Greetings from The Great OCM!,
Little
miracles, I often wonder how many pass me by and I not notice them. It
has become important to me to pray to see the hand of the Lord
throughout the day, then it becomes a little easier to recognize what
God is doing for you, such as when Mom talked to the boy while dropping
Corban off for school. It is especially important to recognize these
little miracles during times of trial. They are what makes all the
difference. I know that trials are hard and discouraging, but they are
what testimonies are built on, as long as we recognize that we must rely
on the Lord always, especially in the hard times. Many people will cry
out and say "why is God doing this to me if he really loves me" but if
only they could see that a loving Heavenly Father is shaping them to
become like him. My mission president always says "there is no growth in
the comfort zone" and it is so true. I always love to relate things to
running: as a runner people always ask "why do you do it, it is so hard
and not fun" The only good response to their questions is the same with
every trial, and that is: "You will understand at the finish line." It
is hard, it is not fun at times, and we can never come to a good
conclusion why we are doing it or why we are going through it during the
race, or the trial. But in the end things begin to make sense and we
can start to see just what it has done for us, how far we have come, and
where we need to continue going.
A couple of weeks ago I sent Grandpa Matheson a letter.
I don't know when he will get it but I hope he does soon. I will make
sure to keep him in my prayers as well. We all love Grandpa.
I am supposed to send my birthday favors this week so I know it is
late for some, early for others, but know that I wish you all a happy
birthday and love you.
To brother Mangelson's
question about David Crawford the name is soooooo familiar, it is
killing me like one of Cari's movie lines. I think that I recognize it
from being in Xenia, but I am not sure. I will think about it more and
let you know if I come across the answer. Since I recognize the name so
well I am sure I have heard it before while in Ohio.
So a little bit of update from this last week. We
had the baptism Saturday and it went smoothly. It has been a little
stressful because we had to organize the entire program, make the phone
calls, have the church open and the font filled, get the jumpsuit, make
sure he had an interview with President, and lots of other things. In
Xenia the ward mission leader did everything but in this ward it fell on
our shoulders, and it took a lot of time out of this last week to do
everything. It was especially intense when President and Sister Nilsen
were there because they are very stingy about how a baptism should be
run. It all went smoothly. The spirit was very strong. We had to hold
the service in the chapel because so many people came, but President
enjoyed it and even bore his testimony to everyone at the end. There was
even a return missionary who flew out from Idaho to see it (he was his
first contact with the church). It does feel good though that it is over
with. Now hopefully we have another one on the 30th if the brother can
stop smoking . . .
We had a bit of odd weather over the last couple days. Yesterday was in the mid 60s and rainy but the best part is there were
tornado warnings. In fact, at around 7:50pm the sirens went off and we
had to end our night early. Don't worry we are all safe and sound. It
was really windy but as far as I know nothing touched down in Columbus.
That is something I can check off the mission bucket list:
hearing Tornado sirens. It really did keep us on our toes though for
that hour or so until the storm blew over.
Have a wonderful week as we near the holiday season. I
hope someone feeds the missionaries on Thanksgiving but we don't know
for sure yet. Make sure you play a good "turkey bowl" for me and man I
am going to miss that sweet potato casserole thing. Love you!
Elder Beutler
