Week 21 - Transfer 4



Hello everyone, This week was transfers and I am with a new companion now. His name is Elder Rowe and he is from Maryland, but his family is currently living in England. He is really cool. He really likes history and "Video Games that no-one have ever heard of." 

This past week was uneventful, not too much happened out of the ordinary. Here are a couple of interesting things that happened:

We got a tiwi in our car 😔. If you don't know what that is, it is something that tracks speed, where you are and if you are driving to aggressively. So if you drive over a speed bump too fast it yells at you.

One of the Elders in the district is leaving tomorrow, so at our District Council meeting, we did a small little send off. He seemed pretty happy about that.

We did a deep clean of our flat.

On Saturday afternoon, we got our transfer news...
I'm going to a place called Ipswich and im in a bike area, so it should be fun. I know nothing about the area, and I know none of the missionaries that are there. It should be fun to get to know them. I am also follow-up training Elder Rowe.

Today was transfersand I got to say goodbye to lots of the missionaries that I got to make good relationships with. After transfers we went home dropped off our stuff and went to the chapel to play some Bball. It was nice to meet the Elders in the Zone.

One of the biggest takeaways that I got this week was from conference and it was from the young Elder Cook. He told us to not get discouraged when we face hard things and that we need to press forward in faith.

I loved this talk especially because what he said is so true. I have been able to see this first hand while being on this mission, and that if we push through our trials we will be able to overcome them.

Emoji of the week:🚴‍♂️
Slang of the week: "arvo" means afternoon.

I love you all and will see you later ❤️ 

Elder Brayden Beattie.

Week 20 - GC District Rocks

Howdy everyone, This past week was pretty alright, not to much happened. We did a couple of services and tried to extend a Baptismal invitation.

On Monday, after pday, we had a lesson with Lawson and flinders and we were feeling really good about it, so we extended a Baptismal invitation for the second time. They said that they would think about it. They didn't say no. Hopefully we can get in another lesson with them and try to help them out a bit.

The highlight of the week was the interviews that we had with the mission presedent. It was nice to be able together with him and get some good advice. After the interview we went and had lunch with him and his wife. It was nice to have a free meal I got a pulled pork burrito 🌯 and it was alright. It was fun to eat out with the district.

A scripture that I found this week that stood out to me was Alma 36:

3 And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day.

I love this scripture because it reminds us that if we put out trust in God he will help is while we are in our trials. I have been able to see this throughout my mission so far and that has shown me that this is true.

Sorry the email this week is a little short,

Emoji of the week: 🌱

Slang of the week: full as a goog. Meaning full to the brim.

TTYLXOX, See you next week,

Elder Brayden Beattie.

Week 19 - Fast Cars and Alpacas

 

Hello everyone, This week was pretty normal. We did a couple of services and I got to set foot In an absolute mansion.

One of the services that we did was for some really old people and we had 6 missionaries go to that one.  We unloaded 4 meters of mulch and spread it around a bunch of bushes around their home. They really wanted to pay us, but we told them that lunch would be perfect so they got each of us a sub from subway. It was pretty good.

The next day we had our district service at a stake service activity. This service was at a women's sanctuary and we did a lot of yard work. Some of the Elders and I had to dig a long trench in 38°c heat, I was sweating like a pig.

One of the bishopric in one of the wards that we are covering is like mega rich and has a mansion that he lives in. He was telling us that he likes this house because it is smaller then the last one that he had. I was like this is a small house, I wonder how big his other house was. He showed some pictures of his old house and it is like a super mansion. While we were there we talked about missionary work and about people we could visit.

Yesterday Elder Phelan and I had a really cool.street contacting experience. We were making an agenda for a meeting on Tuesday and I heard a car drive by that clearly had a turbo in it so I went by the road to go se it and he ad just parked this really nice nissan gtt r34. So we went up to h and started chatting about cars with him and we got his number and he said that he would take us on a drive later.

A scripture that stood out to me this week was Alma 37:41, which says:

41 Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means it did show unto them marvelous works. They were slothful, and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey.

I love this scripture because it says that when we are lazy and slothful, the marvelous works In our lives will cease. I have seen this in my life many times where because of my laziness I have missed out on blessings.

Thanks for reading the email!

Emoji of the week: 🦥

Slang of the week: skint, meaning Broke, like out of money.

Talk to you next week,

Elder Brayden Beattie

Week 18

Howdy, hope ya'll are doing good. 

My week las week was pretty cool. It wasn't too crazy. We had zone Conference last week which was awesome, I got to see lots of missionariess and was able to talk to lots of them. There was a scripture memorization game and whichever district won the games gets to have a dinner to the mission presedent. And of course our district won, so we get to have dinner with the MP. Shoutout to Elder Mecham for trying to beat our district. 

Elder Phelan and I found a dam in our area, so we did some damage finding, trying to talk to a bunch of people that were there, sadly we found no success. One of the people that were there thought that Elder Phelan and I were a couple It was pretty funny. 

I was able to go to a baptism for one of the Elders in the district. It was a really good baptism and it was really easy to feel the spirit. 

Sunday was by far the busiest day of the week, we had two wards that we went to, then a 2.30, we went to a baptism for a little boy in the ward that just turned 8, then we had to help some very old people that were in the ward download the family tree app on their phone and iPad. It was really funny watching them get fascinated by downloading an app. After that we went to dinner and had enchiladas (not as good as moms).

After dinner we went to a lesson with Flinders and Lawson and taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ amd invited them to be baptized. They said that they would think and pray about it. We will see at the next lesson of they are interested. 

A scripture that I love that I was able to memorize this week was 3 Nephi 15:9 which says: Behold, I am the Law and the light, look unto and endure to the end and ye shall live, for u to him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life." I love that scripture because it tells us that if we endure through life and all of the trials we will recieve eternal life. 

Thanks for reading my email, I hope you have a great week! Feel free to email or message me on Facebook. 

Emoji of the week: 🤠 

Slang of the week: "Bag of Fruit" meaning: a full suit. Jacket, pants, the while deal.

Week 17 - Work Hard, Play Hard

For Elder Beattie's last PDay they were able to get out and do some exploring, move around and enjoy the nice weather.

Apparently on one side of the pathway was super rough water and the path acted as a water break and the other side was super calm water and super appealing.

I'll just start with Elder Beattie's letter home this week: 

Hello Everybody, this week has been pretty chill. Not much has happened. We did alot of finding, but we didn't have that much success through that. We had a couple cool experiences though. 

We did another service for a nice man named Monte, he always cooks us something afterwards and it is normally good food. We did a lot of moving dirt from one end of the yard to another. But we made it sort of fun, so it was alright. 

This past week we were able to chat with a nice old man named Bruce, his wife is a member, but he is not. While we met with him we were able to connect with him really well and we were able to have a great visit with him. During the visit, we just sat and listened to his questions and tried to answer them to the best of our ability. There were some that we couldn't answer, so we wrote them down and researched them and went back later in the week. We asked him if he was interested in taking the discussions and he said that the door wasn't shut to the idea. I guess that's a start. 

We also had an exchange with the Zone Leaders this week, so I was able to go out and learn how to be better at missionary work. After we went to our dinner appointment he took us elders to a nice spot that looks out at Surfers Paradise. It was stunning. 

Sunday was interesting, it was fast Sunday, so no eating. We also started something called a 40 day fast, where each member picks a day to fast on, over a time of 40 days. This was put on for missionary work, it was really cool to see all of the members that were willing to fast an extra day. 

Later in the evening while we were at our dinner appointment, there was a growl that was coming from a tree, so o went over to investigate and it turned out that a possum was just chilling there making noises to try to scare us off. 

A scripture that stood out to me this week was:

2 Corinthians 12:9: 

9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  

I love this verse because it talks about how our weaknesses will be made strengths. This can sometimes be hard to accept sometimes, but it is like working out a muscle. When we pump that iron, it can be really hard at first, but of we continue to work out and keep training, it will become easier and easier. Just like working out, the more we work on our weaknesses, the more that weakness becomes a strength. 

Love you all so much ❤️ Elder Brayden Beattie 

Emoji of the day:🧃 

Slang of the day: Noah's Ark (Meaning: Shark 🦈) 

It seems that being in the same area since he got there has it's pro's and con's. He loves his companion and has a tonne of respect for Elder Phelan. The members are super great at feeding them and very friendly but they all seem to be sort of like me. My whole little community is built around my membership in the church so I don't really know people to refer the missionaries to. Without the referrals it's been tough finding people who want to hear their message and it seems to be getting a little discouraging and feeling very routine. The call home this week was great because we were able to brainstorm with Brayden different ways to engage with the ward members. We talked about the importance of reactivation and engaging the less active members because they've already made commitments and covenants and so helping to get them to church to partake of the sacrament is SO important to their salvation.

It'll be interesting to hear from him next week and see if they tried anything different and what the outcome was.

Week 16 - Double Rainbows

Chatting with Brayden this week was great. Although it was a slower week it sounds like he's been able to learn a lot and he and Elder Phelan have been making good impressions on the wards that they cover. They seem to continue to have a great relationship and Brayden has a lot of respect for Elder Phelan.

I'll add some extra info into the email from some of the information we get in our weekly calls:

Hey Everyone, it's the first week of transfer three! So far it has been super cool. We did so much stuff it was pretty neat.

On Wednesday we traveled 2 hours (traffic) to Brisbane so that we could go to the temple and do baptisms for the deceased. It was so fun to go to the temple and be with my district. While we were there I was really able to feel the spirit and I felt like some of the people that we preformed the ordinances for accepted them after we finished taking pictures in front to the temple we were about to leave, when all of the new missionaries that just arrived that morning came. It was kinda funny to see how awkward they all were and how tired they were after the 15 hour flight. Butt it was weird to think that I was in their shoes like 3 months ago.

*Brayden said that as they were leaving the temple they got to see the Mystery Machine! Haha. Cool enough to be picture worthy. He also said that the 2 new Elders that joined their district are great. The one from Vanuatu is in his last transfer and the American is hilarious.

On Thursday we had to travel an hour to Brisbane for a leadership training for my companion. It was pretty cool to see all of the leadership and how amazing all of the other missionarys are. The training went on from 10am to about 4pm, but we got pizza so it was great! The biggest thing that I learned was how to show disappointment in a Christ-like way.

*Brayden mentioned that it's been nice to learn with Elder Phelan. Since this is his first time being a District Leader he's finding out his leadership style and figuring out how manage these other missionaries while keeping them motivated and happy to do the work. It's great that Brayden can get a glimpse into the different areas of leadership within a mission.

On Friday we didn't have a meal for that day, so we hit up the WML (ward mission leader (he is extremely rich)) for Tweed Ward and told him that our dinner canceled and we were going to be in the area for the afternoon and evening. So we went around and visited some members and families with un-baptized children. After that we went to this super fancy Italian restaurant. I got a spicy salami pizza, and it was so good.

*This gentleman from Tweed Ward is a successful businessman who loves to share his knowledge and has had the opportunity to be a guest speaker for the business program at BYU Hawaii so it's been awesome for Brayden to pick his brain and ask him questions. Such a great resource and also a great example for these Elders on what a Ward Mission Leader calling should look like. This guy is always willing to go out with them and make visits. It's awesome. Plus he lives right across from the ocean so it's a nice chance for Elder Beattie and Phelan to see the water.

On Saturday we went out with the WML for tweed again and visited with lots of people. After the visits we were able to teach the plan of salvation to two unbaptized boys. It was really cool to be able to do that with them. One of them asks alot of really good questions, which is awesome. Today we played some basketball and after we shredded up the court, one of the Elders RM friends was vacationing over here, so he took us out for lunch. It was at a burger place called uncles. After that we went to Tweed Heads and walked around one of the parks by the ocean and threw around an Australian football. It was really fun.

Last Tuesday, I was able to have a really cool experience. I was on an exchange with Elder Fesola'i and we were going to a little sit down place while we called a couple of people, when all of a sudden this man ran by without shoes on, crying. We thought that we should try to check up on him, but we made a call instead. After about 10 minuites we felt that we really needed to go and find him, so we set off on an adventure. We went down so many streets based off of the feelings that the Holy Ghost were telling us. We were eventually led back to our flat, which was a little discouraging, but we decided that we were going to go down this one road and if he wasn't there, we would stop. About 3 minuites walking down this path, there was a little gap and as we walked by it, I spotted him! I was shocked. We ended up talking to him about his situation and we comforted him with some McDonald's then dropped him off back at his flat. It turns out that he was from Belgium, and has had a very hard life.

That experience really testified me of the power of the Holy Ghost. He will lead us to where we need to be and can help us through our trials.

It reminds of a scripture in Luke 1:37:

37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.

I truly know that nothing is impossible with God, especially because we were able to find that man after a long time of looking for him. He helped us do the impossible.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support! I appreciate it.

Emoji of the week: 🤑

Slang of the week: Clobber (Clothes) ex. nice clobber (clothes), you got there.

Love you all ❤,

Elder Brayden Beattie

*I'll just finish this post with 2 quick pictures. Bowling from their P-day last week and some super strange apartments that look like they should be in some space show like The Jetsons cartoon.

Week 15 - Transfer 3

This week Elder Beattie told us about a cool pilot program his mission is participating in. Right now there are 2 different types of missionaries, proselyting and service. Service missionaries stay at home and serve in different capacities locally (temple service, local food banks, bishop store houses, things like that) while the proselyting missionaries serve as Elder Beattie is doing. Both super important.

His mission has it set up right now where the Mission President is in charge of both proselyting and service missionaries in his area instead of the Stake President directing the service missionaries. They are all put on the transfer board on transfer weeks so that the missionaries can see if there are service missionaries serving in the wards they are over. That way, they can reach out for help when needed, either to sit in on a discussion, help with a service project or whatever it is. They can help each other out. Super cool. 

Onto his email:

Howdy everyone, 

I hope y'all are doing fantastic over there. Down here has been pretty fantastic, Transfers are happening today which is great. I am staying here with the same companion, Elder Phelan, and the same flat members, and in our district we have the same sisters as last time. The only thing that changed was that we got 2 new elders in a small town called Lismore about an hour south of here, so we probably won't be seeing them all that often. 

But this past week has been pretty average, not much has happened. On Tuesday we had a district meeting where we talked about how the areas are going, it was the last one of the transfer, so one of the sisters made the district some brownies, They were really good, not as good as moms though... not even close. Later in the day we made a Facebook post relating volleyball to life, it is pretty sweet, I recommend watching it and sending it to all of your friends. *The shares and views have surpassed the previous video and this one has a great shot of Elder Beattie getting smoked in the face with a volleyball. 

Wednesday was really busy, we had 2 services scheduled. The first one was for a guy named Monte and we did alot of digging gravel at his house. It was pretty hard, but it was fun. The second service that we did was helping someone move some of the things in their apartment to a storage unit. It was pretty easy. On Thursday we got our MSF (the money we get every 2 weeks) so we did an Emergencey Shopping, because we desperately needed dish soap and laundry detergent and later that night we did a deep clean because flat inspections were the next day. 

On Saturday we were supposed to have a normal day, we were about to get ready when one of the sister missionarys called us because she needed the keys to the chapel to fill up the Baptismal font. So we raced over to the chapel in a hurry, because it was 8.45 am, the font normally takes 3 hours to fill up and the baptism started at 11.00 am. We were on a time crunch. We got there, started to fill up the font and got a hose that could be attached to an outside tap (for extra water). When we started to turn on the outside tap, the top came right off and soaked me and Elder Phelan. So he tried to fix it for like 5 minuites. After that I saw that there was a peice on the ground, so I picked it up and put it on and it stopped. So we sat outside for a minute for us to dry off a bit before we got back in the car. The rest of the day was normal. Just visits and finding. 

Emoji of the day:🈲️ 

Slang of the day: Mossy (mosquito) 🦟 

TTYLXOX, Elder Beattie

Brayden did mention a couple of other things in his call worth mentioning. It was haircuts this weeks and an inactive member will give the missionaries haircuts for free so they went to take advantage of that deal. Sadly Elder Phelan became subject to an eyebrow accident and has had to resort to a bandaid to hide his unwanted, but sweet, eye brow slit.

Another adventure to share was they made it out to a dinner appointment early one day and so they drove a little bit down the road to a stream and got out of the car to explore a little bit. Elder Phelan lifted up a rock to find a startled tarantula jumping at them. After a little manly scream from Elder Phelan, Elder Beattie got his camera out for some pictures. He did say that he was watching the spider through his camera screen while recording and at one point the spider jumped and he lost visual totally freaking him out. He had to leap back and give a massive shutter making sure it wasn't jumping on him. Haha. Reminds me of the Philippines. 

I can't say that this was the most situtaionally aware position to put themselves in but it's a refreshingly normal activity for young men their age... right!?

Week 14 - Ocean and Snakes

你好 everyone. Its the last week of the transfer😬 It is flying by. This past week has been a pretty good one, alot of things happened that weren't normal to the regular week. I have learned lots this week. Some of the things that I have learned are: badminton is hard, making Facebook videos is harder then it sounds and the Mission Presedent is very kind. 

 Last Tuesday, we had a district meeting early in the morning at aroumd 8:30. It usually starts at 10am but this week had to be early because they were playing badminton in the gym during the regular time. Everyone was so tired and could barely function. There was a training that was done by some Sisters that was really good, it was on Hope. The biggest takeaway that I got from their training was that we can recieve blessings from hoping. Their training definitely made me want to have more hope in my life. 

After the District Meeting we played badminton at the church because there were alot of non-members there that we were able to talk to. One of the had alot of questions about the church, but she had to leave so we got her number and messaged her later in the day. Sadly she hasn't responded to our texts. After badminton was over we made a Facebook video relating basketball to life on earth and how having teammates like Jesus make it alot easier. It took alot more effort then it looks. After about aroumd 50 tries, we finally made a good video. It was worth it though. The video has gotten almost 2k views already.

On Thursday we did a service for the other Elders because they said that they needed help with it. It was really easy and took like an hour, it was just alot of weeding. After the service we got cleaned up and drove 40 minuites to have our interviews With the President. My interview went great. It turns out that he Is a super nice guy and his son is a rock climber as well. The son apparently climbs mountains so big that the rope isn't big enough for the wall. 🤯 

On Saturday, we went out and did some visits with the Ward mission leader from the Tweed Heads ward. It was really fun. He is very successful, so he took is to lunch at some fancy restaurant and I got some weird huge chicken burger thing. It was pretty cool. We went and visited some less active members and some members with some unbaptized kids. All of the people we visited were quite nice and all listened to the things we had to say. One of the old lady's that we visited gave us some chocolate cake. It was really good. 

Today (Monday for me), we did quite a bit of stuff. We first went to the chapel and called the family, which was awesome. After that we went to a place called the spit, which was like right on the ocean and we could see surfers Paradise 🏄‍♀️ It was beautiful. After that we went and checked out Chinatown, it was a little disappointing, but it was still cool to see all of the Chinese shops. After that we went to the bottom of the tallest building that there was to see if we could get in, but it costed $30 to get into the building. So we just took some pictures from the bottom. 

We finished the day at a dinner appointment and they had an albino Darwin carpet python. We got to hold it around our necks and it started to wrap itself around my neck and that literally freaked me out to death. I'll throw in a picture below. 

Anyway, that was the interesting parts of my week I hope your week was well. 

Emoji of the day:🏝 

Slang of the day: Eastwa: sweet. Ex) how are you doing? Eastwa 

Thanks for reading, Elder Brayden Beattie