Fun times!

Having lots of laughs with your neat son playing board games. We're so lucky to have the missionaries here. Thank you!

Merry Christmas!

Week 12

This week not much has happened. We taught a new investigator named Sam. He's from South Sudan. We committed him to read, pray, come to church, and put him on date in the first lesson! Which is awesome!

We also got one of our investigators John Nash FINNALLY to church. Everything he heard applied to his life and was what he needed to hear! Which was awesome!

We had a live nativity, I got to be the inn keeper who slammed the door. Everyone said I was being too nice. Sooo the last time I yelled at the top of my lungs "NOOOO ROOOOM!" and slammed the door as hard as I could. All Joseph could say was, "Geez!" Funniest thing ever! Everyone after came up and asked if it was me! They could'nt believe I could get that loud! 

Other than that nothing has happened! Next weeks email should be pretty great because it's Christmas Eve week!

Live Nativity

Chambersburg, PA live nativity

Christmas Card

Week 11

Another Day, Another Dollar..I mean soul.

This week has been the craziest but slowest week of my life! Nothing but tracting upon tracting all week except for the weekend!

Tracting was the usual talked to some people who slammed the door. Talked to some people who were smoking some big fat joints. Talked to some drug dealers. Talked to some anti-Mormons. Nothing too crazy.

Saturday was the ward Christmas party and we wore our ugly sweaters and I've never had so many ward members come and talk to me! Also sadly Santa wasn't into the whole idea of me sitting on his lap for a picture.. sorry no picture of that guys.. 

Sunday was crazy! Try going to church while making sure your investigators go to church while running a baptism! Luckily it worked out in the end but it was the craziest Sunday of my life!

3 Nephi 1:12-14

Week 10

First transfer Complete

Well.. my first transfer will be done this Wednesday! Only sixteen more to go! 

I've finally learned how frustrating it is for missionaries when investigators don't keep their commitments... Five weeks and this man will not go to church... it's the worst! 

Not much this week! I'll be in the same area for another six weeks! 

Yesterday was the Christmas Devotional which was awesome! Go watch it ASAP!

I made a cool rock with an engraving. Gotta read the scripture to truly appreciate it!

Got some awesome sweaters because tis the season!  

There's a baptism this Saturday for a girl named Chealse that we've been working with which is pretty awesome!

We won't have a car in a couple week because it will be in the shop which won't be awesome..

Wow this week has been lame! Sorry for the short email! Nothing has happened this week!

As always love ya guys! Talk to ya next week!

Helaman 5:12 

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Week 9

Turkey Day!

This week has been pretty good! It has to be! It's the one week I can finally eat enough food!

Not much has actually happened missionary work wise! Thanksgiving day we had the day off. So we went to a members house and ate food for days. I ate all the mashed potatoes like usual! I also introduced Elder Dameus to sweet potatoes with marshmallows and Thanksgiving itself! Afterwards we played some spoons and other card games!

On Sunday the missionaries gave a presentation in sacrament meeting about light the world. It was awesome! The video is sweet and I suggest ya'll go check it out! Light the World is going to hopefully be even bigger than last year!

I'm trying to upload my pictures but it says the file corrupted so I'm going to send a selfie instead for this week.

Week 8

One word...Life.

Where do I even start.. I guess I'll start with the good stuff. 

I finally taught my first lesson to a family! It was even a family that I found! It was awesome and the Lord really does prepare people! 

I've gotten really good at cooking bacon as well.  

Watched a baptism and got to be one of the witnesses!

Watched the Face to Face yesterday with a random person that we didn't know! It was a pretty funny story actually. We stopped by this members house and his roommate answered the door saying that he didn't know where he was. Then we got a text about the face to face thing and we straight up just asked if he wanted to watch it with us and he agreed! It was pretty awesome! I recommend it!

I ate palm hearts and had macadamia nut milk for dinner which was pretty interesting!

Now for the bad stuff... 

We had our GPS die one night and so ended up walking five miles in the wrong direction and ended up getting to our house after walking 12 miles. 

It has also rained basically everyday and Elder Dameus's shoes got mold in them because they couldn't dry haha. 

We got dogs sicked on us! We knocked on a door and a light turned on but no one came so we started to leave. So I started to back up Elder Dameus because it was a super long driveway. Then around the corner of the house two big boxers came running at me. So I ran around and jumped in the car before they got to us.

Fun stuff this week! A lot happened! Hopefully more will happen next week!

Maryland Baltimore Mission Updates Facebook page

The Carlisle Ward loves their missionaries! We are so blessed for their service and their hard work in this part of the Lord's vineyard. (Christine Keasling posted this on the MARYLAND BALTIMORE MISSION UPDATES Facebook page.)

Week 7

Well this week has been interesting! Lot's of things have happened! I had exchanges on Tuesday, so me and Elder Lartey (Pronounced Late) were companions for the day. We knocked on doors all day and all night! It was pretty intimidating just because I've never knocked on doors before! We knocked on a door and a lady answered it. She wasn't interested but she asked her husband if he wanted a "Mormon lesson." To her response he said, "If they want to teach me naked." So we almost taught a naked man this week. 

We had a meeting all the way in Walkersville, Maryland the next day. So me and Elder Lartey had to wake up early to meet back up and exchange back then drive two hours to the meeting. Not too fun..

We taught some lessons this week with brother Gibbs. He help teach Carros about priesthood authority. We also taught a lesson to one of our eternigators. I'll try to get a picture with him this week so you can see the legendary Brother Gibbs.

We also got a pass for the War college next to our house. So now I can enter into the barracks with my own ID!

More car troubles. We were pulling into a steep driveway and the driveway caught the bumper and long story short we get to now replace the bumper as well haha. Oh well! 

My mom has created a blog at Elderparkerbeardall.blogspot.com go check it out I guess! That's all for this week!

Correction, my mom said that the blog was created by Callie Winters even though she would love  to take credit for it.

Week 6

Pretty interesting week to say the least! 

Halloween night we had zone sports. So we drove an hour to Chambersburg and we got there to luckily have our bike rack break with our bikes on it... so our bikes are still stuck in Chambersburg... that's where the fun begins... 

We picked a new investigator Carros who is from Liberia. He's pretty awesome! 

We had MLC on Friday. We needed to leave by six to make it on time but the sisters had the car... so we called them the night before and they didn't answer. Which means we woke up at 3:30 and walked for 4 miles to their place to knock for twenty minutes and get the car just in time.. Then on our way there was a bunch of hills and I got car sick out of nowhere and threw up everywhere, sorry TMI. 

I gave my first blessing to a guy who had a stroke! That was pretty awesome tho!

Then the sisters were driving the car and the tire popped so they called a member to help them change the tire.. needless to say the car fell of the jack twice and now the car needs to go the the body shop this week.. so we're out of bikes and a car. 

Saturday and Sunday it down poured. That's all that there is to it!

Today we went to get the car checked out and then went to Ross and Olive Garden. Pretty good day so far!

Pictures; I made some muffins this week, Elder Dameus was trying to learn how to play Apples to Apples

That's it for this week! Learned lots this week, especially patience haha.

Missionary Plaque

Week 5

I don't even know how to start so I think I'm just going to go straight out of my journal haha. 

Oct. 24- Pretty great day today! We had our first biking day that went well (Except for the chain falling of every five minutes). I also got called Captain America, so that made me feel pretty good to know that I look like Captain America haha. Bro. Gibbs in our ward took us to dinner and drove us around for a couple of hours so that was super nice of him! Then he drove us to the church and took us back after that! He enjoy's being with us as he is alone in his house. He loves to talk and has no one to talk to all day. 

Oct 25-  Basically let's just say it was a rough day... From having a flat tire on my bike to stepping in dog poop to having a man fix your bike with spoons while your dinner appointment is waiting on you. Pretty eventful day if I say so!

Oct 26- "today was a pretty crap day," in Elder Dameus's words. We started the day by making some appointments which was pretty good. Weekly planning was long... Also our Investigator Sarah gave us near impossible questions disproving the book of Mormon to answer. Even though most of them I'm sure she got from some anti-Mormon site. We drove to Mechanicsburg to find out it was "trick-or-treat night." (On the east coast they have trick-or-treat night a couple day's before Halloween because Halloween is too dangerous). Waste of time and miles... oh well.

Oct 28- Wasted half an hour, 28 dollars, and 25 miles... all thanks to the Philadelphia turn pike. basically we had no idea where we were going and the "toll troll" made us Utahans pay 28 dollars because of it. Weirdly Scott Davis called right after that asking for $30... even though we were planning on stopping by for the first time... too bad we spent our money on the toll or we would have helped him with his drug money problem haha.

Oct 30- We had a fireside 40 miles away in Chambersburg and the only person we could have drive us was good old 73 year old Bro. Gibbs. Did I also mention that it was currently in the middle of a torrential downpour at 7 PM... I only thought I was going to die a couple of times... then Bro. Gibbs started to talk about all the people who had died on the freeway we were on... then I knew we were going to die...

Anyways, pretty crazy week this week! Taught some of my first lessons this week! A lot more eventful than last week!

Letter from Mission President

Week 3 & 4

A lot has happen in the span of eleven days! I woke up on Tuesday morning and said my goodbyes to half of my amazing district, and then flew with the rest of my district to Baltimore. 

In the airport baggage check in they forgot to give me back my boarding pass so I got to go the TSA security twice, lucky me... Once we got to Baltimore, the first thing I started to notice was the humidity. Nothing will dry here. Second thing was all of the trees. Third thing was the lack of mountains. 

We stayed the first night at the mission home and had some good food and got to know each other. After that we met our new companions. My companion's name is Elder Dameus. He is from Haiti and is pretty funny. He does his daily morning yoga while I lift weights. It's hard to be his companion sometimes because of his accent. 

We are both new to the area so we have no idea what's going on. Our area is very very large. It's supposed to be a car mission but it's hard to drive with one car and having to share with the sister missionaries. We also only have 1,100 miles per month. Plus the elders before us used 850 of those miles before we got there... So we have bikes but Elder Dameus will not bike. That means we usually end up walking 10 or so miles a day. 

The ward is pretty awesome though! They are pretty supportive. The only down side is that we are new and the area book isn't that great so we haven't taught a single lesson yet. There's a lot of dry Mormons in our ward so we'll have to work on that. That's all for now! Sorry for the lack of pictures. Not much has happened and I don't carry my camera around often.

New Companion

Picture of Elder Dameus (from Haiti) and Elder Beardall sent by a ward member. Thank you!

Baltimore here I come!

More pictures of MTC