10am, Santa's comin' to town!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!! I hope you all have had fun this week as we are approaching Christmas tomorrow! I'm so excited to Skype home and see all your lovely faces :) This week was pretty good for us here in Boynton Beach!

Tuesday morning started out with our Christmas Zone Conference! It was awesome, as usual. We pretty much just reviewed everything that we are working on as a mission so we don't forget but it was still such a great time. We also got all of our Christmas packages after that too! Elder O'very made us a mission song and we all got it on a flash drive. Probably one of the best Christmas presents as a missionary haha. It's such a neat experience to be a missionary during the Christmas season and get to bring the reason for the season back into people's lives. It's awesome. That night we dropped Sister Wheeler and Sister Dorlean off to get an oil change and Sister Jensen and I picked up Sister Edmunds to take her to dinner. Well, on our way to Panda Express we went to make a right hand turn but there was a biker so we stopped aaannndddd got rear ended. So the remainder of the night was spent waiting for the cop to come fill out a report that we didn't end up needing but we made a new friend out of it. Everyone was completely fine except for the little scratch on our car. It was a great time. Once we were done we went caroling to the best neighborhood of lights. It was awesome! They had arches of lights lining their whole sidewalk. It was awesome! 

Wednesday started off with a really cool miracle. We went to visit our friend Yarelis with one of our members but she wasn't home. But then Sister Kovacs, the member, looks at us and says, "I have a friend that I want to get baptized before she dies. Follow me." Well, Sister Kovacs is from the Philippines so our response was, "Sister Kovacs, does she speak English?" "Nope! But I can translate." And with a smile on all of our faces we headed off to meet Zenaida. She is the cutest, funniest little Filipino lady I have ever met. We taught her the Doctrine of Christ and I have a new found testimony of the gift of tongues. Even though I don't speak Tagalog and we couldn't understand a single word, we could follow what was going on and we had a super neat experience with her. So Grant, we are teaching a Filipino and its time to learn some Tagalog! That night was pretty normal after we had dinner with the Kovacs at Cracker Barrel and went caroling for like 2 hours. It was so much fun! 

Thursday was pretty normal. We went to service at the food pantry and had some studies. We went to see our friend Dorothy with the Elders. When we got there she asked if we could help her set her tree up so we put our skills to the test and helped put up and decorate her tree while she put up everything else. It was fun to sing Christmas songs together and bring the Spirit into her home. We ate dinner with a bunch of missionaries that night with one of our members. While we were there it started pouring rain so of course, we put on our rain jackets and went caroling in the rain. A lot more people we were nice to us that night. Good times, good times. 

Friday we had a good lesson with Kimberly. Elder Watkins and Elder Neff came with us because she wanted a blessing on her house. We were having dinner with her so we took a cake and the Elders brought cookies and Kimberly was so impressed that we could bake! It was pretty funny. We talked about moving her baptism date. Elder Watkins shared his experience while Elder Neff was giving her a blessing on Sunday. He said the number 29 kept coming into his head and Kimberly took that as an answer. She said she would pray it and talk to her husband and get back to us. So we prayed as hard as we could until Sunday. We also gave her a bunch of hot chocolate mix to help her stop drinking coffee. 

Saturday morning Sister Jensen and I had to meet with zone leaders to plan some things for Christmas tomorrow. We had a cool lesson with our friend Fed! He is YSA though so we had Elder Watkins and Elder Neff with us to hand him off. Sister Dorlean is so savage. Its sooo fun to teach with her. He hadn't read the Book if Mormon so she got mad at him. Needless to say, he wont not read it now haha. We ended the night caroling again. One of the houses had a party going on and they made us stop so they could make everyone come outside. It was awesome. They had a sing a couple songs and then we were on our way. 

Sunday morning we got a text from Kimberly saying she wanted to get baptized on Saturday! A big leap from August to this Saturday so that's fun! We have a lot of planning to do by this Saturday. Because church was only hour we also went to YSA because David slept in but he wanted us to go with him so we did. The remainder of our day was pretty normal with caroling and such. Our members love us so much and keep giving us presents. We are the most spoiled missionaries in the world. I love Boynton Beach! Next week is transfers and I really hope I get to stay here for my last 6 weeks. It's the promised land.

In all of your various places you may be, our Christmases are all pretty different. You may be outside building a snowman, you may be inside watching Home Alone and drinking some hot chocolate. You might be going sledding or maybe you're even out surfing on the beach. Maybe it's a sand castle you're building. For some you may still be raking leaves but others did that months ago. You may be having a BBQ at the park or you may be playing kickball in a church building. Here in Florida it's a solid 75 degrees and we get the opportunity to go around and share a message of peace and hope to those who live around us. To those that you mingle with everyday. To those that may be looking for truth but just don't know where to find it. You may try and tell me that your Christmas is the best this year, but it will never beat out the amazing opportunity that we have as missionaries to share the story of Christ and what we need to do to be able to follow his perfect example and return home to our Father in Heaven. Remember him tomorrow as you enjoy Christmas morning full of gifts and love. God's gift of his Son was the ultimate gift that we must never forget. Give back to him by taking the time to pray and read His words in the scriptures. I hope you all have a Merry CHRISTmas!!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: This sign in our member's house. It makes me laugh every time.

Dorothy and her tree. (feat. her cat Doritos) 

Zone Conference friends!!! We definitely coordinated our colors :) 

The Misfits: (we call ourselves the misfits because we used to be a district but now we aren't but we are too far from our districts to ever do anything with them) Elder Van Dyke, Elder Watkins, Sister Dorlean, me, Sister Jensen, Sister Wheeler, Elder Neff, Elder Egan 

(The second group picture includes Sister Oliveira and Elder Tucker)

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singing Loud for All to Hear

This week has definitely been a week full if singing for us! My favorite part about caroling is just the fact that every single person we sing to has never had carolers before. It's so much fun to see the reactions on people's faces when they open the door and see a bunch of missionaries. Its lots of fun :)

Tuesday was a solid day full of meetings. Actually now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that's all we did that day. We had Book of Mormon class that night which is always fun. Our teacher is back in town from Utah so it's just a big party now! We had correlation and then headed down to Boca Raton to exchange with the Sisters!

Wednesday Sister Gibbons joined me in Boynton Beach! We had a pretty fun day full of knocking and visiting people. We met with David and his friend Julien at a park for a lesson and passed a Frisbee around for a bit. And then I threw it in the lake... Something to note about Florida, every single body of water has an alligator in it whether you see it or not. They make these burrows at the bottom and just chill there forever. Especially when it's cold outside. So we were all very impressed when we retrieved the Frisbee without even touching the water. We had dinner that night with our friend Kimberly. She is such a good cook. We helped her understand that if she waits until August to get baptized then she is missing out on those blessings for an extra 9 months. She realized we were right and told us she would consider it so that's awesome. There is never a dull moment when we are around Kimberly. We were going to go see the other Kimberly after that but we got a call that Sister Wheeler and Sister Dorlean were in a car accident so we exchanged back and headed home. Everything was okay and the car is okay so esta bien!

Thursday morning we headed down to Fort Lauderdale for a comp study with the AP's. Because of the crash we had to take the car down there and Sister Wheeler had a doctor's appointment so we all took a road trip down. We talked more about the 6 things Elder Bowen told us about when he came and how we can continue to apply them. This mission is in such an amazing spot right now. It has been so cool to see how far this mission has come in the last 16 months of being here right after President and Sister Garns got here. President is so inspired. I love that man. It took us awhile to get home but we pretty much just went caroling for the rest of the night. Once it gets dark people get mad when you knock in their door so caroling is super effective for us :)

Friday I had Sister Ahlm join me in Boynton! Yay for two exchanges in one week. We started out our morning at "The Diner" with David for breakfast. That place is better than Denny's but the same price. Oh it was soo good. We showed him how to pay his tithing in his phone so that was fun. Then we went to see our friend Jerry. We showed him how to find the Book of Mormon and the Bible on lds.org

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Find messages of Christ to uplift your soul and invite the Spirit. lds.org

so he can make the letters bigger. We read the Intro with him and he then committed himself to read the entire thing and pray about it when he's done. He told us he will still be a Catholic when he's done but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. We also visited Sona, a returning member. Our lessons used to be really long with her but they are getting better so that's good! We had a good time chatting with her. We watched "Taking Upon Ourselves the Name of Jesus Christ" from conference. I invite you all to watch that right now. It's so good and it's a good reminder of the covenants we made when we were baptized. We knocked with the Elders later and they came to dinner with us at a members house and then we all ended the night caroling. Caroling is the best in Florida because it's one of the few things that makes you feel like it's almost Christmas time! It's also fun to look at everyone's lights. This one neighborhood we've been in for a while is having a competition this year to see who can be the best. Palm trees covered in Christmas lights are awesome. Ah I love Florida!!!

We had to take our car into the shop on Saturday so not a lot happened. We had our ward Christmas Party that night so that was good. Kimberly, Nick, and Vivian came and they all loved it so it was really fun to be with them. The church community is one of my favorite things. It's just so nice to be a party of a ward family especially when you are away from your family. Every person we bring to church is always impressed by the Spirit that is brought with all the families around. I know God gave us our families for a reason. He didn't just put a bunch of random people together for no reason. We all promised each other before this life that we would be there to watch out for each other and support each other through everything and anything. If you haven't told someone in your family that you love them today, repent and do it now. Or if you have hard feelings toward someone, just let it go. It's not worth it. Having strong family relations is ordained of God and should be the center focus of our lives. Especially as we start off this new year with a more home centered Gospel. I am so grateful to God for blessing me with such an awesome family. I love you guys! I cant wait to Skype next week :) 

Sunday was pretty good. Kimberly came to church which was awesome. She has been in a lot of pain lately so she got a blessing from the Elders. It was awesome. She also told us that she would much rather be baptized as a new year thing so she is praying about a way sooner date. We had dinner that night with the Papenfus family. They have a Legends of Zelda encyclopedia. It was probably one of the coolest encyclopedias I've ever seen. I love that family. We saw Dennis that night before we went caroling. He always makes us this really good guacamole. I have come to love avocados on my mission. Don't worry dad, you're not alone anymore!

As Christmas approaches I encourage you to all remember the real reason of Christmas. Christ offered his life for us. The least we could do is focus on Him this time of year and not get caught up in the things of the world. Gifts and traditions are fun but He is the ultimate gift and we shouldn't let him be blocked out by all the lights. I am so grateful for my Savior and everything He did for me. I wouldn't be where I am or who I am without him by my side. I love you all so much! 

Keep reading and praying and make time for the temple :)

All my love, 

Sister Beckstrand 

Florida Sunshine: This sign! It's right as you are leaving the Boca Raton chapel. I love it :)

We stole the Elders Haiti bandannas because Sister Dorlean wanted to take pictures. I love her. 

Because Sister Dorlean is from Haiti, the members from the Haitian ward have started giving us Haitian food. It is sooo good! I really love it. Sos pwa and legim. Ah. So good. 

All the families were taking pictures at the Christmas party so we decided to take one too :)

Caroling :) I love it :)

Some of the awesome Christmas lights

The lake we went to with David on Wednesday. It's called Lake Ida. Super pretty.

Why Not Read the Book?

Hello everyone! What a great week we had this last week here in Boynton Beach! The holiday events are my favorite things. 

This last Monday we saw Phillip and Kimberly again. We talked with Phillip about prayer and why it's so important. He is still looking for answers so we told him to pray every night and then open the Book of Mormon and just start reading. Then every morning we texted him and asked him how it was going! From Phillip's experience this week I can tell you that God really answers your prayers as long as you are willing to ask and do the work to find your answers. Kimberly has been struggling with the fact that she needs to be baptized by authority so we ready 3 Nephi 11 and explained how they all needed to be re-baptized once Christ gave Nephi the authority to do so. She said that made a lot of sense and we told her to watch the Restoration video before we come back. So hopefully tonight we can set her with a baptism date!

Tuesday morning I finally got to meet Troy!!! It was a moment I have been waiting a long time for. He took us right into his backyard and we just got to talk for about an hour. His dogs came over and played with us and he showed us his boards. We talked about life and about the ocean. It was so fun to finally get to connect with him and he even told us he will come to church with us soon. So that was a party :) After seeing him we headed up north for district council. That's always a good time. It's fun to get to learn from the other missionaries. God puts us all together for a reason. That night we had dinner with some members and they helped David find some family names to take to the temple. Then we headed to Book of Mormon class but David was the only one that came so we had a fun lesson as we talked about Ammon and the flocks of King Lamoni. It was really fun. 

Wednesday was another really fun day! We started out the day with our studies and then we headed down south a little and knocked with the Elders for a bit and then we headed down to the Boca Raton chapel for our second parade! We met there at 4 to find out where we needed to be and where and what we were doing. Then we all went and got dinner and brought it back to the chapel and then at 6 we headed out to the parade. We dropped everyone off at the beginning and then we drove to the end and took 12 years trying to find someplace to park. Then we briskly walked back to the beginning of the parade to find our float. The theme of the parade was Broadway musicals so, of course, ours was The Book of Mormon Musical. There were signs on the side that said, "Now that you have seen the show why not read the book?" We walked with it and passed out Book of Mormon pass along cards and copies of The Book of Mormon. It was honestly so much fun. And to add to that, the Boca Raton rugby club was right behind us so they let me pass a ball with them before we started. It has honestly been so much fun to be in parades and get to hear all the marching bands and remember all the things I love back at home. But the work continues! The parade didn't start till 7:30 so we didn't get home till 11 because it was a half an hour drive but it was so worth it and so much fun! 

Thursday Sister Wheeler joined me in Boynton Beach for the day! We had service at the food pantry which is always fun! After service we met up with David and his friend Julien at this random neighborhood full of peacocks! Julien was back visiting from China and he had a bunch of questions for us about the church so we just answered all the questions that he had with David's help. Oh, and we fed the peacocks. It was so much fun. They would just come take the nuts right out of our hands. Definitely want to go back and do it again. That night we went caroling for about 2 hours! It was so much fun. There are a lot of people in this area that think they are too cool for us and don't want to talk. But who can refuse a group of young people singing on their front porch? Those with sleeping children. That's who. But really though, it's fun to see how music helps open their hearts and be willing to come check out the church! 

Friday was such a spiritual high. Holy cow. We started out the morning with catching a ride with some other sisters down to MLC in Ft. Laud. We went over a lot of things the mission is working on. I love being able to go to those meeting because you can really tell just how much the Lord trusts us. And President and Sister Garns. Especially when during the closing prayer the fire alarm goes off because the Elders grilling burgers outside accidentally catch the entire grill on fire and President just expects us to finish the prayer because the Elders outside can figure out their own problem. That's how missionary life is every day. We wake up to a metaphorical fire going on in our areas and President Garns just knows that we will fix it. Wow. When we got home, Sister Dorlean and I headed over to the church to print off some family names. Then we met up with our Bishop and his wife, the Taylors, and David and we all hopped in the van and headed down to the temple! As soon as we pulled up I remembered it was YSA temple night and I ran into members from Snapper Creek! I didn't think the night could get better but it did. I miss those members. It was David and Sister Dorlean's first time! Sister Dorlean is a convert of about 3 years and they just barely finished construction on the Haiti temple. It will be dedicated in April so she has never done baptisms. The first ones she got to do were for her mom and her grandma. It was really neat to get to watch that. She was smiling the entire time :) Then David got baptized for his grandpa and then he got to baptize Bishop! It was really funny the first couple times but he got the hang of it and by the end of the 10 names he was a pro. It was so nice to be doing baptisms for the dead again. I LOVE THE TEMPLE!!!! If you haven't been in the last 14 days, make a commitment to go in the next 7 days. It will bless your life. And you never know who is up there waiting for you to get baptized for them. Don't make them wait any longer! 

Saturday was a pretty normal day. We had a meeting to fill the district leaders in on what we talked about at MLC. When we got to the church though the entire parking lot was packed. There was a funeral going on from the Haitian ward. I have never seen so many Haitians in one place at one time. I was definitely out of place and people definitely gave me weird looks. That night we had dinner with our other friend Kimberly. She read through the Restoration pamphlet and learned a lot of things. She has been going to church for 7 years but always had a smoking problem. But she has overcome that! So as we were eating dinner our conversation when as follows: "Sisters, I want to get baptized." "That's awesome! When?" "On my birthday." "When's your birthday?" "August 14th!" We had a really long discussion after that. So our goal with her is to move that up to as close as we can possible. She already knows the church is true. She's just missing the blessings of having the Holy Ghost. After dinner we headed to the church for a YSA baptism. We had a friend come who is YSA so he could meet the branch and the missionaries. It made me remember once again how much I miss my YSA branch down south! 

Yesterday was pretty alright. Vivian came to 3rd hour but not the rest. She was also going to come to dinner with us that night at a members house but then she decided not to. All our friends this week cancelled their lessons on us. But hopefully this week is better. That night we went caroling again with the southern half of the zone so that was fun too. I just want to know what these people think when they see a huge group of missionaries walking around their neighborhood. It was kinda raining the whole time but not enough for us to care. The life of a missionary is the best life to live. 

I hope you all have a great week this week! With Christmas fast approaching don't forget to go out and light your community this week with some act of service! 

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: The parade! It was so fun! It was weird to see a few members in a sea of non members. It's the complete opposite of Utah that's for sure. We also fit the entire zone in an elevator so that was a party :)

Troy!

Temple Pics

Pictures from MLC :) Elder Miller, Sister Jensen, and Sister Reidhead 

Feeding peacocks :) there were a bunch of them. 

Festival of Nativities

Hey y'all! I feel like I haven't had a P-day in about 12 years. So buckle up everyone! Here goes nothing.

Saturday the 24th was pretty normal. We had a blitz up in the top of our area. Being with Sister Dorlean is awesome because now that she's with me, we can talk to all of the Haitian people that we knock into! It's so fun to just kinda sit back and watch her teach Creole. It's really neat. I wish I could speak a different language. I'm just really good at my Spanglish haha. But I can say the name of the church in French now so that's fun! I'm catching up to you Josh! That night we went caroling at Walmart again! This time we got permission so we didn't get kicked out. It was really fun as usual. 

Sunday was just as good as usual. Our friend Sheryl came to church and loved it! The Elders gave her a blessing after sacrament meeting because she's pretty sick right now and she was promised that if she continues to take the missionary lessons that she would be fully healed. Talk about promised blessings. It was pretty cool. Our friend Kimberly also came and stayed all three hours. We didn't get the chance to see her throughout the week but hopefully we will be able to see her this week and set her with a baptism date. That night was mostly just full of knocking and trying to visit some people. 

Monday we thought wasn't going to be very good but it turned out to be fun! We knocked for a long time all day and found a new friend named Kezia! She was really open to learning more which was really good to hear as a missionary. That night we had dinner with some members that basically just bought us dinner at Chick-fil-a and then left us there to just chill. It was honestly a pretty nice night. Then we went to see our friend Phillip. We might have to stop teaching him though. We aren't to sure if he's progressing right now. We have to take a break with him and give him time to figure it out on his own. 

Tuesday morning we went to see our one of our members. She let us feed her chickens which was fun. We went home after and had our studies and then headed out to have interviews with President Garns. He's just so awesome. I know that as missionaries we are called to our mission president and not the mission. I am so grateful to be here at this specific time. That night we went caroling with the zone leaders and we saw a really cool miracle! The first door we knocked on, our friend Pam opened and she immediately started to cry. We finished our song and she was so grateful to see young people like us out doing what we were doing. After talking with her for a few minutes, she told us she had a question. She goes, "Are you scared of dying?" We all smiled and told her no. She was so surprised and we told her we could come back to share the message of the Plan of Salvation with her. It was awesome. 

Wednesday morning we had to go to the other District's interview training so that took some time. We all went to Panera Bread after for lunch. That place is always so good. Then later that day Sister Dorlean and I went downtown in Delray Beach to meet with David. There is this street called Atlantic Ave. and it's full of little shops and it ends at the beach. So we stopped and took some pictures of the 100ft tree in the middle of the park and walked around as we talked about the Doctrine of Christ. It was pretty fun. We are excited to go to the temple with him soon! We had dinner with some members who are from the Philippines (shout out to Grant) so it was fun to talk with them about how big Christmas is over there and how boring we are here in America. It was fun to learn more about them! 

Thursday morning we met with our friend Yarelis and taught her the Doctrine of Christ. As we were talking about enduring to the end she looked at us and goes, "When can I be baptized?" We smiled and had her pray about it right then. She now has a date for December 29th! Now we've just got to get her to come to church with us. She is awesome though. We got to see a recent convert that day too that we have been trying to see since we got here. Her name is Angela and she is really funny. She is just super busy with work and can never come to church. Oof. We then went to see our friend Fred. His neighbor was over who is from Haiti so he and Sister Dorlean talked for about an hour and then we finally got to teach Fred the Restoration. It was a pretty good lesson. Then we had dinner with some other members and then went caroling once again with Elder Van Dyke and Elder Watkins. It was a party. Well, most everyone was getting mad at us because they had kids sleeping or they just didn't like us but... we did meet this really cute couple that had heard The Tabernacle at Temple Square so they got really excited to come to our nativity! 

Friday morning we went and did service for Sister Borge. She is moving soon and needed our help moving stuff around and packing up boxes. It was really fun. And she bought us pizza and chicken nuggets and stuff. The Elders came which is always a party as well. We saw our returning member Sona later that day and after being with her we booked it home to eat some dinner and then headed to the Festival of Nativities that our stake put on. Basically, they had a live nativity outside that people could walk around and look at. There were different things for them to do and then there was a free concert that they could come to. We, the missionaries, were in charge of ushering people in and giving them tours through the nativity. It was so much fun!!

Saturday was even better. That morning we received a referral from our Bishop so we went to go see her. Daphyne has been church hopping for a while so as we shared the Restoration with her she was really excited to come to church on Sunday! So were we :) Then we headed to the church and started dressing up! There was a parade in Boynton Beach that our Stake President, President Lustig, wanted the missionaries in. It was to advertise the Festival of Nativities so we got to dress up like we were in Bethlehem and we got to walk around and hand out pictures of Jesus Christ and invitations. It was so much fun to see everyone's smiling faces! Then we booked it back to the church to drop off our costumes because the nativity was starting but we had all the costumes. We also had a super cool miracle!!! There was a lady named Vivian who was on her way to Mass but was stopped by the parade so she stayed and watched. She was very unimpressed that it was a Christmas parade but none of the floats talked about the real reason for Christmas. Then we came by and a missionary gave her an invitation. She was so touched that we were there that she came to the nativity that night and loved it! Some other missionaries talked to her later and told her when church started and she said it was really early but she would try her hardest to come.

So heading over to Sunday, she came!!! And she loved it sooo much. She kept saying she wanted to leave but she stayed for all three hours and was so impressed with all the young fathers that were helping out and how many little kids we had. Our friends Kimberly and Daphyne came to church too! It was awesome. After church we had dinner with the Milton's and David and talked about getting him his temple recommend. Hopefully we can go with him this week! That night we spent one last night at the nativity and Vivian came again. She loved it and stayed for the Devotional. After hearing the prophet speak she informed us that she really wanted to hear more about our church and what we believe. 

We are super grateful for the miracles that God has been putting in our paths. I love this Gospel and this Christmas season. Make sure to go out and light the world with those around you so they can feel the true Spirit of Christmas. Don't forget to read and pray and go to the temple this week! 

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshie: the 100ft tree!! We see it a bunch. They did a tree lighting last week. So. Many. Lights.

The Parade crew!!

More parade :)

The only pictures I took from the Festival of Nativities