Merry Christmas!

Greetings!

I have now moved from Greenock to the heart of Glasgow, in Maryhill. It is here that I will spend my Christmas Day and New Years. I appreciate all of your love and prayers and I want you to know that I have sought to know what I might say to you at this Christmas time.

I know that Jesus Christ Lives. He is our Lord, our Savior, and our Redeemer. I felt impressed to read the account in Luke 2 (as Father often would) Sunday Morning and to my surprise, at church they did a Christmas Service where they read the very passage I had read that morning, and sang carols to our King. I am so touched by the Christmas Season. The Christmas Spirit is like none other. We know that Christ was actually born at Easter, nevertheless, it is the Spirit of the Season which drives us to celebrate, remember, and commemorate our Savior's Birth, Life, and Mission.

I wanted to write today and tell you how much I Iove you all. I will undoubtedly fail in this endeavor but I pray the Spirit of the Lord will communicate it in a far more effective manner. Many people speak of the loss of the Christmas Spirit. Many people speak of the dominating power of the media which sways us to lose the Christian Spirit in the continuous battle for material goods. I do not see this. Nor have I ever seen it. For it was never in my home, nor do I believe in yours. I remember staying up all night playing games with brothers. I remember gifts always coming secondary to the time spent with family. I remember Stories repeated year after year which always reached into your soul and touched you in such a way that you knew, no matter how old or young, that they were true, or the messages conveyed therein were. I remember peanuts and satsumas, toffees and chocolates, toys and bicycles, games, tricks, puzzles, and fun.

One year in particular I would like to dwell on though. 1999. This has always been an interesting year in the story of my life. As is now common knowledge, in November of 1999 Mom, Dad, and myself were part of a serious car accident which left us all in pretty bad shape. Dad and I spent months sitting in bed reading Edgar Rice Burroughs "The Martian Series". Mom spent months in bed probably sick of us reading Edgar Rice Burroughs. I remember Auraleen taking me and Christina and Laurianne on a secret mission to get a 5 gallon container of Love Potion #31 Ice Cream for Mom. I remember the kids deciding that it would be alright not to have any presents this year.

I don't remember not having any presents. Nor do I recall for that matter any gifts which I still have in my possession which I recieved for any Christmas, which are material. It is for this reason that the year of 1999 has been my favorite Christmas so far. I pray that you all, in whatever place you may be in, will see the Spirit of the Season, and Feel Christ in your Homes. You don't need anything to tell you what day it is. If you listen closely, you will know.

I love you all so very much. My love is in us, not in words or pictures or in anything material.

Merry Christmas!

Elder Beacham

Do We Get It?

Dearest Friends & Family

I write to you today with many things on my mind, but I love each of you with all my heart and I shall write today and hope that what I share will help you in each of your individual lives. This week was an interesting one. We taught a man who recieved a witness that the Book of Mormon was true, yet he didn't come to church, that was a shame. In dwelling upon this thought I had several questions come to my mind. He knows it's true, why didn't he come? What on earth could hold him back from coming to church when he knows that the Book of Mormon is true?! I pondered this for a while. If the Book of Mormon is true, then the Church is true, then he needs to come to church, then the Authority has been restored, then he needs to be baptized again, then he can live with his father in heaven again, then he can take the sacrament and be cleansed through the Holy Ghost, then he needs to have a church calling, then he can magnify his calling and be blessed even more, then he needs to get a patriarchal blessing, then he can know that his father in heaven has a plan so specific to his life and wants to help him ever step of the way, then he needs to go to the temple and be sealed for time and all eternity, then he can be with his family forever.... Doesn't he get it?

He Must not.

Do We Get It?

Alma spoke in Alma 4:19 of a desire to reclaim his people. He states that the only way in which he knew to reclaim his people was to "Bear down in pure testimony against them". I've thought about his alot. I've pondered over the meaning of this phrase quite alot. Because I want to reclaim souls. I want to bring about a mighty change in people, so it is very important to me to understand how and in what manner I would bear down in pure testimony against someone.

I have yet to come to an entire conclusion, but I know that a pure testimony would have to be one in which there was no dilution of doctrine, neither false doctrine, nor personal opinions, or philosphies. It would have to be one of pure truth. A pure testimony could not be born amidst railing accusations or uncontrolled emotion. One who bore a pure testimony would have to have had a first-hand experience with the doctrine which they were bearing witness to.

In Alma 5 is an excellent example of this.

"And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have you spiritually been born of God? Have you received his image in your countenances? Have you experienced this mighty change in your hearts?"

"Do you exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?"

"I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?"

Most of us who know what is in Alma 5 don't like reading Alma 5, because it's sort of like a spiritual punch to the face. Most of us don't enjoy that. Yet Alma was/is merely bearing witness to that which he has come to know to be true. He is asking questions which he has asked himself. He is teaching what he has learned.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

-Elder Stephen C Beacham

Hello again, here's the latest....

Hey everyone

I cannot begin to tell you of what is going on here, but I shall attempt to try :D

It is snowing, it has been snowing, and it will continue to snow lots and lots and lots. The roads are absolutely icy and we are constantly interrupting our jovial strolls to push some poor vehicle out of a rut they seem to have gotten stuck in.

I've drawn the parallel recently, that we often get stuck in ruts in our life. When it's a bad rut, we usually welcome to help, as do the driver's here. However, often we become confused and angry when pushed from a "good" rut. I find it important to note that no matter what type of rut you are in, it's bad, and you should always be working towards improving.

We are currently teaching a plethora of people. I use the term plethora because I don't actually know how many it denotes, but to use laymens terms; We are teaching abut 3 people. Our foremost right now is named Lawrence Ngoma. We had an amazing lesson with Lawrence in which we knelt and prayed with him and he felt "fire" go through his body. We identified that as the Holy Ghost. That evening he came to a baptism and felt the Holy Ghost again. It was really good for him to get that second witness in the same day. Sadly however, he didn't come to church, because he slept it. We're going to have to teach him what exactly it means to keep the sabbath day holy, and that the Lord expects you to go to sleep on a Saturday, early enough to get up on Sunday.

I think I might share about how people who lived the Law of Moses (as given in Exodus 20) actually counted the Sabbath day as Sundown on Saturday, to Sundown on Sunday. At the same time I don't want him to think he can go out and party on a Sunday night. I'm still undecided if I share in Exodus 31 where all those who didn't keep the Sabbath Day Holy were to be put to death :D. What do you think?

Just Kidding! So, it's great out here in Scotland. The working is going forward. I hope everyone of you is happy and healthy.

~Elder Beacham

Miracle Buses

Dearest Family & Friends,

We had some miracles this week... I won't call them "little" ones, because I don't dare give the Lord any reason to stop sending them. But it has been amazing to me to see how much the Lord takes care of you when you follow His spirit. It's been a lot of things like catching buses and trains and getting to appointments right on time, when we had no idea how that would happen.

Just the other day we were walking to a bus stop to catch a bus and we saw our investigators with a baptismal date trimming their hedge and putting the clippings in the trees (it was a really LONG hedge). It was odd for me because I was sitting there thinking "We have 1 hour until our next appointment on the other side of town and if we leave right now we still might not get there on time". Yet the spirit prompted me to stop and help them with their hedge. So I dropped the bag off my shoulder and began to help with the hedge as my new trainee (companion) looked at me and tapped his watch (He's all gung-ho about being exactly on time; plus he has huge allergies to grass and anything green and beautiful, so all he could do was watch and teach).

As we spoke with them they were very grateful and seemed to open up a lot more about questions and concerns they have. James was really funny --> He asked if he had to get circumcised in order to get baptized. Haha. I told him no.

But as we were there and worked alongside them for 25 minutes or so, they talked about why they missed church (visiting their children in Wemyss Bay) and how they were both really excited to be baptized still.

So it was truly an important time for us to be there and teach them just little things if nothing else. Well we left there and walked to the bus stop (James walked us there). As we looked through all the bus times, one came in just 2 minutes (ON A SUNDAY TOO! just so you know, the bus schedules are rubbish over here and if you have to wait less than 15 minutes, that's a miracle). So, willing to possibly let this one slide as coincidence, we got off the bus at the train station (thinking that would be faster) but the next train didn't come until half an hour after our appointment!

We rushed out of the Train station, over to the bus terminal only to see a bus driving away NOOOO!!!OO!OO!O!O! But, then we went over to check the schedule and wonder of wonders, a bus came in 7 minutes! (like I said, another miracle). So we caught that bus and got across town (Actually to the neighboring town) to our appointment right on time! It was amazing! To get that distance in that amount of time on a weekday would be a miracle in itself. Yet somehow the Lord was able to pull it off on a Sunday, because he wanted us to stay there and help His sheep.

I love this work; I don't think I'll ever find a work that brings greater satisfaction

God Speed,

-Elder Stephen C Beacham

Edinburgh Military Tatoo

Dearest Family and Friends,

I must say that the event of most note this week has to be the Edinburgh Military Tatoo. I don't know quite why they call it that but it is basically a big show of all the military bands from around the world (Scotland, USA, Poland, Jordan, New Zealand, etc). The bag pipers were amazing and I am quite determined to learn how to play bagpipes when I come home (Mom and Dad, you can apologize to Perry and the other neighbors in advance for me J

Anyway, I slept in Irvine overnight (because the Tatoo goes until 11PM in Edinburgh and we got back to Irvine at 2AM!!! (This is a once in a lifetime event for missionaries)) AND because I slept in Irvine, I am emailing in Irvine; and because of that, they have card readers on the computers here! So I can send lots of pictures to you people! Picture quality isn't the greatest but the music is amazing.

Love you all so very much. Enjoy the Pictures.

-Elder Stephen C Beacham

On the train

Check out my hat

On the bleachers

We're in awe at the scenery

Here's what we're looking at

A couple of the military bands that played for us

This is a picture of a Scottish Thistle. It is infamous in Scotland for a story it plays a part in. Once upon a time there were some Vikings coming to raid a village. While running through the Scottish Thistles, one of the vikings tripped and landed in them. Due to the nature of the type of clothing Vikings wore (I.e. around their Loins) certain vital parts were exposed and the Viking made such a howl and noise that it scared the rest of the vikings away and they never came back to attack that village :)

Training?!?!

Dear Friends and Family!

As the title alludes to, I found out Sunday night that I would be getting a new companion. Upon asking President who my new companion would be he said that he did not know because he hadn't met him yet. I was confused (naturally) and upon asking him why he told me that I would be receiving a companion fresh from the MTC! WOW! DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING!

But it has been exciting thus far! I am amazed to see just how far I've come from being new (being around someone new gives you that feeling) and at the same time see just how much more prepared he is of the Lord than I was! I think the Lord is progressively preparing the children of Men to be more and more effective advocates of the truth.

His name is Elder Holcomb. He is from Queen Creek, Arizona! He's about the most non-dramatic person you will ever meet (so pretty much the opposite of me) but I love him. We get along great! We (all the trainers and all the trainees) spent Wednesday in Edinburgh where we got to Interact and get to know one another before we actually got assigned to each other. I like that method a whole lot better than the way I was assigned; nevertheless it was a lot of fun. We hiked up a hill called "Arthur's Seat" but the local missionaries call it "Pratt's Hill" because when Orson Pratt came on a mission to Scotland he hiked the hill and asked the Lord to bless him in his endeavors. He hiked that hill a lot to consult the Lord and left his mission a while later (like 8 months or so) with 200 baptisms! It was a moment that the Mission President gave the new missionaries to consecrate their efforts to the Lord. I took the moment as well to set some goals with the Lord for how I could be a better missionary.

It has been an overwhelming responsibility to train another missionary. I have realized just how much I relied on another companion who knew certain things that I didn't. Now Elder Holcomb and I are learning together! It's a good feeling! Rather than sit there and teach an inanimate object (like a pen, or a football) I will let him Solo Teach me. I think (and the spirit seems to accord) that this is the best thing for him right now. He testifies so powerfully and he will do a lot of good on his mission. He struggles a bit with confidence, but then again, so did I at the beginning of my mission. I think the biggest thing that has caught him off guard so far has been the Scottish accent. It is really funny to see him go through the same turmoil in the first week that I did!

We have had some amazing lessons with people so far. I think I mentioned at one point that we were teaching a Jim McNeill. Jim kind of backslid a little bit and we didn't know what to do. When Elder Holcomb and I went over to see him, we had a powerful lesson on prayer and Jim began to cry. He committed to pray vocally when we left and truly seek relief for the pain and anger in his heart. I was really glad to see Jim this way. Because usually he's all joking and such and won't really let anything out. It was good to see him let the spirit into his heart. I believe this was major in him being baptized and when he prays and repents, I have no doubt that he will be.

After Jim we went up to see Lisa Padda. Lisa is also a former investigator who is the daughter of a member, and she has been taught everything about a billion times! We went up to teach her and the spirit was still very strong in this lesson. Her husband (Peter) is an active Muslim and usually just "tolerates" our lessons. However, this time as we taught, he actually participated and testified of a principle! I was so impressed at the effect the strong spirit and (I believe) Elder Holcomb's strong faith was having on these people. We will work very hard together and bring a lot of success.

I have seen that it is our duty to try our best and reach outside our comfort zone to get the miracles the lord has waiting for us.

I love you all!

Elder Beacham

A Test...

Dear Friends & Family,

This has been an amazing week for me here. To start off I am in Greenock. It is nothing like Sligo and much closer to the populated city of Glasgow (half hour train ride away). It has been an interesting adjustment from Ireland to Scotland. The people are MUCH more receptive and MUCH more willing to discuss the potential and "try the virtue of the word of God" or as Alma said "exercise a particle of faith even to experiment upon my words"

I wish to share with you today just one way in which the Lord has poured out his tender mercies upon me this week.

When I first arrived in Scotland I had come over with quite a sum of funds from Ireland which I had been frugal with so I had about 150 Euro. The new month arrived which should have added approximately 100£ to my account. So, due to the complete lack of food in the house, on my first shopping trip I bought many things in bulk to save money over the long run and spent about 60£. Over the next couple of days I had to spend 30£ on items which were reimbursable but which I would not get back for about 4-5 days. Upon going to use my card for another purchase it was declined and I became under the impression that for some strange reason I was out of funds entirely and perhaps my 150 Euros had not transferred. I emailed home to see how much money was in my personal funds and to my inexpressible horror found out that I only had $20 USD! At about 7£ that is hardly a staple to survive off of but I was not too worried because I had a week long bus pass, and a fridge full of food.

The next day our fridge broke. Ker plunk! And in the following few days most of our food went bad or was given away before it could go bad! Near 45£ down the drain! With diminishing food and funds I began to literally wonder what was going to become of me during the month of July! I don't think I ever quite understood the terror of being out, completely out of everything (except for rice) until now. In Europe a person down to nothing (no moral temporal possessions) is called a skint. I nearly felt skint.

This is probably going to be humorous to you all seeing as you are all older than me and have had much more experience with money than myself, and have probably been where I was at on this occasion.

Nevertheless I began to realize that not only would my wants not be fulfilled but some of what I considered necessities would be gone as well! I think the real terror hit me when I realized that the 30£ which would go back into my account I would not be allowed to use because I would have to continue to reimburse that for my bus/train pass! So because of that I literally would not have any funds for the rest of the month!

I remember once someone, somewhere, committed me and the rest of the congregation to pray and instead of listing off all the concerns we had, merely thank the lord for all the blessings we did receive and tell Him that He knew our concerns and we would like it if he could take care of those or comfort us in them.

This I did. My prayers became prayers of gratitude and I was humbled to see miracles happen. I call them Mini Miracles because they came one after the other.

As I prayed, the week slowly and steadily began to fill up with dinner appointments, sometimes even lunch appointments! We ate the no-longer refrigerated eggs for breakfast and just hoped they wouldn't make us sick.

To be honest I don't believe I had to provide a single meal for myself except breakfast that entire week. The ONE day which we didn't have a dinner appointment on, we had planned to go see a new investigator whom we had never taught before. Upon arriving, to our complete shock and amazement, she served us a 3-course meal and was absolutely interested in our message (and temporal welfare). Not only did she do it then but she does it now and continues to do it (she has even begun taking requests!).

It may seem like a small thing but if you take a step back and look at it like this:

We met Janice on the street as she was sweeping up her friend's porch. I said hello in passing and she ended up stopping us to speak with us. We were in a hurry so we spoke for maybe 1 minute about her and what we did and then we asked if we could come visit and she said yes.

This may still seem normal to some, but view it from this way:

2 strangers in suits stop and speak to you. Ask if they can come over some time and talk about God with you. Hmm, you decide to make them a 3-course meal! GOOD GRIEF! HOW IS THIS NOT A MIRACLE?!?!?!

Anyway, enough ranting here…the miracles have not stopped flowing and we have continued to be fed on countless occasions. What amazes me is at the end of this week that I had been so worried about I called Elder Paine (the senior missionary in charge of finances) who said that my card had been declined by accident and that I had well over my original estimated amount remaining on my card!

In this experience I see the faint shadow of a pessimist who would say that the idiot who rejected the card gave me a scare for nothing.

But through the eyes of Heaven it was an amazing experience for me to rely on the Lord temporally, as well as spiritually. Abraham didn't actually end up sacrificing his Son but that was not the point. Whether or not I was skint was not the point. It was what I was going to do about it.

I don't say this to glory in myself but in the Lord for holding me up through my trials (or in this case it seemed quite literally a test).

I can testify that not only does the Lord provide for our necessities day by day, but he also observes very closely the desires of our heart and He always helps us fulfill the righteous wants we may have, on His time.

This is a true point which I feel has struck me this week.

"How gentle God's commands, how kind His precepts are, come cast your burden on the Lord and trust His constant care."

Someone once spoke to me of a story where there was a house in which they had a room for everything. A room for work, a room for the kids, a room for their spouse, a room for hobbies, a room for sports, and a room for God. They talked about the importance of letting God out of that little room you had put him in and letting him run rampant in all the places of your house. Sometimes it will hurt because certain things in certain rooms will have to go, but as the Rooms of your heart and home are filled with His marvelous light you will come to know your Savior that much better and trust Him that much more.

I love you all so much!

-Elder Stephen C Beacham