Hello Everyone!
I want to start by telling you I love you all and I hope that you are all doing great! I really appreciate all the emails I have been receiving as of late. It has been amazing!
Alright, so this week has been just down straight awesome. I can't even explain how amazing it is to be a missionary. Every time I try to put it into words, I just can't find words great enough to show the joy and, well, incredible feelings that come. It is the most fantastic part of my life thus far, and I am so glad to be here. For all of you who have already had the chance to serve the Lord as I am, whether through a mission, marriage, or church service, fully applying yourself to be the Lord's hands, remember the feelings that you have about it and praise God for it. For all of you who are yet preparing to serve, look forward with excitement for it, and expect it to be beyond description. It is hard, harder than anything I have ever done. But every second is absolutely worth it.
The weather here has been pretty neat for me. I got to experience a few new things here, such as an electrical storm that seemed like a strobe light outside the window, as well as seeing a ton of lightening but hearing almost no thunder. Also, we had a pretty torrential (by normal Utah standards) downpour followed by a light misting type rain that is just annoying. Thankfully, things have cooled off a lot. I am so very grateful for that!
I must end this email with an incredible story that has cemented itself in my heart. On Wednesday, we had a zone training thing, and other meetings that took up most of the day, frustrating my companion and me as it overruled our plans. It was awesome to learn how we could be better missionaries and receive the revelation and guidance from the Lord through our Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders, but we had only the evening to try and put them into practice. The Lord blessed us for our desires to work with a young boy named Jeffrey. He is 6 years old and is a part of an active family we had dinner with. Our mission is teaching the lessons to our members to build their confidence in us, as well as help them know what a lesson will look like with their friends, and also help them know how they too can do missionary work. As we were over teaching Jeffrey's family, he was all over the place, as a six year old is prone to do. We tried to involve him, but we only had limited success. Sudden;y at the end of our lesson, Jeffrey got into a chair, listened to our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and Restoration of the Gospel attentively, and then bore a powerful testimony of his own. For part of his testimony he shared his favorite story from the Book of Mormon: The Brother of Jared seeing the Lord. He went into great detail, telling us how many stones there were, as well as exactly how many days it took the Jaradites to cross the ocean, then he finished with the words, "I know it is true, and I want to help others know it is true too, as a missionary like you." Wow! I had watery eyes, as did everyone else in the room. It was definitely one of the strongest witnesses I have have heard and felt of the Book of Mormon, ranking right up there with Elder Holland in General Conference. And to know that he looked up to Elder Eyre and me as the missionaries he wanted to be gave me the determination to never ever let him down, and be the very best example possible for this future powerful missionary.
I love you all! keep your spirits high as you are always trusting in the Lord!
Elder Beckstead
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