Tuesday, January 3, 2017

November and Thanksgiving

November and its time to vote. 

Never was there a time that people were more divided ha ha. 

Taylor didn't want to hear about any of Jeff or my opinions. He wanted to research everything on his own and vote his own way. This was  his first presidential election and I was proud that he wanted to research things and make his own decisions. 


It was interesting to talk to him after we were done voting to find out his mindset and what he thought on the different ballot measures. 

Jacob also voted while he was out on his mission. Obviously he had now influence from us. 

It's weird to think all of us other than Ashley are voting age!





For my school class I have to do a tutoring project and tutor someone in the subject I am planning to teach, which is science. 

This time I got smart and signed up Ashley's friend Kate 

(since I couldn't tutor Ashley since it would be a conflict of interest)


It was nice because I could tutor her at our house the only problem was Ashley kept distracting her, ha ha)

This is one of our experiments on diffusion. The cup of water on the right is hot water and the cup on the left is cold water. When you drop food coloring in it you can see that the dye diffuses much faster in the hot water because the molecules are moving faster. 




On Veterens day the kids had the day off of school and Ashley wanted to go to the beach. It was actually a good day for the beach. It's weird that its still hot in November. The tide was out really far and the sun is more slanted in the sky however so it seemed strange compared to our summer beach days. 





Taylor went out rock climbing. 

He joined the rock climbing club at his school so now he has done some outdoor trips rather than just the indoor ones. 




I always breath easier once he's back home. 




More football. The teach actually did well enough this year that they went to CIF which extended the season longer than it has been in the past. We actually went to the last game the day after Thanksgiving where they lost in the last 1/2 
(I wasn't too sad because I was ready to get our Friday nights back, even thought thats probably bad to say)




The weekend before Thanksgiving Jeff and I drove David down to his moms and visited with Joel and Virginia's family. 

We went to their outdoor farmer's market and Joel met a new friend. Dean didn't want to "pet" him though. 




While we were in Oceanside Ashley was at the temple with the young women.





During our Thanksgiving break Ashley wanted to go to a hiking place called grafitti falls. She had been talking about it for a long time but we had never done it. 

We decided one afternoon when Jolene was over to try and go find it. 

It wasn't easy to find but after a few missed attempts and Jolene downloading a hiking app we found the entrance next to someone's fence. 




Once we got on the trail you could see that people had marked the way for you.




Grafitti falls...




Even the bushes were covered in grafitti. 




Artsy poses...




It ended up being a fun hike. 






So Taylor wanted to check out the hike so he took the girls back again but of course he climbed up to the top when he went. 



He said it wasn't very hard but he ended up getting cheering from other hikers...




Ashley getting a pedicure and manicure for Jolene's birthday celebration.




This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. 

We always have a crowd so it was nice to have a bigger kitchen and house to hold everyone a little more comfortably. 




It was fun to have everyone over but it felt empty too. There were a lot of families that were with their in-laws this year and a lot of our teens were working. 

Of course Jacob was gone too. 

I felt horrible when Aunt Cindy asked where Jacob was. We realized that we forgot to tell her about Jacob's farewell so she could come! Sorry Cindy! That time was so crazy!




We were happy to have the family we did that day.









Angela is getting closer to having her baby!



I love having my family available to come to Thanksgiving too!









So some excerpts from Jacob's letters from this month.


November 7th 2016
Hello Everybody! 

I am currently at the place you see i the pictures, and it is very beautiful out here! I am actually on a farm, and these people said someone in our ward who served his mission here, came back and lived on this farm with them until he got married, and they said I can do the same if I come back to visit! but I have found out that there are many big bugs, especially spiders here. Lol Luckily I’m not scared of them, but there are spiders everywhere.






November 14, 2016

Sorry it took so long, been a busy day. We spent all day today with the missionaries from our zone saying our goodbyes. Also, last week I didn’t send a mass email, and this week I didn’t either, been too busy. But things with my companion are going better! We get along good but he is getting transferred, I kind of talked to president about it. I said I wanted to be a companion who’s more obedient, and he seemed to take that really seriously. I haven’t met my new comp, but i heard he’s a stick in the mud, but I don’t want to be too quick to judge. Lol pretty much the opposite of this one.

But I have another baptism this Friday! It’s the one lady who got baptized a couple weeks ago, ex boyfriend. Really strong investigators, and I can’t wait to work a lot harder to go find a lot more people like them!

I heard about the crazy riots and stuff going on down there! I also heard Cali wants to succeed from the nation, so you might need to send me my passport before i go home. But i am proud to say i did not vote for trump or Hillary. All i know is the second coming is coming soon.

My only personal thing that i can think of right now (not that personal... to tired) is for Taylor. Instead of mousse I have found this paste that is medium hold and will keep your hair down but not really hard, its called like pomade and i got the old spice kind if you don’t really like mousse.

I love you all! And it’s funny ma that you had that dream cuz i had a dream similar where i was home too! Ill keep you posted on my new companion!

-Elder Beaulieu







November 21, 2016

Hello Family!
This week has been so amazing! My new companion is so awesome! He’s on top of everything and were getting a lot of work done! He's teaching me how to be a better missionary and I’m teaching him how to have more fun! Some of the highlights this past week, We met an NFL player, he played on the North Carolina college team and now plays for the new york jets, his name is Romar Morris. We had a baptism!! It was a great experience and i felt really honored because he wanted me to baptize him, but it wasn’t physically possible since he is about 400 pounds lol. But its so amazing to already have 2 baptisms and see the transformation this couple is going through! We’re finding a ton of new people, compared to last transfer! And the craziest thing!
   
So we just had stake conference on Sunday, and we were going around mingling with the people from the stake. Then we went to go see the mission president to say hello. After about 5 minutes (Conference started in a couple minutes) president pulled us aside. I was kinda terrified lol. Actually, I was really terrified. He told us that he felt like he should call us up and teach the restoration in under 4 minutes (which isn’t too easy, and we hadn’t practiced at all). So when he talked, he called us up, and we did it, and i was so nervous, since it was the whole stake, and it went good, and we got so many compliments saying how much they could feel the spirit from it. Its really awesome to see how much President trusted us to do that! And that’s kinda one thing i wanted to talk about.
    
            One of the biggest things ive learned so far is trust in the Lord. I always had an issue with that, and being on a mission, ive had so much comfort knowing that as long as your being obedient, you’ll be on the right path and you dont have to worry about anything else. If you put the Lord first, everything else will fall into place. Ive seen this so far with 1. tracting 2. worrying about what I’m gonna do when i get home 3.being a good enough missionary. With tracting, we went out to contact a ton of people, but no one was home, but we were still walking around in 40 degree weather for 3 hours looking for these people. But later that night we finally met this really elect man who we've been trying to meet with for weeks now, and now he finally shows up! For everything else, whenever i worry about anything, i just remember that ill become the most successful on my mission and in life if i just trust in the lord, and do what he asks of me. So i challenge ya'll to do all the things your supposed to, and see if there is less stress or anxiety, if not, just trust a little more. 

 


I can see how Jacob got burned now...

After a long day







November 28th


Hello Family!

We are working very hard and seeing a lot of new investigators! We put someone on date for Christmas Eve! There isn’t much crazy stories except drunk people, and a homeless man running after our car, but the people are so nice! Also, mother, can you send me the recipe to the coconut brownies! Thank you! So to answer all your questions: 

-We don’t usually eat our own cooking. I just wanted to experiment, and that was the beginning and the end of the experimenting. And we get dinner at members house 6/7 days of the week

-Thanksgiving was a lot of fun! We were able to eat at this really cool members house. We had appointments planned, but they all got canceled. So we ended up spending all day at their house, and we were playing fun games. It was pretty relaxed day though. And yeah, its tough how the family events are getting smaller and less fun. 

-The weathers been getting pretty cold! 50 degrees and humid during the day is pretty rough, but I’m so glad I have a car, I wouldn’t survive on a bike lol. But the fall colors are so beautiful, its hard to describe, since we don’t have trees at home, but its pretty amazing.

Also! Tell Jo I said happy birthday!

-Elder Beaulieu





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