Elder Beard

Bekim Hey y'all. Things have been going pretty well here. We have been able to see quite a few tender mercies this week. The tender mercy that sticks out the most to me from this week is a man named Bekim. His family just moved here a few weeks ago and has had the desire to come out and teach with us. One time when we took him out, all of the lessons we had fell through. Because of that we decided to stop by some people who had been taught previously. The last one was the Clifton family. The son had been baptized a few years ago, but the mom was not prepared quite yet. We were able to talk to them about how Jesus Christ can help them through the hard times they are in right now and Bekim has been awesome at sharing scriptures that give validity to what we are teaching. He is going to be a great missionary. This week we were able to have lessons with both of the recent converts in this area. This last time with Mary we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon. Elder Reichner also ...

  Date set! Hey Y'all, Happy Pioneer day to y'all. I hope things are going well for you. We have been able to see some cool miracles recently for which I am very grateful. One of the coolest miracles that happened this week is we were able to set a date for our friend Sophia to be baptized. We were able to teach her about the Plan of Salvation which she had started to learn about recently and it went super well. Then at the end we talked to her about baptism and invited her to be baptized on August 3rd. I am so excited to continue to help her progress towards becoming an active member of the church because she is converted to Jesus Christ. Another great thing that happened is we had Zone conference. This zone conference was all about how to improve our mission unity and our working with members. We were able to come up with a lot of ideas on how to help the district and it will be interesting to see how they are implemented. Then on Thursday we were able to have a great experie...

Hood finding and referrals! Hey y'all, I am so sorry I thought I sent an email last week, but then I saw it in my drafts today. I guess I will put some highlights from both of these 2 weeks. So since last time I emailed I was transferred again to the Seminole 1st area. It is a really nice area with a lot of good people. We have been able to see some cool miracles which has been nice. One cool thing that we have been doing recently is we met this man named Deyrel. He was about to shoot some hoops and so we joined them. During the first time we played with them over the last few weeks Elder Reichner tore the sole off of his shoe going for a dunk. That was pretty crazy. We were able to play with them one other time and got to share a nice quick spiritual message with them. We are both super excited to shoot some hoops with them some other day. We have also been able to do a lot of recent convert work here. One lady named Mary got baptized about a month ago and she is awesome. We have ...

Crazzzzzzyyyyyyy   Hey y'all, This week has been crazy. On Tuesday I moved to Venice and that was fun. Venice is kind of an old person area, but we were able to see some miracles.   The first miracle was my new companion Elder Reichner (from Ramona California, serving his last transfer. Super cool and knowledgeable ) were biking past a bus stop and saw a lady there. We asked if we could teach her  and she said yes. 2 days later we went AND taught her AND she was very open to our message. We gave her 3 Nephi 11 to read and stopped by 3 days later on Sunday and she had read it. We were then able to teach her about Jesus Christ and his Gospel and she was very open. I am excited to see how things go for her in the future.   We were also able to teach the MacManamy's. They are the parents of some of the members in the ward and have learned quite a bit. They are really opened up. We challenged them to read the Book of Mormon every day and they accepted. I hope that they do...

  We are thrilled to welcome President and Sister Hollingsworth to paradise. They are just wonderful and will be a blessing to everyone in the Florida Tampa Mission. Our hearts and prayers will continue to be with everyone in the great FTM -- Onward and Upward!

Transfer #10 here we go.   Hey Y'all, I don't have a whole lot of time this week, but there were some cool miracles that happened this week. I am excited to share them with you.   This week I was able to go on exchange with Elder Stowe and Elder Hoggan down in the Port Richey area. They are both great missionaries that have some great strengths. I am glad that they were there to teach me what I can improve on. I am excited to see what happens in the next few weeks.   Things are also going well here. This week we were able to teach Michael his last lesson that he needs to be baptized. He is a great kid. I am so glad that I got to know him. His parents aren't the happiest with his decision to join the church though and are making it hard for him to come to church on Sunday. I hope he will make it to the waters of baptism in a year.   We also were able to see some of the people Elder McCubbins met on exchange while I was in Port Richey. They seem like great people. Hope...

  Cool week of miracles! Hey Y'all, I hope things are going well for you. Hopefully things aren't too hot where you are at. It has been a bit cooler here since we have had rain every single day this week for at least a couple of hours. The rain does put a damper on what you can do as a missionary though.   This week started off well with Elder McCubbins and I having a great lesson with a lady named Aisha. She was just sitting outside and we decided to talk to her. She followed an eastern religion, but had heard quite a bit about our church. She was impressed by our resolve and how young we were and had us teach her 2 daughters right then and there. It was awesome. I am excited to keep growing.     Then the next day I was able to go on exchange with Elder Hird and Elder Stowe. We started off in my area which was nice. We were able to see my friend Carl who just got back from Kentucky. It was good to see him. He will be moving back to Kentucky soon though. I am excited...