week #86 Monday, Oct. 27, 2014

Hey everyone,

 

     It's been another week and man time has flown. Elder Shelton and I have been getting along very well. He has such a great testimony in the plan of salvation. He's a great worker. And he's really good with people. 

     This week we have really been working hard with families. We have 2 families that we are working with a Shi family and a Wang family. They are both great. One huge thing is trying to help them progress as a family and not let anyone left behind. 

     Sadly though I can't think of anything really until Saturday. We had a cool experience where we decided we should start heading back to the chapel for the other elders baptism that night. But on the way back I got super lost. Which is weird because I've been here for 2 or 3 move calls now, but I got so lost. We wandered for 30 minutes still unsure of where we were. But then we pulled up to a stoplight in the middle of nowhere, and we saw him. We talked to him and we found out a ton about him. He was super curious about our church. Then I realized I knew exactly where we were, we were about 2 minutes away from the church. I asked if he'd like to come with us to see the baptism. He said he was willing. We brought him there and he said he felt really good, felt peaceful. It was an awesome miracle.
Sunday i woke up with a very swollen finger. I took some advil, but still wasn't quite working. So I called Sister blickenstaff. She had me pull out all of my medicine and I had one pill that would suffice. It was benedryl (spelling is prolly wrong). She warned me that it would definitely cause me to be drowsy, but it would help my finger. After discussing the pros and cons with my companion, I decided to take the pills. Slowly the finger was getting better, we got to church and then suddenly bam! I was out cold. I Slept through all 3 hours, my companion explained to everyone why I was sleeping through every meeting. So I hope no one was super angry. But now my finger is normal sized, so I can't complain.

     Well those are my two stories for the week. Sorry,  next week I'll do better.

 

Love,  Elder Bean

week # 85 Monday, Oct. 20, 2014

Hey everyone,

So some crazy news. My companion has moved yet again. I'm still in Qianzhen,. but now I have a new companion, Elder Shelton. He is one move call older than me. I'll get to that in a second. This week was a blast. We found a ton of new investigators. Helped a lot of our investigators set goals to be baptized. Our area is golden. Love Qianzhen. 

So first on Tuesday I went to Gangshan for exchanges. I got to see a lot of my old RC's (recent converts) or LA's (less actives) I worked with. It was really fun. Great area, definitely miss it. But I got to my area again,  and it was on fire. We found a brother and sister from english class. Had a great lessons with them. The older sister used to be atheist but then she went to church and felt it help her. But she never joined that church because she didn't feel prepared enough. Then she came to our english class and said she'd be willing to learn more with her brother. They both have set a goal to be baptized. 

We had another lesson with our favorite 11 yr old investigator and his family. As we made plans to visit him, we invited a sister from the ward to come and peike. She did and she got there before we did. So she started talking to S. He was a little bit sad because he failed his tests. But Sister Liu told him after our lesson she'd help him with his homework. After we taught him and left. She did just that. Then she also helped him read the scriptures. Him and his family were really touched by her act of kindness so he came to church this week and learned he really liked singing the hymns. 

Elder Gassman and I were having such a great week. all of our investigators were starting to progress. Sunday night we were doing planning, then I heard the phone ring. It was President Blickenstaff. I answered it and he asked to speak to Elder Gassman, well turns out he's going to be assistant. We were all pretty shocked. But he and I had a great run for 3 weeks. I'll miss having him around but I can call him whenever now. Plus I'll see him at MLC. yay. Anywho,  that was this week. Until next week. see ya all. love ya. bye bye

Elder Bean 

week # 84 Mon. Oct. 13, 2014

     Hello everyone! This week we had a ton of time sucked out of our schedule. Tuesday we had ZTM so we had to go to the stake center from morning until evening. Then Thursday we had interviews and we were at the chapel from 9 in the morning until 7 at night. Then we had a stake exercise activity on Friday. Then we had 10 hours worth of conference. Needless to say we had about 30 less hours to proselyte than usual.....  But shockingly we still did a lot. Monday we had an opportunity to meet with that Wang DX I mentioned last week. We had a great lesson, read Alma 32 with him and our members did a great job of fellowshiping him. 

     Tuesday we had a great ZTM, President Blickenstaff came, and it was good to have him there. We focused on faith. We also discussed the importance of having faith in your area. 

     Wednesday we had a great engilsh class, we talked about rodeos, demo derbies, cowboys, american history, and a bunch of other randomness, gotta love advanced class. Thursday we had interviews, and as zone leaders we were required to be there all day to do planner checks. I had fun though. It is always inspiring to see President Blickenstaff behind the scenes.

      Friday we had the stake activity and it was really fun because I had  an opportunity to see all of my Gangshan friends, they were all great. We had to leave quickly though because we had a lot to get done that day. Something I've learned is the power of personal studies. When we have good personal studies we can help others come to unto Christ. That Friday night we had a lot of miracles. We were able to help some of our investigator's really feel the spirit in a lesson. We committed several people to come to Conference. Then Conference was awesome as always. I was really excited for all the talks. It was sad to realize that it was my last conference as a missionary. But I know that President Monson and all of his apostles are called of God. I know this is God's church. I love you all, hope you have a good week.

Love,

 

Elder Bean