Email 12-5-11

Wow what a week. The week of Changes YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA... hahaha I left Pre Franco and that area.  I am now in an area called Ytororó.  It is on the opposite side of the country in Asuncion next to Argentina.  The first week of changes as always is a little slow and boring.  First you don´t know your comp, second you don´t know the area, you don´t know the people, and in my case this change… I had no money to buy food.  Living off of crackers for 3 days........ What an experience...... especially in the Jungle hhahaha.  No but it all turned out really good.  We left from Cuidad Del Este at like 1 in the morning.  I got on the bus and sat next to an Elder named Elder Beckett.  He is from Roy and guess what?... He knows Ramsey... heheh small world eh.... but anyway we just talked most of the time on the bus because its nearly impossible to sleep because the guy who is driving the bus is a little drunk so he just weaves back and forth on the street.. Its like trying to sleep on a Disneyland ride. hahahaha but it all ended up good.  We got to Asuncion at like 6 in the morning. We waited until 8 and there were a ton of missionaries there.  I saw Hermana Hubbard and Elders Edwards and Marple.  They were in my district in the MTC and they looked great.  Its crazy because Elder Marple is Training..... WOW..... What a legit missionary.  I met my comp there in the Terminal also.  Elder Van Mondfrans.  He is from the Salt Lake area and has about a year and a half in the mission.  He is pretty cool.  The first day was a little hard of course because we aren´t used to each other and so it was a little quiet.  I guess something happened because we started talking about super smash brothers and we talked about that for about 5 hours.... I think we have something in common hahaha No but really he is a great missionary who loves the work.  He is just a little bit more quiet than the companions I have had before so that will be a great adventure as well as a learning experience for me.  The first 3 days we were together we walked and walked and walked and walked.  Elder Van said that this was the most walking that he has done his entire mission.  We went and tried to visit ALL the investigators that they had before which is like 7 or 8 every single day and none of them were home every single day.  He told me that it was a test from God to see if we were going to keep working and doing our best to teach and find people and that it would pay off the next day.  Finally we got some success when we met with these 2 girl references that we got from the ward and we invited them to be baptized.  They were super awesome because they had a TON of questions.  One thing that I’ve learned is usually when someone has a lot of questions it means that they are legitly interested in what you have to say and teach.  We invited them to church but they said that they didn´t know if they would come because they were going to a 15 year old birthday party and it was going to be late when they got back and so they didn´t make any promises but it was ok.  We also visited Jorge.  A guy who has made HUGE changes in his life. Mostly with the word of wisdom.  He has stopped drinking, smoking, and doing drugs in the last 3 months and is now coming to church.  It’s been crazy to me to see the faith that this man has put in God.  He is reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if its true.  I still don´t know why he hasn´t got his answer.  That is our main focus this next week with him; to help him recognize his answer.  We also have Benancio.  He is dating a member’s daughter.  He is a super legit 18 year old kid.  He also has a ton of good questions.  He is coming to church and praying with his girl friend’s family and it’s great to see his progress too.  I think that he wants to believe the things we are teaching are true but he just needs to have that trial of his faith first.  So this last week we did some service too.  We went to dig something like a latrine or something like that. It had to be six feet wide and six feet deep and all we had were some crappy Paraguayan shovels.  One had a handle of a tree limb that gave my hands a ton of blisters and the other didn´t even have a handle.  We got down pretty deep with just those two things actually.  About 4 and half feet.  I was proud of myself but my hands sure did hurt from that stupid tree branch.  It’s been really cool for me to see the way that Elder Van teaches.  He really focuses on baptism and why it’s important.  He will just come out and say that we have to have the authority of God to be baptized in the right way.. and if its not with the authority its not valid.  It is a testimony to me; because before, I would be scared to say that to people, but because he is teaching with the spirit, the people understand him and know why its important.  The ward here is pretty good too.  We just got anew bishop put in.  The ward has been without any really good leadership for about 4 months.  To me its surprising that the ward has gotten along all by itself without any leadership.  Elder Van said that since the bishop has been put in he has seen a new excitement in the members about the work in getting more people to come to church.  The bishop has been giving us a lot of stuff to do with him in trying to get the ward better.  I can´t wait until we can get this ward up to 100 people.  It will be great to see the chapel full for once.  

We had a FHE with the bishop´s family yesterday.  It was all about having a change of heart, and that repentance shouldn´t be something that is easy.  It should be something that hurts and takes time.  If we don´t suffer and feel in our hearts that we truly want to change, then we haven´t repented.  It was great to see that example because we all go through times like that in our lives were we think we can just change and everything will be ok.  No its not like this.... we have to show to God that we are willing to give all that we have to him.  We are willing to submit ourselves to His will by making a change of heart.  By making our desire His desire.  When we can gain this vision, to do what God wants us to do and repent to make ourselves what He wants.  That is when we have a change of heart.  It won´t be easy.... But it most definitely will be worth it.  

I love you all and hope you have the spirit of the Lord with you in all things.  I hope you all are striving to attain this change of heart so that we can all have more love for those that we are serving, even if we aren´t on a mission.  May this holiday season bring peace and happiness to your soul.

les amo muchisimo.

Elder Beatty

Email 11-28-11

Wow what a week.  It’s been crazy some of the stuff that has been going on.  Its been getting insanely hot!!!!!!!  I'm not gonna say that I really know but, I have been around the block a few times in Hurricane during the summer when it’s so stinkin hot that you don't really wanna do anything.  But man, Paraguay makes Hurricane feel like an Autumn breeze!!!!!!!!.  hahahah ;D  Nah, but it’s all going good.  We have been doing what we gotta do in living in the heat.  Dang this last week the car wash; that is right next to our house, has been making some financial improvements or something.  I guess they got a HUGE stereo.  REALLY HUGE.  And of course they like to play Paraguayan music when they are drunk.  And it seems that they have lately been getting drunk at 3:30 in the morning for the last week.  So they decided hey "We are super drunk, let’s play our Paraguayan music really loud right now because we are super drunk" so of course they turn that baby up all the way!!!!! It’s just great having an awesome beat to fall asleep to.  Sigh........  I can't say how much I have been praying that I can gain the patience to withstand this stereo so I don't end up just throwing a huge rock at it on accident :D

This week has gone well in teaching people.  We got 2 people to church.  yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Josephina, and Palu.  Josephina is really legit.  She is super sweet and loving and only wants the best for herself and her children.  Her husband is in jail in Italy and so she isn't really in contact with him and so she is super worried.  She tells us that she is looking for a way to find peace and joy in her life right now.  What a better way to find peace and joy than to be baptized right?  Nah.... but really..... hahah We are also working with Palu and very very cool 9 year old.  Seriously I don't know how he does it, but he has all the answers in Primary.  He makes me look like a joke.  He is way legit.  He has been visiting with his Aunt and so we just decided to place a date with him.  It’s sweet because his aunt is the Primary president and so she is helping us out a ton with teaching him.  

This last Sunday was ward conference and so the Bishop told us that we had to get 80 people to church.  Wow...... We normally have to scrimp to even get 30… I was blown away.  But we said we would try.  And guess what? We got 75 people in church!! BOOOOOOYYYAAAAAHHHH It was so cool seeing the chapel all filled with people that I didn't even know were members.  We made sure and talked with them so that we knew them and we could make sure and keep them active.  The Conference went pretty well.  I was playing the piano for the "choir" or I guess you can call it that.  I don't know how to help kids sing.  Boys especially when they sing like they are dead monkeys. I guess it turned out better than the practices we had done before, so that’s good.  

We had a zone conference this last week too.  It was in CDE and so we got to go on bus which was nice.  It wasn't quite as fun as I was hoping because Elder Marple wasn't there; but it’s ok I had Elder Varney :D  We went and we talked about a ton.... of stuff.  It was kinda weird that we hit on so many topics........ Submitting our will to the Lord (Helaman 10), Gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Nephi 31), Goals, Planning.  We did a sweet thing with goals and vision and planning.  President Callan took us out onto the basketball court with the ball.  He is like… what is this? (Pointing to the ball).  It’s a ball. To make it short..... We have to have a vision.... (Win)..... We have to have boundaries on which to work... (Lines).... and we have to have people to help us win.... (Team)...... We then played a game to 2 hahahah I played and scored one shot but then what I didn't know was that there was a kid there who had played for Provo high school and so ya.. he pretty much annihilated us.......  Anyway that was cool.

It’s been great to see all the stuff that we can apply into our own lives from the zone conference.  Not just into our mission.  

I love you all and hope you had a great week in remembrance of what we have.  

Elder Beatty

Email 11-21-11

I told him that Hurricane High had won state football this weekend... 

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that is soooooooooooooooo awesome................................................... Finally..........................................  We did it!!!! After all those years of work and sweat and more work and more sweat we finally did it and won.  Coach Homer deserves it, and I am so happy for the whole Hurricane community too.

Wow the weeks are just flying by.  I think it must be because..... The weeks are just flying by.  A lot of stuff has happened this week so I’m gonna try and get it all in really quick because I’m running out of time.  Never is there enough time. :D

This last week I had to go and buy a new SD Card player and so we started looking around in our area to try and find something that would be sufficient.  We finally found a place.  It looked a little sketchy but hey it had what I needed.  I tested out what they had and then I'm like ok I’m gonna buy this one.  Good thing it was only about 10 dollars.  So I went home and I was soooo excited to be able to test out my new player so that I can still listen to music while I’m studying.  I get home and I pull it out, throw in the card and nothing happens.  So I plug it into the power, still nothing.  Well, come to find out that as I took the back off of the player to see what was really the problem inside the player,...... there was nothing inside the player to have a problem with.  It was empty.... hahahaha wow...... lesson learned.  Little sneaky Paraguayans. :D

We have found some new people this week that we can teach and it has been good to finally get some lessons in.  We started teaching and found out very fast that when you haven't had to be teaching top golden lessons to people you get out of practice really really fast.  That was a little embarrassing because we wanted to have some good lessons but we really didn't have any direction in any of our lessons.  No matter how hard we tried to get chuggin we just couldn’t get going.  I guess what happened was that I had a billion things on my mind that I wanted to say... and I said it all.  That’s bad..... I didn't ask any questions or do anything right.... ahhhhhhh oh well I guess it’s time to start practicing more.  We found this one woman named Josephina.  She was a reference that we got from one of the members that we eat lunch with.  So we went to her house and we clapped it and she let us in right away.  It was a little weird because when you usually go to a house they don't just let you in and sit down.  You gotta give them a reason for you to stay.  But no she just let us right in and told us to sit down.  She then started telling us that she had some encounters with the missionaries before because her husband is supposedly locked up in Italy and he can't come back or write her.  She knows this through some pastor that her husband had talked to in Italy.  So she said that the United States Government could help her or something like that.  At least that’s what the pastor had said to her.  He told her to talk to the missionaries.  Wow, a pastor actually told someone to talk to the missionaries.  Miracle!!.. anyway,  we told her that we really had no influence at all with the government and that we were only here to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Then she told us that when she woke up that morning that she had prayed to God to find some way that she could be happy and find love again in her house, and what should happen?  Of course the missionaries show up.  Hahaha She is so great.  She said that she is going to a church just because when she is there, she feels like she belongs, in a spiritual sense, but she hasn't baptized herself because she doesn’t feel like it’s the truth.  wow..... Awesome....  

I have been reading a lot in Helaman about what has been happening to the people.  They are prideful.  Their pride leads to contention and then the contention leads to destruction. I have been reading that the reason that the people were destroyed was that they had become like unto their brethren the Lamanites…  "Relying on their own strength”. When we only rely on what we can do as individuals we can do nothing.  It’s just a magnifying glass.  What does a magnifying glass do? It MAGNIFIES things.  It makes things more powerful than they were before, speaking of light refraction, that’s what God is to us.  Through us, He will MAGNIFY His power.  But first we have to really understand that only through His power we can do anything at all.  The moment we forget that without Him we can't do anything, is the moment that we will be destroyed, not killed, well maybe in a spiritual sense, but everything will go wrong in our lives.  Work, family, church, every little aspect that we take for granted will just for some reason go wrong.

We have been giving a lot of service to a hardcore catholic family lately.  And they are such nice people but really don't understand anything about the doctrine of Christ.  But anyway we have been giving them service and in turn they gave us 2 shirts that have things like “I’m a believer” with a picture of Christ and stuff like that.  Stuff that has been showing; in an outward expression that everyone can see, that they believe in Christ.  Also people here like to have their "cross" with them.  To show that they believe.  Yes we as members of the church have these things that we use as outward expressions but we must rely on our ACTIONS to really show to whom we are giving our faith.  Go to church, read the scriptures, do good continually.  You don't have to wear a tie and a shirt and a name plaque to show that you are follower of Jesus Christ.  Just the missionaries :D

I hope you all can see the importance of "showing" your belief, but in the right manner.  I hope that you are changing your life based on your faith and beliefs in Christ.  I hope you can feel the love of the Lord for your every day because He has a lot of love for each and every one of us.

les amo

Elder Beatty

Email 11-14-11

2011.Nov.14

Wow what a week of sweaty shirts, long stops to the bathroom, some new people, and rain.  Well to start off this last week I was super super sick on Tuesday.  I woke up at like midnight and was in the bathroom for about 5 hours. My back side starting hurting so bad from using the class 25 grade sandpaper to wipe with so I finally just turned on the shower and started showering.  I hit a new shower record for my life.  3 hours..... Hehehe! Finally daylight hit and I was just super tired because all my nutrients had left my body and I couldn't eat anything because I would just vomit it back up… but hey it’s ok.  So we didn't end up leaving the house because of how sick I felt but its ok Elder Rios got in a lot of spiritually edifying study time that I’m sure he was just dying to have given to him.  How nice of me to provide an opportunity for him: D

This week was ok.  We really tried to find some new good people to teach.  We found a new guy named Marcio.  He is pretty cool mostly because he has no religious background at all, which is really really weird for someone here in Paraguay.  He is also very very straightforward with us, which is also something very very weird for someone here in Paraguay.  But it’s been good, we haven't been to his house too much but we plan on giving him a test run today so I hope everything goes well.  

Braulio's uncle died this week so he wasn't able to attend church.  I hope that his family is doing alright.  I don't mean it in a bad way but this gives us some more leverage that we can help to get his sister to be baptized.  We have been trying to treat her more as a level 1 investigator but we just can't find a time when she wants to sit down so we can teach her.  We will get her sometime it’s just a matter of us passing by at the right time.  But we have really been hitting Braulio hard with being a missionary in his own house.  I hope that he will "Catch that Fire" to do that.  It would be awesome to see that his whole family could be blessed from the gospel.  

We have had some cool things happen in the ward.  It’s been tough here to work with the members to get people to teach.  We have had to pretty much treat the members as investigators to see who was going to follow up on commitments and to see who was going to be good in giving us good references.  It’s been tough because not all the members are super strong here.  We did go on some "Visitas" with the leadership in the ward.  Or more to say that we went with just the bishop and the 18 year old secretary.  It went really well.  We went to go visit some less active members and try to get them to come to church.  They were really happy to see the bishop and thought they would come to church the next day.  But the next day it rained so practically no one came to church.  Its alright we will keep chugging along with them.

Yesterday I was thinking about Christ and His sacrifice for us.  Some of us take for granted the amount of love He has for us in that we will never be able to measure up to be good enough to use His sacrifice.  All the Lord asks for us is that we try.  We go and do. He will cover the rest that we fail to achieve.  There are some people who think that they can't be saved because Jesus atonement can't apply to them because they aren't doing enough in this life or they aren't perfect enough.  Let’s use this example.  We are on a football team and the QB throws a touchdown pass to the tight end.  We score!!!!!!!!!!!  It doesn't matter if the guard didn't make his block or the wide receiver ran the wrong route.  We scored all the same.  Also....... the people on the sidelines who weren't playing or doing much, they scored too.  The defensive players scored, the third string quarterback scored and yes even the kid who will never ever touch the ball but is on the team, he scored too.  We are all on the team and we all get to score because Jesus is the quarterback and no matter what play or what down, HE WILL SCORE, and we all will win!!!!

I love you all and hope you have a FANTASTIC week.  

les amo

Elder Beatty

Email 11-7-11

November 7, 2011

Wow another week has just flown by and I have no idea what happened to it.

I guess I will just give you a quick lowdown of what has been happening as far as the people we are working with.  Braulio; my first baptism, has been doing great.  We have really been focusing on him with things such as missionary work.  Mostly because we believe he will be the key to the baptisms of all the family that he is living with; which is like 12 people, so that will be cool.  It’s good to see him at church.  He has become good friends with our ward mission leader which is really good because if he has any questions at all Irala can help him out.  Braulio was supposed to bless the sacrament this last week but he said that he wasn't ready so he just passed the sacrament but it was so cool to see him doing it igual.  We have been visiting some of the older investigators as of late, to see if we can get them progressing again.  We visited the two girls who were supposed to get baptized the weekend that I first got here.  They seem like they can progress, but we will have to see how committed we can get them to the gospel again.  We talked with their dad and he said that he wants to unify their family.  Because I guess that everyone in his family is in a different church and so that’s a little tough but it’s kind of his own fault if he didn't take charge of what was going on, but that’s ok we are going to work with him on that.  But all in all we are still looking for good people to teach.  It’s been really hard for us as of late to get really good people to teach.  We have been focusing on really working with the members to get good references but the members aren't too strong to begin with, so we are going to be working with them too.  It’s alright though because it keeps us busy and away from excuses to not work hard.  

As far as being with a Latin comp, Elder Rios has been really cool as of yet.  He has a work hard attitude but when things don't go our way he starts going downhill which is alright because its hard, but then I’ve got to work extra hard to keep his spirits up.  As far as the language goes he has helped me a ton with the random words that I didn't know before and in our practices he has been helping me with my grammar and such which also has been a huge help.  One thing that I have realized is that one of the hardest things that I have ever done is to try to be my own personality in a different language.  It is very very difficult.  For me at least.  I can do it every once in a while but I really have to try.  I guess it will just come in time when my tongue gets a little more fluent with the words.

This last Sunday was testimony meeting and it was really cool.  Besides that Braulio passed the sacrament, all the members that bore their testimonies, all bore them about the effects of this true church and what an impact it’s had in their lives.  In meaning that they have all come from different churches and from different backgrounds but they have all FELT the truth of what this church has to offer.  It was very powerful for me at least because I am so lucky to have been born in the faith, but the testimony of the converts is always a strong one.

I have been reading a lot in the Book of Mormon about the effects of pride on the church.  Every single time that the church would fall away and reject a prophet is when they were brought up in the pride of their hearts.  They set their minds on searching for the glory of men when they forgot from whom all blessings flow.  We can often times forget that what we have, comes from God.  Even though; yes, we work so hard to get what we have, we still have to give thanks to whom all blessings flow.  I hope you all can remember your Father in Heaven and His love for you.  He gives you all our righteous desires.  

I love you all and hope you have the spirit of the Lord with you this coming week.

les amo

-Elder Beatty

Pictures 11-7-11

Email 10-31-11

Well, what a week.  This week seemed to just fly by.  I don't know why, but I guess it must mean that we are working hard; so I will just keeping doing that.  Me and Elder Rios have been working really well together this last week.  We have been visiting a lot of less active members to try and "reboost" them into activity.  It has been quite the challenge for us both.  No matter how charming or loving or whatever we do; it seems we just can't seem to get them to commit to coming to church again.  It’s alright.  One of the greatest charlas (talks) that we have had this week with a member was with the family Cabanas.  They are semi active but we wanted to get the rest of their family active again and so we gave them this charla.  We read Alma 5:16.  This chapter "Drops Cane" with repentance.  Its one of my favorites because Alma in this chapter is talking not to the nonmembers but to the members of the church in Zerahemla.  He asks them a lot of questions about how can we stand in the presence of God knowing our guilt and many things like that.  We know that is a little rough and so we picked out the fluffiest verse we could find in that chapter.  16.  It asks if we can imagine in hearing the voice of the Lord saying in that day...  Come blessed.  Because your works have been works of good upon the face of the land.  I really like this scripture and the many others that accompany it; because it goes to show that we can't be justified in doing bad or having excuses just because we are members.  We have to work. Work hard and work long to obtain that glory that we know we can get.  It went very well.  They didn't end up coming to church but it’s alright because I got a good perspective from that scripture.  

The thing that has been really really frustrating at least for me is that me and Elder Rios are doing all we can do to get and find people to be baptized but we can't find anyone.  We have been talking with everyone and we have been teaching with the spirit and we have been asking members and obeying the rules and it’s really really frustrating at least for me.  I could care less how much we walk and how much we work just as long as we get something out of it at the end of the day.  It’s taken me 2 weeks to really see why this is happening.  Yes we are doing all we can do.  I am leaving it all out on the field so to speak.  And yet we don't get good people to teach but it’s a lesson that we must learn.  At least for me.  I have gotten my first baptism and it was a great experience.  But the lesson that I’m learning every day from coming back with not having taught any good people is that God is going to give you a lesson when He is good and ready.  If we aren't getting any good lessons; in at least we are planting the seeds that these people need, in order to bring them closer to Christ.  They all have their own choice.  We can only present the message and pray that the spirit will touch the heart of this person in hopes that they will make the right decision.  If not.  We gave it our all.  I guess I can apply it to track.  Yes, I can train all that I possibly can.  I can watch film to help me better myself.  I can run 400's till I die in practice to make me better.  I can eat healthy and I can sleep well.  But you know, sometimes you just don't take 1st place and you have to just go back and do it all again but better.

It’s been great this last week in that we have been talking with everyone.  I have really noticed that WOW.... I can communicate with these people.  I can speak with them and they can understand me.  What a blessing that is.  After all the work I have put in; learning the language, I am being blessed now.  It just goes to show that as long as we continue to have the hope and faith in God, that He will complete His promises that He will help us with all the things that we need to do.  I hope you all can see the blessings that the Lord is giving you in your lives and that you can be grateful for them.  

I wish you all the best and I hope that you can all have the spirit of the Lord with you in this coming week.  

Yours truly  

Elder Beatty