Sister Sophia's Florida Fun: Remember Me

Hello all! I bet you all had a great week but sadly, I am here to say that it was not as great as mine was. Here's why:

Monday night we had two awesome lessons with our friends Phillip and Kimberly. Brother and Sister Taylor came with us to both of them. When members come with you to lessons it's just the greatest. They are really good at mentioning the little things that we as missionaries sometimes forget. Plus they took us to Tijuana Flats - great Tex-Mex food! - so that was a big bonus.

Tuesday we had zone conference which was just amazing as always. There is a member in our ward named Brother Victor Garcia da Rosa, he came and shared his conversion story with us. It. Was. Amazing. If you would like to know why, go check out his story on Mormon.org It's kind of a read but it is so amazing. He helped us know key points on how to help people of other faiths be willing to accept the gospel. We spent a lot of time at Zone Conference talking about the restoration and the importance of it. President Garns had people go up and role play and of course Sister Oli and I got called on. That's 3 conferences in a row now lol. But it was good and we had fun. We had dinner with the Miltons and then we had Book of Mormon class. A lot of people were there including David :) It was a great time.

Wednesday morning we went to seminary! First time I've ever been to early morning seminary and it was actually pretty awesome. We weren't quite sure what our role was going to be there but then the seminary teacher just turned the time over to us to teach the lesson on the Atonement. It's a good thing we do that all day every day! The only difference with this one was that we got doughnuts after. Good times :) We had a really cool lesson with our friend Rihanna later that day. She told of us a cool experience she had where she heard a voice that just kept telling her that God is real. It really opened her heart a little so that was cool. She had a bunch of questions that we tried our best to answer. We also had lessons with Kim and Larry. Kim is way cool and had a bunch of questions about what the typical "Mormon" is. We had a fun time explaining our beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our lesson with Larry was good. We taught him the Plan of Salvation but it's hard to tell because he had zero questions. So it either made perfect sense or no sense. We don't know which one.

Thursday we did service at a food pantry making rice bags. Sister Oliveira has seen a lot of the movies I haven't seen so she acted out a lot of them for me. We had a great time. Then we went to see our friend Amy. Luckily this time she put her dog away. Mostly because we refused to sit down with it already trying to jump all over us. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she didn't quite get it which was frustrating. She kept saying she got it, but she didn't. But we will get it all figured out. Then we went to see our best friend David. He wanted to feed us so we went over at 6 to teach him a lesson. We talked about the story of the Brother of Jared and set him with a baptism date for November 3rd!! We are all super excited for it. Then his neighbors came over and we all helped make this weird Ivory Coast meal. It was like soup sorta but also had peanut butter in it. It wasn't bad but I'd rather not have it again. But it was a really fun night to be with David and talk to his roommates though!

Friday we had a lesson with our friend Matt. It was kind of awkward cause he lives in a halfway house so there were a bunch of guys coming in and out the whole time and would just stare at us. But Matt and his friend Trevor are really cool! The Elders had taught him about the Book of Mormon so he had a lot of questions for us when we came back. It was fun. We had been kind of all over the place all day but we had tostadas with the Andrews family that night. They are die hard Red Soxs fans so we aren't allowed to go over until the World Series is over lol. And then we headed down to Boca Raton for a movie night at the church! The Stake President talked to President Garns so we could go and watch COCO!!!!!! We were all literally so excited. They had us show up early to help set stuff up for popcorn and cotton candy and then to welcome everyone as they showed up. David came and it was the first time for both of us watching it. They had us missionaries wear yellow helping hands vests so they could find us if they needed us. The goal was to have a bunch of the community come. Some came but not near as much as we were expecting. It was still good. And the movie was amazing!! It was weird to have a movie in the park on my mission with our friends but I loved every second of it:) If you haven't seen Coco, you are mission out. Oh it's so good. #missiongoals

Saturday morning we had to help one of our members other family move. We got there and it was already all packed up and all we had to do was put it in the truck. With our whole district there it got done pretty quick. At the end they were joking on having us follow them over to Naples to unpack it all so we called the Elders over there so they could meet them up and help unpack. The people were very grateful. Then after that we went to see a recent convert. He has kinda fallen off the face of the Earth but it was nice to meet him! We were going to feed the ducks but then there were none. Then we had some other things planned but then the Elders reminded us that they were having a baptism that night so we called David and went and had dinner with him and then went to the baptism so he could see what it's all about, even though it was all in Creole. I had to go home with Sister Jensen so we could plan some things but Sister Oliveira said it was really good so that's good!

Sunday morning when we got to church we got a text from our friend Twan that actually neither of us had ever met saying he wanted a ride to church. So we got him one and he came! We aren't too sure if he liked it because he asked where the coffee was and we told him we don't have any so he left. Lol. But David came :) So that was good. We had a lesson with him after church and Keith sat in with us. Keith is a convert and is such a big teddy bear. He reminds me of Dwayne Johnson. If he were a member he would be a lot like Keith. After church we had dinner with the Sandlins and Lopez's. The Lopez family is moving to Utah at the end of the month and I'm really sad about it. They are awesome. But they are going to love Utah so we are all excited for them. After dinner we met with one of our returning members named Dennis. He just always has a bunch of questions for us to answer. They are things I've honestly never thought of before so it was cool to have to get my gears turning to find scriptures to help him understand different things. I need to keep studying that's for sure.

So, with a week full of service, setting David with a date, watching Coco and eating cotton candy, and having awesome members, I'd say that my week was pretty good and probably better than yours ;) It's hard to beat a missionary. But I hope you all have an amazing week! Keep reading your scriptures, praying, and go to the temple!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: PVHS street

Cooking at David's

This house in David's neighborhood that goes all out for Halloween