Transfer 6 Week 3 - November 18, 2014

How's you's doing? (that's how they say hello here!)

 

Well family! Another week has gone by super fast here once again! I can't even begin how fast time has flown but I am still lovin every minute of it! We were super busy this week. Me and my companion were trying to use our time to the fullest and we ended up having a lot of success. We had a lot of lessons- especially with people we found near the temle site and some really good service opportunities that have allowed us to grow.

 

But overall, what I want to share about this week was some opportunities teaching I have had with some less active members.

 

I love going into those LA's homes and talking to them about the gospel. They always have so many concerns. I have found that each time this has been my most difficult lessons I have ever had. Unlike new investigators that we are teaching, most of these LA individuals have somewhere down the road had a testimony of the gospel and have felt the spirit. But for some reason they turn away. Sometimes the reasons vary but they usually are the same in some way because they have been offended by someone, or they don't really want to keep all the commandments. But even though all of that happens somewhere they still no the church is true but they are just unwilling to change. Which to me is one of the most saddenin things to hear as a missionary.

 

One of the ladies that we have been working with for a couple weeks and even went to church on the 4th to just try it out, but then when we met back up with her the following tuesday she expressed how she still didn't want to stop smoking and drinkin so she just doesn't feel like religion is for her even though she knows our message is true. It is just so confusing and stresses me out to the max. I want them to just feel the Saviors love so bad and how important our message is but it is something we can force on them. So we ended up deciding with this one individual that we weren't going to see her anymore cuz she didn't want us to. So I asked her if we could call the following week and see how she was doing.

As I did I ended up asking her if she had the opportunity to read the Book of Mormon. She said that she didn't and asked us to give her a specific chapter to read. When we called back to see if she read it she invited us to come over again so that we could discuss it with her. ?? Make up your mind woma! But for reals, I am so glad, because it makes me feel that somewhere she still wants to come back and hopefully through scripture study she can find the strength she needs.

 

And finally. Yesterday we had the opportunity to stop by a less active lady that I have been trying to catch home for sometime, and even trying to contact through facebook. It was probably the most powerful lesson I think I have ever had with a LA. She expressed some real deep concerns, and my heart literally broke for her. From everything she told us she had such a powerful testimony at one point in her life and it felt so different from all the other LA lessons I have ever had.  My companion and I bore strong testimony of our message and that we are children of our Heavenly Father who loves us and that we know our message is true.

 

Through our experience with that lesson I have seen how great Satans influence is to try and have us turn away from everything that is good. Not only would he try and destroy families, or make people think it is okay to sin, but even greater he would have someone believe that God doesn't exist, that he doesn't love us, he isn't there for us or that we can't pray. It breaks my heart over and over again to think about what he does, but what is more powerful than that is the spirit of the Lord. I know that the spirit was there as we bore testimony and that is something that can not be denied. God is real. He loves us and though Satan will try to do everything he can to take that away from us we must build roots so deep that we can not be penitrated. Each day my testimony grows stronger, and as I read the scriptures my faith is only that much more confirmed of the truth and divinity of this message. I am so grateful to be out here and to share my testimony and experiences with others each day.

 

It is literally so good to be back you have no idea! I know that I worked hard before and that if I hadn't come back i would still have felt like I served the lord well, but being back now, I know that I just want to work that much harder even though sometimes i am super tired(part of the side effects) but im not going to stop. I hope to bear my testimony to everyone I have an opportunity to meet and to be an influence to change generations of lives!

 

Family I love you. This church is true. I pray for you all and I hope you are finding happiness wherever you may be.

 

Love Sister Beames

 

Btw. It is eggnog time! :) :) happy holidays!

 

Peace

Transfer 6 Week 2 - November 11, 2013

Hey family! 

This week has flown by so fast! Which is crazy because I guess that is how all of them go, but each week I begin and then it is Sunday again before I even know it!

There is something way new with this mission though (well I guess with missions every where). But exciting news is that half way through December every missionary in the PPM will be receiving their own personal ipad, and then each companionship will have an iphone. Say whaa? Crazy right?! 

Apparently when Elder Nelson was here a couple weeks ago when they had a mission president seminar he said that there is one thing in common with people in 3rd world countries that he noticed while traveling abroad. He said even if they are poor, living on the streets, or have very small means, everyone has an iphone. 

They will be used for our area books, planners, face time/skype for investigators around the world, and when we look at the map for investigators, members, and less actives it will pull everyone up with a pin point. Our mission president, and ward leaders will have access to everything that we are doing. 

Let me ask all you siblings that served missions how do you think that would have changed the face of your missionary work?

 

It will definitely be a way of working smarter. The work sure is changing, and I think it is super exciting to be a part of a mission that gets to test new ways to do missionary work. Especially how this mission was one of the first to test using Facebook. It is such a great way to find people and spread the gospel. That is something I have definitely learned is that we don't need to be ashamed of the gospel, so share it with everyone any possible ways. If you feel like you haven't had a missionary opportunity in a while then now is the time to start. A way I find really easy is to just post a mormon message from lds.org. Good luck though I hope you guys are able to have fun and help others strengthen their faith in Christ.

Oh speaking of faith in Christ. The other night we were stopping by some less actives, and there was this man I met that had even been a return missionary and though he said he wasn't really interested in going to church or having us stop by, I asked if he knew of anyone that was going through a rough time that could use an uplifting message about the Savior. His respone, was "oh, that is interesting that you focus your message on Christ, you guys are kinda like the baptist church now." I almost started laughing. Yes! Our message is on Christ. He is the center of our message. Weird right? 

Finally, we had some really good lessons with some of our investigators. We were able to get in contact with an investigator named Bernard that we haven't heard from in almost 3 weeks. I don't know if I told you guys about him but when Elder Bowen came to our mission he went into this assisted living to oversee the temple production and while he was there he met the front desk man named Bernard. He ended up inviting him to take the lessons which he accepted but we haven't heard back from him in while cuz he was in the process of moving. So we stopped by this week and taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he set his own baptism date for December 22. It is kinda hard to understand what he is feeling all the time because he is shy and doesn't always express his thoughts, but I really pray that he can come to know these things for himself that they are true!

Well that's it for now. I hope you are all doing well. 

Love Sister Beames

Transfer 6 Week 1 - November 4, 2013

This week has been so great! Have I ever mentioned how much I love serving here in the PPM and that this is like the happiest time of my life. I feel like I can't contain how happy I am at times. Yes!!

The Lord provides for opportunities to teach when we are obedient and pray for them, and man have we seen a lot of miracles this week it was so awesome! Especially at the temple site which is located in center city. There is a lot of construction and a large picture of the temple but the there is a nice little visitor center inside a trailer which is helpful to have lessons and talk to people about the gospel. I bet it will be great when they have a larger visitor center here because there will be so many teaching opportunities. But this week we were able to set up a booth across from the temple site with a poster, handouts, and cookies and we had 4 new investigators and 3 other potentials within an hour. It was pretty sweet.

Further me and Sister Reyes have really worked hard to try and find people and use the area book to our advantage. We have seen so many miracles and just by following the spirit we have found so many people to teach. 

We even decided to go over the potentials from HQ even though Sister Sturgess(the sister that just left our trio) said she had just updated them but we found many blessings from doing so. For example one when we went to her house and noone came to the door, but as we were walking down the street I saw two girls sitting out on a porch and we were passing them but I decided to turn around and ask about the neighbor lady we were looking for. When we did we actually found the lady we were looking for and the HQ had the wrong address. When we told the daughter who we were she said "Oh, I know why" as if she knew her mom had requested it. But though the mom was busy we said we would come back another time. 

Another crazy miracle that happened was when we were walking to stop by a less active that we were never able to get in contact with, and I always look in the back of my planner to get the correct address. So I even remember saying to sister reyes that we had to go to '1027 Mt. Vernan' and sister reyes felt like we were going the wrong way but as we approached the house a lady opened the window and leaned out just as we were walking up to it. So we asked if the lady lived there, and she said she didn't know who it was, but was so friendly and said it was great meeting us and she wished she was going to be living in the area longer so she could meet with us. So we are going back this next week! Later right after leaving I looked in the back of my planner to update the address or to see if i was maybe one off on the house number or something but 1027 wasn't anywhere to be found, even though I was positive I had read it. The real number was 1203. It was crazy but we felt like the Lord definitely guided us there by the way it played out!

It was also halloween this week! I hope you all had a good one and didn't see any crzy things. We had to be in by 6 to be safe :)

 

Whelp. Got to go! Glad to hear mom and dad fed the missionaries. Keep up the good work. Love you all!

Sister Brightly Beames

Transfer 5 Week 3 - October 28, 2013

Hey family!

 

How is everything going for everyone?? Things here are slow if I would say so myself. I have had a crazy tiredsome week this last week. I didn't have much energy for things (probably because of the mono) but I received a blessing and now I'm feeling tons better. Amazing how that is!

 

But this week was alright. It is weird adjusting to some of the changes that they made since I've been back. They count the numbers differently of how you give lessons, or not counting lessons given to members, etc. so it has been fun learning the new ways.

 

This last week though, we made it a goal to really try to get members more involved with missionary work. -This was another change I've seen since coming back where they count IBM's (Investigators brought by members). - So for example before going over for dinners we would ask members and families in the ward to invite a friend to come as well. We only tried it with two different families, and we had pretty good success. One lady came and we had a really good discussion with her and from another family they had the opportunity to invite someone but they weren't able to make it because of different appointments. Overall, it is great to see how when you extend invitations to people and actually give commitments that they are more likely to do them. I hope back home that you guys are able to commit yourselves to doing more missionary work and helping those around you come to the gospel! Challenge yourselves to something each week to stretch and be part of the call to serve!

 

Also this week, to try some different finding ideas we went singing in Center City Philly with our district and stood on busy streets close to rush hour where there were lots of people getting out of work or coming out of the subways. We handed out some cookies with pass-a-long cards that a Sister provided for us and we had a great experience. We were able to get some referrals for Elders in other areas and also handed out some Book of Mormons. There are many ways to preach the gospel and I know that music is one of those. It has a very special way of connecting with people's spirits.

 

Well, that's it for now! Hope you guys have an awesome week. Cast away your doubts and gain greater faith in the miracles you see everyday.

Something really cool Elder Anderson said was "When faced with a trial of faith—whatever you do, you don’t step away from the Church! Distancing yourself from the kingdom of God during a trial of faith is like leaving the safety of a secure storm cellar just as the tornado comes into view." So continue in the good stuff. :)

 

Love you all, Peace!

 

Sister Beames

Transfer 5 Week 1 - October 14, 2013

Ahhhh, at last. That felt so good to write that subject heading!!!

 

Family,

 

I am in Central City Philadelphia! I was put in a trio. This is a new area for sisters because the city was not usually termed 'safe' but I am very much excited to be here. I arrived around 5:30 Wednesday and met my president and his wife.

I ended up getting to fly first class on the plane (that will probably be the first and last time I will ever get to do that), but unfortunately I missed the whole thing. Apparently they feed you meals and all that extra stuff, but I took a Tylenol pm when I hit SLC so I was out for the whole trip. Lame.

 

Anyways, things here are good. The city is definitely way different than Cape May. I haven't quite figured it out yet or how to do all the street contacting because you can't really tract. But hopefully I can figure it out soon because I am with two recently new missionaries who have no idea what they are doing. We also mainly take busses, subways, and trains, but it has been an exciting ordeal.

 

We have about two investigators, and the other night when I was on two different busses I found a couple potentials whom I got their numbers to contact them soon.

 

I can't even begin to describe what a miracle it is to be back so soon. But I have so much gratitude in my heart for the blessings I've been given and for Heavenly Father to give me this opportunity.

 

I don't have much time to write but wanted to let you all know how much I love you and will be praying for you. It was great having a mission vacation but I'll see ya'll in a year.

 

Love,

 

Sister Beames