Hey everyone!
I'm probably not going to write much, I've been trying not to think about home and keep focusing on the work, but its hard with all the other missionaries always talking about it. We had a good week! We had our Zone Training Meeting on Tuesday, and it was a great meeting. Our missionaries really worked hard on member present lessons and because of that, they had more investigators at church! So I'm really happy with our zone right now. We had to say goodbye to one of our missionaries on Friday morning as he had to get reassigned to a different mission due to health reasons. We had to pay for his luggage out of pocket, so I had to pull out some personal money, but I got reimbursed for it.
Loloma Levu,
Elda Beilman
Elder Beilman
Saturday
Tuesday
Christmas Skype with Elder Beilman
We had a great Skype with Clayton on Christmas evening.
He sounded happy and looked good. It was great to get to talk to him.
His return date is coming fast- Jan. 30th he'll be at the S.L. airport
and his homecoming report at church will be Sunday, Jan. 31st.
Everyone is invited to come!
and his homecoming report at church will be Sunday, Jan. 31st.
Everyone is invited to come!
Clayton's 2015 Christmas Letter to the Missionaries
*Here is Clayton's Christmas letter that went to 70 missionaries serving
missions from the 2 Richfield Stakes. (Each Mom collected letters from
each missionary's mom at a luncheon to send to her son for Christmas.) Each missionary got a
packet of letters from missionary friends in the Stake to hear about
all the missions.
_____________________________________
Elder Beilman here, I'm serving in the Fiji Suva Mission (if you don't know where that is, its a small island close to Tonga-I know just about all of you have seen "On the other side of heaven" so its similar to that. Not so much bush though). It is October 19th as I write this which mean I've been serving for about 20 months now.
One thing I've really liked to eat is ika vamiti(fijian word for fish with this coconut cream stuff with tomato onion) Oh and Fijian lovo(an earth oven thing). The worst thing I've had to eat is probably sea cucumber-not so much the taste, but the texture, its like eating a chewy muscle cartilage.
The most memorable experience that I've had so far is finding this family that is prepared to come back/get baptized. I was going through our membership record a couple of weeks ago and looking for names of members and where people stay and organizing it by area(it was organized by last name). And addresses are not a thing here in Fiji. But we were able to find this less active family that was baptized about 20 years ago, but since then had fallen away and even went to a different church for a while. But one day we had some time planned to find them. We found the house, but they were busy when we went, but we came again a different day and they received us gladly. They had told us they wanted their son, Vili, to be baptized because he wasn't baptized yet. They have about 5 others that arent members and a couple more of them want to be baptized. They've been coming to church since the first week we visited them. They are amazing. Not all of them are members and a couple don't want to be, but they sit down with us anyway. But a couple of lessons ago we finished teaching the lesson, then invited them to share something they learned or if they had any questions. Then everybody at the house ended up sharing their testimonies. It filled the house with the Spirit. A couple of members that live nearby had told us that they are a lot happier now that they have been reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. Its amazing. The hardest thing I've had to overcome physically is waking up every day at 6:30 am.
If I could share one thing with newer missionaries it would be to love the people. No matter what they do to you, whether they swear at you, or kick you out or anything like that. Just love them. And love those who do let you in.
Probably the most important thing I've learned on my mission is that the Lord will never put you through anything that you cannot handle. Everything that he does will be for your benefit. Though you may not think it will, it always does work out for you.
My testimony(in fijian)-
Au via wasea noqu ivakadinadina, ni'u kila tiko ni dina na lotu oqo. Dina na matabete, na ivakavuvuli ni lotu, na parofita kei iratou talega na iapositolo. Se bula tiko na Turaga Jisu Karisito ka lako mai vuravura me mate e vukuda me vukei keda lesu tale ki vua na Tamada Vakalomalagi. Koya talega na colata na noda icolacola, ka bokoca na noda ivalavala ca kevaka keda na vakabauti koya ka veivutuni. Au sa vakavinavinaka vua na Kalou me talai au ki Viti me'u wasea vei ira na kosipeli oqo. Au lomani ira kece sara na kai Viti. Sai ira na noqu vuvale.
My testimony(in English)-
I want to share my testimony, that I know this church is true. The priesthood, the teachings of the church, the prophet and apostles are true. Jesus Christ is still living, and came to the earth to die for us to help us return to our Heavenly Father. He will also carry our burdens and take away our sins if we believe in him and repent. I'm thankful to God to send me to Fiji for me to share to the people here this gospel. I love all the Fijians here. It is them who are my family.
Au lomani kemuni kece!
I love you all!
Loloma Bibi,
Elda Beilman
Sunday
Dec. 13, 2015- 2 baptisms!
Hey everyone!
We had 2 baptisms on Saturday! Kula and Ruci, they were prepared to hear the gospel and it was such a blessing to be able to be the missionaries that got to teach them. Our ward also had a christmas party on Friday and that was a lot of fun! Our investigator Kula played Mary in the Nativity drama, and they didn't have anybody to play Joseph, so they asked me if I could play Joseph. So it was pretty fun. We had a lot of non-members attend so that was really good. We also had a lot of food to eat! But here are some pictures from last week.
Loloma Levu,
Elda Beilman
Dec. 6, 2015
Hey everyone,
We had a way good week!
Elder S. Gifford Nielsen came for mission tour, it was amazing!
we are planning on having 2 baptisms this week!
Love you!
Loloma,
Elda Beilman
Tuesday
November 29, 2015
Well first off, I just received your package! Thank you!!
This week was great!!! I had the opportunity to go to a different island to go on exchanges and do a baptismal interview. So the island is named Ovalau, but I went to the town called Levuka. It is the old capital of Fiji. It was way beautiful out there! We took a boat at like 4 pm on Tuesday and arrived in Levuka around 7 pm. We stayed with the two Elders on the island, Elder Kubera and Elder Young. They are doing really good! They had 2 baptisms on Saturday so they are working hard out there. There is a tuna packaging plant there in Levuka town, so it smelled really bad in town all day. After a while you kind of get used to it, but if you leave town and come back, it hits you really bad again. But we stayed until Saturday morning. We had to wake up at like 3 in the morning to catch a bus to the jetty(dock) that takes us to the main island. It was a lot of fun.
This week we are having a baptism on Saturday and having Mission Tour on Wednesday! I'm really looking forward to having a good week this week. The only bad thing is I think it will go by really really fast!
Well I have to go, Thanks for everything!
Love you guys!
Loloma,
Elda Beilman
This week was great!!! I had the opportunity to go to a different island to go on exchanges and do a baptismal interview. So the island is named Ovalau, but I went to the town called Levuka. It is the old capital of Fiji. It was way beautiful out there! We took a boat at like 4 pm on Tuesday and arrived in Levuka around 7 pm. We stayed with the two Elders on the island, Elder Kubera and Elder Young. They are doing really good! They had 2 baptisms on Saturday so they are working hard out there. There is a tuna packaging plant there in Levuka town, so it smelled really bad in town all day. After a while you kind of get used to it, but if you leave town and come back, it hits you really bad again. But we stayed until Saturday morning. We had to wake up at like 3 in the morning to catch a bus to the jetty(dock) that takes us to the main island. It was a lot of fun.
This week we are having a baptism on Saturday and having Mission Tour on Wednesday! I'm really looking forward to having a good week this week. The only bad thing is I think it will go by really really fast!
Well I have to go, Thanks for everything!
Love you guys!
Loloma,
Elda Beilman
Nov. 15, 2015
Hey,
Things have been a bit rough lately. Well, just trying to find the investigators the sisters were teaching and also finding the members has been really difficult because they didn't really leave a good map to find them. But we are getting there slowly. We have had a couple of miracles lately though. Even though we've been super busy trying to find people and working with all the members of the zone, we are receiving referrals and finding really sincere investigators. So things have been really good. We had 4 investigators come to church on Sunday, and one of them has a baptismal date for the 28th of November. So yeah.. Doing good here!
Loloma levu,
Elda Beilman
Things have been a bit rough lately. Well, just trying to find the investigators the sisters were teaching and also finding the members has been really difficult because they didn't really leave a good map to find them. But we are getting there slowly. We have had a couple of miracles lately though. Even though we've been super busy trying to find people and working with all the members of the zone, we are receiving referrals and finding really sincere investigators. So things have been really good. We had 4 investigators come to church on Sunday, and one of them has a baptismal date for the 28th of November. So yeah.. Doing good here!
Loloma levu,
Elda Beilman
Nov. 8, 2015
Hey everyone!
Sorry, this will be super short.
Things are good, we are white-washing, and we had 2 new areas open so we've been crazy busy these past couple of days! Driving everywhere. Our mission just got bigger so they split a zone into two zones now and I'm one of the Zone Leaders for the Northern Zone. My companion is Elder Sterr. He is the man. From Arizona. We are going to do work here!
I was pretty excited to hear that the Royals won the World Series as well. Its been a while!
Planning on just coming back and living with Warren till I can find a job before school starts again.
Thanks for Everything!!
Loloma levu,
Elda Beilman
Sorry, this will be super short.
Things are good, we are white-washing, and we had 2 new areas open so we've been crazy busy these past couple of days! Driving everywhere. Our mission just got bigger so they split a zone into two zones now and I'm one of the Zone Leaders for the Northern Zone. My companion is Elder Sterr. He is the man. From Arizona. We are going to do work here!
I was pretty excited to hear that the Royals won the World Series as well. Its been a while!
Planning on just coming back and living with Warren till I can find a job before school starts again.
Thanks for Everything!!
Loloma levu,
Elda Beilman
November 1, 2015~ 2 baptisms
Sorry I didn't write last week! I was actually not feeling too well. I was running a fever so we ended up just staying in the flat all day. But I was better on Tuesday! I think it was just something that I had to eat on Sunday. All goods now though.
That week we had 2 baptisms, Vilikesa and Sereseini. They are way good. We are pretty close to Vilikesa's mom, Eta. She is way nice, we end up just calling her mom. They are just way happy that we found them and started visiting them. Transfers are this week, not really looking forward to it because the 12 week training program is over which pretty much means one of us or both of us are getting transferred. We'll see how it goes though.
I'm pretty sad about this out-take this week though. Elder Fiso, he came to Fiji the transfer before me, but I've known him for a long time on my mission. He is the reason I was Emergency transferred to Tavua about a year ago. He was the one that cut his shoulder really bad in the truck accident. But he is finishing this week, which is really sucks. I'll definitely miss that Elder. But after this week, my intake will be the oldest intake in the mission. And they are making another zone this week as well. There are more missionaries in the mission now than there has ever been before, so we are seeing history as they are splitting one of the Zones into two zones now.
Too fast..
Loloma Levu,
Elder Beilman
That week we had 2 baptisms, Vilikesa and Sereseini. They are way good. We are pretty close to Vilikesa's mom, Eta. She is way nice, we end up just calling her mom. They are just way happy that we found them and started visiting them. Transfers are this week, not really looking forward to it because the 12 week training program is over which pretty much means one of us or both of us are getting transferred. We'll see how it goes though.
I'm pretty sad about this out-take this week though. Elder Fiso, he came to Fiji the transfer before me, but I've known him for a long time on my mission. He is the reason I was Emergency transferred to Tavua about a year ago. He was the one that cut his shoulder really bad in the truck accident. But he is finishing this week, which is really sucks. I'll definitely miss that Elder. But after this week, my intake will be the oldest intake in the mission. And they are making another zone this week as well. There are more missionaries in the mission now than there has ever been before, so we are seeing history as they are splitting one of the Zones into two zones now.
Too fast..
Loloma Levu,
Elder Beilman
October 11, 2015
Doing good! Many miracles!
We've found another investigator that wants to be baptized. Way cool. This family that we found using the membership records was prepared! its pretty amazing, the mother is way happy that we came over to their house and found them. She tells us all the time. Then, while eating a members house last night, they were telling us that they are so much happier now at home. Before, they would always argue and what not, but now they are doing so good! The gospel changes people!
We also got to listen to our area seventy speak yesterday at stake conference, that was pretty cool. Our mission president also spoke. So it was way good to have 2 spiritual giants talk to us!
Things are just great!
Loloma levu,
Elder Beilman
We've found another investigator that wants to be baptized. Way cool. This family that we found using the membership records was prepared! its pretty amazing, the mother is way happy that we came over to their house and found them. She tells us all the time. Then, while eating a members house last night, they were telling us that they are so much happier now at home. Before, they would always argue and what not, but now they are doing so good! The gospel changes people!
We also got to listen to our area seventy speak yesterday at stake conference, that was pretty cool. Our mission president also spoke. So it was way good to have 2 spiritual giants talk to us!
Things are just great!
Loloma levu,
Elder Beilman
October 4, 2015
We had another great week. We are just seeing a lot of blessing!
We had 3 investigators attend church on Sunday and they are all planning on getting baptized this month! Their names are Peni, Vilikesa, and Sereseini. They are doing way good. Its pretty amazing to see how they have been able to progress in the gospel.
This work is definitely the most rewarding thing I've ever done. I received a call from the mission office today telling me that they were preparing my flight plans for when I have to come home. And an email from my mission president letting me know about my outtake. A lot of missionaries are now talking about what I will do when I get home and all these things. Its frustrating because its making me feel like I don't have much more time left on the mission. Four months is going to go by super fast.
Its interesting how the Spirit changes us. I've wanted a tattoo since I was 18 years old, but the only reason I didn't get one is because someone told me to wait 2 years and if I still want it, then I should get it. But by the time 2 years came, I was a member of the church-so I didn't get one only because the Prophet and Apostles told us not to. And out here on the mission-I've still wanted to get one-but I knew that if I go home and got a tattoo after being a return missionary then that would look pretty bad for me the day that I stand before God and he asks me "why did you get a tattoo?" I've been thinking about it lately and been looking at other peoples tattoos and something this week changed me. I'm not sure what it was, but one day I saw a tattoo and I thought to myself "that doesn't look good." I'm really grateful that the Lord changed me, because now, I don't want to get a tattoo. I thought about how if someone came to the temple and sprayed it with graffiti it would not look good. So I'm really happy now that I don't want a tattoo anymore.
Just thought I'd share that with you all.
Vinaka Vakalevu!
Loloma bibi,
Elder Beilman
We had 3 investigators attend church on Sunday and they are all planning on getting baptized this month! Their names are Peni, Vilikesa, and Sereseini. They are doing way good. Its pretty amazing to see how they have been able to progress in the gospel.
This work is definitely the most rewarding thing I've ever done. I received a call from the mission office today telling me that they were preparing my flight plans for when I have to come home. And an email from my mission president letting me know about my outtake. A lot of missionaries are now talking about what I will do when I get home and all these things. Its frustrating because its making me feel like I don't have much more time left on the mission. Four months is going to go by super fast.
Its interesting how the Spirit changes us. I've wanted a tattoo since I was 18 years old, but the only reason I didn't get one is because someone told me to wait 2 years and if I still want it, then I should get it. But by the time 2 years came, I was a member of the church-so I didn't get one only because the Prophet and Apostles told us not to. And out here on the mission-I've still wanted to get one-but I knew that if I go home and got a tattoo after being a return missionary then that would look pretty bad for me the day that I stand before God and he asks me "why did you get a tattoo?" I've been thinking about it lately and been looking at other peoples tattoos and something this week changed me. I'm not sure what it was, but one day I saw a tattoo and I thought to myself "that doesn't look good." I'm really grateful that the Lord changed me, because now, I don't want to get a tattoo. I thought about how if someone came to the temple and sprayed it with graffiti it would not look good. So I'm really happy now that I don't want a tattoo anymore.
Just thought I'd share that with you all.
Vinaka Vakalevu!
Loloma bibi,
Elder Beilman
September 27, 2015
Hey everyone!
Sorry if I didn't write much last week.
But we've been seeing a lot of miracles this past couple of weeks. We've found like 5 new investigators and like 3 of them are way good! I'm just super happy right now because of all the miracles we've been having. We had 2 investigators come to church yesterday and we had 4 come to church last week. When we first got here, we thought we had a lot of good investigators, but we couldn't find them or couldn't sit down with them. So we decided to try to find some more people and we were blessed with finding people through the ward membership list and a referral. Its been great!
When we first got to the area, we were having like 7 lessons per week, but every week for the last 4 weeks we've been improving on that. We had 14 this week with having less actives coming to church and investigators. Its been quite a different change from my last area, it was really hard for people to come to church because everybody lived so far away from the chapel that they had to either walk/hitch or they couldn't come. And if it was raining, it made it even harder. But I'm just on top of the world right now with my area and my companion and my district.
We have a new area that re-opened this week and they put 2 elders in it. Elder Faamoe and Elder Gray-who both happen to be from...... MISSOURI!
What the heck?! And they are in my district, so that is pretty cool. finally someone who understands about Kansas City in the Mission.
Well thanks for the email!
Loloma bibi
Elder Beilman
Sorry if I didn't write much last week.
But we've been seeing a lot of miracles this past couple of weeks. We've found like 5 new investigators and like 3 of them are way good! I'm just super happy right now because of all the miracles we've been having. We had 2 investigators come to church yesterday and we had 4 come to church last week. When we first got here, we thought we had a lot of good investigators, but we couldn't find them or couldn't sit down with them. So we decided to try to find some more people and we were blessed with finding people through the ward membership list and a referral. Its been great!
When we first got to the area, we were having like 7 lessons per week, but every week for the last 4 weeks we've been improving on that. We had 14 this week with having less actives coming to church and investigators. Its been quite a different change from my last area, it was really hard for people to come to church because everybody lived so far away from the chapel that they had to either walk/hitch or they couldn't come. And if it was raining, it made it even harder. But I'm just on top of the world right now with my area and my companion and my district.
We have a new area that re-opened this week and they put 2 elders in it. Elder Faamoe and Elder Gray-who both happen to be from...... MISSOURI!
What the heck?! And they are in my district, so that is pretty cool. finally someone who understands about Kansas City in the Mission.
Well thanks for the email!
Loloma bibi
Elder Beilman
Monday
Sept. 20, 2015
Hey everyone!
Thanks for the email.. sorry this will be super short, I don't have a ton of time. We are busy today..
But we had a way good week. 4 investigators came to church on Sunday and we found 4 investigators as well this week. so we are receiving a lot of blessings.
Thanks for everything!
Love you guys!
Love, Elder Beilman
Thanks for the email.. sorry this will be super short, I don't have a ton of time. We are busy today..
But we had a way good week. 4 investigators came to church on Sunday and we found 4 investigators as well this week. so we are receiving a lot of blessings.
Thanks for everything!
Love you guys!
Love, Elder Beilman
Sept. 13, 2015
Hey Everyone!
We had a great week this week! We now have a baptismal date for our investigator, Peni. He is great, he loves it when we come over. We struggled a bit to find the investigators that the Elders before were teaching. We tried calling them, and going to their houses-but we either couldn't find them or we couldn't sit down with them. So we've been trying to find new people to teach and we've had a lot of opportunities given to us. We found these 2 former investigators and just did a how to begin teaching/intro lesson with them on Wednesday, the wife then asked at the end of the lesson what to wear to church and what time it starts. Then Elder Foaeva felt that we should go back to the house on Saturday to drop off a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet for her to read(because she wants to learn more about Jesus Christ and Baptism). They weren't home so we wrote a note telling them that we stopped by and we invited them again to church. Then on Sunday-they both came! That was such a big miracle! The wife was reading the L3 pamphlet that we dropped off on Saturday during sacrament meeting too. It was really rewarding to see them! We also had a couple of Less Active members come to church as well.
Oh, and Darrin-Since the stake presidency has changed in the stake and now that you're the bishop, I think I was supposed to let my mission president know about it. So would you be able to email me the email that you would have my mission president use, as well as the Stake Presidents. Thank you!
Vinaka vakalevu nomudou loloma.
Au lomani kemudou yaduadua,
Loloma, Elder Beilman
We had a great week this week! We now have a baptismal date for our investigator, Peni. He is great, he loves it when we come over. We struggled a bit to find the investigators that the Elders before were teaching. We tried calling them, and going to their houses-but we either couldn't find them or we couldn't sit down with them. So we've been trying to find new people to teach and we've had a lot of opportunities given to us. We found these 2 former investigators and just did a how to begin teaching/intro lesson with them on Wednesday, the wife then asked at the end of the lesson what to wear to church and what time it starts. Then Elder Foaeva felt that we should go back to the house on Saturday to drop off a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet for her to read(because she wants to learn more about Jesus Christ and Baptism). They weren't home so we wrote a note telling them that we stopped by and we invited them again to church. Then on Sunday-they both came! That was such a big miracle! The wife was reading the L3 pamphlet that we dropped off on Saturday during sacrament meeting too. It was really rewarding to see them! We also had a couple of Less Active members come to church as well.
Oh, and Darrin-Since the stake presidency has changed in the stake and now that you're the bishop, I think I was supposed to let my mission president know about it. So would you be able to email me the email that you would have my mission president use, as well as the Stake Presidents. Thank you!
Vinaka vakalevu nomudou loloma.
Au lomani kemudou yaduadua,
Loloma, Elder Beilman
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