Sister Sophia's Florida Fun: 18 Months in the Sunshine State!

Hello everyone!! I hope you had a good week! Despite the fact I was fighting a cold all week, ours was pretty good here in Boynton Beach :)

Once P-day was over on Tuesday Sister Jensen and I had to plan our training but we stopped by their friend Gustavo's first to help him with his homework. He is the cutest little Ecuadorian 9 year old ever. They are just waiting for his mum to have a day off so they can baptize him. He's hilarious.

Wednesday morning we started out the day with zone council. Sister Jensen and I gave a training on sacrifice. We read the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac and talked about how we all have things we need to give up on the alter as missionaries to help us be more obedient. We all have things that we need to work on. That's the great news about the gospel! We all have room to improve and progress. God is good that way. Later that day we went and saw Grandma Jean. She is from Trinidad but lived with all the LDS people over in California so she calls us her people. We didn't have a ton of time to talk with her but she gave us some snacks and we were on our way. We had dinner with the Milton's later and ended the night at Relief Society night with Kimberly. The Relief Society in our ward are literally so awesome. I haven't laughed so hard in a while. We started the Celestial University thing. Apparently it's pretty old but it looks pretty cool! We're gonna do it as a ward:)

Thursday we went on exchanges with the Boca Rio sisters. So that means Sister Abdo got to spend the day with me in Boynton Beach! We started with a lesson with Zenaida :) Once again it was all over the place but it was really fun. One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is seeing how excited people get about the gospel. We may not be able to understand what Zenaida says but the Spirit speaks all languages and delivers the same awesome message. I LOVE THIS GOSPEL! Later that day we found a new friend named Gwendolyn. She had just moved up from Ft. Laud and had talked to missionaries down there. She had the same questions Joseph Smith had and was so excited to hear the message of the Restoration. I'm grateful for the peace this gospel brings in a world where it's easy to get confused. It was honestly a really cool lesson. We had dinner that night with Kimberly. I love that human with my whole soul. We went through the Plan of Salvation again. She said the only thing she cares about is getting to the Celestial Kingdom. We told her that that was the perfect goal to have. We had to get Sister Abdo back down to Boca right after that so that was the end of our day.

Friday was honestly kind of unproductive because I was falling apart. Friday and Saturday were my worst days with my cold so we spend a lot of time at home so I could rest and so I didn't hand off what I had to others. We did get to go see Grandma Jean again though. She gave us some hot chocolate and cookies and we sang some hymns with her. She also gave Soeur Dorlean an African dress! We somehow got on the topic of dresses and she mentioned how much she loved them and Jean walked into her room and grabbed a dress and gave it to her! It was so pretty and looks so good on her.

Saturday morning we woke up to some nice rain outside. That morning the YSA had a baptism and I once again had to play the piano so we went. It was for our friend Nick that we were teaching awhile ago and then passed off to YSA. It was cool to see him make that step in his life. The primary teachers had a party that morning too so they invited us all in for lunch after. It was really good food. That night we had dinner at a members house. His wife died a few years ago and we were worried that there wasn't going to be a woman home so we could go inside but then we showed up and half of the ward was there! It was our own little party. Honestly so much fun. I am going to miss these Boynton Beach members.

Sunday was awesome. Zenaida was there :) After sacrament we had Brother Uy give her a blessing because she has had really bad vertigo lately. I have seen the Elders give blessings in Creole before and it's really cool but it was something else seeing Brother Uy give Zenaida a blessing in Tagalog. Teaching Zenaida has been cool and has strengthened my testimony that the gospel really is the same anywhere you go and the Spirit really knows how to teach us all in our own ways. The Church is true people! And if you don't believe it, I invite you to pray about it. The Spirit has taught me some of the biggest truths on my mission. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know Joseph Smith was called as a prophet to restore Jesus Christ's church back on the Earth. I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on Earth and contains the Priesthood authority of God to perform saving ordinances. I know God is there and cares for us and loves us everyday. I know the temple is the house of the Lord and I invite you all to go this week! Keep being awesome :)

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

I cut off 5 inches of Sister Jensen's hair! It looked pretty good :) and then another 2 inches this morning.