Dear family and friends, This week was smashing! (in a good way) :) We had a few pretty amazing experiences. I will tell you them!

On Wednesday we were biking the whole day and our area is basically all hills. We went to the S's house and we knocked on the door, and of course I had no idea what to expect because I have never met them before, but a little girl answers the door, and we are talking to her, but then she goes and gets her mom, and her mom comes, and then Elder Matautia starts asking all of these questions, so I started to assume it wasn't sister Stratford. So I catch on to that, and anywho this lady is actually from south Africa, and she just moved into the house. 

 

We then gave our little spiel on our purpose and stuff, then she told us to stop wasting our breath because she was already converted! hahaha geez that was funny though. So we asked her if there was anyone nearby that we wouldn't waste our breath on, so she pointed out a few neighbors, and then she said that there was a family from Papua New Guinea next door, so we decided we would knock on this lady's door. 

 

So we knock on the New Guinean's door, and this lady answered the door, and she had this terrified look on her face! haha it was because we were so sweaty and out of breath ( all the hills) so she invited us in and gave us some water! We were just talking then we went on to tell her about who we were and laying down our purpose, then she opened up and told us that a goal that her and her husband have this year is to look for something that will keep their family focused on the most important things! Then she started crying and said that she was so overwhelmed and happy that we knocked on her door because she has been praying for help, and she hasn't told anyone other than her husband! 

So we just took that opportunity to testify of the Saviour and how much hope and clarity he will bring to her life, and the spirit was sooooooooooooo strong!!!! :)) She said she wants us to come and teach her family as soon as we can!! The crazy thing is that she just so happened to be home that day only because her daughter was feeling a bit sick. She usually works like all day everyday! So we are suuuuuuuuper excited to go back this week. her name is Sandra.

On Friday we had MLC so I got to see Elder Miller! What a treat. The training there was really good, they emphasized the importance of inviting people to be baptized on the first lesson. We were a bit bummed that we didn't do that with S, but we were excited to do it to the next person we taught. 

 

So later that night, we went to the K's home, and earlier in the week we invited them to invite a friend over for dinner so we could have a lesson with them. So they set it up and we met M, their next door neighbor. She is from Jakarta Indonesia. She made some AMAZING spring rolls. 

Then we had a lesson. Before the lesson we laid down our purpose and made sure she knew that we were going to invite her to do a few things at the end of the lesson. So we had an object lesson on trials, and she understood it very well. We had a good discussion on how we can overcome hard times. 

Then M opened up and started crying said that she has had some rough times lately and that whenever she wants to pray she doesn't know what she can say. So we testified about prayer, and the lesson after that was all over the place. It wasn't confusing, but we covered quite a few topics, so normally in a lesson like this we would save baptism until the next lesson. But then Elder Matautia starting talking about commitments again, and he mentioned baptism, so I took the hint and invited her to be baptized! She said......................no! haha she was already baptized. But then we explained Authority in a very kind yet bold way, and she accepted to be baptized!! :) She even said that she wanted her three daughters to be baptized as well!! what the heck?!! soooo cool! it was such a good experience because the K's were bearing very powerful testimony as well. So we are going to see her on Friday again with a meal :)

There was one more time where tears were shed this week. It was actually when Elder Matautia was on exchanges with Elder Baca, and they contacted this former convict on the street, then he just started crying! I also starting crying at a lesson we had with a less active on Thursday! So many tears were shed this week :')

I love the work here in Merriwa! Good people here. There are so many just waiting for an invitation to change their lives, and it is so cool to see people putting the invitation to the test and trying things out! They become so much happier and blessed :)

I love you all ! choose the right!!

love, Elder Beeson