Baptism Every Week

Hello all!  I have lots to tell you about my time out here, and I will probably forget lots of it. I hope you enjoy the details I remember to provide!

Xane being introduced to horses. Such a city boy!

First I must say that being in this area with a different companion has been interesting.  There are many things that Elder Cooper and I don't see eye to eye, and there have been a few times that have gotten me a little frustrated.  Thankfully, I am learning a ton from the experience, and growing a lot as it happens.  I love how the Lord can help strengthen us and help us become better if we let Him.

Elder Cooper, Tobi and Elder Beckstead

Yesterday we had a baptism for Tobi!  His name is actually Jose Carlos Parra Zamudio.  He goes by a name that isn't even found in his real name (I get along with him really well!). Anyway, it was a fantastic service, and both Sarah (who we met this week) and Jordan were able to attend.  The Spirit is so strong and undeniable when you see someone make the big step of baptism to come closer to Christ. I think Jordan even had some tears. YES! We are excited to see how our next meeting goes with her.

Let me tell you a little about the miracle investigator named Sarah.  We found her as we went from one family home evening activity to another.  Elder Cooper "just chose" a ward and when we arrived, Alisha (her fellowshipper) knocked on our window asking why we were there.  We responded that we were just going from ward to ward.  She told us to come meet her nonmember friend!  Alisha has been off her mission for two years, and together we have met with Sarah 3 times this week.  She is reading, praying and progressing pretty well.  Also, she is praying to know if she should be baptized on the 13!  All in all, she's great!

Elder Beckstead taking a rest on a cool chair!

This week has been really slow for finding.  We have pretty much contacted everyone on the lists of less-active members that the wards have given us so far, so we are running out of things to do.  Tracting would be interesting because every other house would be a member, and of those nonmember homes, less than half would be young single adults.  We also don't have any unbaptized lists for our wards because you have to request your records to be sent to the YSA ward for them to transfer. Pray for us to find useful stuff to do this next week.

Along with those prayers, here is a list of investigators and nonmembers that could use a prayer or ten: Caitlyn Moran, Jordan Little, Sarah Finch, Morgan Espinoza, Mina Went, Tobi Zamudio, Brooke, Jeff, James Hoang, Sarah Gouldby, Taylor Olsen, Igore Gorgeveski, Trista Riley, Thea Iverson, Emily Randquist, Troy Miller, Aubree Leyvas, Anthony, Karen Koy, and Alejandro.

Thanks all! Love you tons.

Elder Beckstead

What a Week of Tranfers :)

Hello everyone!

Holy smokes this has been a crazy week.  So many things have happened.  I guess I will just start at the beginning and try and get through it all.

Monday we had a fantastic lesson with Caitlyn.  We got everything squared away, and even had her practice with the person baptizing her and everything, we left super excited.  Then, throughout the week, things fell apart.  We got a call from her step-dad telling us she wasn't ready. Then, she didn't come to the baptismal interview on Wednesday and brought up a couple concerns.  We set up an appointment for Friday to resolve them, and she didn't come to that either.  As we called her we never got in contact with her either, and she is still off the grid as of now.  To make things eve worse, her ward and fellowshippers all went on the super activity and left her behind.  She didn't end up getting baptized, and she really needs some prayers.  She knows it is true, and wants to get baptized eventually.  We just need to meet her and help her realize you don't have to be perfect to be baptized.

Wednesday was transfer day, and it was interesting.  We packed up all our stuff and headed down to the mission home to see who our new companions would be.  Elder Steiner ended up getting transferred out to be my zone leader here in Layton.  His prayers were totally answered.  I got a new companion named Elder Cooper.  He is also the district leader for this district.  He is a very different missionary from Elder Steiner, but we get along very well together.  One interesting aspect about him that I am still getting used to is the fact he talks very little in lessons.  He just came from the Swahili branch here in Salt Lake where he used translators to teach, and had to keep things extra, super simple.  He was there for a while and is now trying to relearn how to teach "white people."  We also moved apartments to this great place the sisters used to live in.  It is way big and clean, and has everything we need, so i like it a lot.  Another set of Elders is also living with us for the time being.  Elder Bickley and Elder Rackliff.  Elder Rackliff came out the same time as me.  The address is 665N 400W #1Kaysville, UT 84037.

This week we had a ton of people cancel lessons with us (such as Caitlyn twice, Sean rescheduled twice, etc.)  so we just did a lot of contacting.  That was fun because we don't have any good maps (we even when to a map store and they didn't have one useful for us) and Elder Steiner took the GPS.  We got lost often.  Thankfully, dinner appointments were very helpful over the phone to help guide us, as were our bishops.

We did have the weirdest lesson I have had with this young lady named Jordan.  She was super nervous, and had apparently taken some red bull before hand.  That made her super off the wall, and we decided she had the attention span of a goldfish. She also giggled a lot every time it got a little quiet. We tried to teach the restoration, but also covered about half of the gospel of Christ, as well as the spirit world and resurrection of the plan of salvation.  It was weird.

Tobi is still on date for next week, although there are a few bumps to overcome.  We are praying hard to see what to do, and we could use your prayers as well.  Oh, and if you didn't get to see the broadcast Sunday, go online, watch it, then help the missionaries in your area.  We love it when the members help us, because we are able to use our time to actually help a lot.

Love you all.  Thank you for your prayers!

Elder Beckstead

Troy & Tobi. Last District Meeting Together in Layton

Hello all!

This week we had some interesting things happen, and we definitely saw the adversary working hard to fight us and stop people from being baptized.  This mainly happened with two of our investigators, Troy and Tobi.  I'll tell you about Troy first.

So, Troy was originally on date for last Saturday (8 June) but we decided to push things back a week because the we felt we were going to fast, and he wasn't picking it up completely.  Well, Satan caught a hold of that delay and did everything he could to continue to delay it.  First of all, we wasn't at church last week and we couldn't get in contact with him.  He wasn't responding to texts or calls, and basically seemed like he had fallen off the face of the planet.  On Tuesday, I was on exchanges because Elder Steiner had a leadership training meeting (I'll talk more about that interesting experience later).  He was praying for me the entire time to be able to get in contact with Troy, and his prayer was answered.  I was able to call him and set up an apointment to meet with him the next day, as well as a baptismal interview time, and finally, we also talked about the time of his baptism. it was great.

When we met with him on Wednesday, we found out that his work had completely changed his schedule to graveyard: 4:00 PM ~ 3:00 AM, and that is why he had been unable to meet with us.  He still wanted to get baptized, but he told us that he wanted to push it back another week.  his reason was fine, to be baptized for himself and not his girlfriend, but it was not the spirit this time.  We asked him about his belief in God, the Book of Mormon, and the truthfulness of the church.  As he responded yes, we assured him we should move forward.  Then, with true inspiration guiding us, we had him kneel down and pray with us about what he should do. After a the prayer and a pause we asked how he felt.  "Good," was his reply.  Elder Steiner said he felt good, I said I felt great and so did our member, and Troy said, "Okay, lets do it Saturday."  It was so awesome.

Troy's baptism
Elder Steiner, Troy & Elder Beckstead

Then, we couldn't reserve the church because the guy who gave reservations wouldn't contact the ward mission leader back.  We just did it anyway.  Also, Troy was actually late to his own baptism, and to top it off, the person baptizing had never done it before.  That sure made it interesting. nonetheless, the spirit was there as strong as ever, and it was incredible.

The adversary worked on Tobi in a different way.  We were led to him by the Nelson family, and they opened their home to have the lessons for him, that is, until Sunday.  What happened was that one of the Nelson boys did something very wrong and got arrested.  This made the daughter, also Tobi's girlfriend, freak out and just leave.  With all the commotion, the Nelson family called us and told us that there would not be any more lessons in their home.  Tobi didn't make it to church and we so far have been unable to contact him.  We know he can and will be strong, but we have a lot of opposition at the moment.  Hopefully we can get back into contact with him very soon.

This week was our last meeting together as a district, and that was interesting.  One of the Sisters goes home on Monday, so we celebrated with her.  She cried a lot.  I totally understand why.  I'm really going to miss this place and all the wonderful people I have taught and worked with.

Anyway, I hope you all are doing great!  I invite you to look for blessings the spirit gives you this week and share them.  I also ask that you pray for our mission to reach our goal of 3500 baptisms this year and do all you can to help whatever missionaries are in your area.  We really have a much better time when you help us.  I promise.

Xane's awesome sandwich
At least he's not starving!

Love you guys!

Elder Beckstead

Awesome Layton Sunset

Great Week With Baptism & Miracles

Hello all!

This week has been yet again amazing.  I absolutely love being a missionary.

Beautiful sunset see from our apartment

Monday was pretty interesting.  P-Day was fun, as we had a zone basketball get together.  Being tall sure is an advantage there.  Afterwards was even better though.  We went on splits so that i could go down to temple square and my companion could teach and finalize things with Aubree.  Things went well with him, and great with me.  We were planning to do the tour for an investigator named Brooke along with her friend Rachel who is coming back to church.  Brooke had something come up and cancelled on us which totally threw a wrench into our plans, but Rachel brought her less-active sister instead.  We still taught the restoration by using the statues (we being myself and some temple square sisters) before going in and watching the God's Plan video.  That video is amazing and makes pretty much everyone cry the first time they see it.  We were able to commit both Rachel and her sister to try and get to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, and eventually be worthy to be sealed there.  It was incredible.

Tuesday also went well, although it was a lot less exciting.  We visited one of Elder Steiner's recent converts from the area who had the middle lobe of his right lung removed last week.  He was actually doing great, and they are going to have us over for dinner tonight with a YSA (less-active or maybe non-member).  I did go on exchanges with Elder Jackman so that Elder Steiner and Elder Mbawa could teach a young lady they both knew previously.  That lesson fell through so that wasn't good, but what can we do except keep trying.

Wednesday was just a lot of contacting less-active members most of whom are not home in the afternoon.  The evening got better with another trip down to temple square, this time with Caleb.  We showed him the temple exhibit where you get to see all the rooms inside the temple.  It was perfect for him.  He has really been going through a hard time: his girlfriend dumped him, his car got impounded, a lot of his friends have left him, and other such nonsense.  Thankfully, he has been buoyed up by the spirit and can see that coming back to church has really helped him.  We are trying to help him keep that attitude.

District meeting was great as usual on Thursday.  We have so many good laughs and times together, and our District Leader does a fine job of bringing the spirit into each part of the meeting.  It makes us look forward to them each week.

Friday was amazing.  Aubree was finally baptized and what a baptism it was.  To begin, we had a miscommunication and there were no baptismal clothes for her.  Our assistant ward mission leader ended up just bringing his mothers temple dress, which we made work.  Next, there were so many people there we couldn't fit into the Relief Society room, so we moved everyone over into the chapel. Elder Steiner conducted and he loved it.  The baptism and confirmation were both done and it was truly amazing.  While Aubree changed into dry clothes, Elder Steiner and I taught the restoration to everyone there, and invited them all to be baptized.  That really helped keep the spirit there.  A huge miracle ended up happening because of this baptism.  Another set of Elders has been working with this exchange student from Germany and they had stalled.  She said she knew it was true but that she might still want to break the word of wisdom and other things.  The district leader was on exchanges with them and helped them get her to the baptism.  After it was over, she came up to him and asked, "How long would it take for me to get registered for baptism?"  They did the interview right then and there!

Saturday was nice because more of our young single adults were home when we went to go see them.  Unfortunately no referrals came out of it, but one of the young ladies we went to see met with the bishop yesterday, so we might have made a difference there.

Sunday was great as usual.  One of the Young ladies we were teaching (Caitlyn) was transferred to the bountiful missionaries where she lived.  It didn't go as well as we though and she was super discouraged, so much so that she fell off date and told us she with meet with us again in a few weeks.  We scrambled forces and with the help of some of her friends in one of our wards helped her get to church.  We sat by her and just helped her be more positive.  Later that night we taught her a great lesson and now she is totally ready to go.  She is even back on date for the 22 of June!  The spirit really worked on her, and we are going to get permission to baptize her in our ward where her fellowship is.

We also finally had our first lesson with Toby.  He is an amazingly ready young man and the lesson went great.  His girlfriend (very less-active) was also there, but didn't take to it nearly as well.  It is pretty funny because when we committed them both to read the Book of Mormon she was like "maybe, sure" and he was like "Yes!" Then he said, 'We'll read it together!" That totally made my day.  He also accepted a baptismal date for the 29 of June.  We are so excited for him, and hopefully he will be able to get his girlfriend as excited about it as he is.

That sums up my great week!  Here are investigators and Less actives that I am working with that would use prayers:
Troy, Caitlyn, Toby, Alejandro, Brooke, Jeff, James, Karen, Morgan, Anthony, Taylor, Aubree, Emily, Thea, Rachel, Caleb, Jacqulyn, Bridget, Tara

Thanks everyone! You are all loved

Elder Beckstead

Update for this week

So I'll just begin at last week

We had a great P-Day and got to go to this place that hooked us up with a free afternoon of play called get-air.  It is similar to jump-on-it or power tumbling.  Anyway, I was able to do my first backflip on a tramp, which was scary, but fun.  We had to leave early to go to a lesson with some less-actives who were also feeding us a barbeque.  It ended up being a night full of surprises and miracles.

So first, the food was great.  The best part was the watermelon with lime.  You have to try it because it is amazing.  Anyway, we had Caleb, Rachel, and a newcomer Brooke there (Rachel's friend).  We taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As we got to baptism, I was inspired to ask if everyone there was baptized.  Brooke said no!  After that we started focusing on her, and it was quite the change up. We didn't learn it there but we found out afterward that Caleb and Rachel had also broken up.  Oops.  We did get through the lesson fine, and then they asked if we could go to temple square and get a tour.  We said absolutely, and saw it as the perfect opportunity to feel the spirit and invite Brooke to be baptized.  That is happening tonight, so I will let you know how that goes.

By Tuesday, we were completely walking.  We had parked our car because i think we had only 16 miles left.  It was a hard day because we had not appointments and just covered a ton of miles.  Plus, it was raining, and at one point hailing, so we were slogging through a bunch of water soaked socks and pants.  We did take umbrellas which helped some.  A miracle was that we were working in an area Elder Steiner was assigned to so we were able to stop by some of his recent converts and try to get referrals from them.  It also got us out of the rain for a bit.  It is super cool for him because he has three families in this area who are going to the temple in the next few months, so he will get to go with them.

Wednesday was interesting because we went on exchanges.  I got to go with Elder von Kampen again in his area while Elder Robinson (DL) was with my companion.  It was very different, and fun because my area overlaps his area and we were able to visit some of the less active singles when we had time.  My backpack was a great blessing because it help all the stuff I needed.  I have a picture of me ready to go back home from the other apartment.  It was fun, but very different, and I am definitely glad to be back in my own apartment.

Thursday we had a zone meeting which was great.  We were trained on going to ward councils and coordinating with the members in the area to get more referrals and work done.  My zone leaders are great, and they even gave us a ride to our appointment with Aubree after the meeting. She is doing super solid and is totally ready and excited for her baptism.  After the lesson we had another huge miracle happen.  So a couple weeks ago we happened to sit next to the only non-member present in one of our ward sacrament meetings without knowing he wasn't a member.  That was only pointed out to us after the fact. (His name is Anthony by the way.)  On Thursday as we walked, this nice man offered a ride and we accepted.  When we got in the car and told him we were the YSA missionaries he told us we should visit this man who lived with him named (thats right) Anthony!  We are going to have to get on that young man because the Lord is definitely paving the way for us.

Friday was our last day walking, and we were tired.  We had no success in the afternoon or evening.  We wouldn't have even had any lessons except these two guys came up to me and asked what our church believed.  Elder Steiner was actually in the restroom at the time so i have a quick 3 minute restoration and bore testimony of the Book of Mormon.  That was sure interesting, but fun.  Hopefully I planted a seed that can be harvested by another set of missionaries in their home stake. Dinner was interesting that day too because we ate with a returned mission president. He was super strict, but he sure had some fun spiritual experiences to share.

Saturday was awesome.  We had our car back, and we got in almost all the homes we contacted. In addition, all the of people were very nice and just needed some help coming back to church through fellowshipping.  We ended up eating dinner with a relief society president in one of our wards and we are super excited because that was is going to get fully behind us.  We even got a referral for a prospect that has a member boyfriend and has been coming to church.

Sunday was many meetings as usual.  I was able to go to my first ward council meeting, and the bishop there is ready to do anything he can to help us.  Then we were able to make it to four different wards: (two sacrament meeting and a priesthood and a sunday school).  That was long, but fun because of the testimony meetings.  It was sad for us though because we didn't see any of our investigators at church.  For dinner we had taro leaf and pork at this polynesian lady's house, and she tried to make us eat enough to feed a family of 6.  It was good, and I thought of Trevor and Grandpa as we ate.  The best part of the day was a fireside we got to go to.  Elder Christofferson was the main speaker and he spoke on good counsel. Troy was able to go with us and that was amazing.  His wife also spoke on hope, and together they were amazing.  Afterward we were able to shake their hands.  It was awesome.

This week people that could use prayers:
Aubree, Troy, Brooke, Rachel, Caleb, Jeff, James, Toby, The Nelson Family (especially Brielle--she went into the ER for a few hours on Saturday), Taylor, Anthony , Emily, Thea, Bridget, Tara and Jacqulyn.

Love you all!

Elder Beckstead

My Week + Pictures :)

Hey Mom, and Everyone else!

This week has been pretty nuts. So first of all, there are some people that could use some prayers.  Aubree is going to get baptized next week, and is super solid, but we think that the adversary will mount a big attack. Troy is also getting baptized, but I think he will need some help as well.  Thea is in the hospital so she definitely needs help.  James could always use some help and prayers to feel the spirit.  Anthony has been coming to church and we need some prayers so we can get ahold of him, and the same with Toby.  Thanks all!

So, on Tuesday, Elder Steiner and a bunch of other people had a training meeting to go to in Salt Lake.  So, I got to go on exchanges with Elder von Kampen and Elder Faulkner.  Elder Faulkner has the same type call as mine (he is from West Jordan), and Elder von Kampen is also very new. in fact, between the three of us, I think we had about 2 months of mission experience.  It was interesting to say for sure.  I got to bike around on a lousy bike, but it was fun.  We got to contact a lot of people who need to start coming back to church, and we did see a lot of them.  It is pretty cool to feel the spirit when you get three guys who are just super excited to do the work, but have no idea what we are doing.

That night was also crazy because we had a lesson with Aubree (which was great) on the opposite side of our area from another lesson with Troy.  We ended up being almost half an hour late, and it was bad.  Both lessons went great though, and the spirit was definitely there.  They are both getting excited to be baptized.

Wednesday was hard because all we did was contacting less active members.  The worst part was that we went all day, knocking on over 30 doors, and at least 8 of them had moved, and not a single one was home.  It was great to narrow down the list for the ward, but it wasn't a lot of fun.

Thursday we had a great district meeting.  Our district is such a hoot.  They are always making jokes, and the way we choose prayers is by using our fingers as guns, and whoever has the most guns pointed at them prays.  A little odd, but definitely fun.

Friday and Saturday got interesting because we are basically out of miles.  It is bad.  We walked all of those days, and will probably be walking the next few.  We didn't even have the miles to drive to the church to play basketball, so we just ran (yuck) and did our own workout. I give a special thanks to Trevor here for the jump rope.

Church was crazy as usual, and we had most of our investigators at church.  We also had an emergency speaking opportunity when we got about 10 seconds notice, at least I did.  Elder Steiner got to prepare while I spoke.  It was actually pretty fun, and a huge testimony builder because the spirit spoke to them, not me.

Pray for me to be able to get what we need to do on foot!

Love you guys a ton!

Elder Beckstead

P.S. I hope you guys can get the pictures! One is of me and my companion

 another of me and one of my WML after a color run activity

another of Emily and her baptizer with us

another of my apartment

and one each of Elder Faulkner

 and Elder von Kampen.

  Also one more with Elder Jackman and Elder Mbawa

Running right out of the gate

Xane arrived at the Salt Lake mission home around 8am May 8th. There were 24 other missionaries new to the mission that same day, so it was a beehive of activity. We stayed long enough to see him put on his missionary badge and then we hugged and kissed him goodbye. The adventure has started!

We received an email from the mission president saying how they looked forward to working with Xane. Here is a picture:

President & Sister Winn and Xane (1st day)

We did get to talk to him on Mother's Day and he sounded great. He is excited to be working hard and to learn the in's and out's of being a missionary.

Here is the first letter he emailed home:

Dear Everyone,

So I am stationed up here in Layton/Kaysville/Fruit heights and I am loving it.  I cover so much area because my companion (Elder Steiner) and I cover the Young Single adult Stake as our area.  It is very exciting, and there is a ton of work too be done here.

I will tell you a little bit more about my companion.  He is from Texas, although he was born in North Ogden, and went to two years of school at Weber State before his mission.  He is about 5'5" and reminds me quite a bit of my old roommate Graig. He has a bunch of experience training (I am actually his fourth son) and has been out for 20 months. The best part about him is that he is a worker.  He loves to just go, go, go, and with me as a companion that is exactly what we are going to do.  In fact, he has worn out a few of his companions pushing so hard, so he is just the man for me.  I'm glad that I had the faith to believe President Webb when he said not to worry, and Elder Steiner is an answer to prayer.

Elder Steiner and Xane
Not much of a height difference :)

I am living in this quaint little apartment with another set of Elders, despite the fact that it is really only barely big enough for two people.  In fact, the other Elders are kind enough to let Elder Steiner and myself have the beds, while one sleeps on a couch and the other sleeps on a love seat out in the living room.  After sleeping on our hard mattresses lying on the floor, I am starting to understand why.  Although it is cramped and there is not nearly enough desk space to go around, we get by.  Showering also has turned out to be a little interesting (I have an average time of about 5 minutes in the bathroom), but again, we work it out.

Elder Steiner and I were white washed into the area, meaning that we were both new and didn't know any of the contacts, investigators, leadership, or anything.  However, despite that, the Lord has really blessed us so far, and provided many miracles in our behalf.  We currently have two super solid young ladies on date for baptism, Emily and Aubree, one this next Saturday!  Emily is an incredible young lady and her sister is a recent convert with her mission papers in.  Together they make quite the pair, and have an immense amount of faith and trust in the Lord. I am so excited for her.  We will be meeting Aubree tomorrow.

We have a couple investigators that we have met, who are all great.  One named Caitlyn, wouldn't meet with the missionaries for two months because she didn't want to be pushed into getting baptized.  She wanted to investigate the church at her own pace, and had a tentative date for baptism set for October.  The sisters met with her once, and that date moved up to August.  After we met with her, she was thinking the end of June.  I really hope we can impress what a blessing it is to have the holy ghost and help her receive those blessings as soon as possible.

I have to give a shout out to all the people who have helped me prepare for my mission.  Elder Steiner has been impressed with my knowledge, and the experience you all helped me gain has been a huge help as I meet and teach new people.  All those mission prep classes, All Stars teaching experiences, and Sunday School lessons have really helped my confidence in talking and explaining concepts to complete strangers who have become loved friends.  I promise that the preparation will be a great advantage to all you priests and young men who are getting ready to go.

I wish I could show you a picture of my companion, but I can't get the pictures off my camera (My computer doesn't have an SD reader, and my cord is packed deep in the recesses of the suitcase I have been living out of).  I suggest you go to the blog because I'm sure Sister Winn took some.  Ask my mother for the address for that. 

Welcome to the mission field Elder!

Thanks again for all your support!

Elder Beckstead