Elder Beattie Australia Brisbane Mission: Week 2

Our first PDay with Brayden out in the field. We got to video conference with him and hear about the fun things he's been up to far and what he's been learning.

He joined the choir and said it's amazing how good everyone sounds singing together. He'll sing a couple times this week because they are having a bonus devotional on American Thanksgiving. Each week at the devotionals a General Authority comes to speak to the missionaries, such an experience. He also mentioned that tomorrow his district will be the ones to greet the new missionaries getting dropped off and take them into the MTC. He was wearing his tie he got from his friend here at home, Nelson, who is soon to leave on his mission to Africa in just next week! We got Brayden's flight plans and he leaves for Brisbane Australia on the 28th arriving the morning of the 30th ready to get to work.

It sounds like he's getting practice teaching the discussions and spends his classes going through the Preach My Gospel manual, taking a lot of notes and taking in happiness that comes with being emerged in such a Spiritual environment.

His first letter was so good I thought I'd just paste it here along with some of the pictures he's shared so far. The first 2 are of his district and then Brayden and his companion, Elder Mecham:

Next two pictures include the view from his study spot and then the classic map picture with him pointing to where he has been assigned to serve his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Hello Everybody!! I am learning tonnes of stuff here at the MTC. For example saying something is gas means that it is awesome or something, they won't tell me what it actually means. I am also learning tonnes of stuff about the gospel. It is so cool I had a great experience yesterday but I will get into that later. My district is super awesome! They are so fun to be around and they are all super funny and they are so caring.

This morning my district all woke up at like 5:15 am so that we could go to the Provo Temple before the rush. We had an appointment for 6:30, but we got there right when most of the missio arys got there so we had to wait on some benches in the temple until 7:30. Although the wait was long the temple was super cool. My district and I did the endowment session and it was sooooo cool. The temple is super beautiful, I would recommend it!

Last night on Sunday we had a devotional about faith and how we can grow our faith. It was awesome. The super cool experience that I had was after the devotional. Our district had a meeting about what we learned and it turned into a testimony meeting about faith. My companion shared a message about trials and how having faith can get us through it. I don't know what happened, but the spirit hit me super hard and I just started balling my eyes out. It was crazy. Then the meeting ended and I was still crying like crazy and all the guys gave me a big old group hug and it was awesome. I really do believe that I was put into this district for a reason.

I know that Heavenly Father loves each and every one of us, and that if we have faith in him he will comfort us and make our trials lighter. I have seen evidence of this while I have been here at the MTC.