New Year--New Perspective, New Creature, New Me (Dec. 31, 2017)

Hey family!

Weekly update:

It was so fun to skype with with you all last week! I love you all so much! You all look happy and great :) I know life isn't perfect, but you all seem to deal with various challenges with a smile on your face :)

Here is me on Christmas Eve and a hilariously awkward picture of me being the star of the Nativity...literally.

This week was good! We taught two lessons with the T_ family, the family that you met over skype. They are such a good, good family. I love them!! They invited us and the S_ family over for dinner on Friday night, and we had a great dinner, then taught the plan of salvation. Brother and Sister T_ both added wonderful comments-- Brother T_ shared about his mission in Thailand, where there are many Buddhists-- how our beliefs have similar points, but there is great comfort in the belief that family is forever. We can continue to progress, with our family, rather than being born into unknown circumstances. I think it really helped Brother S_, who is conflicted with both beliefs of Christianity and Buddhism. Sister T_ did a great job of helping the kids understand and enjoy the lesson. 

At the end of the lesson we invited them to be baptized! They said they would like to think about it more. We told them that that was great-- to think about it, talk about it as a family, and pray about it. Then in the closing prayer, their second son, N_, prayed to know if they should be baptized. It was such a cool experience! Before we invited them to be baptized, my companion Elder K_, shared his baptism experience and showed his pictures of his baptism. All the S_ family loved seeing it! It was spiritual and fun!

Then on Sunday, A_ came to church! He is our investigator from Australia. His wife and baby didn't come, but he came. J_, an American-Korean in our ward, translated for him. If you want to know how hard Korean is, I have been out for about 1 yr and 1/2, and I still cannot fully understand sacrament talks... I get 60 percent, or so. Haha.

After sacrament they did a combined lesson, so we went into a different room with A_ and Brother T_, and taught the full Restoration. It went really well, and Brother T_ shared such cool things about the Bible and Book of Mormon! It was awesome-- I think A_ really enjoyed it. He is great! So curious, and super smart.

Elder K was so cute and excited about his stocking and the American stuff! The coolest thing to him was the floss! Ha ha

My thoughts on the New Year

So! Happy New Year! I love New Years-- a time of both reflection, as well as looking to the future. It is a time where we think about those things we have done right, as well as things that we want to do better.

At this time of the New Year, I want to shout out a wonderful truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: CHANGE!! We can change! How beautiful a blessing, how profound of a principle! There are sometimes voices in our heads, or from others around us, or on media, that tell you that you cannot change, people are people, stuck the way they are... But as followers of Christ, we believe in our ability to change, to improve, to become something more than we are, to let go of weaknesses and faults and continually strive to be a little better than we were yesterday... How wonderful a message.

On my mission I have learned so much about setting goals. And I realized what I love about goals, about the new year, about change.. to sum it up in one word, I would say...: 

H O P E.

As a prophet in the Book of Mormon so eloquently shared that "whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world". Our believe leads us to have hope. What kind of hope? For a better world. A better me. A better you. For me personally, that is an Elder Beckett who loves a little more, judges a little less... not as critical, and more forgiving. It also includes improving my Korean, and my exercise plan. We should strive for improvement, spiritually, mentally, and physically. This hope and change is made possible by our Savior Jesus Christ. I love him and am grateful for Him. The hope we have is a result of our faith in him, and gives us "an anchor to [our] souls...which would make [us] sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." (Ether 12:4)

I know that we can change. I know that we can improve our bad habits. We can do things we have never done before, things we have failed over and over again. I hope you all, and I, take some time to reflect on what we want to change this year. Set goals, make plans... be accountable to your spouse, or friend, or God... when we do these things we can, slowly but surely, create a new self, with new goodness. 

Here's to a new year, a new me, new goals, new improvement... As Paul the apostle said, 

"17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Thank you for the Christmas packages!

It finally came!

Love you! 

Elder Beckett