Winter Is Coming!

Hey all!

Okay, whoever told me that it never gets below 80 degrees in Florida lied to me because it has not been over 80 once this last week. And the humidity makes it colder because it's wet. Not a ton happened this week.

 

Tuesday was just a normal day in the life of missionary work. I read my patriarchal blessing this morning and something stood out that I haven't noticed before that really helped. I know those are gifts from God and if you don't have yours I really recommend you get it. We did face masks that night to be ready for Zone Conference!

Zone Conference was on Wednesday. Those are always so spiritually uplifting. We had to leave a tiny bit early to go to a lesson that ended up canceling on us. We went to FIU instead and got into the dorms. It was a miracle! The next miracle was that we found a referral from one of the Elders that we were never able to get a hold of! We hope she keeps talking to us.

 

Thursday was my 3 month mark! We had a lesson with Will and he accepted baptism for the 25th of November. His knowledge of Christ is a lot more simple than we thought but we are excited to help him progress spiritually. 

 

Friday we had a comp study with the Zone Leaders. We talked about finding new ways to find in YSA. We are going to try a lemonade stand at FIU this week so I will let you know how it goes! 

 

Today in the Book of Mormon I was reading in Helaman about how Nephi and Lehi were encircled by fire. One thing that stuck out to me was Aminadab. He saw that they were speaking to angels and told everyone to look. He was just one of the townspeople and was the same as everyone else. He told everyone to repent and follow their council and the people listened to them. It was a cool reminder of just how important it is to work with members. Sometimes people get sick of hearing from the missionaries but if a commitment comes from one of their peers then it is more likely to happen. That's why it is so important for you to trust the missionaries and help them out!

 

Saturday morning we had waffles and helped clean the church! It was really fun. The best part was that Sanders stopped by just to say hi! It was pretty fun to see him!

 

Mary came to church yesterday! It was so awesome to have her there! We taught 3rd hour and talked about how easy it is to bring up the gospel in our every day conversations with people. 

 

That's about all from me. I miss you all but I miss the temple more so please take advantage of going there! You don't realize how much of a blessing it is until you can't go. Keep being awesome. Feed the missionaries if you can. They will love you forever. Next week is transfers so you will hear from me on Tuesday! Keep being awesome! 

 

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: Halloween Decorations! Didn't get a ton of pics but it makes me happy to think of the holidays coming up. Our neighbors house looks better at night but this was the only picture I got. 

 Our Zone Leaders, (Elder Lester and Elder Vazquez) and their Mata that they take everywhere. Elder Vazquez is from Uruguay so they brought us some Uruguayan food to try. 

My awesome DSU shirt

  On our way to zone conference

Simply Perfect and Perfectly Simple

Hey everyone!! 

This week was a good one! Every week is a good one when you are in the service of your fellow beings. Last Monday night we had FHE with our branch and there was an awesome turn out! Usually there are like 3 people that come but we had about 20 people there! Mary was there and a lot of our less actives! Probably because we were carving pumpkins. Also, apparently no one here really carves pumpkins or really goes trick-or-treating. That was really weird for me. So we got to help teach people what to do! Fun times. 

Tuesday we had district training. We talked about a farm and how on a farm there are a lot of things that need to get done so you have to decide where to start. We likened it to missionary work and how there are so many places we can start but we need to start with the ones that need the most help. I made peanut butter fingers and everyone loved them. 

Wednesday we went to FIU. It is a super nice campus. They are the panthers so I love going there :) We found some people but the coolest was Will. More on him in a second. In my studies this morning I was reading about how Moroni strengthened the weakest cities first. It made me think of Alma's letters to his sons. He had a lot more to say to Corianton than Shiblon but Corianton needed it more than Shiblon. I think a lot of the time we are trying to do everything right we can in our lives and we feel like God doesn't talk to us. But usually it's because we don't need any fortifications at the moment but we need to go out and help others. 

On Thursday I had my first exchange! With the hurricane last transfer we didn't get a chance to do exchanges. I got to go with Sister Brown. It was tons of fun. She is from Cedar so it was fun to talk to her about home and she knew what I was talking about. I got to teach her the ways of YSA and she got to teach me some of the things that help her. It was a lot of fun.

Friday we went back to at night. Someone told us there would be a lot of people there but boy were they wrong. We did find a family though. The parents names were Jason & Kelly. They were waiting for their daughter who was in Bible study in the auditorium. Turns out that Jason is one of the pastors of their church but they have gone to a temple open house before and had a lot of questions so we got to give some answers. We talked to them for about an hour about the restoration and plan of salvation. FIU is about 30 minutes away from our home and when we go we have to park at a high school down the street and walk about 20 minutes. So we got done talking to them around 8:45 and the Elders came and found us and had called the APs to get permission to drive us back to our car. Lots of fun. We are so grateful for them. 

On Saturday we got to teach Will! The one we found on Wednesday. He is pretty cool. He is from Africa and has been looking for truth. We shared the Restoration with him and he loved it. We prayed with him and he said he would read the pamphlet and pray about it and is excited to continue meeting with us as are we. 

Yesterday we had an Area 70 come talk to us with his wife. His name is Elder Klebingat. He started by talking about the Gospel. The church is perfect and it is simple. We just have to do what we need to because Christ already has our exaltation taken care of. It's simply perfect and perfectly simple. He also talked about how as missionaries we can go through a mission without the mission going through us. The same thing is true about the temple. He said we need to make the sacrifice of time to be able to go. When we go we need to think about being literally endowed with power to help us on this earth because that is really what is happening. We need to make the temple our best friend because we cannot progress here on Earth without entering the house of the Lord. He also talked about how we were all chosen to come to the Earth at this time in the Gospel because God trusted us to be able to bring all of his other children who weren't so fortunate unto the fold. We have to be the best missionaries we can to bring everyone unto God. 

I hope you all have a great week. Be awesome member missionaries. Pray for opportunities to share the gospel and I promise they will come. Also, go to the temple. Make it your best friend. There are so many blessings that God want's to send our way as long as we go. The gospel is true. I love it. I love you all! Stay awesome!


All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: Pelicans! We spent some time over by the beach this week and we saw a ton of them. 

 Peanut butter fingers.

 With the Elders.

Trust the Missionaries!

Hey everybody!

I hope everyone is doing well outside of mission life here in the FFLM! Life and work has been fantastic this last week!
Last Monday was Sister Bingham's birthday so we celebrated by playing some soccer and going to the pier! It was so pretty and nice to be normal for a little bit. 

 

Tuesday we just did a whole lot of finding. YSA is tough because there aren't really apartments that we can go knock at so it's just a whole lot of OYMing at campuses. 

 

Wednesday we got to watch the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference. I love that even though President Monson and Elder Hales weren't able to be there we could still hear their words through others. These men are definitely called by God and we should be quick to follow their council. This week I read about Ammon and the scattered sheep. The servants of King Lamoni became worried and wept for fear they would be slain. Ammon raised their spirits and told them to go find them "and they rushed forth with much swiftness and did head the flocks of the king, and did gather them together again to the place of water." I think we as missionaries should be like the servants of the king. We shouldn't get discouraged because the flocks are scattered but we should rush forward to bring back those who are lost to the Word of God. I think there are many times we get overwhelmed with how much work needs to be done but we shouldn't get discouraged. We should just go and do. 

 

At institute on Thursday we talked about missionary work. We read a talk by Elder Neil L. Anderson from April 2013 conference. One paragraph says, "If you’re not a full-time missionary with a missionary badge pinned on your coat, now is the time to paint one on your heart—painted, as Paul said, “not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.” And returned missionaries, find your old missionary tag. Don’t wear it, but put it where you can see it. The Lord needs you now more than ever to be an instrument in His hands. All of us have a contribution to make to this miracle." God needs us now more than ever. We don't have to be missionaries to rush forth to find those who are lost. God trusts the missionaries to carry out his work. You must also trust the missionaries! We can't do it without members help! The Lord needs all of our help. 

 

On Saturday we met with Mary and talked about family history work and watch President Nelsons talk on the Book of Mormon. She loved it and we set a baptism date for November 18th. Please keep her in your prayers! 

 

Yesterday we had 3 investigators come to sacrament! One of them told us he wasn't interested after sacrament. The other one has texted us that morning and dropped us but he came anyway! The other one was Mary. We love her so much. We are excited to see her faith grow and we know that her ancestors are on the other side helping her along. 

I love the work here. The FFLM is the best mission in the world and has the best missionaries in the world. The storms that come our way have nothing on us. We know we must be like Samuel the Lamanite and stay on the wall as long as we possibly can before returning to our land. God will protect us. I am so grateful for your prayers, love, and support. I love you all and hope you are going to the temple all the time and just being awesome. Keep doing it! 

 

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: The Pier!! It was so nice to just see the water again and be so close! 

Halloween decor from Sister Browns mum 

Our house last week

On our way to email

Welcome to October!

Hey everyone!

This week has been pretty exhausting and not a ton has happened. 

On Tuesday it rained a ton. It would stop for like 10 minutes. Then just buckets would come down. We spent a lot of the day at MDC just talking to people and passing out cards. 

Wednesday our super awesome District Leader Elder Morgan made us biscuits and gravy for breakfast before district training. It was really good and was nice of him. We talked about what motivates us on the mission. Everyone back at home motivates me to go out and be the best missionary I can be but I think my biggest motivator is my big brother Jesus Christ. I have a burning testimony of the sacrifice that he made for each and every one of us individually. I know he kept his scars so I can be perfect and that is what motivates me the most. We met with our investigator Chris alter that day. He believes that his religion is love but he wants to be baptized. He just doesn't want to be a Mormon so he's gonna take some work. 

Thursday we got to watch a session of general conference as a zone!! Super uplifting. We watched the Saturday morning session. We are going to watch the Sunday afternoon session later this week. I loved the talk from President Uchtdorf called "A Yearning for Home." It really is what it's all about. Being on a mission, one question that a lot of people have is where do we go after this life? When they find out then it's just a matter of how. I love teaching people about the Plan of Salvation because it really is what life is all about. 

Friday we had a lesson with our investigator named Margarita. I don't know if I've talked about her but she is super sweet. She knows what we are teaching is true and wants to be baptized!! We set a date for October 28th but she couldn't make it to church yesterday because her mum wouldn't let her so we are gonna keep working with her and praying that her mum lets her come.

Saturday we woke up and on our way out the door to go running we ran into some spider webs on our porch. The zone leaders had come by early and left us some Halloween decorations! They are so cool. We met with Mary today at the church and read 2 Nephi 27 with her. It all finally clicked and she said that if she knew it was true that she would get baptized! So hopefully we can start on the Plan of Salvation sometime soon.

Yesterday was a great Sabbath. Our investigator Chris came to church! He absolutely loved it so we will see if his mind set starts to change a little bit. Fast Sundays are so much different on the mission for some reason but yesterday was really spiritual for me. I love this gospel. I love the work that is taking place all around the world. I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and I know that they love you all individually and unconditionally. Thank you all for your love and support. If you get a chance to go to the temple this week, do it! I promise it will bless your life as you make time for the Lord. I love you all so much and hope this week is full of awesomeness!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine:

1- These birds! They literally line every wire. It reminds me of that Disney short. Seriously. Everywhere. 

2- The other picture is our new decorations. 

1- Didn't take a ton this week. It's Sister Bingham's birthday today so we are gonna go do some fun things. 

2- Our house on the way to come email.

Miracles!

Hey all! 

This week has been quite the adventure and tons of miracles have been coming our way!!

Wednesday we had transfers. The STL's that were living with us got transfer so we have new sisters with us now. They are Sister Luissaint (from Boston) and Sister Brown (from Cedar). They are so much fun. I got a package from mum that was way awesome. I love getting stuff from home. They always seem to come right when I need it. We had a lesson with Alex on Wednesday and we invited him to be baptized but he said no :( so we probably won't be meeting with him anymore so that kind of stinks. 

 

Thursday was full of lots of hard work. We have basically lived at Miami Dade North campus recently. It is a way good place to find YSA and we have had tons of lessons there with gators that are super solid. We met with Margarita on campus and invited her to be baptized! We don't have a for sure date yet but we are going to pray about it with her this week when we meet next. She will be baptized sometime in October and we are soo excited to see and help her grow spiritually.

Friday we spent another long 5 hours at MDC. We had lesson after lesson and OYMed in between when we could. We had some not so good lessons but we also had some awesome lessons! We got two new gators named Odly and Sebastian. They are super cool and we are excited to keep teaching them. 

 

Saturday we woke up at 4, met at Miami Lakes chapel at 5, and left at 5:10 to head down to the Keys!! It was a long 3 hour drive but such a pretty and fun drive. Upon arrival at Camp Sawyer we set up camp on the beach. We got to sleep. On. The. Beach. We got our work orders and off we went. We went to someone's house but he wasn't home. His neighbor was though and we got to help him out. All the house in Big Pine Key are just wrecked. We had to clear everything out of his home because they are still out of power and everything is just covered in mold. We put our masks on and didn't take them off for a couple hours as we stayed and helped out a lot of people on his street. We met a lady named Amy. She is from Boston and is living down here cause her husband got transferred down here for work. She has loved it but has been so stressed since Irma. She said we were such a blessing to offer her help. When we serve people we always leave them with a prayer. She asked me to say the prayer as we were leaving and I was more than happy too. She immediately started crying. She came and gave me a hug after and said that she is very catholic but we got her to start questioning the church she is a part of. Huge testimony builder for me. We are different and people can see it. It has been such a blessing to help people whether it's moving logs, shoveling muck, or dragging branches. We have seen how softened their hearts are and have loved every second of it. We ended the night at Camp Sawyer with some rice and chicken for dinner. We played Mafia for a little with all the missionaries before heading to bed. It wasn't the most comfortable but it was the best memory. It was kind of windy so it cooled way down that night which was really nice.

 

We woke up nice and early and got to watch the sunrise across the ocean. Coolest experience so far. We got ready, packed up camp, then met Mary and another gator Chris at our first work order! Chris is the gator we had lunch with last weekend in the Keys. It was so cool to have them there helping us out. We were done with everything by lunch and were ready to head back but we couldn't find Mary's keys. We instantly felt so bad that we had lost them. After 3 hours of diligent searching and praying, a lock smith showed up. We felt bad that we couldn't find her keys but we got to sit and read the Book of Mormon with her while we were waiting so that was cool. She asked us to just keep reading so that's exactly what we did until her car started up. We left camp at 5pm with a super cool member from higher up north and got back to the Miami Lakes chapel to grab our stuff and our car at 9pm. We got to listen to Piano Guys on the car ride back. The greatest way to end the greatest weekend. We also got a text from Chris on the ride home. He was riding with the other Elders in YSA with us and he asked us if he could go in the temple and if he could get baptized!! We are still trying to get a hold of him so we can start teaching him the actual lessons so we can help him out! We are so excited!

 

Missionary work is different since we are doing a lot of service. Last week at Zone Conference we talked about being 100% responsible for finding. We have been doing everything we can to do follow that and have seen the miracles that have been coming our way. We are so grateful for what is happening. We did not get to watch conference due to service but we are so excited to read and watch talks when we get the chance. We heard lots of great things. The work is still work and we wake up excited to teach repentance and baptize converts every day. I love it here. I feel all your love and love hearing from you! Keep being awesome and don't forget the words of the living day prophets. Try and find ways to apply what they asked of us into your lives everyday. Also, keep going to the temple!!! Take advantage of it while you can!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

 

Florida Sunshine - The Sunrise!! It is so beautiful here. I brought the conch shell  home.

Missionaries at 5am with Burger King for breakfast. (Elder Belnap up front, Elder Kraus next to my comp)

More disaster with the DAB missionaries.

Riding to the next house.

 

 

 My little friends and a tag pic watching the sunrise.

BOM Socks

New Sisters.