I have waited a really long time to be able to say that my sweet baby gets to come in this year, I don't care that it will be towards the end of the year, it is still THIS YEAR!! Yeah!! I know that it has been forever since my last update, not a lot has changed. He is still with his same companion, Elder Burris and is still a ZL in Phoenix. In our email today he said that at the end of this transfer (another 6 weeks) they will have been companions for nine months. Considering he has been out for 15 months, give or take a few days, it seems really odd that they have been companions for over half of his mission. They seem to work really well together and get a lot done, so I guess President Beck's thought is, why mess with something that works! He talked a little about the big storm that has hit Arizona, and said it was over done. It was bad, but not the end of the world that everyone was making it out to be. He said that they had fun tracting and driving in the rain. It was like he was mudding again. The washes are full and they had to shut down the road into Flagstaff and that they were hauling snow out of there because they had no where to put it. He is crazy busy with month and year end reports. Here is an excerpt from one of his email of January 4th:
"I learned a lot this week about Growth. It always comes. These are things that I have seen before because of wrestling, and times when I am struggling. The Lord does something cool. He pushes you to your limit and then wants to see if you are willing to trust in Him. So he puts a little more to do then when he does it he just POURS out the blessings. Here is an example. This week we had to do over 50 hours of stake reports and other things. We really had no time for tracting. and really were struggling finding people. All of our members kept bailing on us for lessons so things were getting very frustrating and down to the line. We had to set the standard of what to do. Well this all happened through out the week, actually rather depressing, knowing the Lord wanted us to grow. We just pushed looking forward to the blessing having no clue where or when they would come. We knew they would come because of the scripture in the doctrine and covenants. (D&C 130:29) well we found them. Our meeting with the stake on Sunday was extremely good. They actually taught themselves and we also learned all about how to better work with ward and stake leaders. Then we went to our family ward and low and behold someone just shows up that is an investigator that moved and came to church and wants to be taught. Then our next meeting with the YSA we had a member that brought a friend, who "couldn't deny the feelings he felt there" so we are just all pumped for the next week!!
This week he also talked about how they have been working on a training session regarding Chapter 13 of Preach My Gospel. He says. " with the help of the Spirit and the Lord being patient with us , we finally have a plan and presented it to the mission presidency. They loved it and it opened their eyes to how simple and correct it is. So they made a slide show out of it. We get to train the Glendale Stake Presidency and bishops on Thursday, and then the Phoenix North Stake on the 7th. I never would have thought that I would be training STAKE PRESIDENCY'S! It is amazing as I have worked with these wise men. They are so humble and they are willing to listen to a bunch of 20 year old punks telling them how this will work. It is amazing. The only way I can see it working is that it is true. The principles are true and the Lord wants us to help. How blessed we are."
Doesn't he look fabulous!! His companion Elder Burris on the left. President Beck is the gentleman in the back on the left -- that is all I know!!
I will wrap this up with a quote that he sent us today that he loves. "Your world is in your head, Get your head right and your heart will follow."
"I learned a lot this week about Growth. It always comes. These are things that I have seen before because of wrestling, and times when I am struggling. The Lord does something cool. He pushes you to your limit and then wants to see if you are willing to trust in Him. So he puts a little more to do then when he does it he just POURS out the blessings. Here is an example. This week we had to do over 50 hours of stake reports and other things. We really had no time for tracting. and really were struggling finding people. All of our members kept bailing on us for lessons so things were getting very frustrating and down to the line. We had to set the standard of what to do. Well this all happened through out the week, actually rather depressing, knowing the Lord wanted us to grow. We just pushed looking forward to the blessing having no clue where or when they would come. We knew they would come because of the scripture in the doctrine and covenants. (D&C 130:29) well we found them. Our meeting with the stake on Sunday was extremely good. They actually taught themselves and we also learned all about how to better work with ward and stake leaders. Then we went to our family ward and low and behold someone just shows up that is an investigator that moved and came to church and wants to be taught. Then our next meeting with the YSA we had a member that brought a friend, who "couldn't deny the feelings he felt there" so we are just all pumped for the next week!!
This week he also talked about how they have been working on a training session regarding Chapter 13 of Preach My Gospel. He says. " with the help of the Spirit and the Lord being patient with us , we finally have a plan and presented it to the mission presidency. They loved it and it opened their eyes to how simple and correct it is. So they made a slide show out of it. We get to train the Glendale Stake Presidency and bishops on Thursday, and then the Phoenix North Stake on the 7th. I never would have thought that I would be training STAKE PRESIDENCY'S! It is amazing as I have worked with these wise men. They are so humble and they are willing to listen to a bunch of 20 year old punks telling them how this will work. It is amazing. The only way I can see it working is that it is true. The principles are true and the Lord wants us to help. How blessed we are."
Doesn't he look fabulous!! His companion Elder Burris on the left. President Beck is the gentleman in the back on the left -- that is all I know!!I will wrap this up with a quote that he sent us today that he loves. "Your world is in your head, Get your head right and your heart will follow."
