Eliza's mission video

My LAST letter home!

Hey hey! Wow, things just don't seem real. This week has been the BIGGEST emotional roller coaster of my life. Sister Smith and I laugh now about how we lived EVERYDAY last week as the same day. Over and over and over and over. It went like this:

Taught D all we could, seeing BEAUTIFUL changes come over her like never before, prepping for her baptismal interview.Visited Bro Hollins who was on Hospice, holding his hand, singing to him, and listening to him tell us, his 'daughters' (he has '4 daughters' --sister missionaries... I'm 'D4') He'd tell us his last words and how MUCH we meant to him and would just cry and cry. Eat, sleep, repeat.

Over and over. From Monday to Saturday.

D passed her interview. :)

Sunday rolled around and I had my talk ready and prepared that I spent a good amount of time preparing, and well, I had 'trunky brain' I guess and... totally forgot my talk. I went to the FH Library to print of some of my 'death letter' to go off of that, but... the printer didn't work. God apparently wanted me to just speak from my heart. I simply had my Book of Mormon and my testimony. It turned out decent.

Had 4 investigators to church.

Andddd... all of this mixed in with crazy emotions of leaving and blah blah blah... so yeah, things have just been pretty crazy!

So, that's all. I'm so excited to see you guys in like... 50 hours. :) That's so cool.

 I love you all and will see you in 2 :) xoxo

We love to try on her wigs!!!

It starts....sigh

Nov 17

Hey, mom! 

Thanks for the wonderful email. That was very uplifting. You're the best. 

And everything you said is TRUE. 

I wondered what I was going to share with you this week, I thought of just sending my 'death letter' that I mailed to Pres, but I decided I will probably keep that for my homecoming talk ;) 

Something amazing happened last night, one of the most pivotal moments on my mission, and I'm so blessed that it happened so soon before going home. I honestly don't even know where to start, there are so many significant details that happened to make all that worked out, work out. I guess I'll just start with this:

Imagine teaching the Catholic Pope. Someone who is so set in his ways about his beliefs. It would almost seem impossible. That is how it seemed with our neighbor, D. D is in her late 50's, she is VERY educated. She was an 'ordained minister'. She has the Bible memorized, has read it in multiple languages including Hebrew which she learned herself. She is a very logical thinker. She needs evidence. D  has been in contact with the missionaries multiple times over the past 10 years.

When I arrived in New Brighton 3 months ago, I met D as we were with one of our other investigators. After that meeting, all that I heard from my companion was, "Supposedly, we 'don't teach D'... she is apparently too set in her ways, her heart is not opened for truth, she will never change." 

Well, we'd go by often to do service or cook with her, she'd invite us for dinner, and then want to come to church with us off and on, and even President Firesides... She came to the one last month where Elder Carlson from the 70 spoke and did a question answer sesh... she loved that, and apparently after the meeting she went up to talk to him personally, and all she told us is that he invited her to do some specific assignments, and then he, along with President Forbes invited her to be baptized. Hmm... all these things eventually led her to decide that she really wanted to 'meet with the Mormon's again.' That was pretty exciting!

Every appointment with D was more of a.... 'D teaching us sesh' and we'd NEVER get to say anything, and if we did, she'd shoot it down. She openly believes in the trinity, does not believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, and the only part of the Book of Mormon that she believes are the chapters that quote Isaiah. We thought, 'Wow... those past sisters were right.. maybe she is too set in her ways.' And to be frank, I was pretty scared to teach her, because... I felt like she was a 'pastor Kim' in a way, and I remember how awful I felt when my testimony was shattered every five seconds, so to be honest, I wouldn't say very much.. But even with those thoughts in our minds and feelings we had, there was STILL something pushing us to continue to meet with her and serve her.

*insert beautifully significant details to show God's hand is completely in D's life*

After a series of events, we made an appointment with our investigator L who we haven't been able to see for over a month. We knocked on L's door, and she was gone to D's! We decided to pop over, and we shared a message with both of them. This was the only time I truly spoke up and shared a message. I read a little bit of 'You Matter to Him' by Dieter F. Uchdorf. At that moment I felt a VERY clear and distinct love for these two women. And that was a blessing! My comp and I have been PRAYING for the gift of charity. I was blessed to have a little taste of what Heavenly Father felt for His daughters. And then I testified. I honestly don't remember what I said, but the Spirit was there, and that was the first time that D did not say a WORD. She just listened. It was a MIRACLE! My comp and I had been trying to get investigators to come to the President's fireside that Sunday, and D has already been a thousand times, so we weren't planning on inviting her, but I blurted out that invite to her anyway... (which also did not come from me, because I was not planning to do that.)

*More significant details to make this all happen*

We got to President's fireside, and while Sister Smith and I were mixing and mingling with people before the meeting, the member that took D and us asked D when she is going to stop smoking. D just said "I don't know. But I think it is really insignificant to give up things JUST to be a member of your church." Welllllllllll... those recent converts who spoke last night (two of them specifically) spoke into each of us the importance of living the Word of Wisdom and how it has completely transformed their lives. D was balling. (Never had seen that.) After the meeting, she turned to me and whispered,

"If I happened to get baptized, they would have to record it so that you could see it at home."

"Wait, you're considering baptism???"

*Smirky smile* "I need to go talk to that guy" She pointed to a stake president. All I saw was him making very bold hand motions and her crying and smiling. He called us over and said that D wants to be baptized. WHAT?!?!??!?! 10 YEARS OF MISSIONARIES AND NOW IT HAS COME!!!!! We were WIGGING out. President Stacey said something to D like, "D, I promise you in the name of the Lord that as you truly make the changes necessary to be baptized, you WILL be granted the strength you need to give up this physical substances. There is not ONE thing in this world that Christ could not strengthen you for." D asked for a Priesthood blessing from Pres Stacey (which is also a miracle. In the 10 years of her studying with us, she has NEVER let anyone give her a blessing.)

We gathered in the many many sister missionaries who have taught D, and in a full room, D bore her sweet testimony. She expressed that last President Fireside she was asked to do some specific assignments from Elder Carlson, and she did them, and that the fireside that evening solidified and answered her questions. She openly expressed the Book of Mormon to be the word of God, and that Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God. There was not a dry eye in that room. WOW.

President Stacey laid his hands on her head and pronounced the most beautiful blessing upon her I have ever heard. It was very sacred, so I won't share all of it, but I will share something that meant a lot to me. He said: "Sister D, The Lord wants you to know that every sister that is gathered around you in this room has fulfilled a promise that they made Heavenly Father in the pre-earth life, to come down, to find you, to comfort you, to teach you, and help you return to Him."

Wow... I am getting teary just writing this!! After the blessing when he left, all of us sisters had a little 'pre earth moment' I'd like to call it. :) I feel very very strongly that that is true. And the reason I do is because my first transfer in New Brighton while I was going through a rough time, I got a blessing, and in the blessing it said "Sister Beeson, your Heavenly Father wants you to know that last minute changes were made for you to be here in New Brighton to fulfill a very significant and important purpose." I know I'm here for D.

D asked when she could be baptized, and they said that the 29th of November would probably be the soonest. Wow!!! Amazing. We were all so happy. As the night went on, D took President Forbes aside, and they talked for a bit, and then I was able to find out that President Forbes changed her date from the 29th to the 25th... the DAY BEFORE I go home! All of the departing missionaries will be at D's baptism that night at 7pm.

Heavenly Father works miracles and wonders. I KNOW that this is the true church. The Spirit is REAL, and it works through people's hearts, even the ones that seem impossible to change; ESPECIALLY those ones. I am so so so blessed to be a part of this work, and am so blessed to have finished this sacred part of my life with a very big and unforgettable miracle.

I love you and will see you next week!

All my love,

Sister Beeson

Nov. 11th

Hey there, loved ones!

Mom... I'm so sorry you've been down and dizzy! But I'm glad you're feeling better!

Yeah, the time has come... I received my 'death packet'... that was... pretty emotional. I cried a little bit. :( But it's exciting at the same time, ya know? I have a looooot to do for that 'death packet'... what did you receive in the mail? I'm curious! I need to sum up these 18 months into 4-5 pages... excuse me? That's not possible. :) I'll email it to you next week.. orrrr... just use it as my homecoming talk ;)

 I'm blessed to learn from Sister Smith who is really good at talking things through. She'll be a great mama. Missions are GREAT. But I'm just so blessed that I've learned how to communicate. I legitimately did NOT know how when I came out.

Let's see...the work is moving forward.  So...I will just tell you about it when I get home:)

Our first snowfall was... TODAY! 6 inches and we're supposed to have 14 by tomorrow! You're right, I probably shouldn't have sent my boots home, huh? Oh well!

An Elder I serve with knows how DEPRIVED I am of Café Rio, so as we were talking he was moving something around in his pocket, and finally (I could tell that this was something really difficult for him to do) he pulled out a Café Rio card that has 10 stamps on it ready to be a 'FREE MEAL' hoping to get one here in Minnesota, when in reality... no café rio's exist here. He said "You're going home sooner than anybody else I know right now, plus... It sounds like you're more in love with this place than I am." WIN MY SOUL, WONTCHA?!

We had a sleepover and pancakes with our sisters last night :)

Things are going well. I'm currently studying about discipleship, and I got an awesome email from a friend that talks about it! I'll forward that in a sec. I love you all and will see you in a couple weeks!

-Sister Beeson

Hey hey, fam!

Hope you had a good Halloween. Andy, your costume made me laugh... annoying orange? Talking orange? Can't remember... mission veil... Also Andy... thank you for your sweet letter and for fasting for me. That is the greatest thing you could do for me. I love you!

Honestly, not much of an update this week. I went on 2 exchanges... Exchanges are soooooooo exhausting. It was nice to spend time with different sisters. They each have their own talents, gifts, struggles and concerns. I am grateful for the way they make me grow.

 

We've been concerned about the unity between members and missionaries, and Heavenly Father knew just what he needed to do to fix that. Yesterday after church, we had a lesson with a convert in a member's home, and all of a sudden in the middle of the lesson I had a 'heart attack' that's what I'm calling them since I'd imagine that's how they feel. My heart felt like a spear was in it and it hurt really really bad. I tried to sit in different positions so the pain would release but it lasted for like a whole 5 minutes... After, I was just reeeeeeeeally tired and my chest was sore. My comp called up a few people and asked what we needed to do, and everyone of them said to just take it easy, rest a bit, take some ibuprophen and then get a blessing.

Well.... we asked a member if we could come over to get a blessing, and we walked in the door and guess who was there? Elder Christensen from the District.... hahahah... he is SUPER famous in my eyes. I felt so weird... He and the member gave me a blessing, and the members were really concerned and literally said we could call them up if I needed ANYTHING.

Then, someone else found about my weird pain and they offered to bring over soup and cookies and homemade rolls.

And then ANOTHER came over to bring more soup, more rolls and fruit... and these were people we honestly hardly knew! They have been texting us all morning too,  the Lord knows that service is the key to bringing people closer together.  I feel so grateful for them.  The members here are so amazing.  We really love and appreciate them. Don't worry pain is gone…weird.

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Hey, high class campin' bums!

Looks like a super week. Those videos were so so so wonderful to see. It is so good to hear everyone's voices! ESPECIALLY when they read scrips :) Love you all.

This week was SOOOO much better.

I got a blessing last week, (can't remember if I told you) and something that was mentioned were two things: Help your sisters gain a LOVE for the Book of Mormon, and go to the Temple to receive revelation. Ahhh... the temple has been on my mind since I got to New Brighton!! And guess what? For the first time in 15 months I was able to go!!!!! Oddly, I felt so fortunate to know what it was like to not go to the temple for a very long time, because then I was able to recognize the true PEACE and joy that is felt there. I have SOOO taken that for granted with a temple that was 5 min away. It almost even helped me understand maybe how less actives feel! Living life, and not realizing how much peace and joy there is available until you're THERE! That was really neat. Time stood still, all my worries, burdens, and fears were lifted for that glorious hour and I felt a peace that I haven't felt once on my mission until that moment. It was amazing.

As Sister Smith and I sat in the Celestial Room, we were thinking about how we can get our sisters to gain a love for the Book of Mormon as well as continue their mission in diligence and obedience, and the idea came to invite them to take the Christlike Attribute activity in PMG and then pick an attribute to work on. With that, we committed them to read DAILY from the Book of Mormon (that is surprisingly difficult to do even as a missionary) and highlight anything that has relevance to that particular attribute that they are working on. We're doing it too! And I invite you to do so :) Our Mission Pres is working on helping us to become disciples of Jesus Christ. This is from him:

"The primary purpose of our earthly existence is to prepare to meet God and inherit the blessings he has promised to his worthy children. The pattern for how we prepare was set by the Savior during his earthly ministry. 
The following has been written about discipleship: “The word disciple comes from the Latin [meaning] a learner. A disciple of Christ is one who is learning to be like Christ—learning to think, to feel, and to act [like] he does” (Ensign, Sept. 1974, 81)." We can become better disciples through applying Christ's attributes!

Well, I love you all. I'm getting really excited to see you all! Have a good week, and please keep  Maria in your prayers (our investigator who is getting baptized on Saturday!)

All my love,

Sister Beeson

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October 6, 2014

Happy October! Another day closer to trunky! My definition of trunky is: I'll work hard in New Brighton, but am SOOO excited to go home to do so much good. I get so excited thinking about what I want for my future family, the good traditions to make and ways to teach my future kids the Gospel! But really, all I wanna do is serve people. Like Elder Godoy said: "live my life in a way that will fulfill the blessings of my patriarchal blessing." (at least I think that was who said that.) And if I remember correctly, my patriarchal blessing says the word 'service' about 25 times.

Conference was SO good. My favorites were: Sister Esplin, Elder...Jorg (the really bold talk) Elder Godoy, and Elder Bednar. It was all SO good. This felt like the first year of my LIFE where I've gotten SO so so so much out of conference. Received much revelation. :) We watched conference on Saturday at the church, then Sunday 1st session at the Peel's with our investigator, Joy, who we met at a park. She must have listened at one point, because she discussed what stuck out to her:) Anyway... wasn't it interesting that Sunday's session was like 4 talks in a row about sustaining our Prophet and Apostles? Sister Smith and I were talking about it, and we felt strongly that those speakers were inspired to share those topics, because there will be a time not too far where our Prophet will be asking something of us that is very hard, but we will need to sustain him, and follow his counsel! What do ya think?

Let's see... this week, I went on two exchanges (making up for sick days) and had a fun time in the Hmong area with a Hmong Sister:)  I went on an exchanges with a sister and it was one of the best exchanges I've had! It was really fun.

The members here are super awesome. They give us referrals like candy, show what cute young families do to be happy, and even order me new boots online. They're all sweet hearts.

Ok, Buzz was homecoming king? hahahahahahah his pictures... oh my. And may I add, watching him dance I noticed he has about as much flexibility as dad. Or worse, me. Or EVEN worse, Grandpa Dick ;) haha love it. I miss you all a lot, but I'll see you............. NEXT MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxoxox

Sister Beeson

I'm getting to the point where I'm not in the mood to email and just wanna be like "Some cool stuff happened, I'll tell ya about it when I get home. Bye." Buuuuuuuuut. I won't be that rude. Let's see. We've had quite the week of reflection and reevaluation. We are so dang busy all the time, with a billion appointments a day, but these past couple of weeks, nothing has really been happening as far as progression goes. It's like...busy work. That's not good! We're both fairly new to the area, so we are trying to find our feet. But, we've been doing a lot better.

R is the cutest gal on the block. She and her kids (even though they're 4 and 7) are progressing so well. Really, nothing is getting in the way of her to be baptized. October 11, baby. Love her. She has such a good heart. 

I spent the day in St Paul with a Spanish Speaking sister on exchanges, andddd... kinda felt like I was on day uno of my mish, as if I was called Spanish speaking, because we'd go tracting and I'd have NO idea what the people were saying, and they'd look at me and say stuff in spanish, and all I knew how to say was "Nosotros somos misionera's de la iglesia de Jesu Cristo de los santos de los ultimos dias." And that's probs way wrong. 

Sister Smith and I got in with a AWESOME L.A. and we had our first appointment, ya know, trying to gain her trust and everything, and then at the end of our appointment, Sister Smith leaps out of her chair and says "I feel very nauseated!!" We all ran to the bathroom and she BARELY made it... all on the carpet, and then in the sink.

 So. She was blessed with the 24 hour flu! I was fine, so we got permission from P. Forbes to have a member 'babysit' Sister Smith while I went with a member to visit people. That member was.......... TORI WILSON! Haha... I cannot TELL you how weird it was to be a missionary, and hop into her car WITHOUT my companion and drive with her to an appointment. We even went to Walmart after to get stuff for my comp, and I just felt so apostate the whole time. Super weird. I was with my friend for the evening! Who gets THAT opportunity? 

Something that Sister Smith and I were able to discuss together was prayer. The reason why prayer is so powerful is because it involves ALL 3 members of the Godhead. You are inviting all three members as you pray. Addressing the Father, seeking inspiration of what and who to pray for as well as humbling ourselves to receive answers through the Spirit, and then closing in the name of Christ. CoOOOooOoOoOOOool! 

Man, New Brighton is full of testimony beating people. It is really beaten EVERY DAY. It's so weird. I really thought these last two transfers would be a breeeeeze. It's been hard! And that's good. Endure to the end, eh?

I love you all;  I'm so grateful for the GOSPEL. As President Uchtdorf said, "Let us live the gospel JOYFULLY..." and the promise: "We will discover our true selves!" Love that. Amen to it. 

-Sister Beeson

Saying Goodbye to my dear friends in Eau Claire:(

September 8

Happy Monday! I'm so happy to read your lives every week! I'm so happy you're keeping in contact with my loved ones in Eau Claire... I really do miss them a ton. 

 

Well... I am with Sister Smith (a former comp of Sister Szabo as well:)) and she is great!

 

Well. This week has been NUTS. I really will probably just give you a bullet pointed summary:

 

*Left Eau Claire

 

*Rode down to transfers with Sister Ballif

 

*I'm surrounded by Liberians! I am over 4 sister groups: YSA Sisters, Spanish Speaking Sisters, Hmong Speaking, and Karen Speaking...  I'm really excited, I know most of them, and they're all adorable. I'm really happy!

 

*Sister Smith is a runner. So... yeah. I run. Every morning. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. I breathe like a fat kid though so...

 

*Elder Christofferson's son is my Ward Mission Leader! So that's unique... and even cooler, Brother Christofferson was going to bless his new born baby for Sunday's meeting, so you KNOW who came! Elder Christofferson! It was super cool. We called soooo many people (random people we didn't even know) and said "One of the Lord's 12 Apostles is coming to our service!!!" And sooo many people came! It was a miracle!!! Elder Christofferson approached us personally after sacrament meeting, and asked where we were from... and uh I can't remember hardly anything because I was so nervous.. BUT. He was born in the AF hospital! CAVEMAN CHRISTOFFERSON! And then he patted my shoulder 3 times, I died.

 

*I'm in the citiesss. It is super sketch here, but we're being safe, I promise. Oh, and Sister Louie (my 'not missionary' companion who ended up going to mexico) her uncle who I met is now in my ward! So it was super cool to see him and his family again! All these connections. Crazy.

 

Well, I love you all and I miss you too! Have a week filled with MIRACLES!

xoxoxo

Sister Beeson

 

Hello! 

Sounds like you had a great week! This email is gonna be extremely short, because a member offered to color my hair... YES. Oh, and... because I have packing to do.

Yep, after a wonderful 11 months, I'm headed out of Eau Clarie! WHAT?!?!?!? 

Again, it's pretty rare to leave your trainee, usually you do the whole 2 transfers with them, but... nope! Elder Hardy, the Elder I've been serving with for 8 months is leaving his trainee too! And we are going to the same place... what the heck!! He is going to be a Zone Leader in the St Paul Zone, and President Forbes called me last night telling me I'm assigned to be a Sister Training Leader!!! AHHHHHH. I'm stressing... a lot. I didn't sleep a wink last night, and I'm just nauseous and... Sister Anderl and I had a good cry. She is terrified. I am too. It's hitting me how IN LOVE I am with Eau Claire now that I'm leaving... jk, I knew that before. :) But.... yeah. Nuts. So, that's the update. I'll be in New Brighton with Sister S.

I love you all and I'm so happy you're doing well! GO TO MOLLY SZABO'S HOMECOMING FOR ME! She gets home Wednesday, and then... I'll be home in 2 transfers. Gross. See ya later!

xoxoxo

-Sister Beeson

August 25, 2014

Hi hi hi! School is starting already? Man! That is nuts.Everyone looks soooo much older! I am dying that Buzz is a senior and Claire is a sophomore!!! WHAT? I wish school would start up already over here.. we need people to contact on campus! It'll start up soon though in a couple weeks. 

I honestly don't have a huge update this week. It was a VERY humbling week for Sister A and I. Very very. We faced a ton of rejection, no one wanted to talk to us for a huge chunk of the week including many many of our appointments falling through, one of our progressing families met with us only once, and the other not at all,  Sister A got really sick, and no one came to church, it was just ROUGH! But. It was ok, because I learned some cool things from it. 

I keep a prayer journal and write in it nightly. I write thoughts or ideas that come to my head as I'm praying, and this week particularly, Heavenly Father helped me see that all these rotten things were happening this week because He wanted me to learn/better apply Christlike attributes. 

Jesus Christ experienced discouragement, rejection, hurt feelings, stress, a broken heart, and everything else my companion and I felt this week. Yet, Christ was miraculously still patient, charitable, humble, diligent and obedient. No one likes feeling (the above) feelings. And there are many ways of coping with those feelings. I'll admit, I was a little more bugged or hurt than I should have chosen to have been this week, but that's why day after day this week there was always another person to reject us, or another investigator calling to drop us, etc. Because... it is NOT easy to apply Christ's attributes. It takes work! I've been so humbled this week to understand in which ways the Savior would react to the day by day experiences we've had and then try to apply it myself. It was wonderfully difficult! 

Our companionship theme song for the week was: "Come Thou Fount" specifically the line: 

"Streams of mercy, never ceasing"

Heavenly Father is so patient with us. He wants us to be happy and for us to receive His mercy, even if we may not feel like we deserve it, and He will give it to us time and time again. What a BLESSING!

I'm super grateful for weeks like this, it's where I seem to grow the most, and understand my purpose and my Savior more fully. 

Since I'm a missionary, I'll leave you with a commitment this week. :)

We had a Zone Call this past week and it was about conversion. I liked it a lot so I want to share it with you and invite you do this yourself:

Read Omni 1:26

What does this mean to you?

A talk by an Apostle said this:

Pick one thing you know you should not be doing, write it down, and STOP doing it.

(do that now. :))

Pick on thing you know you should be doing, write it down, and START doing it.

I promise that if you do this, your relationship with Jesus Christ will AMPLIFY! It's a cool thing.

I love you all a lot! xoxo

-Sister Beeson

August 18th 2014

Happy Monday! It is great to hear from you, my stomach got a little queasy when you told me you got my travel plans... ALREADY?!

Mom,  Happy Birthday to the most beautiful, talented, hilarious, kind, strong, loving qwerky mom! You are so wonderful! I love you and miss you dearly.
I don't think I have thanked you enough for your example that has impacted me.  You are FORSURE my #1 role model!
When things get a little rough and tough over here, it is your strong testimony that pops into my head and has helped me stay out here just a day longer. I love you a lot for that.  I love you Mommy.
xoxox

Well, this week was wonderful. Pretty sure I gained 50 pounds on Monday.

We had a dinner appointment at 5 with some members and we were stuffed because it was their daughters birthday and so we had dinner AND dessert, and then at 7, our Muslim friend, I invited us over for food (we were originally gonna go over to eat with them when they broke their fast, but we never got the chance) so... they started us off with dried dates and date cookies, and then the dinner was ready and they had all these funky meats, and rice, and french fries, and salads and hummus and pita bread and cheese wrap things, and Sister Anderl and I were already full... :/ ahh... but we put a little on our plates, and of course they were like, "More! More! Go get more! Would you like this? or that?" noooooooooooooo. I really wouldn't. But... I didn't want to be rude. I was dying. I was just eating really reallyyyyyyyyyyyy slow. And then we were about to leave and they were like, "Wait, we have one more thing for you." And they pulled out this MASSIVE chocolate icecream cake that was bigger than my face. (And my face is BIG. :(  ) I literally couldn't walk after we left. We were DEAD. So. That was NO BUENO. I wanted to barf SO bad, but you know me, I hate barfing, so... I just dealt with a big stomach ache :( 

On Andy's birthday, it was just a really hard day. And funny thing is, is that I remember Andy's birthday perfectly from last year too. I was with Sister Szabo and it was probably one of the top 3 most discouraging days on my mission, it was the first time we both cried in front of each other. Annnnnd... guess what? Same thing with Sister Anderl. Haha... So, Andy, your birthday hasn't given me the best of luck on my mission! But it's ok. I'm glad you had a good day!:)

We had the chance to take the elders appointment for them the other day. We went to a trailer/mobile home of their recent converts, and it was tiny. 2 bedrooms. 8 humans. 13 animals. Mmm. It was a GOOD time. They had psycho cats though... one of their cats, Nugget, has a history of jumping onto elders heads and licking their hair, or par-core-ing onto a moving ceiling fan. Yeah, these animals liked us... I was dying. ICK!!! It was VERY difficult to teach.. haha

Then we drove to Minnesota AGAIN for new missionary training, and it went well! We had an appointment that evening with J, some guy we met, and... we just felt better about having the elders teach him, so we asked the elders if they could take our appointment, and then they started acting all weird and hiding their smiles... they said:

"Umm... our stomaches kind of hurt... so we will probably just go straight home..."

"What happened...?"

Then Elder H pulls up his suit sleeve and reveals a hospital bracelet... hahaha

"WHAT HAPPENED?!"

Well... here's the story, briefly.... something Buzz would totally do:

At district meeting, the elders brought a BAG full of thai peppers... and some of the elders were just popping them in like candy, and Elder Hardy  just starts CRYING because of the heat, he is shoving slices of bread into his mouth and squirting honey from the tube into his mouth, and as he is doing this, another elder says:

"You're gonna die tonight if you can't even handle a thai pepper!"

They were going to eat ghost peppers that night.

Well, supposedly they did, and Elder Hardy was dying, and his mouth and body were just on fire, he put everything/anything into his mouth that he could find: honey, bread, watermelon, milk, etc. and then he said his hands were going numb (pretty sure a ghost pepper is against the Word of Wisdom.)

Well, at like 2 am his stomach was WRECKED and he thought he had an ulcer, so he woke up the elders he was on exchanges with, got a blessing, and then afterward still felt horrible. They took him to the hospital at 2 am! The doctors gave him some sort of numbing meds and before they released him they said:

"The problem with your stomach wasn't caused by the ghost pepper, it was from some rotten watermelon you ate."

HA! And sure enough, the elders looked at the watermelon the next day and saw some things growing on it... hahah nastyyyy. 

Ok, but on the more spiritual side....

Sister Anderl and I got a referral from some members that we went to see right away, and the street that this referral lived at was like... hmm... a fairy tale street. It was so quiet, and green, and ADORABLE. We knocked on all of these houses, met a nice fellow who lived at a Snow White looking cottage, and over all it was just empty... we didn't even get in contact with the referral person. So, we knocked on the last house of that street, and again, no answer. We started walking back to our car when suddenly we hear a sweet soft voice call out:

"Excuse me! Did you knock on my door?"

we turned around and it was this beautiful woman from India. 

"Yeah, we did!"

"Well.... did you want to come in?"

UH YES, LADY. 

"We'd love to!" 

She didn't even ask who we were! She introduced herself as A, and walked us into her home, we met her white husband B, and sat in their beautiful home. We started chatting a little bit about religion and such, A being Catholic, and B non-denominational. They were asking ALL the right questions though:

"Wouldn't God just have one true church?"

"The Bible just has way too many interpretations, it's hard to know what to believe..."

You know, just the golden investigator questions.

And then it perfectly led into the opportunity to share Joseph Smith's first vision... after it was recited, we paused in silence for a second, and then asked how they felt.

A said, "The clock stopped. Everything stood still." 

UM, best description of the Spirit EVER. The Spirit was really strong.

We continued talking, and introduced the Book of Mormon, and A was very interested (she being an English professor ) and B was a little skeptical. But... we asked them what questions they've had on their mind about religion and we'd leave them a place to read.

A wanted to know how to have better faith and trust in God, gave her Alma 32

B struggles with life after death, gave him Alma 40. It was the saddest thing. He said to us:

"All of my siblings tell me that everything is ok because even though mom and dad have passed away, they are looking out for us... and that is not true. They don't even know each other in Heaven." then he looks at A and says, "I won't know you when I die... the only relationship I'll have when I pass away is with God. I won't know my kids or my friends, none of that will be in my memory." 

WHAT? B NO. It broke my heart! Mainly to see A's face as Blooked her in the eyes and told her that! 

"B,  then why do you think God would even put us into families in the first place if we weren't meant to have a relationship after this life?"

He thought... and then completely danced around his words, eventually leading to "the Bible doesn't say we will!" ... well, it doesn't say we won't either.

It was sad, so he HARD CORE needs the P of S. We're so excited to go back and see them!!!

Sorry how MASSIVE this email is. I'll quit, but hey. I love you all. I'm so grateful for my testimony of how the Gospel BLESSES FAMILIES. I'm very very sure of that. It amazes me. Have a super week, I'll be praying for you! (esp Aunt Julynn!!)

<3 Sister Beeson