Well, good morning! It’s me, your son, Elder Berrett. It’s a
beautiful day. Just finished personal
study, it’s 8:22 am. Loving life. Still
have to make breakfast. But yeah, it’s
just wonderful. The horses are out
today. Our next door neighbors on both
sides have horses and pastures of grass.
Oh and of course like to my left there’s a pasture of grass and horses,
and to my right, the same, and trees every where and straight ahead there’s the
mountains with white caps of snow and rolling green hills with trees and
flowers of all kinds and summer is wonderful.
I love summer. After the winter especially. This is definitely some place that I’d love
to come visit in the summer.
But I don’t know, I was talking to a family yesterday and
they were telling me their kids don’t know but they kept asking me what Gilbert
and the area is like, and they’re like, “We’re moving. To Gilbert.” And I’m
like, “What?!?” So a family from one of our wards is moving to Gilbert. In like
a month. A month or two. And their kids
don’t know yet. Their oldest is a
junior, they have a 14 year old boy.
They have a junior, and a 14 year old boy, an 8 year old boy, and then
like a 3 year old I think? Super, super
amazing family. Love them to death. Really they showed me, they are moving out to
San Tan valley, so I’m like “Okay, that’s not quite in Gilbert, but it’s still
in the Gilbert mission.” I’m like
“That’s so cool” but we were talking and kind of comparing and they’re asking
me a lot of what it’s like, what it’s like growing up there, and it just kind
of further set it in me that I don’t want to live anywhere else right now. But you know the valley and even Arizona is a
wonderful place to live. As much as I
love the beauty and everything out here, I really don’t want to live out
here. I’d love to come and visit, to be
around, to have fun, but I just wouldn’t want to live here. The LDS community isn’t that big. She was saying that people don’t like to do
lots of socializing with people. They
have friends that move to North Dakota because “in the last 10 years 10 people
have moved in around us and its just getting way too big here” and so they
move. And I’m like, “What?!?” This place
is like so… the houses are so spread apart.
But yeah. I love home. But I love it here, so yeah. That’s my thoughts on that.
For right now, like
I’m hungry, well how many eggs do I have? Two.
Uh, yeah, I can just make some eggs.
And like some toast. That’ll be good.
Oh! Duh. I got transfer
news. Uh, you’re probably wondering
about that. Sorry. (laughs) I am staying
here in Stevensville. Elder Johnson is
leaving and going to Cody, Wyoming. I’m
like “Oh!” This will be his third time
in Wyoming. He was in Thermopolis, same
zone that I was in, and then Buffalo.
Which is in the other Wyoming zone.
So he’ll be going to Cody. He’ll
be companions with his trainer. And I’m
like “That is super cool!” And they’re like, “Elder Berrett, do you know who
your companion is?” And I’m like, “No!”
And he’s like “Okay, well it’s Elder Haa…” And I’m like “No way it’s Elder Hendricks, I
get my trainer too?” And then they said “Elder Hand.” And I’m like “Oh.” Okay, so it’s not Elder
Hendricks. It was just kinda funny. I had to pause, and they way they were saying
it at first I totally thought they were going to say Elder Hendricks. Especially since he… the way his family, they
are going to come pick him up and everything and tour the mission, and he gets
to extend his mission like two weeks.
And he’s been asking President, he’s like “So the last two weeks, the
last transfer or something, can I please be with Elder Berrett?” But the Lord has a plan. And I am really excited to meet Elder
Hand. He’s been out six weeks, er six
months. Everything I’ve heard about him
has been great. He seems like a
stud. I’m going to be sad to see Elder
Johnson go, but I’m excited.
Let me think…. So yeah, that’s that. I’m staying. I’ve got at least another 6
weeks here in Stevensville. Most likely
I will finish here. I mean, the Lord has
a plan, I may be needed somewhere else my last six weeks, but for right now the
second to last transfer I will be here in Stevensville. That’s really crazy to think about. In six weeks, at the end of this transfer, I
will only have one transfer left, I will be starting ‘My Plan’. I’ll know where I will be the rest of my
mission. Like yeah, that blows my mind.
But that’s three months away, I don’t need to think about that.
Things here have been going well. My desk is a mess. It’s like somewhat organized, sort of. On my left I have all my envelopes and stamps
and letters and things. In the very
middle is my Preach My Gospel, one of my copies of the Book of Mormon, True to
the Faith, Our Search for Happiness, and that’s where I keep my quad. To the right I have a bunch of papers, my
journal, Altoids, pens, a couple of random stuff. Tylenol, glorious Tylenol. And Veterinary Liniment Gel. It’s like extreme icy hot. And then strewn around I have various marking
things, Patriarchal Blessing, the front cover of one of my Preach My Gospels
that fell off from use, phone, The Living Christ, lots of pens, flash drive,
gospel study journal. At least I didn’t
lose that one. I still got that one.
I’m excited for today, we have a fun preparation day
planned. We’re going on a hike up
Blodgett Mountain or Blodgett Overlook, yes that’s it’s called. Blodgett Overlook. And then we’re going to come… so at first
we’re going to go to Hamilton, we’re going to be there by… the plan is to be
there by 12, or 11:50. Drive off as a zone, to go do service for someone who is
making us all lunch, and then go to Blodgett Overlook. Do that, it’s a short
hike, apparently beautiful and fun, and then Elder Johnson and I after that
will come back here, and one of our ward mission leaders, Brother Wilton is
going to take us out to a ghost town around here, so it’ll be kind of fun. Busy, but fun.
The sunsets here have been gorgeous lately. They’ve been
reminding me a bit more of Arizona sunsets.
I’m like, “Oh, I remember what those look like!” It’s kinda cool with
the mountains though, living so close to them.
Cause you have this really really dark red that near the end of the
sunset will just like come up shooting past the mountains, and if you take a
picture of it, with my camera I put it in Sunset mode, or make the brightness
go down, then I take a picture and it just looks like red shooting up from behind
the mountains. And I’m like “Oh my goodness the world is ending!” It looks so
cool.
This week has been really fun. So we had an amazing lesson with Jacob. Oh my goodness that kid is a stud! So freaking prepared for the gospel. I’m so excited for our lesson hopefully
tomorrow with him. Jacob is the
grandson of an active member in our ward. His grandpa lives here and Jacob is
about 18, our age and he lives in Salt Lake City. His mom is less active or inactive and is
coming back. And while he was here his
grandpa was “Well since you’re with me, you’re not missing any church!” And Jacob is not a member, so we’ve been
teaching him. I know he’s on the prayer
list if you even have access to that.
Most likely I will be including that list in my weekly email. So far it’s only like 4 or 5 people. We taught him the Restoration and he’s like,
“This is awesome! I mean I already know
all this, but this is great!” Apparently
so as he’s been here, his grandpa has been telling him about things and teaching
him and he went to church, and apparently all the lessons were focused around
the Restoration, and the watched one of the Restoration videos, and then he
went home and watched the Restoration movie with his grandpa, and then the next
day we came over and taught him about the restoration. So it was great! We went a little more in depth on some things
and his grandpa went a little more in depth on some other things, so he’s got a
solid foundation on the Restoration. And
he knows it’s true. At least to an
extent. Like he doesn’t doubt it, he’s
super excited to just read and find out more and learn everything. So teaching
him was really fun this week.
We had a lesson with Amanda this week. She was an online media referral. So she went on and requested a copy of the
Bible and a missionary from Salt Lake followed up and they’re like “Hey! Yeah!”
And sister Choo, I think her name is, and she’s like “Hey Amanda, thanks
for requesting that, we’ll send some missionaries over your way, where do you
live?” and talked to her and convinced
her to take a copy of the Book of Mormon as well. And like THAT DAY, this was like 3 or 4 weeks
ago, 3 weeks ago, and we get a text and
we’re in the middle of Priesthood for the second time that day because we’ve
got two wards, and it was a 5th Sunday, I remember that, so that was
awhile ago then, but it was a 5th Sunday combined lesson, and it was
the Just Serve initiative which was starting up here, and I’m like “Hey, I know
what this is. We did this years
ago.” And so we’re like, “Well we can
sit here and go through this thing again, OR! Oh Hey! We just got a
referral! Let’s go!” And so we did. And she’s like “I just
requested this a little bit ago! I didn’t realize you guys would be so fast!
This is great!” She’s a mom, with two young kids, the daughter is like 9 and
the other one is 3, I think, or 7 and 3 or something. The dad is not religious. Not interested. But she was super, super welcoming and
everything. Anyways, that happened
awhile ago, and we were sorta staying in contact, we were trying and trying and
trying, and we finally got a lesson set up and she’s super busy with her two
kids and two jobs and they also moved out here two years ago and are trying to
start a farm. So, she’s been really
busy. We were finally able to set up something and have a lesson. We explained the Book of Mormon to her
because she had some questions about it, she hadn’t started reading it
yet. She read the scripture we sent her
by text one time, which I’m like, “Why don’t we do that more? Gosh darnit!” But she read it, and she liked
that, and so that was really fun to be able to sit down with her. She had a couple of questions, we answered,
and committed her… Backing up a bit, every question she’d ask, we’d refer her
back to the introduction, where Elder Johnson was really good at just coming
out and testifying of something, “Yeah!
Like here’s a part of the Book of Mormon where it explains this…” And so she was like “So what you are saying
is that I should just read it and all my questions will be answered.” And so we committed her read the Title Page,
Introduction, Testimony of the Witnesses, and start the Book of Mormon. And so she’s like “Okay! Will do!”
And so we’re going to follow up with that. Keep trying to send her scriptures. At one point she asked the question, “So if
you guys are Christians, how come you are so persecuted by everyone else?” And Elder Johnson and I are just sitting there,
“That’s a really good question.” We
didn’t quite come out and tell her it was because “Well, we’re the true church
and Satan doesn’t want people to join us…”
And we’re like, “well, there’s lots of reasons. People just don’t quite know all the facts about
us…”
I do feel a little bad though because I felt the prompting
from the spirit to say like, “Satan has always persecuted any of God’s work.
Christianity in all its forms.” And just kind of leave it at that to at least
set that foundation. I chickened out, so I didn’t. I don’t even know why I did. Like it’s not even that big. I’ve told people bolder things and committed
people to do more things, but for that… Ugh.
Always listen to the spirit. That was like my whole personal study
today. The Lord was like, “Please listen
to me.” I was reading about Alma and
Amulek and Alma goes to the city of Amonihah, and just gets COMPLETELY
rejected. And so he keeps on trying and
keeps on trying to the point where they have to physically throw him out, and
so he’s walking away just feeling awful. An angel comes to him and he’s like, “Hey!
Rejoice! One, you’ve been keeping the
commandments of the Lord, you’ve been faithful! And now that you’re rejoicing,
go back.” (laughs) So Alma went back
SWIFTLY, and went to another entrance, and I’m like “okay, so he’s obeying, but
he’s being smart.” He meets up with
Amulek. Amulek feeds him and immediately
recognizes him as a prophet of God, because an angel came and told him, and
basically because they both were faithful and listened to the spirit, they had
the power with them, so they were able to teach and do great things there. I only had a half an hour so I only read that
one chapter today. And I also read a
bit in Preach My Gospel 4 about the spirit.
One, it was the promise that like missionaries are told to strive to
always have the Spirit, to teach with the power of God and of Heaven, and I’m
like… In the margin I wrote, “We can literally have the power of heaven with us
to teach. We should never fear.
Anything.” Like, obviously be smart in
situations, but we have the power of God with us when we are striving to have
the spirit. Like, that is amazing. And then also, I noticed this little
scripture study box that I’ve never seen before at the end of chapter four, and
I’m like, “Oh! What is this?” And at the top it is like “Why you must listen to
the spirit.” Oh! Okay. And I start
reading some of the scriptures and it’s just like, I’m trying to remember the
exact wording, but in essence it’s just like if you quiet the spirit and don’t
listen to it, the Lord is like “There is no place for these people and they
will be thrust down to hell.” And I’m like, “Clearly I need to repent of that.”
There are times that I get too scared to say what it wants me to say, and I
know I’m probably going to struggle with that the rest of my life. Something that everybody struggles with, to a
point. Like “Spirit, are you sure I
shouldn’t take this road? Like, I went
this way my whole life….” Or “Do I
really need to put on my seatbelt right now?
Like, I’m fine.” No. If the spirit tells you something, you need
to do it. So that was kind of the point of my studies today. I loved it.
Really great. Journaling’s been great.
Didn’t do it last night. I’m
averaging at least a couple days a week.
The start of my journal is usually, “Okay, a recap of the last few
days…” Boom. But I definitely feel my
nights go better if I manage to journal too.
And I know that journaling is an eternal principle. So, putting that here because I’m just trying
to do better.
How long has this
been? 19 minutes and 24 seconds.
Okay. I should probably
stop. I’m gonna quickly wash the pan for
my eggs and I’ll start making another recording. I hope you have a wonderful day. God bless.
I hope you have a great day at work!
Oh no, you don’t work today, it’s a holiday! I hope you have a fun day with the kids. At least I think you don’t work today. Maybe. I don’t know if everyone gets it off,
I just know the library is closed today.
However we had someone come and unlock the family history center real
briefly, so I will have like 15 minutes to get on and email dad real
quick. Anyways, I am going to stop this
because I don’t want it to be too big that I can’t email it off. Love you!
Bye!
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