CHANGE FOR THE GOOD

Oye familia y amigos!

This week was a quiet non-eventful one so I don't have much to share. 

We lost communication with our awesome investigator this week but were able to contact her Sunday after church. Just had a busy week and we're going to visit her this week. The works hard, the sun is hot, but I LOVE IT! 

This week we did have Some Conference which I LOVED! President talked a LOT about repentance. President had many inspiring words and here's just one sentence that hit me hard, "Repentance is not a backup plan." When he said that I sat there pondering for 5 minutes when I realized I hadn't been paying attention. But it's such a powerful saying. Sometimes we put our repentance on hold or we don't worry too much about changing now but that is completely WRONG!  We should be repenting every moment we can. I also have learned that repentance is really just a change in our life. When we truly repent we are leaving behind our wrongdoings and changing for the better. President also said this about repentance,  "Repentance is an open change of mind so POWERFUL we change ourselves for the better." If we truly are repenting we will feel a powerful change within us. I challenge you all to do a self evaluation and see what you can do to CHANGE to be a little bit better. Trust me we all have something ;)

ELDER BEARDALL

Wet but Not Wet

Once again I survived another week under this blazing sun! Makes one miss the freezing winters in Utah. I feel like it never cools down here. On a side note, Shout-out to all the homies from Mexico to Panama because they celebrated independence from Spain on Saturday. On Wednesday we had a district service project. That's something cool we've planned out. Every area has a week were they have to look for a big service project so that the whole district can come and serve. There's 10 of us (5 areas) in the district so with many hands makes light work. We were able help a sister fix her roof because it got ruined during a rainstorm on Tuesday. 

It rained a ton on Tuesday like tropic rainstorm. Nothing like what happened to those in the Carolinas but strong. Actually cool thing about that is we were with an investigator when it started to pour rain. Not only did it pour rain but there were also a ton of lightning strikes. The thing is here in Honduras the lightning can strike 10 miles away and it sounds pretty close. So we were in this house and the lightning and thunder were picking up when out of nowhere I glance outside and BAM!! About 30ish meters away (I think that's about 90ish feet away) this flash of light strikes and man did it shake the whole world haha. I have never been so close in my entire life. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE! It had so much force that I naturally sat back in my chair. It was such a weird experience! But yeah that storm soaked the whole town! It was nice because that night it was nice and "chilly" (if you can even say that about Honduras) at night but the rest of the week was HORRID! Just imagine that you're walking midsummer day and the sun is just killer and then on top of that the ground feels like its boiling. It feels like it's raining but in reverse. We're trapped in a water bubble here in good ole Honduras. Thanks BBDALL for the weather report now back to you Elder Beardall for a report on the mission work of the week.

This week we were able to meet with our awesome investigator! So this week we were only able to meet with her once but it was such a great lesson!  I don't know if I've explained this before but she gets a little side tracked during the lessons so we've had to go simple so she can learn but when she listens she really does learn which is awesome and we love it! She had some doubts about prophets and Joseph Smith but we committed her to pray about it. It was super cool because she said that she always prays (apparently there's been lots of missionaries in the past that have visited her) and that she would pray to find out. We then read Moroni 10:4-5 with her and testified about the spirit and how He reveals things if we have faith and ask with a sincere heart. Man the spirit was super strong and it was interesting because there was a pause where no one talked but it didn't feel uncomfortable. Such a spiritual lesson! 

Elder Beardall

Officially a Paparazzi and Almost an Accident

This week was pretty good in many aspects. Here's a few updates and highlights of the week:

Today we went to Progreso to buy me a good ole device that capture images AKA A CAMERA!! Yeah I'm pretty pumped about it cuz now there's an excuse/motivation to take photos. This week will hopefully be better in that aspect.

A crazy experience that maybe will make you chuckle if you have a good imagination. So we got to the house one night after being filled to the brim at dinner and man did I have to use the bathroom. I went to the bathroom.... Oh I have to clarify something. The toilet paper rack thingy is about 4ish feet off the ground. Now back to the story. So I enter into the room that leads to the bathroom and I'm walking pretty fast cuz if not I might have an accident. As I enter the bathroom I see something move out of the corner of my eye. As I turn my head to see what it was, there chilling on my toilet paper is chilling a BIG....... BROWN....... HAIRY spider. Now this sucker was about the size of a grown mans hand.  As I see this monster about a foot (no exaggeration) away from my face I jump back about 6 feet and literally almost pooped my pants! Sadly I didn't have the patience to borrow comps camera before killing it because man did I have to go. Long story short, I have checked my bathroom before entering ever since.

On more of a missionary point we did have some success this week!! Thanks for the prayers! But yeah I feel a lot happier compared to the last couple of weeks. We found a lady that has been prepared by generations of missionaries. On our first lesson with her my comp and I felt the impression to invite her to be baptized AND SHE ACCEPTED!!! Man were we pumped. We haven't set a specific date with her but we are super excited because man have these past weeks been hard. A big lesson on the Lords timing and some good ole patience. I'm grateful for the lesson learned but even more grateful that we finally found somebody prepared and ready to receive the blessings of the gospel. Like I said good things to come right? ;)

This week we had interviews with President and he shared about the Christlike attributes that are briefly explained in Preach My Gospel. I chose Charity because I felt like it was the one that stood out to me. We read the scriptures in Moroni 7 about charity which was good. Later in the week I was reading the talk "His Spirit to Be with You" by President Eyring. In it it talked about people that minister well are those who qualify for the gift of the Holy Ghost and for the gift of Charity. As a missionary I am called to invite people to Christ and what better way than to not only minister but to learn how to do it well. I prayed to have the spirit with me and to be able to "qualify" for the gift of charity. That afternoon I felt more calm and felt differently for the people we went to visit. It was an interesting and spiritual experience which motivated me to ask more to "qualify" for the gift of charity and many more that are to be learned. I'm grateful to be a Missionary and for the opportunity I have to learn to have Charity for God's children here in Honduras!

Elder Beardall

No Longer a Teenager

Heyo!!!

So by reading the title you can probably guess what happened this week. That's right my day of birth was Friday. Thanks to all those who wished me Happy Birthday. Don't worry momma the members treated me like their own son here. The members bought cakes and made yummy meals #BLESSED But yeah I'm no longer a teenager....  Does that mean you could say I'm a man? ;) 

Wednesday morning we had a service project as a district. We chopped weeds that were almost as tall as me....  They had gone a good amount of time without a good ole trim. But as we were chopping away we came across a bees nest. We needed to cut where they had made there little nest (about the size of a tennis ball). A guy that was working nearby came and showed us how to get rid of it which is cut the branch and then freeze. Those bees were swarming like crazy bit we all froze and sure enough they calmed down and we got back to work. Well a little bit later I'm chopping away like a machine and all of a sudden I feel like someone stabbed a needle on my head where the top of my ear connects to my head.....  Sure enough one of those suckers had planted a good one on my ear. Boy did that hurt!! Long story short it got me good enough and now I've got some dope lines growing on my face but don't worry I've been I'm contact with the mission nurse and things are getting take care of.

Other than that it's been a calm week. The sun is baking us faster than a batch of cookies. We also are having problems finding new people to teach. My comp and I are planning on changing things around because we've been struggling for about a month now. Simple as that: if it's not working, FIX IT!  

My mom shared a quote with me last week that I'd like to share because it made me stop and think and it actually helped a lot! "Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are weeds that strangle the confidence" -Bruce Lee. When we stay positive we allow ourselves to have confidence which leads to success. Don't get your hopes up. Stay positive and put your trust in Him and everything will fall into place.

Elder Beardall