Umm i only have 1 week left..still tearing it up!

Beck Family!

Now when i tell you this was a crazy week, yall gotta believe me. Let me drop it on yall.

To start, last monday we were contacted my a drunk homeless guy (not sure if i have mentioned how many of those exist in long beach, but there are so many. Where we live, right next to the LA river, there are hobo camps all along that river under every single bridge. We see them when we run in the morning, we are good friends.) and he wanted us to tell him something that would change his life. I told him "because of Jesus Christ, you can overcome this addiction and change your life." He stopped poking fun at us, and even through his drunk state he said" you dont know how much i need that." We set up a time to see him later, when he promised he would be sober, and then we taught him. Everyone needs the gospel, and it would be wrong of us to ever pass judgement on someone for their past life. Everyone can change, even the most unlikely of people. This experience reminded me of that.

We are also working with a less active named M. She was baptized 5 years ago, and she is the most chola gangsta woman i have ever met. She swears more than any marine i have ever known. She comes from a history of gang affiliation and curb stomping people. She does not play around.  And she is one of the nicest people i have ever met. She is only like 28, but everytime we go by she tries to give us anything she has. She is a good person, just under a rougher exterior. She said she has been feeling stresed and anxious because of hard things in her life. We were able to have a really cool lesson with her, where she committed to coming to church, because she connected that she is feeling these types of problems because she doesnt have the spirit in her life. She also told us 'if the 8th street gang ever gives you trouble, or any other gang around here, just tell them you know me and theyll leave you alone." Well, the gangs already dont give us trouble, they all love us, but now i feel even more protected. M

can any more wire come off this pole?

Cow stomach soup... ewww.  Dallin said  he ate the whole bowl

bike riders

dallin's comp. with Christmas lights on the bike

Sunrise in Long Beach

of course, Capt. Moroni
 

would straight up go crazy on anybody that did something to us.

On Thursday we had zone meeting. I was asked to give a training. It was probably the last training i will give. It was one 'feeling successful more often.' I prepared something around a statement that president once told me. About a month ago i talked to my mission president, because i was really feeling down. I told him, i dont feel like i can look back at my mission and see that i did much good, i only see all of the ways that i have fallen short, all of the mistakes i have made, and all of the times i didnt live up to my calling. President Tew told me this advice, which i made into my training "Take just one hour of the day, maybe the 11-12 hour, and work as hard as you can and follow your plans as best as you can, so at the end of that hour you could look back and say, if every hour of my mission was like that one, i would be satisfied." I applied that advice since he gave it to me, and it has completely changed my whole outlook on my mission. I have no regrets from the last month, i have worked as hard as possible. And also, it helped me look back at even my whole mission, and realize the good things instead of the negative. It helped me gain a positive outlook on my mission as a whole. It helped me realize that I really have done good things here, that God is not just pleased with this last month, but with my whole 2 years. I have been far from a perfect missionary, but i can now look back and say, i gave it my all. I gave my mission everything I had, i held nothing back, i really gave my mission my heart. I tried to make my last training a good one, as i gave it it reafirmed to me that my service has been acceptable, that even though i wasnt perfect, God is happy with what i have done under the title of Elder.

Friday night more miracles kept happening. We were going to have a noche de hogar with a family at 8. When we showed up there, they had kept our invitation and had a non member friend there and ready to meet us. It was so cool to see the trust we are building with our members, i love the members here, and i feel like they really trust us as good elders. Thats why they give us their friends.

Also, we had an experience that i refer to as a long beach specialty. We had a conversation with a man on the street that started with the phrase "when i was a gangsta..." and was followed with him showing us his bullet and knife wounds and some crazy stories about people that tried to kill him and how he tried (and probably succeeded) to kill them. Followed up with a crazy prison tale about prison murders, and how he is now a gentleman and believes in God. But then he says hes not interested in our message, but if anybody messes with us just let him know and he will take care of it for us. Thats a long beach specialty right there. Dude, people here are crazy.

And on sunday there were mas miracles. We had 3 less active familys come to church, we had done a lot of re-activation in this ward, which has been awesome to see. We have reactivated i believe 5 familys now, and there are gonna be even more this next sunday. After church we had another noche de hogar with another family, and we had invited them to have non members there also. When we came, they had their non member son and his wife there. We had a super good lesson, and at the end the wife said, i want my kids to be here next time you come over, they really need this. Then the wife confessed to us that she struggles with depression. I knew the moment she said that that i was in the rright place. I have gained a set of skills that helps me help people with depression. These skills have come from nearly 2 years of first hand experience with depressed people. So i knew, that right there, God had put me in her path, because i was able to tell her that this gospel helps those that struggle with depression, and i know it because i have seen it personally. We have an appointment later this week.
As we were leaving this teaching appointment the member told us that he has someone else he wants us to teach. That because we taught so powerfully he wants us to teach another person he knows. It was just a night of miracles like that. Our area is just on fire right now, we are teaching day and night, finding so many news, and people are coming to church and accepting baptismal dates. Just on fire, man i love this.

I cant believe how fast time flys. I cant believe how soon i will see all of you. I would just like you all to know, that for this last week, im gonna be working as hard as possible. I only have 1 more week, and im not letting off the gas. Ive worked way to hard for way to long to give up even a little bit right now. I love my mission to much to do that. Please exuse all of my typing and engrish errors, im super bad at this whole english thing now. Hope yall can teach me. And dad, we are defintily talking in spanish like all the time, i want to keep it up. Love you all family, see ya soon!

Beck out,
Elder Beck