Missionary Monday - Olny Week 2

What's up? 

This week was a little slow so I'm gonna do this one a little different, I'll give a quick summary of what went down and then talk about stuff I've been studying/thoughts I have, we'll see how it goes. 

So this week... One of our Investigators sisters died and she has gotten pretty preoccupied with that, understandably. It sounds like the picture perfect situation where you teach them the restoration and then they want to get baptized but she was indifferent to it and cried a lot. It was apparent that she just needed to let her talk herself out so thats what we did. At 8:45 when we were about to go they were like "Oh and by the way we made food for you!" And so then we ate a huge second dinner super late at night, d'oh. 
We had basketball one night with a bunch of Investigators and members and that was going awesome until I jammed my finger mad hard, it got super fat and purple but I lived to tell about it 😉 
Got a little sick from some Brazilian meatballs that a member fed us, that was cool. That same fam also made us some "Latter day Saint Coffee" that was made out of barley, to me it just smelled and tasted like burnt popcorn 🤷🏿‍♂️ 
And then last thing, we visited a member family who hadn't come to church in a while and when they let us in there was a woman that we had helped carry bags to her car in the pouring rain two days earlier at our complex, sitting at their kitchen table and we were like wait what? And she was just as confused as how we had run into her again. We got to know her and she is from Perú and has only been here for a month. We asked if we could share a message with her and she said of course. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and what it means in the bigger picture of the restoration and she loved it. She was surprised to find out that all the rumors she had heard about us worshipping Joseph Smith and stuff like that weren't true. So there's some potential with her. 

Recent study things:
So in conference Elder Uchtdorf said something along the lines of "We need to have more than an intellectual understanding of the gospel" meaning that we need to be Spiritually convirted as well. I think that is one of the hardest things when as a missionary I've ran into members who have left the church or are just inactive, they know all the doctrine and everything but they don't KNOW it, it's not anything personal to them. And KNOWING it is a personal responsibility. I feel like pre mission Elder Beck had an intellectual testimony, as do/did the majority of teenage youth in the church. And with the new in home church focus being introduced I think it will bring a double sided conversion a lot sooner in the youth of the church, which will be awesome. 

We had a conversation with a man who expressed his belief of predestination (Similar to foreordination but not the same) And basically said that where hes at in his life when he dies was known and decided by God before he was born. And that's because God was all knowing. I knew that was baloney but I decided to study it so at least I could have a full knowledge of the subject and was surprised to learn that a lot of churches believe in predestination. Bruce R McConkie spoke pretty boldly about it: "Some souls, according to this false concept, are irrevocably chosen for salvation, others for damnation; and there is said to be nothing any individual can do to escape his predestined inheritance in heaven or in hell as the case may be." Upon studying other things I came to the conclusion that yes Heavenly Father does have a full knowledge of each of our nature's and tendencies, that knowledge being gained from long observation and experience with us in the life before. His foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. So basically things happen naturally (by our agency) and He's kinda like "Yeah figured, that sounds like something Elder Beck would do". Rather than things happening in our lives because he made them happen. Ultimately where we are at when our lives are over is completely up to us and not set in stone until we get there, hence the necessity of an earthly experience in the first place. 
 

Elder Beck

My pictures this week arent super great, sorry. 

Sniper memorial in the middle of a bunch of apartment complexes

Elder wahlquist found a penny, nickle, dime, and quarter in the same day so I owed him an ice cream cone, he was proud of himself. 

Hermano colindres is loving the western united states

This is the first time I've seen outer darkness added to a plan of salvation diagram 😂