Sister Sophia's Florida Fun: Are you leaving us? No Chancho, I would never leave you.

Welcome to the year of 2019!! Starting it off right here in the FFLM with a brand new transfer. And with a new transfer starting that means I only have 6 weeks left of being a missionary. But we aren't going to think about that right now. We had a great week this week!

Last Monday on Christmas Eve we went around trying to visit a bunch of people and singing Christmas songs to them. We are with Bishop that night which was a bad idea because we literally had so much food. I thought I was going to pop. For those of you who serve around Latins that make you eat everything, its not just the Latins! They all do it. But at least it was really good food. Then we ended the night at the chapel for an open house with the missionaries in the zone above us where we ate even more food and played some games to celebrate Christmas Eve. We read the story of Christ and sang Christmas hymns and the headed home and opened out PJ's!

Christmas morning we got up nice and early to open presents :) thank you for all of the presents and cards and money! You all are the best!! We had a zone council that morning with some members from England that snow bird here. It was so fun to have the zone in one home and to have even more good food. Let's just say I didn't eat much on Wednesday cause I had so much food to digest. After having a White Elephant we headed up to the Jensen's to Skype!! It was fun to see all your cute faces and hear your voices!!! Christmas is the best. That night we had dinner with one of the Haitian members in our ward. I honestly have no idea what was going on all night because they were all speaking Creole but Sister Dorlean had fun which is all that matters :) the first Christmas away is always the hardest so we made it the best we could for her. Ah shes the best :)

Wednesday was a good day. We had a lesson with Sheryl and Nick. We taught them.the Plan of Salvation and helped answer questions. At the end we asked them what they thought about the church. Nick responded that he loved it and after his mum asked why, he testified of being able to feel the spirit and just feeling at home when he's there. It was a good lesson. That night was Kimberly's baptismal interview with Elder Watkins and Elder Neff and she passed! And then it took an hour just to fill out her form because she gets super distracted while talking and goes of on crazy tangents. But we got it done and shes ready to be baptized!

Thursday I spent the day in Palm Beach with Sister Valtriani on bikes. It made me honestly miss biking. We had so much fun! While we were visiting one of their recent converts it started pouring rain. We had another lesson to get to with their friend James so we started off in the rain! We weren't expecting it to rain that day because it was pretty that morning so we didn't have our jackets. But nothing was going to stop us! One bike crash and 25 minutes later, we showed up soaked to see James. He was nice enough to bring us towels and sweatshirts cause we were freezing. We cleaned off Sister Valtriani's bike that took a slide in some mud and taught him the last things he needed to be baptized on Saturday. We got some Subway with him and then headed back to the church. What was supposed to be a 20 minute bike ride somehow ended up taking an hour even though it only felt like 20 minutes. We think God is pranking us. We slept very well that night.

Friday was a roller coaster of a day. That morning we exchanged back and stopped by the chapel to grab a jumpsuit for Kimberly. Then we headed home and received a text from Kimberly saying she was on her way to the hospital. We called her and she has a heart condition that acted up during the night and her doctor told her she had to go in right away. We canceled the baptism and all day she kept us updated. They had to run some tests on her and get her the medication that she needed. She later told us that she would be out by the morning so we called the baptism on again and had everyone praying really hard that she would be okay. We had lunch with David and then did some studies and ended the night at the hospital with Kim. We went over the Plan of Salvation with her. Even though she was in a lot of pain she was still in high spirits and was so excited to get baptized. She knows it's the next step in her life and is so ready to take it.

Well, Saturday morning we woke up to a text that she was going to have to stay in the hospital another day. Her tests all came back good but she felt worse during the night so they had to bring in a cardiologist to look at her so she had to stay. So once again the baptism was called off. As we were studying I started to feel really sick (probably from all the food we ate this week) so I laid down and we stayed in the rest of the day cause I wasn't feeling any better.

Sunday morning we headed to church and got a text from Nick saying he wanted to come to YSA that day! So we talked to the Elders and he rode his bike all the way there and not only did he stay for all 3 hours of church, but he stayed for the munch and mingle after and choir practice! We called the Elders to check in and asked him when he was going to get baptized and they had already talked about it during church and he had a date! Go Nick!! YSA is awesome. So hopefully after he gets baptized in YSA his mum will see how much she loves in and want to join him! After church that day we headed over to see Sona. She hurt her back this week so we went over and helped cleaned up Christmas. One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is seeing how much people progress in life as the live the Gospel in various degrees. Whether they are members or not, the Gospel blesses everyone.

Yesterday was full of knocking doors and visiting people. We had to be in early so we filmed BBZ Newz. Basically it's all the news and updates we have in the Boynton Beach Zone but we send it out in a fun way. It was pretty funny. Then we had transfer calls! Sister Dorlean and I will be staying in Boynton Beach!!! Sister Wheeler is heading down to Miami but Sister Jensen will be staying and her new companion will be Sister Ward.

We are all super excited for this new year and this new transfer. Setting goals is something you learn to get good at as a missionary and with it being the new year I invite you all to think of a goal you can set to come closer to your Savior Jesus Christ. Whether it's reading your scriptures more, praying more, going to the temple more, serving more, whatever it is. Just do it and stick to it. I hope you all have a great week!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

We went sunrising this morning on the dock :)