beau + lindee

tuesday morning i woke up by a text from my mom saying "read hunter's letter when you can, you'll be proud!"  (hunter is on his mission and is entering his second week in the MTC in england and gets to write home every tuesday.) 

i jumped up and immediately checked my e-mail. halfway through it i had to pass the phone over to beau to finish reading it because i just couldn't get through it without crying. he is such an example to me and i sure am proud of him! just wanted to share a few parts of his letter with you..

"Last Friday was the highly anticipated day where they took us into Manchester City Centre to go and talk to people about the Gospel. I was super excited until the day actually came, then I got nervous. To add to my nervousness, about 30 minutes before we left, President Walker came up to me and told me that he would be switching my companion (Elder Newman) with one of the German Elders because they can't speak english very good yet. So I was pretty upset because I knew that the german elder wouldn't say a word out there, and I was right, he didn't saty one word to any person we talked to and I'm not exagerrating......After a couple hours of pointless conversation, we were on our way back feeling a little discouraged. I saw an iraq looking guy standing by himself waiting for the bus. I figured that he would be the last guy I would talk to before heading back. When we approached him he immediately recognized us for who we were and tried to get out of the conversation. But I began talking more and finding out about his religious beliefs, and he told me that he believed in God and wanted to go to Church but just didn't know where. The Spirit took over from then and used me as a tool because I started to say things that I never had before and bearing a testimony that I didn't know that I had, actually when it was all done I didn't even remember what I had said really. Long story short, we gave him a book of mormon and he agreed to coming to church because he said 'from what I said it must be true.' So I got all of his contact information and referred him to the missionaries in his area. I was the only missionary in the MTC to find a referral, so I was pretty happy about that. It felt so good and I really felt like a missionary. I can't wait to do that in the field!"

"This morning, we got to go and do one more session in the Preston Temple. It was great but also sad, I am really going to miss going to the temple for 2 years. But I had a neat experience, throughout the session I was just kind of worrying that I wasn't going to get to the point that austin and dad are. In the celestial room I said a really long prayer to be the missionary that the Lord would have me be and that I can just be successful. After I got changed I was standing waiting for my companion, and this English temple worker walked up to me and asked about me and where I was going and stuff, and then he said that he was sitting there just looking at me and he said that he a had a really strong impression that I was going to be a successful missionary, such a strong impression that he had to come tell me. He said that I had success written all over me. I could tell by the way he said it that he wasn't just trying to be nice and that he really meant it. That almost brought me to tears because the Lord reassured me that everything was going to be fine literally 10 minutes after I prayed. I still have to do my part though."