that family that is sitting behind us in that picture where we are sitting on the ground, that is the family that came to church that week we were fasting that someone would cross our path at church, and that night we taught them the restoration, and they all committed to be baptized in 3 weeks!!!  soooo happy for them, yet so sad I won't be here for it! they are sooooo keen though. they know all the cook islanders in the ward, (because they are cook islandeese as well ( or cookies)) ;)

see you all next week!! (like in person this time ) haha

It was the best two years....

My Last letter Home

Dear all,

This week was miraculous. The Lord just provided the way this week and made things happen.

I went on exchanges with Elder Cordner this week up in the city. We taught this Malaysian man who apparently goes every morning to pray outside the temple. There have been a lot of missionaries who have tried to talk to him in the past, but he was never really interested. Anywho, one of the temple workers saw him one day and had a prompting to go talk to him, so he did, and this temple worker invited him to church, so Poon ( the Malaysian guy) came to church this last Sunday, and the member arranged a time for us to meet with him and Poon.

So we had the talk about it all right next to the baptismal font, and we said an opening prayer, and the very first words that came out of Poon's mouth were, "I've never been baptized before" so naturally we invited him to be baptized, and he said that he would like to. It was such a miracle!

We also had a super good meeting up in the city on Friday, and during that meeting Elder Torrie and I had an impression that we needed to follow a prompting that we both got about three weeks ago, and that prompting was to set a date to have a baptism on the 1st, and then when a few weeks went by and we didn't have anyone at church, we kind of subconsciously gave up on that goal. So we decided that we needed to keep going for that goal, so on Saturday we tried to make some inspired plans of who to see, and literally no one was home, that we planned to see, so we decided to knock a few doors, and I remembered that the street we were on used to have a member that lived there. So we knocked on that door, and there was this 18 year old guy who told us that it was is new year's resolution to be baptized this year!! What the?! And apparently his older sister is a member. So it was pretty nuts. We are going back to teach him on Wednesday!

We decided to pray and fast yesterday that someone would be put in our path at church. So we were at church yesterday and it was our ward conference, so there were heaps of people there. We had a huge feed at the end of it, and we saw a few unfamiliar faces so we talked to a few of them, and one of them looked like they were a member just visiting from another ward or something, but then they actually were friends of the members!

They weren't members so we got talking to them and we found out that they live in our area! It's a whole family! A mom and 5 girls!  What the miracle! They told us that they loved church and that they want to learn more! Honestly, that one just fell out of the sky!! So we are teaching the Tanga family on Tuesday. They are Cook islanders, and they are cool!

I'm so grateful to have been able to serve here. There are countless things I have learned from so many different sources, like my companions and my mission president, but mainly from my relationship with God and Christ. They are real. I've come to the honest conclusion that either this is the full package of truth and happiness, or that the full package doesn't exist. The greatest thing that has helped me to believe in and trust in God is actually the changes I've been able to see in myself and in others from following what he asks us to do. You naturally have greater hope and direction when you are clean from sin. I've been the happiest since I've been here than I have my whole life because gradually and steadily my focus has shifted from myself to others. The Atonement of Christ is real because I have felt the effects of it in my life. I plan on becoming more and more like him. This mission has been the greatest kick start of becoming one of his disiciples.

Love you all! Thank you for your love and letters and putting up with all of the emails that I probably haven't responded to. ;) 

Love Elder Beeson