Zone Conference and date set. 

Hey y'all,

I hope things are going well for y'all. This week was very inspirational. I was able to learn a lot and try some new ideas on how to do missionary work.

The first exciting thing was that we had a lesson with Sherman again. He is doing as well as he can. He has a lot of health concerns since he is quite old and it is discouraging him a bit. We are going to reach him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ one principle at a time (i.e. Faith, then Rapentance, ...) Right after that we had a dinner with the Palmer Family. It was very nice. We found out they are moving to Pennsylvania which will be sad, but good for them. They will be here for a few more months so it'll be good to have them around at least a little longer.

Then on Wednesday we had our zone conference. This one was really sweet. Elder Donaldson who is a member of the general mission board helped us come up with a few ideas. One of them is how we plan how to help our people each week. It is focused on helping people come through the doctrine of Christ (Such as how to get someone to church, or someone who has come to church to accept a baptismal date) It has been really helpful. We also learned how to train members to be awesome member missionaries. I have a testimony that you as members have the potential to be much greater missionaries. You know the people who could receive the Gospel and the training is thinking of what you could do to best help introduce them to the gospel. The whole point is you are reaching out, and we don't get involved until you want us to. I am excited to try this in the next few weeks.

Then on Saturday we had a miracle. One of the people we are teaching is named Ted. I found him a while ago with Elder Hird and Elder Scoresby. Then on Saturday we were going to go finding, but decided to try to call Ted and see if he wanted to come to church this week. Our ride fell through for him last week so we were nervous. But he called us and we were able to go over and talk to him about life after death and during it I felt impressed to ask him if he felt what we were sharing with him was true and he said yes. Then I asked him if this was the direction that God wanted him to go and he said yes again. Then I brought up baptism and said "I've already been baptized but I would be baptized again to join this church!" It was soooooooooooooo exciting. We helped him understand what he was getting into and he is hopefully going to get baptized April 13th (What we are striving for for now) or hopefully earlier. Elder Case and I are so excited for him.

Heavenly Father truly does bless those who are in his service. I have been in Florida as a missionary for almost 9 months now and have only set 2 baptismal dates. When I first came out I was scared that I would not baptize everyone. That though would pop into my head multiple times and it scared me. As I have tried to be faithful, Heavenly Father has blessed me with the knowledge of how to be a better person, a deeper more personal understanding of the Gospel, and great life experience. I am so excited to keep learning more lessons and it doesn't matter if I bring any more souls unto God. I know I have served him full-heartedly and that I will continue to serve him full-heartedly. I hope y'all can have similar experiences as you serve him with all of your heart, might mind, and strength.

Other than that, it was a normal week here. This next week we have a lot of good stuff set up. I know that there are other miracles waiting to happen here in Brooksville. Tune in next week for more exciting news in the Brooksville ward.

God Bless!!

Elder Beard