Hello everyone! This is Sister Beckstrand here coming at ya from the most north I have been in the last year! They say the humidity is not as bad up here but I beg to differ. These last 4 days are the days I have felt the humidity the most since being here. Hopefully it's the last of the heat before it starts to cool down. Life up here in Boynton Beach is awesome!
Wednesday we got everything packed up. We had to rearrange the house which took a second because there are 3 sisters there now. But we got it figured out. On our way out of the house we got our last call from the one and only Grant Palacio. It honestly made me even more sad to be leaving my fam there but I will see them soon enough! We had lunch with our sisters at 5 Guys and switched stuff around because Sister Hammond stayed with Sister Holbrook so I took Sister Dalton up to transfers. There were a lot of people at transfers. Mostly because we had 25 new missionaries come in which is like a million basically. My new companion is Sister Oliveira. She is from Brazil, is 24, and this is her 3rd transfer! I'm still an STL and my STL comp is Sister Jensen. She is serving in Camino Gardens with Sister Wheeler. They are our roommates :) Once we got everything figured out at transfers we were on the road! It took a minute to get home and forever to unload the car but we eventually got it all done. That night we had a lesson with our friend Katie. She is awesome! She likes to talk a lot so it's hard to stay on the lesson but we got it all figured out. That night was full of trying to unpack and get things figured out.
Thursday morning Sister Jensen and I were all over the place going to all the different District Councils. This zone is literally huge and I don't know any of the missionaries here. It's crazy what happens with the mission when you get confined down south. Everything has changed! But esta bien. Once we exchanged back with our companions we found a new friend named Andre. He is Baptist but as soon as we taught him about the Book of Mormon he asked for his own and told us he would read it by the time we come back. Then we went to visit a referral but his grandma opened the door and she only spoke Creole so we had to call some Elders to translate for us over the phone. It was awesome :) our zone has English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Creole! Quite the melting pot. He wasn't home so we had to take some stuff to Goodwill and then we had dinner with Brother Lopez. He is my favorite human. He reminds me of Mr. Candland. It's awesome. He was baptized 4 years ago and has the strongest testimony and loves the missionaries. Most of the members in our ward are converts. They are awesome. So we had dinner with him at Chick-fil-a and then went knocking for the rest of the night! The people up here are more wealthy than the people in Miami so it is really hard to get people to talk to you. But we are going to see miracles this transfer. Sister Oliveira calls the hours after lunch and from about 7:30-9 the "Witching Hours". Those are the times when people get really mad for us being put even if we aren't talking to them. It's great.
Friday after our studies we went to visit a returning member names Sona. She is so cute! She has cancer so we shared the talk "Wounded" from General Conference with her. It really helped and we had fun being with her. In Miami I didn't have a problem knocking on people's doors if they had a no soliciting sign on the door or at the complex, however, people here call the cops on us so we have to be very careful where we knock. We were knocking a trailer park and it started to pour so we took shelter and then went and took pictures of the gorgeous rainbow! And then we got yelled at by some lady so we left. That night we had dinner with the Jensen's and played some Foosball and then went to visit a referral with the Elders so they could give her a priesthood blessing. Something crazy about Haitians is that they mostly all speak Creole and English but they mix it all up. It's like Spanglish but worse. So the Creole Elders came with us. The blessing was in Creole but there were 6 of us in there so it was a little packed but it was so awesome. The Church is the same anywhere you go. And it is so true!!!
Saturday we started with ZLC talking about how we can help this zone the most this transfer. It is literally huge and there are so many missionaries here so I have no clue what we're going to do but it's going to be great nonetheless! After ZLC Sister Jensen and I had to do some planning for our sisters and then we were supposed to meet our comps at the train stations with the bikes but it took forever and we couldn't find a pump for Sister Jensen's bike. They missed their train but it all worked out in the end. We went to visit some referrals after that the Elders found for us and then knocked for a bit and it was I think the hottest day this summer. We were both melting. So then we headed to dinner with the Papenfuss fam. They are in the YSA branch up here so we went with the Elders. It was a lot of fun. Then we were supposed to have a lesson but we showed up and she wasn't there so we ended up just talking to Brother Lopez for a bit. He is moving to Utah soon and I am so upset about it. I am going to soak up every second I can of him being here now.
Sunday. Holy cow. This is the first ward I have served in on my mission and the first time I have had a slew of little kids. I honestly forgot what it was like to sit in sacrament and not have it be so silent. It was awesome. And the entire chapel was full!! What the heck! I have never seen that on my mission. Church was awesome. But there are a million members so it's going to take me forever to figure everything out and remember their names. After church we had to go from lesson to lesson to lesson. Our first one was with our new friend named Amy. She requested a bible so we took it over! Upon opening the door she asked if we were scared of dogs. Before we could respond the dog came bolting around the corner. I don't know what kind it was but it wasn't small and it was only a year and a half. The entire time we were talking to Amy it was literally jumping all over us and she was just laughing and listening. I wanted to kill it. It was running on the back of the couch and it had the sharpest nails so we got all sorts of scratched up. The entire time I just kept grabbing it by the collar and holding it until it would try and bite me. Untrained dogs are the bane of my existence. But we shared the restoration with her and she told us we could come back so we will pray next time that she puts the dog away. Then we went to a referral named Sarah. Well, we showed up and it turns out she is only 10 years old!! We asked her why she requested a bible and she said, "Because I'm Christian and it makes me feel good. I lost mine so I got a new one!" She was literally so cute. Her dad is a pastor though. He told us they would both read it and get back to us so hopefully they do! Then we went to see Malicia! She had the lights off the entire time so it was honestly hard to focus. It's hard enough to stay awake on fast Sunday. But it was good! We just really need to re-explain the priesthood to her though. She doesn't get it. After that we had dinner with the Haws family and then went out to knock during the witching hours. After realizing that we were not being useful, we went home to do our personal study because we still hadn't done that yet.
Life up here in Boynton is way different than Miami. It has taken some adjusting to slowing down. It is really clean up here and everything is so far apart! Super different than everywhere else I have been here in Florida. But it is awesome and I love being here. I hope life is good back at home! Keep reading and praying and don't forget about the temple!
All my love,
Sister Beckstrand
Florida Sunshine: Aladdin Ave!
Our cute Halloween decorations
Rainbow while knocking
Our district <3 (left to right) Elder Egan, Elder Watkins, Elder Van Dike, Elder Tucker, Sister Jensen, Me, Sister Wheeler, Sister Oliveira
Sister Oliveira and I :)
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