May 30, 2016 The Lord's Hand is Truly in This Work

Wow well well well what a week!! So first you know how I said that we were staying? Well that was what we thought... lol because we didn't get a transfer call. Then that Sunday, President called us and said that we are getting transferred so pack up! So I am staying and i'll be getting a spanish companion his name is elder hernandez! Then elder herbert is going to stoneycreek my old area!!!!! Lol it's pretty cool to see and i'm excited for him! So elder herbert was all packed up then that morning we were supposed to leave we get a call from the AP's saying that Elder Herbert is staying another three weeks with me since elder hernandez has a dentist appointment he has to go too! But we are excited to serve another three weeks together! This week was a good one! We had the best week we've had here in Sudbury! We taught a ton of less active lessons and a ton of investigator lessons as well! We found four new investigators that are wanting to learn more and also three new less actives that are wanting to start backing back to church. One that I want to share about is Fern. He was offended and doesn't do well with crowds of people and when he had a calling in the church it required him to go to much out of his comfort zone and so he left. It has been four years since he has been to church. He said that he didn't want contact with the church or even the missionaries. But he had a feeling a week before that the missionaries were going to go see him, and then we show up and he is working in his backyard. So he tells us his stories about his past. His conversion story and also what he thought about the church and the gospel. He loves it so much, but just is plain scared and nervous. But we told him who the bishop is and he got very excited about it and wants to start coming back to church slowly. He wants us to start coming back and teaching him. So he's takin a big leap of faith which is amazing to see!! Seemed like a long things went our way this past week, the Lord's hand is truly in this work and their is to many miracles that I have seen for this not to be true! It's truly amazing! Me and Elder Hervert have found 23 investigators and have reactivated 9 less active members in Sudbury!! We could have not done it whatsoever without the help of the Lord! I love to see the progress of these people and also to see people start recognizing the Gospel! Sister Houston and her nonmember chris and also the nonmember daughter mckenna came up to us yesterday at church and said that they want to be baptized before Elder H leaves!!! But Chris and Sister H have to get married first but they both set the goal of getting baptized right after the marriage on July 23rd!!!! These are soooo awesome! Mckenna asked me to baptize her so I thought that that was pretty sweet! They have us over for dinner every week, they are so great! We gave Jose a chapel tour the other day, he loved it! We played some basketball after it was really fun! He really is liking the church and the gospel and they said that they are reading the BOM so AWESOME!!! Jamie (the hell's angel) is feeling alot better, but we never seem to catch him at a good time but he said that he wants to 3 nephi 11 with us tomorrow. If you haven't read that chapter I would recommend it!! We are working with like 3 couples who are interesting in baptism but first have to be married first but they are all having their marriages in July so pumped about that. I hope I stay until then so I can see it all!! We had 7 dinner appointments last week! #gettingfat. And get this..... Friday and Saturday we had two dinner appointments each day... wow i wanted to puke. So much food, i wouldn't advice doing that! It was fun and a cool story to tell! Well there is so much more to talk about honestly but running low on time!  Remember the purpose of life! Remember why we go through trials and challenges! Remember their is a God and a Son who are on our team and want us to succeed through those trails and challenges. Live to make the Lord famous! 

Love you all,

Elder Beddes, Coco, Colteyboy        

 Helping someone move.

 Eating out with some less actives.

BBQ with the Devost's family (less actives we reactivated)

May 21, 2016 Wrestling Before God

Hey guys! Soooo first I think I should start with transfer news! drum roll please...................... I'm staying and well since Elder Herbert has been here for 8 months you can pretty much assume that he's leaving!! But he's not.... he's staying another one with me here Sudbury!!! We were all really surprised and it's really unheard of that you stay this long in an area but there is unfinished business that needs to be done here! Baptisms!! We really do think that we will have two for sure but hopefully 5! We met with Kaitlen (the 12 year old who wants to be baptized) the other day and she is very excited about it! She has a less active mother but she is all for her be baptized! And also Mckenna ( Sister Houston's daughter) was asking her about baptism so that's exciting! She's been coming out to church and activity days and she's been loving it! Chris and Sister Houston just have to get married and then Chris will be baptized too! Then we have Jose's family who are sincerely interested! They are awesome they want to have chapel tour and play some futbol and basketball! So we are excited about it! Sister Mills has cancer, stage 4 cancer actually, and she isn't doing so hot. She's been in the hospital for quite some time. She is struggling to find someone who is willing to do the surgery and she's in extreme pain so i had the sacred privilege to give her a blessing. Two day later, she's feeling better and she has found someone who is willing to do the operation so she was very excited about that!! The Priesthood is for reals!!! So funny experience that came to my mind (really random, I know) is when I was in district meeting in Hamilton. And I was leaning back on my chair and I leaned back a little to far and baaaammm I fall backwards and land on my back. I get up and just turn my back on everybody for a couple of seconds and then get back into my chair and act like nothing happened while everybody was laughing at me. Yup Typical Elder Beddes. It was pretty funny! Jamie (the hell's angel) is feeling a ton better. We met him outside with like 6 other guys just sitting there with him! They were all of his friends and so we taught all of them. Felt like Dan Jones soap boxing it was sweeeet. Got two people who were really interested and want to sit into our lessons with Jamie now! We also got a media referral from church headquarters about a man who requested a Bible. His name is Serge and he is from Haiti and he wanted a Bible to learn more about Jesus, so we gave him one and bore testimony of it and also the Book of Mormon. He is very interested in that and wants us to come back! We also got in contact with a Less Active who has only gone to church once since Elder H has been here. She is awesome, we had a wonderful conversation about her conversion story and what she's gone through. She's going through some rough times right now sadly but she said that she needs help and wants us to start coming regularly. It's really cool to see people wanting to change there lives! It really is a blessing to see. Met with Sean and Franchessica finally! They had a campfire going in the back and so we taught a lesson back there. It was really awesome! We talked about family and marriage with them! They really enjoyed it and agree with the doctrine that we taught and they want to continue to have discussions so we are excited for that! Something that I've learned on the mission is that it isn't about me! As I've thought about myself and wanted the best for me and I wasn't ever happy! But I've come to know that true happiness comes from making others happy! Losing myself in the work and as the scriptures describe it "wrestling before God" in prayer about the people that i'm working with it's brought me that joy and happiness! As can it for you! Remember what's truly important in the life, this is my hope and prayer. I love you guys so much and I hope you have a wonderful day and week!

Forever and Always,

Coco, Colteyboy, Elder Beddes  

 Eating lunch with a member!! 

 Chillin on the couch drinking soda pic (Yes, collecting bottles)

 The Ice Castle

There's that hospital, it's huge!!

May 16, 2016 YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So many miracles!! I love Sudbury so much, it has so much potential and I've never seen so much success! I want to start off with Elissa (the less active who didn't know that there was an lds church here) she is doing amazing! She's been coming out to church every week, loves the scriptures, and has made some really good friends in the ward that are fellowshipping her! We had a cake off the other day and we had to be the judges! The girls won in the ysa! the guys were pretty bummed! We've been meeting with our native american less active friend Luella and she's pretty progressing a lot! She's been coming out to church for the past 3 weeks and elder h said that she only went a couple times before the whole time he's served here! So that's amazing! We had a hard time with meeting with a lot of our investigators. Jamie ( the hell's angel) is very sick and is living his last couple of breaths sadly.... :( so we haven't been able to meet with him. We are planning on introducing priesthood blessings to him next time. Evro (carribean dude), has been in Toronto but said we can meet with him this weekend so we are excited about that! Keven and Ashley are doing really well as well. Keven has come a long way. He was in a gang for a long time and was a drug dealer. He had a hard knock life for a long time but is now understanding the love of christ and peace of the gospel. They came with their three little children to church! Such a good sight to see. They are getting married in July so they are well on their way!! So proud of them! Alright so the miracle of the week! We were park contacting and we see this mexican family and the parents are sitting down with their new born baby cheering on their ten year old daughter while she is doing gymnastics! They are from mexico and they are here for school! They are really interested in what we have to say and they said that they saw missionaries in mexico but never got the chance to talk to them. They even have friends and neighbors who were mormons! They invited us over for tamales the next day which has never happened to me before! Investigators telling us to come over for dinner! Anyway we went over and we had a good chat with them!! And the tamales were really good, i had 8!! holy cow it was soooo good, they made this mexican hot chocolate, best thing i've ever drunk. wooooowww!!! The daughter is sooo cute, totally reminds me of Amber! Has the same personality and everything, you would make such a good friend for her amber! Something funny that happened there was i had to pee soooo bad and I hate asking people to go use the washroom during dinner appointments but i absolutely had to so i asked if i could use their washroom and jose the father said "yeah I would too if i ate that me tamales!" hahaha and everybody bursted out laughing! They even invited their friend and her son over and they also enjoyed the message of the restoration! They said that the whole thing makes since and they can't wait to learn more. They told us that we can come back anytime and that they will start reading the book of mormon and start praying to know if it's true! I love these people so much, i love finding families!! We also found George who loves what the mormons teach!! He loves how mormons center around families and that what he says he really needs! We had a good chat with him and he has a couple of concerns, but he said that if we can resolve those concerns that he will get baptized and i can really see this guy and his family getting baptized! I love the work so much!!! This is what an elder told me in his email today who is serving in stoney creek right now. "yeah jeremy he will be baptized next transfer for sure! And Shannon B who you guy's were working with who is in the part member family is getting baptized this week too!" YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jeremy is the one that was addicted to drugs and wanted to change his life around for his family and especially his young son. He went to his cabin for a month to abandon the worldly things for a while and now he is doing great!!! Holy cow i'm so pumped right now!!! I love you guys so much! Something that really hit me this week was the letter that you sent me momma about the missionary who had a dream about his friend. We are all out here trying to rescue our friends!! And the sad thing about it, is that a lot of them don't even know that they are lost and it is our duty and our obligation to reach out and save them and bring them back to the familiar taste of the fruit!! Have a good week my family and friends!

love,

Coco       

May 9, 2016 Work Will Win When Wishy-Washy Wishing Won't

Great pictures and i absolutely loved the skype call! I wish I would have had the chance to talk to you all one on one but obviously time permitted! So i'm very sorry if you felt like I needed to talk to you more! Just know that I love you and could talk to the each of you for days on end! Well we have had the best numbers that Sudbury has seen since it's reopened! Hit a record for investigators at church! It's so great to see the area growing. There were some fantastic miracles that happened this past week! We went by a referral that a member in the church told us to go by. So we went by and this younger mother and her 13 year old daughter opened the door! And they let us right in and they were telling us that they haven't seen missionaries in forever! We had a good talk with them. sister Koirber went on a mission to France and she absolutely loved it. They haven't gone to church for a couple of years now and from what it sounds like it's because of non member boyfriend that she has and also the not so great welcome that she got from the ward. But after meeting with them they said that they want to start coming out to church and they want us back over to start teaching the 8 year old daughter who was actually wanting to take the missionary lessons so that she could get baptized! So it really surprised her that we knocked on her door cause she was literally talking about that the same day. She's been 8 for awhile so we are excited to start teaching her so that she can get baptized as soon as possible. The 13 year  old really wants to start going to church and activity days! It was such a cool experience! I've only met them once and i already love them and care about them! I can really see this family getting reactivated and going for in the gospel. Speaking of reactivation, Nketiah (Daughter in the jones family) has been coming out to church a lot and she recently went to the temple!!! She's been working towards that for a long time since she had some problems that needed to be fixed in order to go to the temple! It's so great to see that she has made it and she loved the experience that she had! I'm so proud of her and her hard work. Kind of sad that we don't get to teach her anymore but extremely glad that she has come so far! So we were going by some of investigators and we see this family walking down the sidewalk and this girl around the age of 12 turns around and says "Hey Elders, how's it going?" so we were pretty surprised that she knew us. She came up to us and said that she had met with the elders two years ago but she felt like she wasn't prepared for baptism. But now she wants to have us come and teach and baptize her! So she took my planner and started writing down her information in it so that we could get a hold of her and we have an appointment with her this week!!! That was just shocking and awesome at the same time. I just say to Elder Herbert after that whole experience, " Did that really just happen? Did she ask us to baptize her?" hahaha it was sweeeeet! So our new investigators kevin and ashley came to church! It was such a nice sight to see as they walked in with they're 9, 7, and 5 year old following with them! haha we need more families in the ward and it was a great sight to see! Taught a lot of great lessons, a ton of spiritual experiences! I love this mission and i've grown so much! I know this gospel is true, no doubt in my mind it isn't! Here is a quote that i absolutely loved by the prophet! "Work will win when wishy-washy wishing won't." Put in the work, and stop wishing your wishes and turn it to reality! 

Love,

Elder Beddes, Coco, jojonator       

(From a Ward member)

 The Ice Castle Missionaries

Mother's Day 2016

May 8, 2016 Happy Mother's Day! (Handwritten)

Dear Momma,

There is so much to say about you, Momma and so much to be grateful for. There is so much I've learned from you! From learning how to pee in the toilet to learning how to truly help someone in need. You are a part of me, and I a part of you. I can feel your thoughts and your prayers each day and it is a motivator for me to keep pressing forward despite the harshness of the world. I've been well prepared to take a big leap into the real world because of the love, patience, and selfless attitude of yours. When I feel like I'm being cornered, I can always count on you being there waiting and wanting to do all that you can to help me. It was your hand that perfectly fit  in mine as a child that would make me feel safe and loved. It was your prayer that I felt safe and watched over during the Hurricane that hit Mississippi. It was you that put your arm around me and would scratch my back as I wept over the start of my 8th gd year. It was you that would drive me to the temple and would talk to me about its significance as we sat in its parking lot. It was you that I would count on greeting me every morning before school and would tell me you loved me. Ant it was you that whispered into my ear as we said good-bye before I walked into the MTC, "I'm so proud of you! You are going to do great things!" Memories such as these I will never forget. You have been here for me every step of the way! On this Mother's Day and every Mother's Day in the past I always thing of the Primary song "Mother, I love you" I love the words that are contained in this song. "Mother, I love you, Mother I do, Father in Heaven has sent me to you. When I am near you, I love to hear you singing so softly that you love me too. Mother, I love you; I love you , I do" Words can't adequately describe the amount of love and care I have for you. You are my best friend Momma! And you always will be. Forever and Always, Colten

May 2, 2016 Trust God and Believe in Good Things to Come

Another windy day for good old farmington! Remember when we were at Disney World when the wind storm happened? haha and yes i believe it's time to put Grandpa into the facility! I always worry about him staying alone in his house! He sure is a trooper though. I loved the pictures you sent me of him and his birthday! I bet you guys had a lot of fun! This week was a great one once again! I love having these great weeks haha! The work here is truly progressing and growing, i love it! We've been meeting with Elissa at the library. She loves the scriptures and praying. She's gone through a lot since her baptism 3 years ago and it's shaken her testimony a bit but she said that she loves meeting with us and having the lessons. She came to church yesterday and she is starting to get more comfortable with the ward so that's good to see! She apparently loves it and wants to start coming regularly so i'm pumped for that! It's funny how some sheep are lost are in the most unusual hiding places and sometimes it only takes just looking around weird places to find them! God loves his children and has led us to Elissa who's main concern was not knowing there was a mormon church in sudbury! haha and obviously she could have tried harder to find it but she just needed people to reach out to her! She's amazing! Every time we go over to Jamie's (hells Angel) he is very sick. We visited atleast 4 times last week and he was laying in bed and looked like he was dying, he said he was going to the hospital yesterday so we are going to try and surprise him and visit him today! He feels bad that he keeps postponing but he keeps telling us not to give up on him! I love the guy, he has a lot of potential. We've been meeting with Tim and Wendy (Works for Zeal), they love having us come over and teach them but they are having a hard time coming out to church! Ughh i wish I could just drag these people to church every week but they find some excuse every time and it's sad!! We won't give up on them, they promised us that they would go!!! We met with one of our Lamanite friends Luella! She is awesome and she loves the Indian traditions and is having a hard time balancing out church and those traditions. But we had a wonderful lesson about church and it's importance and she came out yesterday so we were super excited about that! she said that she loved it! We are getting so close with having Sister Gascon (dog groomer) come out to church!! We had a lesson about The Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom. She is having a hard time with the word of wisdom and she thinks it's ok to have the occasional coffee and wine. So we focused on the blessings of following the word of wisdom but it still wasn't clicking for her. So we told her to pray and ask if she should and she said that she would. She is very sincere and that's what I love about her. She does the homework that we give her and she evens does more then we ask her too, it's awesome! We had a wonderful lesson with sister h (less active we had just found who has started coming out to church and was baptized when she was 16) and her boyfriend chris and her daughter mckenna! They are really nice and love us coming over. Chris is a bit shy, especially at church since it's extremely new to him! haha but he's really funny and loves us. He's loving the doctrine as well, and it's clicking for him. It's amazing to see the happiness it's bringing to Sister Houston! Mckenna also loves it to, she was baptized catholic at the age of 7 so she's kind of on the fence right now, but she loves Joseph Smith and she loves Primary! They are getting married in June, and hopefully Chris and Mckenna get baptized soon after!!! I love working with part member families! The Jone's family have been coming out to church often, and Brother Jone's (Inactive for about a couple of years) is getting his life back on track! He bore his testimony yesterday and he was getting emotional, so of course I get emotional. It pretty much was exactly the same scene when i was giving my farewell talk and starting crying and then as soon as a would bring it back together I would look at mom and she would be crying and so i started crying! lol he did amazing though, very powerful testimony! he apologized to the ward for not giving it his all and not being the man he should be to the ward and to his family. It's amazing to see the progress of these people. I've only worked with him for a couple of months and I feel like I know him so well! And it does my heart good that he is wanting to be a better person and a better example to his family! Well that's our week! Elder herbert is doing really well, we have become really good friends! It's to bad that he's more then likely leaving the area after this transfer! The rest of the crew are doing really well too! It's a blast with them, I love them so much!! My thoughts turn to one of my favorite quotes of all time! "Don't give up. Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead- a lot of it. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come." - Jeffrey Holland and I echo what he said!!! Keep pressin forward.  Amen and amen! I love you guys and miss you all!

Forever and Always,

Elder Beddes

The Ice Castle Gang

 Manatullin Island! 

  

April 25, 2016 The Undeniable, Soft Spoken, Heart Warming, and Mind Calming Holy Ghost

Well hello there! 

I'll go ahead and answer the questions that you guys asked first! I'm getting a lot of glory from going out and working! It's pretty rewarding when you look for the blessings and miracles of each day! We cover a branch in Manatullin Island but we usually go to the Sudbury Ward! I'm not sure how long the church has been here in Sudbury, i'll ask! Average sacrament meeting attendance is 112. :) We did get a new ZL, his name is Elder Bengzten! He's really funny and we get along very well! He only has a couple of months left. I do still have my gps momma and i'll put my name on it! Elder Herbert is the designated driver but sometimes I drive depending on the circumstance. Sounds like sports is going well, i'm sorry to hear that you got a fat lip M!! Don't give up and keep being tough! I'm sorry that you got Christensen, Brooke, as a drivers coordinator haha but it shouldn't be a big deal especially if you have friends you are going with! Alright now for the week! It was a slower week sadly but there were still miracles that happened! Sunday we had the H's come out and also brother j! We were planning on having a ton more people coming out but something got in the way. Stupid satan (see how I didn't capitalize his name? He doesn't deserve it capitalized! Grandma Beddes taught me that one!) Turns out that we are working with three couples that are wanting to be baptized but they have to be married first!! Can you believe that? lol six potential baptisms but they first have to get married! My favorite miracle this week was finding Alyssa. We were going through our new ward directory and we notices someone that we haven't gone by or called that was new on there. So we called her and we asked if we could come by sometime. She asked if we were missionaries in Ottawa and so we said no! So we meet her at a public library. She's 22, she joined the church only a couple of years ago in Ottawa! She went less active a couple of months before she moved to Sudbury just last year and the whole time she has been here she never knew there was an lds church. Funny thing was when we called her she was really feeling down and really felt like she needed a spiritual boost and lo and behold she gets a call from the missionaries! She's so sweet! She's had a couple of set backs that have really weakened her testimony but when we were teaching her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ she had a boost of confidence and faith to press forward. She came out to church with us for the first time in a long time and she loved it! She wants to start coming out every week and wants to meet every week at the library! Miracles! She's really strong and i respect her fully. She is the only baptized member in her family of three including the parents. She's joining the army as well! I'm so excited to start working with her and help her build her testimony! We found Randy the other day tracting! We knocked on his door and he answers and just stares at us while we were talking to him. He then looks at our tags and says,"Mormons!! Come on in!!" hahaha so that doesn't happen often. We were quite surprised really. i think that that's happened to me only twice on my mission so far! lol so i was a little on edge as to why this guy invited us in but he told us to sit down at his table. He said that he loves Mormons and he has a couple of friends who are Mormons! Next thing he says was, "So convert me!" hahaha so we talked to him about what we do as missionaries and taught him about the plan of salvation. He wants us to come back "whenever" so we are very excited to start working with him! Also had another one of the most powerful lesson with Sister Gascon. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ which mainly consists of having faith, repenting, be baptized, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end! She started crying pretty hard when we were talking about enduring to the end. She asked how she could keep this feeling cause she has never felt this way ever in her life. She said she felt as if Jesus was sitting right next to her putting his arm around her. The spirit was strong in that lesson, I loved it! I have a strong testimony of the spirit being present and how key it is lessons. You can have all of the intellect in the world and even the best talent for speaking but nothing compares to the undeniable soft spoken, heart warming, and mind calming Holy Ghost. I've been trying to memorize scriptures on my mission and there has been one that has stuck out to me all of these months. It's Deuteronomy 31:8. It goes something like this, "And the Lord, he it is that doth goes before thee, he will be with thee. He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee. Fear not, neither be dismayed." I think that might be my favorite scripture! I had the opportunity to bless three people in the Sudbury hospital the other day. Some had serious conditions. To have the spirit work through you is an amazing experience. The whole time I walking through the halls of that hospital I couldn't help but imagine Jesus Christ walking the same halls. As i started tearing up i thought of Jesus performing all of the miracles it talks about in the New Testament. He sure did heal a lot of sick! I know that he is still doing the same today. This church is true my friends. I wouldn't be proclaiming it to the world if it wasn't! I love you guys and miss you all. 

Forever and Always,

you already know ;)  

Car ride!

what happens in mcdonalds stays in mcdonalds

 Tracting out an apartment!!! 

anybody want a kiss? hahahaha

April 18, 2016 Take it Step by Step

Thanks so much with birthday gifts! Great ties, and everybody is jealous of the socks! haha tons of candy as well, i have to share with everybody cause i don't want to get fat! Where did you get those socks? Sounds like you guys are busy as always!! And yes i'm still interested in the journal entries, i print them off and read them and find great enjoyment out of them! Thanks for sending me them and continue please! I wanted to thank everybody for the birthday gifts that you sent me! I had a wonderful birthday! Didn't feel like a home birthday but it's to be expected! Well this week has been amazing once again! Lot's of miracles! We have never taught so many people and so many lessons ever! This area is progressing rapidly! Here are a couple of things that have been happening: 1. We hit standards once again! We've hit three times and are expecting to hit it every week from now on! The area hasn't hit standards since it's reopened! We were the only one's to hit it in all of the zone so we are pretty excited. 2. We found 5 new investigators! 3. We have 2 progressing investigators now, which the area hasn't seen since it's reopened! 4. We set 4 baptismal dates, which has also not happened since it's been reopened! 5. I can now eat green beans, corn, beans, tomatoes, pie, squash, salad, celery, and so on! lol i know. And yes I did say corn. Do i like it yet? No, but i can eat it without gagging though! hahaha Erro was founded tracting mom. He has two little girls, he is from the Caribbean and things are going well with him. We haven't been able to meet with him sadly cause he has been Toronto all week but we will be seeing him this Sunday. We did text him though and he said that the materials that we gave him have been really good and the questions that he had have been answered and everything is going well he said! So our next step is to set a baptismal date with him. We had a wonderful lesson with Jamie (the Hell's angel who was found when we thought we were going to see a less active who ended up not even living there). He has come a long way, and sadly is getting sicker and sicker. He has a big smoking problem but he thinks he can overcome it. He wants too. We taught him the Restoration and read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and he loved it. He believes in it all, and he wants to be baptized May 28th! He has a potty mouth as well, it's total chaos where he lives though. People are coming in and out all of the time. I'll try and get a picture of him next time! Victoria who is the investigator who comes to church with Dawn (active member), we had a good lesson with her. She is doing really well, taught her the Plan of Salvation and set a baptismal date with her after she gets married in August. So it won't happen anytime soon but she is looking forward to it. Had a lesson with the Houston's! The non member boyfriend and Sister Housten came to church yesterday! They want to keep coming every week! They are getting married as well in August, so then we can baptize the daughter and non member boyfriend! They are really nice, i'm excited to work with them! Brother Jone's(less active father of the active family) and Brother Devost (in active member who was active 10 years ago) have come to church the last three times!!! And they want to continue to come to church!! I'm soo happy for the guys for wanting to come back and to taste of the sweet fruit again! As a missionary, you try and look at what the people that you are working with are like personality wise, what there concerns are, what their hobbies are, what they cherish in life, then you try to do your work based on that. So for example, Brother Devost was a ward mission leader awhile ago and after he was released he felt like he wasn't having an impact on anything or on anyone. So me and Elder Herbert try and ask for tips and try and have him come to lessons with us so he feels included. He started off not wanting to do anything with the church and now he comes and feels included and feels like he is helping other people now. He listens to The Book of Mormon, he's decorated his house with religious stuff, and his countenance has brightened. It's amazing to see really! Brother Jones wants to be a better example for his family. We had a lesson with him awhile ago that really opened his eyes. He wants to attend the temple now with his family but he still has a smoking problem. But he's taking it one step at a time! We walked to and from church yesterday cause it was glorious out and we talked to a lot of nice people. On the way back we ran into Sean and Franchesica who were doing yard work. Franchesica remembers when she was 9 years old sitting with her family and with some missionaries talking about "Smith". She says that she remembers "Golden plates, and Israelite's." hahah so i thought that that was really cool and pretty impressive that she could remember that! They want to start meeting with us! Funny story of the week! We were walking to church and we see this guy walking across the street from us and we yell, "Hey how's it going?" He looks at us and he yells back pretty angrily, "We are all going to be extinct you (bad words), open up your eyes you stupid Mormons!" I wanted to say a lot of things to this particular person but i bit my tongue and didn't say a word. I just clapped and walked away hahaha, he was pretty frustrated at that. You know the world is going down hill when you constantly get people yelling at you for just asking how your day is going! But whatever! We have had some wonderful weather lately! I love hearing the birds chirping, the kids playing, and all of the people doing whatever they are doing outside. I love the smell as well, it's a specific smell of spring that really enlightens the mood! I hope all of you had a good week! Thanks for the emails and the letters, it really is much appreciated! Thanks for those that have been praying for me and the area. You guys are making a huge difference in the success of the area. God really does prepare area and people for the Gospel! I have experienced it first hand and I have a firm testimony of miracles! They really do happen! I can't see this gospel not being true! I have been blessed with so much because of the church. If there are those that are somewhat doubting the faith, i ask that you take a step back and think of all of the good things that have happened in your life. Realize that there is a God out there that does love you and knows you perfectly. And maybe life doesn't go the way we want it to and maybe it's getting tougher and tougher. And it may be hard to see God even having an impact on your life whatsoever. I know I might be a just turned 19 year old and haven't even started college but i know without a shadow of a doubt that he does love you and cares about you. He is there. He and his Son's arms are spread out to embrace you and to love you. There is always a way back, always. Take it step by step. I love you all, you each have had a tremendous impact on my life and i can't thank you enough for it.    

Love,

Jojinator, beds, colters, Elder Beddes 

helping a kid across the street from us with his car. :)

chillin in the car

Just posing for the ensign magazine ;) haha

Kind of blurry but we ate at a pretty nice restaurant for my birthday! I got fettuccine Alfredo! mmmmm

April 11, 2016 So Many Miracles and Blessings

Well good afternoon family and friends!

This week has been one of my favorites by far. So many miracles and blessings this week it's unbelievable. There are so many great lessons that were so powerful and spiritual that I could tell you about but it would take forever so i'll pick out my favorites. :) We had a wonderful lesson with the G's. We followed up with her from the last lesson we had about the Holy Ghost. We committed her to read a couple of scriptures and to pray over certain things. She ended up not doing it sadly but we prayed with her and it was such a good experience. She felt so good, but she still couldn't understand the concern that she had determining whether the spirit was putting thoughts into her head or if it were just hers. I don't know if you remember this or not dad but I had the same question and I asked you! It really is a sincere question so I commend her for her real intent to know. We showed her a couple of Mormon Messages that talk about the spirit and other people's experiences with the spirit. Her son was crying and she was feeling the spirit so strongly! It was such a great lesson. We had a lesson with Erro the other day. He is from the Caribbean and he is married and has two little kids. He has the most real intent i have ever seen in my life. This is the guy who loves the bible! He's so nice! He had read Mosiah, 3 Nephi, and Mormon when we arrived!! If there is something that makes a missionary happy it's when someone goes above and beyond with the commitments you leave with them! lol he also may have the most intent i've ever seen but he also has the most questions out everybody i've met lol. To some it up, he wants to "join the Mormon Church" and he wants to start coming to church every week. We left him a mormon.org card and told him that all of your answers can be answered here haha. Gave him a couple of scriptures in the bible that talk about the Book of Mormon. And he asked if he could start from the beginning of The Book of Mormon and so we of course said YES!!! He has a lot of homework to do but he is so very excited! This last sunday was the best turn out ever! I got a last minute call to talk at church and so I threw something together and talked for about 15 minutes about President Uchtdorf's talk about Not sleeping Through the Restoration. It's such a good talk, and I would recommend it. :) Anyway, 8 of our less active members showed up to church!!! We were shocked to see like half of them!!! One of them was a sister who said that she wants to start coming to church every week and would love us to come by and teach her the lessons. She hasn't been active since age 18! She has a nonmember husband and daughter who loved church! So we are pretty much going to baptize them! A couple of less actives who showed up told us that they want to start coming to church from now on!!!!!! Holy cow it feels so good to hear that from our less actives. Brother Jones who hasn't come out to church for a long time wants to be a better example to his family and wants to attend the temple by the end of this year!!!! lol also a member invited a family out to church!!! We were so pumped!!! They said that they really enjoyed church and want to start coming every week. Something that shocked me was when the father of the family told me that something I said in my talk really opened up his eyes and he started crying. The Gospel is True! haha Holy cow ok ok what next? So we were dropping by some less actives in the ward and we decided to stop by to see a particular person. He wasn't home but someone yelled from inside to come in, so i barged in lol. Definitely not going to let that go haha and their was a bigger fella sitting on a couch watching tv! Anyway he told us to sit down and we had a great discussion. He was part of the Hell's Angels. I'll try to sum up what he's been through: He's been shot 3 times, been in jail most of his life, his son died in Afghanistan, he's gone into a building with a bunch of other members of the gang with two grenades and threatened all of them because they stole all of his money. He pulled out two glocks and shot up a police car after police started shooting at him! There were so many other stories lol. This guy has completely changed his life around. His story brought tears to my eyes. He's found God, loves the Gospel, wants to be baptized, and he was sooo excited to read the Book of Mormon. I told him about how Jesus Christ appeared to the people in the Americas and he just lit up and couldn't believe it! This guy is so sweet and nice! I loved listening to his stories and how he changed his whole life around and found God!  Transfers were yesterday.... drum roll please... i'm staying!!!! We all figured though, i'm stuck in the north for heavens sake. Elder H though.... he's been here for 6 months and it's pretty much unheard of that you stay for longer. So, he is also staying lol! SURPRISE!! we were so pumped that we are staying, the area is progressing and the companionship is golden! Elder M left sadly but one of my favorite people in this zone became zone leader and now is in the ice castle. so pretty much three of some of my favorite people are in the ice castle... we'll see how that goes. haha anyway I love you guys a ton. The Atonement is a real thing. Jesus Christ suffered for all of us, not only our sins but all of the afflictions and heartaches we experience. I have seen other people change for the better because of the Atonement and it's amazing. I've used the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ and it's changed me. I know this to be true because I have experienced the true joy that comes from it. God Bless you all and have a wonderful week! Thanks for the cute pictures guys and wonderful emails and letters! Much appreciated. 

Love,

Jojonator, cocojo, Elder Beddes 

April 4, 2016 Keep Loving, Keep Trying, Keep Trusting, Keep Believing, Keep Growing

Dear Coco,

I miss you so much. Wen you get home can we resel? I love you so much. I hope you are having fun at canida. I miss woching fox and the hounds. Wen you get home lets play hid in go seek. I have so miny things to play oh and we code take jojo for a wok. I miss you. Be a god mishanarey.

Love,

Maleah

Dear Maleah,

Holy cow maleah you are making me cry! haha of course we can resel and watch our favorite movies Fox and the hound, ponyo, all dogs go to heaven, and even more! I bet you couldn't find me when we play hide n seek. ;) remember when we were playing hide n seek and you hid in your closet in the shelves and you scared me really bad? ;) hahahah super funny! I miss you so much Maleah, keep being a good girl. And I will be a God Missionary, thanks for the reminder. xoxoxoxoxoxo

Love,

Coco

Dear All,
Indeed they did call my mission president to be a 70 which was quite shocking! Everybody was so very confused haha! He disappeared for a week, (Most missionaries didn't know that) the AP's had no idea where he went either which i find pretty funny! He had to keep it a secret from everybody even his family. He found out early February apparently. I'm pretty sad about it, i love this guy so much. I don't know what other mission presidents are like but I think President Clayton is one of kind. He's taught me so much. Especially how to be be yourself when you are doing missionary work. His love from the mission and the missionaries is so very powerful. You can just tell by looking at him that he has the light of Christ illuminating from him. I'm going to miss him a ton. He's leaving June 1st. I'm excited to see who our next mission president is! We had a pretty good week this week! We wish we could have taught i lot more investigator lessons! We did a good job teaching the less actives and a lot of them are progressing!! Tim and Wendy aren't responding to our text messages and every time we stop by they aren't home so I'm not sure what the deal is with them. They said that they would come to church the last three times but never end up showing. So I hope everything is OK with them. The rest of our investigators couldn't meet and set up times for this week. We did get to see Victoria (one with the new baby). She came out with Dawn to General Conference and she loved it! It's one of the best feelings when you are listening to the talks and you know that they are applying to your investigators and there eyes are fixed on the screen and can just tell that they are feeling the spirit! We just need to teach her one more lesson and she will be a progressing investigator!!! It'll be the first one since the area was opened which was last september! So i'm getting excited! The Gascon's who we found last week(helped take down the signs) watched General Conference as well and they really enjoyed it! We had a wonderful lesson with her and her two boys who are twins! She brought up the concerns of her not being able to discern whether not it's her own thoughts or the spirit. And we had a powerful lesson on that and the spirit took over. We reminded her of the time she was baptized and the miracle that happened to her when her back was killing her before the baptism and then when she was baptized the aching was gone! Talked about the Gifts of the Spirit, shared with her many scriptures. And now she wants to put everything that we taught her to the test! It's also one of my favorite things to see that people are so willing to do there part so that they can come closer to Jesus Christ and to feel of the happiness and peace. I'm so proud of Sister Gascon! Denny is progressing well and he's getting excited for his patriarchal blessing! HOLY COW so i could ramble on about the work that we did (which was great by the way and things are going well in sudbury) but i want to talk about general conference!!!! This one was probably my favorite of all time! I feel like a lot of the speakers talked a lot about families and marriage and the importance therein. I couldn't help but think of my own family and how blessed I am to be in it with such loving parents that care about me and beatiful pure sisters. I love you guys so much and i thank you again for the things that you guys have all taught me and will continue to teach me. I want to follow up mother and father lol how is the kneeling and praying together coming? ;) Elder Ballard brought it up so it must be important! I'm so very grateful for the "Family Councils" that we had as a family, as a parent and child, and even the ones parent to parent. They truly do help. I will never forget the days when we had "Special Days" and I got to spend time with you guys!! Ever think about doing it again? I will say that the one that stuck out to me was of course my favorite speaker of all time Elder Holland!  Something that he said that stuck out to me was that we need to remember tomorrow, and all the days after that, that the Lord blessed those who want to improve!! If you stumble in your efforts, so does everybody else!!! The Savior is always going to be there with you!!! Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever!! I love it so much! We went to a less actives house that we have never been by before right after the after noon session on sunday and this lady opens the door and she starts speaking in french and me and elder herbert just look at each smiling and we say yeah we don't speak french! hahah and she turns around and calls someone and it's a ysa girl in our ward and she says Oh hey guys! It turns out that this ysa girl is the daughter of this less active mom! So she let us in and we talked about conference with her and she said that she would watch the last general conference session and she really loved the lesson that we taught her and she want's us to come back and teach her. General Conference blessings! haha she is super funny! she hasn't come to church for a long time but she said she wants to start coming out! I love it!! Oh I just got an email from my old companion. Here is what he said, " So that guy who went up to the cabin, Jeremy, he got back and we met up with him the other day. He's still super elect. He even came to the Sunday morning conference Session at the chapel.  Jeremy liked it. I think the Sunday morning session was a good one for him to watch." so i'm super pumped about that! Well time is running low sadly but I love you guys with all my heart. Remember to keep pressing forward no matter what! And please remember tomorrow and strive to keep the same feelings you have when you do something right and you taste of the fruit! The Gospel is true, and I can not deny it. I will not, and I can not. No never, no never! haha 

Forever and Always,

Colteyboy, coco, Elder Beddes

"Hast though not known? Hast though not heard? God giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, for the Lord God will hold their right hand saying unto them, Fear not, I will help thee" -Isaiah

Canadian Pride!

President and Sister Clayton: "We are excited for the changes occurring in our lives and grateful for your love and support! We are blessed to able to serve in the Canada Toronto Mission until July 1st. We will post the name of the new CTM president as soon as we know! We love Canada! We love Ontarians! We love, love, love our missionaries!"