week #87 Monday, Nov. 3, 2014

Hey everyone,

It's been a good week. So onday we got the flu shots that were required of us. Then we we went and visited the Bishop and his family. Had a great dinner. Then on Tuesday we went on exchanges, I was with Elder Cuartas, he's a great missionary. He's from Columbia, he works super hard and he sees a ton of miracles. 

We had a good english class Wednesday. Then we went up to Taizhong for MLC. It was great really fun to see all the other zone leaders and to learn from President. I also was able to renew my Temple Reccomend. Which means I've been endowed for over two years. That's weird. I definitely miss going to the temple. I think that'll be something I look forward to for sure. Anywho. Friday we went on exchanges w/ Xiaogang I got to go w/ Elder Tolman again. It was super fun. We had a ward activity, went to a funeral, but the craziest thing was I forgot my bag that had my razor, and all my other stuff. So I discovered I can grow a beard if I don't shave 1 day. Don't worry I shaved by the end of the day. But it was definitely weird. 

So something cool that happned is we were visiting one of our family investigators. And as we were there the peike went off on some tangent but the spirit was still there and then we felt prompted to invite the daughters to set a date to be baptized, and they did. They have a date as a family, and they are working together. It's super exciting. Just need to help them come to church and they should hit there date. 

I know this is God's work. I love my companion, I'm learning a ton, but I don't know how to explain it all. I know that God has provided a plan. That plan is his plan of salvation. I love you all. 

See ya next week

Elder Bean

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

week #80 Monday, Sept. 15, 2014

大家好！Hey everyone,

      This was a really good week. We went and did a bunch of BBQ's on Monday. I'm still super full from that. The first one was a member family. Super fun. Then on Monday night as we were contacting, we pass by a family who is having another bbq, we yell "happy mid-autumn festival". They then yelled "come eat with us". So we went over and ate with them, to find out it was a bunch of foreigners. We ate with some cambodians, indonesians, and a bunch of others. It was super crazy. We invited a few to come to church and they actually came!!!! 

     On Tuesday I went on exchanges with the elders in our four man. It was a super fun exchange, we contacted, taught lessons, and then we discussed how the district was doing. Wednesday, Thursday, both pretty good days.... Then on friday went on exchanges again. This exchange was pretty good. We had a lot of good lessons. The spirit was super strong. 

     Oh ya Wednesday, we had assistant exchanges. We were with Elder Sumsion. That was fun, that was my 4th exchange with him. It's fun serving around the same person for over half your mission.   I'm sorry, It seems like a lot happned but struggling to write a lot about it. Maybe next week I'll record to help have more stuff in it. 

     Something cool I studied this week though was in Ether 2. Brother of Jared is trying to fix the ships and make them able to bring them all the way to the promise land. He notices there are 3 main problems. 1）direction, they have no way to direct the boats 2)air, the ships would not have enough air 3)they would not have light. God answers the questions about direction and air. But then he leaves the light one up to Bro.of.Jared. This part puzzled me. Why is it he leaves the light one up to the Bro. of Jared? The air one could have been solved by Bro. of Jared...possibly, obviously the direction one needs the Lords approval. I have thought a bit more of that bit. I thought about how the Lord is the "light of the world", He is "the source of all light", it seems like it would be obvious that the Lord would be the center of this solution. But why is it something that the Lord didn't provide in the first instance. Then I thought about our investigator's, we show them the way (direction). But they can't be converted until they go and search for the "light". They must develop a desire, they must act on it, and then they will receive. I think this is a good comparison with the Bro. of Jared. He had to go and search for light, the Lord couldn't just give it to him. I'm not sure how close I am to that one. But maybe I found it...

Well that's all for now folks.

love you all,

 

Elder Brandon Bean

week #79 Monday, Sept. 8, 2014

Hey everyone,

     So this week was a blast. We went to Costco last week and bought a ton of food. So much food!  Muffins, m&m's, milk, pepper jack cheese, like we bought everything! But the best part is we bought a costco card!!! So as long as I'm able I'm going to go to costco for my groceries. Woot Woot! 

     Then we had another ZTM (zone training meeting) this last Tuesday. It seemed to go well. It's fun having Elder McCulloch here when he brings a great energy to almost every meeting he is in. Got the zone pumped up and everything. Then we went on exchanges with Donggang elders. Then after our lesson and while we were eating, I didn't feel so good. Turns out I got a nice bit of heat stroke. Felt dizzy, super hot, Elder Jiang (he's a taiwanese) asked me how I felt and was like "you probably have.....zhongshui" but he didn't know how to translate it, so we had a member look it up. And it means heat stroke. So we went and had to stop for a bit. Call apr, lay down, drink water. and eventually I overcame it and now I'm fine. Wooh!

      Wednesday we had the greatest english class ever. A student came in and since he was the only student we asked him what was going on in his life. He's 40 and lives with his parents (like most taiwanese) and was telling us lately they've been more and more angry because he's not married yet. So we had a english class on "How to date" soon more and more students came and we had a great discussion, on first dates, ensure a second date. It was the funniest/best english class we had. The entire class had a blast. 

      Thursday we had a long day. We were all over our area. In the morning we had to go to lingya and do a language evaluation. Afterwards we raced back to visit a LA (less active). (we skipped lunch to do so). We sat in a lesson for an hour where this man would not stop complaining and making excuses for why he was LA (even though we never even asked him about how he was enjoying the bible (he's been reading it so we just asked)) and he went on forever not listening to any advice we tried to give. We showed the mormon message "mountains to climb" and he ignored the entire time Elder Eyring was speaking and said "well it's different, I have all the trials in that video, so my life is worse" Finally after a long discussion he finally accepted for the ward to bring him the sacrement so he could retain his baptismal covenants. Then we raced over to visit an active member who served with Elder Mcculoch and I in Taizhong. She's a Sister Liu, her mother was just recently baptized. Afterwards went and had a feast at Costco because we hadn't eaten lunch yet. 

      Our investigator XuDx has been doing awesome lately. His biggest concern is the fact that his mom might oppose him getting baptized. But we might have overcame that concern on Friday.

      Well that's all for this week. All is great, loving the mission, loving my companion, loving my area and my investigators. 

 

with love, 

 

Elder Bean

week #78 Monday, Sept. 1, 2014

Hey everyone,

 

      It was a great week! Last week we went on the Ferris wheel on top of the Dream Mall. That was fun. Gotta see my area from a higher perspective. Then On Tuesday we went to help someone move. That was crazy, had to carry a fridge and a washer machine down 4 flights of stairs. Needless to say we were exhausted. Then we booked it to Zuoying to participate in their DTM (district training meeting). Good Dtm, then went on exchanges. We went out and taught a less active, had a good time, liaotianed a bit. Wednesday we had English class, good class, talked about writing stories, then had a great spiritual share watching the "Because of Him" video. If we had more non members in our class it would have been better....but still a good class. 

       Thursday we woke up bright and early to head up to Taichung. We got up at a whopping 4:30!!!I think I was so dead the entire train ride up. Slept most of the way. It was a great inspiring meeting as always. We discussed the importance of increasing our fundamentals. Being more effective. Came back, taught a great lesson to one of our amazing investigators. 

      One thing we've been trying to do is help our baptismal goals rollover. In order to do that better, we've decided to bring back project purification. We started it on Saturday and we've already seen a bunch of miracles from it. Yesterday a new investigator came to church and had a great time. He felt the spirit, we were able to help him realize what he was feeling and that if he recieved baptism, he would be able to feel that great feeling more. 

     This week was even better than the last. Love working with Elder Mcculoch. He's a great missionary, super creative, has a lot of fire. I love the area, excited for the next week, we have ZTM (zone training meeting), I'll try and have some good stories about it.

With love,

 

Elder Bean