Sister Sophia's Florida Fun: A Week in Paradise

Hey fam and friends back at home! I hope you're all doing well and that life is treating you well! This week was more eventful than last!

Tuesday, our day was packed with training. We've been really trying to figure out how to be better member-minded missionaries. It has been really cool to see how things are changing and looking brighter as we've started but we can also see how much more we have to grow and what we still need to work on. So, like all new things, it's a work in progress. Later that day we went to UM to have a lesson with Sharae. Our member Chelsea came but then Sharae never showed up. Luckily, Chelsea's friend Gabby did an we were able to talk to her! She knew some things about the church from Chelsea already so it was cool to teach her about the Book of Mormon with her having a little bit of background because most of the time people have no idea what we are talking about so we start at square one which is always super fun.

Wednesday, we got to meet with Sharae and out member Katee came. It was a really neat lesson! We got to teach her the Doctrine of Christ and it was cool to see how much she wanted to understand what we were reading out of 3 Nephi 11. It really helped us to know that she really was curious and trying to figure it out. We had dinner with Katee and then headed to Institute. This course we are on now is all about Jesus Christ and it's way cool. Serving as a missionary, you are kind of forced to get to know Christ more because you just have to lean on him so much. But it has been really cool seeing how much Jesus Christ can be a part of every single ounce of your being. Something I am still working on. We had a super cool miracle that night! Grant hadn't come to institute because he went to mutual to do a missionary thing and share experiences. He was going to come after but didn't. He called us after and explained that because he stayed he met this super cool guy named Benjamin who just recently moved here from Venezuela. He searched churches around him and decided to come to ours! We haven't been able to get in contact with him yet but it was still a super cool miracle. Way to listen to the Spirit Grant!

Thursday was pretty lame, haha. Not a ton happened. When we were at Miami Dade talking to people we about peed our pants because there was this huge crash of lightning that was literally right above us and then the rain just started coming down and it never stopped. I love Miami. The rain is awesome. The humidity is great. The breeze is amazing. The sky is gorgeous. We see little parrots as we exercise in the morning and huge ones as we walk to UM. There are a million palm trees everywhere. The bugs really aren't too bad. I live in Paradise. We did get to see our returning member Javan that night. It was really dark so it was hard to read the Book of Mormon but we had a really fun time connecting the story of Enos to our lives today. That night we met at the zone leaders house to exchange for another niner niner (where we go from 9 to 9 and only knock and go to campus and find people)! This time Sister Holbrook joined me in Snapper Creek YSA.

So, Friday we started out at UM and then went from area to area and basically knocked all over the zone. Not a ton of people were home so it was really hard but we are working with some new people that I will hopefully have more to talk about them next week! We got home that night nice and exhausted. Got ready for bed and then literally crashed as soon as we got into bed.

Saturday morning we got up nice and early and headed back down to the Zone Leaders house to exchange back. We were honestly all over the place Saturday. It's really hard to know what to do on Saturday for us to be most effective. We went to UM but forgot it was football season so all of the students were heading to buses to head up to wherever the game was. So we knocked but no one was home so we visited some people but really no one was home. Was it some random holiday we didn't know about? Who knows. We had dinner with Joseph that night. It was literally a party. I love eating with him. There is never a dull moment when we are with him.

Sunday was going to be really cool and then it wasn't. We are still trying to figure out how we can change that. Sharae was supposed to come, Benjamin was supposed to come, Gabby was going to come, and none of them came. We even had rides for all of them but they wouldn't answer their phones and they haven't get back to us since. And we don't know where any of them live. Anyone have any advice for me? It would be greatly appreciated. That night we had dinner with basically the entire Country Walk ward. They had some sort of party or something. It was a fun time. We knocked with the Coral Reef sisters and met some super awesome Jamaicans. I love those people.

Today we got to go to Zoo Miami!! Third time for me and I still wasn't bored. I love that place so much. It's pretty cool. It's also really funny to see all the iguanas in the habitats. Oh man I just love Florida. It's a great place. I love being a missionary. I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I hope your week goes well and you see awesome miracles! As always, don't forget to read, pray, and please please please go to the temple!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand <3

1 Florida sunshine: The water! The reflections are always perfect and for the most part it's pretty clean haha

2,3&4 Us at the Zoo today! We were literally under an alligator! So cool.

5 Sister Holbrook and I and Elder Acosta and Elder Zemp waiting for the other Elders during the niner niner

6 Me with my home boy:)