Holy Cow! What a General Conference! 

Hey y'all, 

I hope this has been a great week for you and your families. Man that was an amazing conference. I know I could have done better at eating my vegetables and taking my spiritual vitamins to prepare for this conference as President Nelson suggested. I know that the changes that have been made are the changes that God would have us make. I hope you have been able to come to the same witness. 

This week we started off by doing some service for our friends Debbie and Marty. They are a member's friend that we had done service for before. We were able to do a lot of weeding and planting some bushes that they could not have done themselves. They are still not the most interested in taking the lessons, but we are able to serve them. I am glad that they trust us enough to do that. I am sure eventually they will be touched by the spirit and have a desire to hear and live the Gospel. 

We also had an awesome miracle on Tuesday. We had met with one of our friend Ali and got some more contact with a video. While thinking of a video, Elder Austin and I both thought to send Ali "Meet the Mormons." A few days later we asked how she like it and she said that it was o.k. Soon afterwards she gave us a call and said that it was one of the best videos that she had ever seen! We were also able to talk to her about baptism and she said that she would be open to the idea. I am sooooo grateful to be counted worthy to have been able to receive revelation for her.  I know that I have a lot of things that I can improve on, but despite my weaknesses, Heavenly Father has blessed me to be a tool in his hand. It reminds me of the scripture 1 Corinthians 3:6: "I have planted, Apollo watered;, but God gave the increase. I know that it is God who has cause any good thing to happen in my life and in this most important work.

This Thursday was our Zone Conference as well. That was a really insightful. I was able to learn about how to improve our planning by focusing on people's experiences and beliefs instead of the actions and results. We also learned about how to improve how we introduce the Book of Mormon which was really helpful. We were able to put that into practice with one our friends named Ronald. We had given him a Book of Mormon about a week ago and he still hadn't read it. We then read the introduction and stopped at many different parts to explain words that are pretty unique to the church and clarify some definitions as well. By then end he was super excited to read the Book of Mormon. I am excited to stop by him tomorrow and see what he enjoyed from his reading. 

Then of course we had General Conference this week. We were able to watch each session with one of our friends that we are teaching or hoping to teach soon. It was definitely a revelatory time. One talk that stuck out to me was the one by Ruben V. Alliaud. I loved how he told his conversion and that as he heeded the promptings of the spirit and a single verse from the Book of Mormon he came to a knowledge that The Church of Jesus Christ as restored by Joseph Smith is true. I know that those who will take the time to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. I have followed this advice and because of that I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and the most correct book of any book on earth. I am glad for those of you who have already applied this counsel and am excited to hear of any other stories people have about the Book of Mormon. 

Other than that, it was another good week here in Paradise. I have found that I really like the weather here in Florida. Hopefully y'all enjoy your cold winter. My sweater and I are going to enjoy the warm weather while we can. I hope it is a great week and God Bless! 

Elder Beard

1. Zone Conference

2. Zone activity day of playing wiffleball and eating waffles last week. 

3. The couch that we got this week.