Sister Sophia's Florida Fun: You have been baptized!!

Wow. This week has been a busy one.

Wednesday started out with transfers. We had to head down early to drop off the sisters car to get fixed in the shop so we have been down a car all week a d ours has to go in this week so that's going to be fun! The remainder of Wednesday consisted of running errands to get Sister Ward all moved in. Sister Ward is awesome. She is from Logan and her big brother served with Shayne in Perth! We had dinner that night with our YW president. She made us these chocolate chip cookies with syrup. They were honestly pretty good. I was really surprised actually. We got home early that night so we could get our bikes all fixed up. Remember when I got hit by a car back in Sunrise? Well, we got a new tire and everything pretty quick but it is officially fixed now thanks to Elder Van Dyke and Elder Watkins. They're the best!

Thursday was spent traveling to district councils. We used to have three districts in the zone and then last transfer they condensed it to two and now we are back to three! Our new district leader is Elder Mickelson. He is pretty awesome. After all the meetings were over we met up with David at Wakodahatchee park. Florida is the best. Let me tell you why. Next week is officially migration week which means the birds have started making their way down here! Which means we have a million birds down here right now. At this park that David took us to, all the birds were huge!! All sorts of cranes and certain things like that. It was so cool. I never seen so many big birds ever. As it started to get darker they started to come back and make themselves at home. The trees they were on were not very big though so it was fun to see them fight for places on the tree.

Friday morning we woke up nice and early because we had MLC. Usually just the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders go but this time they invited the District Leaders too so we had quite the group. We were there for the majority of the day. We just talked about how we can be better leaders and help uplift and inspire those around us at all times. I committed myself to help as many missionaries as I can before I go home because my time here is very limited. On our way home we picked up Sister Ward and Sister Dorlean and had to take the Camino sisters to the Tri-rail station. I love how many trains there are here in Florida. Maybe I'll be able to ride one before I go home. That would be fun. That night we had to meet up with the Elders to switch cars for a few days because our car doesn't have a bike rack so we couldn't really take the cars anywhere. Their car smelled so bad. So we took it upon ourselves to clean it for them and now it smells like Hawaiian flowers lol. They will be happy to get it back.

Saturday we spent all morning at the church getting ready for Kimberly's baptism!!! She showed up around 11:30 and was so excited. Every one in a while a little tear would slide down her cheek because she was so happy. It was the cutest thing in the entire world. She was so happy all day long. Her husband Denis came too which was a miracle in itself. He hasn't been interested at all in the church but he kept asking a bunch of good questions so that was cool. Hopefully he catches on sooner than later and follows Kim's example. The baptism was amazing! Besides me trying to pluck out The Spirit of God on the piano last minute because I forgot to have someone come. But other than that it was great. We then went home and did some planning for our sisters and then Sister Dorlean and I had to take the Elders car in to get an oil change. We have just been taking care of so many things this week. We ended the night teaching Nick. He is so cool. He is always asking questions about missions and stuff. He went knocking with the Elders the other day and he's not even a member yet! He's such a cool miracle.

Sunday was just as good as Saturday. Kimberly was already crying again by the time she got to the church because she was so happy. Her conformation was awesome and after sacrament meeting she just kept saying how happy she was. It was really nice to have two hour church but we didn't make it to class because Kimberly had her temple recommend interview and she wanted us to wait for her so we did. She was once again so ecstatic when she came out because she passed. Next step, the temple! She is really excited to be baptized for her grandma. We had dinner that night with some awesome members and David. For dessert they gave us these little bits of key lime pie dipped in chocolate. They were seriously soo good. I could've eaten the entire bowl if I wanted. But don't worry mum, I only had 3. That night Sister Jensen and I went out knocking and we saw the coolest miracle. We had just kinda been going door to door hopping around all these different complexes. And then we knocked into Teresa. She told us she was Catholic but then started crying and said she could really use a prayer. We went right in and prayed with her. She just came out of a really tough situation in her life and she said that us showing up at the time that we did was an answer to all her prayers and it helped her to know that God really was mindful of her and was watching over her. She had questions about the differences between our churches so we had the opportunity to teach her about the Book of Mormon. She was so excited to receive her own and start reading it. It was a really neat night for Sister Jensen and I and it helped me to know that when we follow the Spirit, God really will put us in the right place at the right time.

I hope all of you back at home are having a great start to 2019. I invite you all to go 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

and look up the video titled "New Year's: Look Not behind Thee". It's a really good video that talks about how we can look forward to what's to come. I hope you all have a great week this week. Read your scriptures, say your prayers, and please go to the temple! You will never regret taking the time to spend time in the House of the Lord. Have a great week!!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine: The birds from the park with David. They are huge!

Plus your cute missionary 💕