such an important thing in our lives to show our faith and to be cleaned of our sins.

At the end of the lesson the dad just kind of starts sending us some weird signals. He kept on saying stuff about how his family is not to happy with us coming by and that he doesn´t want to have any problems within his family. It went on like this for about 10 minutes when finally I just felt that I needed to ask him if he wanted us to come back or not. He spilled the beans in that his wife and daughter have been talking a lot with their neighbors and that the people have been telling them not to let us come by and not to listen to us because we are only here to steal their money and to make them go to jail and all sorts of crap. He said that he didn´t believe that it was true but that his wife did and that his daughter did as well. That the rest of his family says that it is his fault that we keep coming by and visiting them. He said that he wanted to avoid any conflict with his family and so it was just better that we didn´t come back.

 We talked with him about how he felt while he was reading the Book of Mormon and going to church and praying. He said that he felt great and loves what we teach him. We asked him if he felt that those feelings he felt came from God or from Satan. He said from God. So we told him to ponder in his heart if really GOD wanted him to stop listening to us or if he should stop. He said that he felt good but he didn´t want to have problems with his family. That it’s better if we just forgot the whole thing.

At the beginning of the experience I felt a lot of Anger, anger towards the people who lied to this man who was simply trying to find God and be obedient. Then after seeing that I couldn´t convince him to keep listening to us and to be baptized I felt Sadness. I felt that really this child of God was going to lose so many blessings that come from the Gospel. After attempting several times I finally bore my testimony of the greatness of God and that God loves him and wants him to be in his church and I asked him if we could come back. He said no.

I was torn apart that my testimony had no affect on his heart at all. I left that lesson very very heartbroken and discouraged. I got to the point where really I questioned my testimony and if I really was doing the right thing. The rest of the week was a disaster. I really wasn´t focused at all the rest of the week. Everything just seemed to spiral down into a never-ending disaster of problems. We were supposed to have 10 baptisms in the zone this week and tons of the missionaries lost their focus and we only had 4. The Assistants were all up in my face because so many baptisms fell and my comp as well was depressed because I was depressed and everything was just dead.

For the first time in my mission I didn´t feel like doing anything and didn´t know what to do to get out of this hole. We got to church and no one had come to church and we had a super super small attendance at church. Everything was going down until we sang the first song in the sacrament meeting. We sang “Choose the Right”.   I really didn´t pay too much attention because I was so preoccupied with how pitiful my life seemed like.

During the sacrament I wasn´t all that focused either until I realized that I still had the hymn book open to that same song. I looked down and began to see the words. The whole song is about doing the things that the Lord asks us to do. It was about being obedient. It doesn´t mention in the song that everything will be all songs and roses and happy days, but it does say that the Lord will bless us.

I realized in that moment that I had a decision to make. I could decide to be happy. Sometimes it’s hard to realize that the Lord gives people their agency even when they reject something good. President Callan would always say that the Lord is going to give us our agency even if we kill ourselves. It is exactly that way. After reflecting on the words of the hymn I really came to realize the love the Lord has for me. I realized that everything is true that I had testified earlier that week. After taking the sacrament the words of a famous scripture came to my head. ¨ And if you shall bring but one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my father¨ That one soul that matters most that I bring unto Christ is my own.

I HAVE a testimony of this work that it is the glory and work of God. I KNOW that I am important to Him........ I have much of my life to live still but I WILL do His will and I WILL follow Him so that I can be with Him someday. I will continue to testify of His divinity, His love, and that He lives. I will invite all to come unto Him and be transformed as I have been transformed. I LOVE HIM, The Prince of Peace, the great Jehovah of the earth and heaven, the Savior of the world.

I am grateful to Him that I can be His servant and do His will and help all people find His light and love even in the darkness of this world. I hope that we can all find a new desire to follow Him. He was perfect, and we too must become perfect. Only by following Him we can find that path that will lead us to an Everlasting Glory.

Rohaihu

Elder Beatty

Email 2/18/13

Email 2/11/13

We have a friend who is teaching a lesson about Paul and wanted to ask some questions, so we used her questions for this week!

Hey Family and Friends,

Wow another week has come and flown by. Its been insane how hot it has been this last few weeks. We have gone about 3 weeks without rain and its really starting to get to my brain because of how hot it is getting. I know that there are a lot of people praying for rain as well. I know that it really isn´t that big of a deal, in the end I don´t know why I pray for rain because it makes the missionary work harder. Maybe I should just learn to take things as they come and not hope for things over which I have no control hahaha ok problem solved.

This last week we had another baptism of a daughter of a family we are teaching. The mom and all the rest of the familyw ants to get baptized but the dad doesn´t want to stop drinking and doesn´t want to get married. We are still working with the dad about his problems. He is reading the BOM and loves sharing with us but when it comes to coming to church he just can´t because he wakes up on Sunday with a huge hangover from how much he drank the night before. The mom was a little sad during the week knowing that her daughter was gonna get baptized without her but during the baptism and during church the next day she was as bright as the sun. She could feel the spirit as to what her daughter had done. That it was the right thing. We are praying and fasting a ton for the dad so that he can change.

Here are my answers for the questions you sent:

--Could you relate an example of challenges that missionaries sometimes encounter on their missions?
 A lot of challenges that missionaries face down here in Paraguay is not learning to interact with the people. People have a specific way of existing and living life. We can´t expect to invite people to do something when we can´t imagine ourselves in their own shoes. So many missionaries are scared of getting rejected and not having any success, when really it just comes down to loving the people and adapting the way that we teach to the needs of the people. When we can learn to teach people the gospel in such a way that they will want to be a part of it, there will be a tremendous amount of growth in the church. People will stay active and want to participate in the gospel.

--Has anything specifically happened to you that has been especially challenging as you have attempted to share the
gospel on your mission?
One thing that has been very hard for me to overcome as a missionary has been the temptation of idleness. Starting my mission I found out that it is very very easy to just go throughout the day seeing all the cool sights and just soaking up the culture and meeting new people. It was hard for me to really come realize the purpose as to why I was there. I wasn´t called in come into Paraguay to be a tourist. I was called to bring people to salvation through the gospel of the Lamb. After a year in the mission I came to fully realize the importance of my calling as a missionary and how I have such a huge influence on the lives of the people that surround me. If I will just thrust in my sickle with all the might, mind, and strength, I will be able to see miracles every day.

--If so, how did you overcome or deal with the particular challenge?
Well in the end it was with the help of one of my companions. He showed me really what the mission is all about. We didn´t get any baptisms, but we worked our butts off. We were happy because we could come back at the end of the day and say that we had given our all for the Lord. That we had testified to everyone and we had invited everyone to hear this great message of the gospel. After working with that missionary not only my mission was changed but my perspective on life. I have been called to fulfill a great purpose. I cannot give up, I cannot wait, and I cannot be altered in my attitude. I will complete with the Lord and His calling. I love the mission. I love it because I have come to realize that being a missionary is more than just leaving your home and carrying a missionary plack. It’s about loving what you’re doing and loving it because you love the Lord.


--How did this challenge affect your ability to share the gospel with others?
I was in the world and I was of the world. I wasn´t truly focused in what was MORE important. I could feel that with time my testimony was growing and that I was helping others come unto Christ, but not in the most productive way. I was too prideful to let go of my own desire and surrender myself to the will of the Lord. Sometimes as people, we don´t like to hear the words, surrender, or lose, or submit because it show signs of weakness. But if we surrender, lose and submit ourselves to the Lord, we will come out victorious.

--What do you do if you have troubles getting along with your missionary companion?
It takes lots and lots of prayer. And it’s all about your attitude. We can wake up thinking that we have to grin and bear it (our day) because our companion is a jerk. Or we can wake up and make the decision to grin and change it. We have to learn to really love and to become united in purpose. Yeah, we may have differences and we may not get along, but in the end we are serving the same people for the same reason. It’s all a matter of being able to give up what you want for sometimes the sake of showing love. I have also learned that it’s not enough to say that you love someone. You have to show it as well. Simple acts of service to your companion will help you forget your own problems and form a love for him or her.


Well, that's it for now.  Hope you all have a great week!
Rohayhu
Elder Beatty

Email 2/4/13

Well wow another week has come and gone in a flash. I got 15 minutes to try and squeeze in all the details from the week. Sometimes I feel bad because I am not really taking any pictures to send home to you guys, but then I realize that I don´t take pictures because I don´t have time. We are working too much and finding too many people that I don´t have time to take pictures. In a sense it’s a good thing, and a bad thing. So don´t get mad at me mom for not sending any pictures. It’s just because I am working so gosh dang hard hahaha.

So this last week we had another baptism. Wow, it was probably one of the hardest baptisms I have ever seen, heard of, or imagined. So we have been teaching this older Lady Named Alva. She is the mom of a recent convert in our ward. She is super super nice. She used to be a helper for the fathers of the Catholic Church and so she really has a good knowledge about the bible. At first she really didn´t want to listen and said we could go and read to her from the bible because she is blind.

So we started going and reading little sections out of the bible with her and soon we started teaching her the restoration of the gospel. She really liked it a lot. We had to teach it a little slow because she was just super hardcore in the bible. But in the end we asked her to pray to God to see if our message was true. She did and she got her answer that yes, it is all true. Wow, that was easy. So we continued to teach her. It was great because we could have some recent converts help us in teaching her because they lived in the same house. So there really weren´t any problems with teaching her. She did have a problem with modern day prophets and how she thought that there weren´t any more prophets. We asked her to pray about it, she did, and she got her answer. Wow, that was easy.

So her baptismal day finally came. So you have to know that about 5 years ago Alva had a brain tumor. She had to have surgery to get it out or she would die. So after they took it out, she came out of the surgery practically blind and was a little crazy. So Try and picture this, Trying to put a blind half crazy lady in the water. She was scared to death of the water because she didn´t want to drown. Technically I don´t blame her. If I was blind I would be scared to death of drowning.

So we wanted to have a member baptized her but really we didn´t think that a member would be able to handle this one so I was elected. I helped lower her into the water and she was practically grasping onto me and plugging her nose. She would just hunch over and was waiting for me to say the prayer. So she thought that I was going to put her into the water in the front. So the first time I completely surprised her when I threw her over backwards that her legs came popping out. Wow she was mad when I got her back out.

She didn´t want to do it anymore. She said that she didn´t want to and that she couldn´t do it. So I tried again but we were going to do it her way. So I said the prayer and tried to help her kneel down in the water, oh by the way we had filled up the font to where there was only 3 inches before it was overflowing. So when I tried to push her under front way she wouldn’t even budge.

Ok… so this time I just closed my eyes and said a prayer that this would be the time that I would get her. So I told her we would do it one more time, and that we would go in front way. So I said the prayer and I threw her backwards. While she was under I had to check her feet to make sure that they went under as well. She was good. I brought her up. Boy was she mad at me. I helped her get out of the water and then I saw her back in the Sacrament room. She had calmed down a little bit and when I told her that there was a cake waiting for her after she was happy.

Wow....... That was probably the craziest baptism that I have seen. She really didn´t want to do it anymore. But we got her in whoooohooooo. Really I was able to see the power of prayer. The whole week I had been praying that there wouldn´t be any problems with her baptism. And ya it really didn´t end super super super spiritual, but hey we got the ordinance done. I know that sometimes that’s how we can see things in the world. The Lord wants us to do something and we try our best and sometimes it doesn´t go as best as we think it will, but in the end the Lord will help us complete His commandment. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week.


Rohayhu Paraguay ha che familia avei
Elder Beatty
--