Parker was able to speak to the High Council the following morning bright and early at 7 am. He did an amazing job sharing details about Wisconsin, experiences from his mission, and other thoughts he had. Then he was asked questions from the High Council for about 5 minutes. It was cool that one of the High Councilman knew that Parker was a twin and asked if it was hard being gone from him for the 2 years. Of course Parker said it was and that one of his hardest days was when Carter got married and he wasn't there. Parker got us all laughing at times and really is able to shine when he speaks to others. Afterwards, he had quite a few ask if he could come speak with him in other wards in the stake. Fast forward about 2 weeks - Parker was probably asked to speak in almost every single ward in our stake which had 12 wards at the time. He even spoke 3or 4 times in one day. It was crazy - but Parker was so nice to always be willing to speak with them.
Parker gave an awesome talk in our ward - he spoke not even 24 hours after returning home. What a whirlwind for him, but he did such an amazing job! Below is his talk. Afterwards we had a lot of people come to our house to visit and eat. Elder Johnson came with a girl - that ended up becoming his wife. It was so fun to meet him in person.
Alright, well, good morning.
Cool.
Well, my name is, I'm so awkward right now.
My name is Parker Beck.
I used to go by Elder Beck.
I served in the Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission.
If you don't know where Wisconsin is, then Google it.
I'm just kidding.
If you know where Lake Michigan or those lakes are, it's right next to there.
If you don't know where that is, it's near Canada.
Well, I'm so excited to speak with you guys today.
I loved my mission experience.
It changed me so much for the better.
I'm so grateful for it.
I'm so grateful for it.
It's kind of weird.
I never actually thought I'd make it to this point.
You know, you always go on a mission and you're like, yeah, I'll give that homecoming talk and all
that.
It never happens until it actually happens.
Well, I guess a little bit about my mission Wisconsin.
Yes, Culver's is from there, so you're welcome.
Culver's is good.
Cheese curds are there.
I think it's interesting.
Wisconsin and Utah are kind of like polar opposites in so many ways.
There's like a church in every corner but a bar in every other corner.
There's no fences.
It's like the weirdest thing.
There's no fences in Wisconsin.
It's just like land. I told this one guy that and he's like, wow, yeah, I guess we don't have
any fences.
It's kind of weird.
It is, I don't know, it's an amazing place.
I love serving there for the last two years.
And I met some amazing people, some awesome people.
I definitely grew my testimony of Jesus Christ and I wouldn't trade those experiences
for the world.
I have come to know that my Savior lives and that he loves each and every one of us so
very much. That he is my personal Savior. He's my friend and I love him so very much.
And I'm so grateful that we're all disciples of him each and every day.
When we're baptized we take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ.
And I just love him so very much.
So I'm just going to get her right into some stories.
This is what you came to hear no I am just kidding.
You came for the sacrament, I'm sure.
One of the people that we love that I loved to teach was Rachel.
She was so awesome.
She was in Stoughton.
Oh, also about Stoughton.
It's kind of cool.
Or not Stoughton - Wisconsin, is there only six stakes in all Wisconsin.
I mean like here in Utah it's just a couple of neighborhoods that make a stake.
But over in Wisconsin a couple of cities or whatever that make up a ward.
And so in Stoughton, which is like 30 minutes south of Madison, we met Rachel and she is
so cool.
I came into the area and I don't know why she wasn't baptized yet.
Because she was so elect, and so prepared.
In Wisconsin there's not really much to do.
And there's a lot of people that struggle with the word of wisdom.
A lot of those habits and everything like that.
It's a really high drinking place.
A lot of people love to smoke and do all those things.
And yeah, there's really not much to do especially when it's freezing cold outside.
So back to Rachel, I got into the area and I went into her apartment and I definitely could
tell that she had some of these word of wisdom issues.
And it was cool to see her grow.
She was really scared of people all the time.
She didn't really want to come to church and everything like that.
So once a week, we got the members in our lessons.
I love having a member in our lessons every time.
every lesson we would have a member in our lessons.
One of the scriptures that I was prompted to pull out probably should pull out is 3 Nephi 17.
And I love this chapter so very much.
It talks about when Jesus Christ comes and heals everyone, all the people.
And it says in this verse it says, "9 And it came to pass that when he had thus spoken, all the multitude,
with one accord, did go forth with their sick and their afflicted, and their lame, and with their blind,
and with their dumb, and with all them that were afflicted in any manner; and he did heal them every one as they were brought forth unto him.
10 And they did all, both they who had been healed and they who were whole, bow down at his feet,
and did worship him; and as many as could come for the multitude did kiss his feet, insomuch that they did bathe his feet with their tears."
And I love that scripture so much.
I guess how it relates to Rachel is that she was truly healed.
When she was following the things we taught her, she was coming to church, she was reading
your scriptures, she was praying, all those things.
Smoking was not appealing to her anymore.
The taste of cigarettes didn't satisfy her anymore.
I was like holy cow.
That was so cool to me when I heard that, that Jesus Christ truly can heal each and every one
of us, of our pains, our weaknesses, our temptations, our afflictions, everything, he can heal us.
I've definitely seen that on my mission.
So Rachel, she was baptized and she actually is going to the temple.
She is amazing and I love Rachel so much.
I wish her all the best.
She gave me the nickname of the Beckster, so that's pretty cool.
But I like that.
So that was Rachel.
Another person that I grew to love was Kyler.
And Kyler, she was literally a miracle of miracles.
So we got a call.
So the beginning of my mission, I was stuck in our apartment for nine months, just doing
Facebook work.
Basically all day.
I know some of you are probably like, <sigh> you weren't knocking doors?
Yeah, I know, it's crazy.
It still worked.
But it's kind of crazy being stuck in our apartment all day.
But Kyler, we were doing a bunch of calls for people and one of the members from, he used
to live in the Fon-Da-Lac branch.
And Fondelach was really cool.
But Kyler, so Oh man, I'm like scatter brained right now.
Kyler, she was again a miracle.
So we got a call from one of the members of Wisconsin and he was at BYU at the moment.
And he was on the call with his friend Kyler.
And she apparently had talked with the missionaries two years previously.
And I guess she just wasn't ready for the gospel.
And so she came into our lives and we had a lesson with her and we said it all up at
his mom's house.
And right as we walked into the door, just like the spirit just kind of enveloped us.
I felt Jesus Christ's love.
I felt God's love for Kyler and for the family.
And when we taught them the restoration, right, with Joseph Smith and all that.
And I love Joseph Smith so much.
Every time that I testified about Joseph Smith and said his first vision and all that, I
truly felt of his love, I felt that he was the prophet of God.
And we had, this is probably the most spiritual restoration I've ever had in my entire life.
And Kyler, she, I don't know.
I felt the spirit very strong at that place.
It was awesome.
And there's no way to even describe in words what I felt.
And Kyler, we asked her to be baptized right then and we were like, all right, we're going
to set it in three weeks out because she has to go to church three weeks.
And then she rejected us and we're like, oh crap. <laugh, chuckle>
We had this powerful restoration and she said no.
I was like, oh man, You've got to be kidding me right now.
And then she says, I want it to be earlier.
And I was like, uhhh, you know you have to go to church three weeks.
She was baptized 10 days later and we had a lesson with her
I think every night after that.
She even went to institute after that, which was kind of funny.
Kind of cool.
She got her own ride and everything.
But I just want to talk about the power of the Book of Mormon that in between those
two years, she was struggling a lot.
And the Book of Mormon, it kept coming back to her.
She kept on thinking about Alma and Nephi and all those things that she heard of.
She kept on thinking about the Book of Mormon.
She wanted to read it.
She wanted to grow.
She wanted to learn.
Because there was a lot of conflict in her high school.
Between Catholics and Prespryterians or something like that - I can't remember.
But she just felt this contention.
She kept on thinking about our church the whole time.
And she was really prepared.
And she was baptized a week later.
And I just know that Jesus Christ is truly in the details.
And there's another scripture 2 Nephi 25:26.
And it says, and we talk of Christ.
We rejoice in Christ, We preach of Christ, We prophesy of Christ,
And we write according to our prophecies that our children may know to what source
they may look for a remission of their sins.
And I know that Jesus Christ, he truly can heal us.
But the Book of Mormon truly can heal us.
I don't know what my life would be like without the Book of Mormon.
I love that book so much.
It's changed my life.
It's changed the people around me in my life.
I love them so very much.
I love the spirit of the Book of Mormon.
I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Before the mission, I thought that the only reason you would ever need to use the Atonement
is to repent of big sins.
And that's not true.
At all.
But the Atonement carried me through my mission.
There's a scripture that has become my all-time favorite scripture.
At least at the moment - I am sure it will change.
But it's 1 Nephi 19:9.
This is talking about Jesus Christ.
And it says, And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught;
wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon
him and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children men.
I love that verse so very much.
Jesus Christ suffered all things for us.
He suffered them for us because he loved us.
He went through those things because he loves us.
And every time that I partake of the bread and water each week, there's a reminder to
me of what Jesus Christ did for me that it wasn't an easy thing to go through.
I'm sure.
I feel like I know personally I take this sacrament for granted a lot.
We're literally cleansed of our sins.
There's things that we hold on to.
Our burdens, our worries.
It's renewing those baptismal covenants each week.
And it's just such a blessing.
I also learned about how God sees us through how we can see God through his eyes.
We were one day street contacting and we met this girl named Maria.
Maria, she was sitting down doing sudoku at a little pond, paradise pond over in Stoughton.
And Maria, she's so cool.
She was, she sadly never got baptized.
But she said that she felt like she's never like been to that pond before.
She never like, she just felt like that one day that she was led by the spirit basically
to go to that pond so that she could meet with us.
And so the spirit really does lead and guide us.
And every time, I don't know, it was weird.
When I saw Maria, I just felt this pull to talk to her and to love her and to help her want
to grow, help her experience what I've experienced.
She definitely experienced those things.
But she just wasn't, I guess, willing to accept.
And I think a lot of the time, I met a lot of people that they know it's true.
They're not willing to make those steps towards baptism, towards coming into the church of
Jesus Christ.
Really, I just want to testify to each and every one of you that I know my Savior lives.
He loves each and every one of us so very much, that he cares for us, that he wants
to know us on a personal level.
And the only way that we can do that is through reading his scriptures, coming to church,
going to the temple, all those things.
The temple has become a very important part to me.
There's no temple in Wisconsin.
So, I haven't gone for the last two years, I still been gone.
I just got home yesterday so I didn't have much time. <chuckle>
But I wish I could.
But I am so grateful for the temple, the covenants that we make in there, the promises that we
make, they are so powerful.
We're literally binding ourselves at Jesus Christ, we're binding ourselves to God.
President Nelson said that when we enter the covenantal path, we leave neutral ground forever.
So, you can't just, you can't, you can't, you have to, you can't leave neutral ground
It's either, you're for God or you're not for God.
And I sure hope you're for God.
I want to testify to you that Jesus Christ really does live, that this
is His church, that He has a plan for us.
I'm so grateful for the plan of salvation and the opportunity that I have to kind of
be away from my family for a little bit.
So many of you guys might think, whoa, you wanted to be away from your family, they were
that bad.
No, that's it.
I'm grateful that I got to experience life without them, and now I love them so much more now.
And I miss them so very much.
And I'm sure God misses us, and he wants us to return to live with him way more than
I missed my family.
Again, I'm so grateful that I served a mission.
Man, if I never served a mission, I don't know where I'd be.
I would feel lost right now, because I wouldn't know where to go.
But those hard times on my mission, those awesome times on my mission really, really
brought me to my Savior, Jesus Christ.
And if the only thing you get from this whole entire talk is to come closer to Jesus Christ
than I have succeeded, yes, because you need to come to Jesus Christ.
You need to come unto Him.
There's a famous quote that I think President Nelson has said, Come Unto Me, all of you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and ye shall find rest under your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
So as we find ourselves near the Savior, we can truly be filled with his love.
I want to testify that I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.
That he truly saw God and Jesus Christ that day.
I know that we can all be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
And I'm so grateful for that.
I know that Jesus Christ lives, so grateful for my experience as a missionary.
And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Cool.
Well, my name is, I'm so awkward right now.
My name is Parker Beck.
I used to go by Elder Beck.
I served in the Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission.
If you don't know where Wisconsin is, then Google it.
I'm just kidding.
If you know where Lake Michigan or those lakes are, it's right next to there.
If you don't know where that is, it's near Canada.
Well, I'm so excited to speak with you guys today.
I loved my mission experience.
It changed me so much for the better.
I'm so grateful for it.
I'm so grateful for it.
It's kind of weird.
I never actually thought I'd make it to this point.
You know, you always go on a mission and you're like, yeah, I'll give that homecoming talk and all
that.
It never happens until it actually happens.
Well, I guess a little bit about my mission Wisconsin.
Yes, Culver's is from there, so you're welcome.
Culver's is good.
Cheese curds are there.
I think it's interesting.
Wisconsin and Utah are kind of like polar opposites in so many ways.
There's like a church in every corner but a bar in every other corner.
There's no fences.
It's like the weirdest thing.
There's no fences in Wisconsin.
It's just like land. I told this one guy that and he's like, wow, yeah, I guess we don't have
any fences.
It's kind of weird.
It is, I don't know, it's an amazing place.
I love serving there for the last two years.
And I met some amazing people, some awesome people.
I definitely grew my testimony of Jesus Christ and I wouldn't trade those experiences
for the world.
I have come to know that my Savior lives and that he loves each and every one of us so
very much. That he is my personal Savior. He's my friend and I love him so very much.
And I'm so grateful that we're all disciples of him each and every day.
When we're baptized we take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ.
And I just love him so very much.
So I'm just going to get her right into some stories.
This is what you came to hear no I am just kidding.
You came for the sacrament, I'm sure.
One of the people that we love that I loved to teach was Rachel.
She was so awesome.
She was in Stoughton.
Oh, also about Stoughton.
It's kind of cool.
Or not Stoughton - Wisconsin, is there only six stakes in all Wisconsin.
I mean like here in Utah it's just a couple of neighborhoods that make a stake.
But over in Wisconsin a couple of cities or whatever that make up a ward.
And so in Stoughton, which is like 30 minutes south of Madison, we met Rachel and she is
so cool.
I came into the area and I don't know why she wasn't baptized yet.
Because she was so elect, and so prepared.
In Wisconsin there's not really much to do.
And there's a lot of people that struggle with the word of wisdom.
A lot of those habits and everything like that.
It's a really high drinking place.
A lot of people love to smoke and do all those things.
And yeah, there's really not much to do especially when it's freezing cold outside.
So back to Rachel, I got into the area and I went into her apartment and I definitely could
tell that she had some of these word of wisdom issues.
And it was cool to see her grow.
She was really scared of people all the time.
She didn't really want to come to church and everything like that.
So once a week, we got the members in our lessons.
I love having a member in our lessons every time.
every lesson we would have a member in our lessons.
One of the scriptures that I was prompted to pull out probably should pull out is 3 Nephi 17.
And I love this chapter so very much.
It talks about when Jesus Christ comes and heals everyone, all the people.
And it says in this verse it says, "9 And it came to pass that when he had thus spoken, all the multitude,
with one accord, did go forth with their sick and their afflicted, and their lame, and with their blind,
and with their dumb, and with all them that were afflicted in any manner; and he did heal them every one as they were brought forth unto him.
10 And they did all, both they who had been healed and they who were whole, bow down at his feet,
and did worship him; and as many as could come for the multitude did kiss his feet, insomuch that they did bathe his feet with their tears."
And I love that scripture so much.
I guess how it relates to Rachel is that she was truly healed.
When she was following the things we taught her, she was coming to church, she was reading
your scriptures, she was praying, all those things.
Smoking was not appealing to her anymore.
The taste of cigarettes didn't satisfy her anymore.
I was like holy cow.
That was so cool to me when I heard that, that Jesus Christ truly can heal each and every one
of us, of our pains, our weaknesses, our temptations, our afflictions, everything, he can heal us.
I've definitely seen that on my mission.
So Rachel, she was baptized and she actually is going to the temple.
She is amazing and I love Rachel so much.
I wish her all the best.
She gave me the nickname of the Beckster, so that's pretty cool.
But I like that.
So that was Rachel.
Another person that I grew to love was Kyler.
And Kyler, she was literally a miracle of miracles.
So we got a call.
So the beginning of my mission, I was stuck in our apartment for nine months, just doing
Facebook work.
Basically all day.
I know some of you are probably like, <sigh> you weren't knocking doors?
Yeah, I know, it's crazy.
It still worked.
But it's kind of crazy being stuck in our apartment all day.
But Kyler, we were doing a bunch of calls for people and one of the members from, he used
to live in the Fon-Da-Lac branch.
And Fondelach was really cool.
But Kyler, so Oh man, I'm like scatter brained right now.
Kyler, she was again a miracle.
So we got a call from one of the members of Wisconsin and he was at BYU at the moment.
And he was on the call with his friend Kyler.
And she apparently had talked with the missionaries two years previously.
And I guess she just wasn't ready for the gospel.
And so she came into our lives and we had a lesson with her and we said it all up at
his mom's house.
And right as we walked into the door, just like the spirit just kind of enveloped us.
I felt Jesus Christ's love.
I felt God's love for Kyler and for the family.
And when we taught them the restoration, right, with Joseph Smith and all that.
And I love Joseph Smith so much.
Every time that I testified about Joseph Smith and said his first vision and all that, I
truly felt of his love, I felt that he was the prophet of God.
And we had, this is probably the most spiritual restoration I've ever had in my entire life.
And Kyler, she, I don't know.
I felt the spirit very strong at that place.
It was awesome.
And there's no way to even describe in words what I felt.
And Kyler, we asked her to be baptized right then and we were like, all right, we're going
to set it in three weeks out because she has to go to church three weeks.
And then she rejected us and we're like, oh crap. <laugh, chuckle>
We had this powerful restoration and she said no.
I was like, oh man, You've got to be kidding me right now.
And then she says, I want it to be earlier.
And I was like, uhhh, you know you have to go to church three weeks.
She was baptized 10 days later and we had a lesson with her
I think every night after that.
She even went to institute after that, which was kind of funny.
Kind of cool.
She got her own ride and everything.
But I just want to talk about the power of the Book of Mormon that in between those
two years, she was struggling a lot.
And the Book of Mormon, it kept coming back to her.
She kept on thinking about Alma and Nephi and all those things that she heard of.
She kept on thinking about the Book of Mormon.
She wanted to read it.
She wanted to grow.
She wanted to learn.
Because there was a lot of conflict in her high school.
Between Catholics and Prespryterians or something like that - I can't remember.
But she just felt this contention.
She kept on thinking about our church the whole time.
And she was really prepared.
And she was baptized a week later.
And I just know that Jesus Christ is truly in the details.
And there's another scripture 2 Nephi 25:26.
And it says, and we talk of Christ.
We rejoice in Christ, We preach of Christ, We prophesy of Christ,
And we write according to our prophecies that our children may know to what source
they may look for a remission of their sins.
And I know that Jesus Christ, he truly can heal us.
But the Book of Mormon truly can heal us.
I don't know what my life would be like without the Book of Mormon.
I love that book so much.
It's changed my life.
It's changed the people around me in my life.
I love them so very much.
I love the spirit of the Book of Mormon.
I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Before the mission, I thought that the only reason you would ever need to use the Atonement
is to repent of big sins.
And that's not true.
At all.
But the Atonement carried me through my mission.
There's a scripture that has become my all-time favorite scripture.
At least at the moment - I am sure it will change.
But it's 1 Nephi 19:9.
This is talking about Jesus Christ.
And it says, And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught;
wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon
him and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children men.
I love that verse so very much.
Jesus Christ suffered all things for us.
He suffered them for us because he loved us.
He went through those things because he loves us.
And every time that I partake of the bread and water each week, there's a reminder to
me of what Jesus Christ did for me that it wasn't an easy thing to go through.
I'm sure.
I feel like I know personally I take this sacrament for granted a lot.
We're literally cleansed of our sins.
There's things that we hold on to.
Our burdens, our worries.
It's renewing those baptismal covenants each week.
And it's just such a blessing.
I also learned about how God sees us through how we can see God through his eyes.
We were one day street contacting and we met this girl named Maria.
Maria, she was sitting down doing sudoku at a little pond, paradise pond over in Stoughton.
And Maria, she's so cool.
She was, she sadly never got baptized.
But she said that she felt like she's never like been to that pond before.
She never like, she just felt like that one day that she was led by the spirit basically
to go to that pond so that she could meet with us.
And so the spirit really does lead and guide us.
And every time, I don't know, it was weird.
When I saw Maria, I just felt this pull to talk to her and to love her and to help her want
to grow, help her experience what I've experienced.
She definitely experienced those things.
But she just wasn't, I guess, willing to accept.
And I think a lot of the time, I met a lot of people that they know it's true.
They're not willing to make those steps towards baptism, towards coming into the church of
Jesus Christ.
Really, I just want to testify to each and every one of you that I know my Savior lives.
He loves each and every one of us so very much, that he cares for us, that he wants
to know us on a personal level.
And the only way that we can do that is through reading his scriptures, coming to church,
going to the temple, all those things.
The temple has become a very important part to me.
There's no temple in Wisconsin.
So, I haven't gone for the last two years, I still been gone.
I just got home yesterday so I didn't have much time. <chuckle>
But I wish I could.
But I am so grateful for the temple, the covenants that we make in there, the promises that we
make, they are so powerful.
We're literally binding ourselves at Jesus Christ, we're binding ourselves to God.
President Nelson said that when we enter the covenantal path, we leave neutral ground forever.
So, you can't just, you can't, you can't, you have to, you can't leave neutral ground
It's either, you're for God or you're not for God.
And I sure hope you're for God.
I want to testify to you that Jesus Christ really does live, that this
is His church, that He has a plan for us.
I'm so grateful for the plan of salvation and the opportunity that I have to kind of
be away from my family for a little bit.
So many of you guys might think, whoa, you wanted to be away from your family, they were
that bad.
No, that's it.
I'm grateful that I got to experience life without them, and now I love them so much more now.
And I miss them so very much.
And I'm sure God misses us, and he wants us to return to live with him way more than
I missed my family.
Again, I'm so grateful that I served a mission.
Man, if I never served a mission, I don't know where I'd be.
I would feel lost right now, because I wouldn't know where to go.
But those hard times on my mission, those awesome times on my mission really, really
brought me to my Savior, Jesus Christ.
And if the only thing you get from this whole entire talk is to come closer to Jesus Christ
than I have succeeded, yes, because you need to come to Jesus Christ.
You need to come unto Him.
There's a famous quote that I think President Nelson has said, Come Unto Me, all of you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and ye shall find rest under your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
So as we find ourselves near the Savior, we can truly be filled with his love.
I want to testify that I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.
That he truly saw God and Jesus Christ that day.
I know that we can all be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
And I'm so grateful for that.
I know that Jesus Christ lives, so grateful for my experience as a missionary.
And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
This was actually a different ward Parker was able to speak in that had a zoom link to watch.
We woke up to a beautiful sunrise as we were heading to the stake center at 7 am for Parker to report to the High Council.
Elder Johnson
Our first family picture with all 11 of us.
Johnathan and Rosa arrived very late the night before.
Ladder ball and hot tub to relax in the evening.
Encanto was the first movie Parker saw after returning home.
Parker's mission plaque.
Enjoying some family time the first few days after returning home.
Parker's cool Wisconsin sign that all of his companions were able to sign.
Enjoying the Payson temple later that week.
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