Army of Helaman

Hello everyone! I hope you all once again had a great week. We sure did :)

Tuesday morning I finished MyPlan. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a program they make you do right before you go home to help you adjust to the normal life back at home. It's honestly really good and helped me a lot. After that we had district council. We talked about how important it is to help people understand that they need to be baptized by the proper authority. A lot of people in the world have already been baptized so when we invite them to do it again it doesn't make sense why unless they understand the need for authority. We are so blessed to have the priesthood in our lives :) we had dinner with the Kovacs that night at Olive Garden which was funny because the Elders were there too with one of their members. It's been really fun having Sister Dorlean try different foods they don't have in Haiti here in Florida. Her reaction to different things is always awesome. I love that nugget. That night we had Book of Mormon class and then Sister Jensen and I headed up to Palm Beach to say bye to one of our Sisters. She just has had some health problems lately so we went to help her get ready to leave and help the new Sister move in. We got home pretty late that night. 

Wednesday we had to take our car to Firestone. The workers there just know us now because we have gone so many times since I have been in this area. We were there for a hot minute though because they ended up changing the  battery and fixing the alignment after the oil change and stuff. Long day there. We spent most of the night knocking but we didn't end up finding any new friends. We had chicken enchiladas for dinner with the Sandlins. It was soo good. I forgot how much I love those. That night we were supposed to have a lesson with the Elders with some friends they were going to give us but they weren't home. But we waited for 30 minutes in the cold anyway hoping they would come. We just froze instead. 

Thursday I spent the day with Sister Ward in Camino Gardens! We spent a good part of the day helping their Branch President, Presidente Fuentes, move. He didn't go very far, just around the corner. So we helped pack everything into the U-hall and then unpack it all down the street. Luckily we had some Elders there to help so it didn't take the entire day. They did feed us breakfast and lunch and we got to ride in the trailer so it was pretty fun :) We live 30 minutes away from their chapel so we spent the rest of the night studying at their church because it was pouring rain outside. God is nice and always let's us get the big things out of the way before he let's the rain come. 

Friday was my last MLC :( due to a lot more rain that morning we showed up right at 9, but we were late. But esta bien. It was a really good MLC. President Garns talked about how we need to grow our faith personally so we can help our friends increase in their faith too. He helped us to know how to do that and gave us some steps to follow. It was very inspired for Sister Beckstrand. We also talked a lot about how we need to teach our friends how to repent, not just to repent. Chances are, if they don't know what repentance is, they don't know how to do it either. It's up to us to teach them from the scriptures. It was fun to see some friends again while we were there. Most missions sing "Called to Serve" as their mission song but ours is "We'll Bring the World His Truth". We always sing it when we get together with other missionaries at pretty much every meeting. Because this was my last MLC, it was also my last time singing it with everyone. Kind of a sad moment. We had dinner that night at Five Guys (shout out to Grant!) with Bishop Milton. It brought back a lot of Snapper Creek memories. We got some ice cream after and then spent the rest of the night walking around looking for some members that lived in the area but we never found them. I did find out though that Sister Dorlean is scared of frogs. It's pretty funny because there are frogs everywhere here. But she always just runs the other way as soon as she sees one. 

Not much happened on Saturday. We had to meet with the District Leaders and teach them everything we learned at MLC. We also had to do weekly planning. But we did have a fun meal appointment with the Papenfus family. Everyone knows I'm going home next week so they all make jokes every time they see me. Soeur Dorlean also just keeps telling everyone I go home soon so that's fun. She's gonna miss me when I'm gone. 

Sunday was my last fast Sunday here in Florida. Pretty weird feeling honestly. Zenaida came! The ward just eats her up every time she comes. She was there before we noticed and waved us over so she could say hi :) she is super excited for her baptism this Saturday! The two hour church thing has been really nice but it makes it harder on us for contact everyone we need to while we are at church. But we are getting better at it. We had dinner with the Rane's. They got us a really really good key line pie. I haven't had that in so long. We spent a lot of time knocking again that night but no one answered their door. This week we are determined to find a lot of people to teach. It's my last chance and we are going to work our hardest. There is still a lot of work to do and a lot of goals to hit so we've got to make it happen! 

I hope you all have a good week. Go to the temple while it's still close, read your scriptures, and make sure to pray daily! See you next week :)

All my love, 

Sister Beckstrand 

I can never have too many pictures with these nuggets :)

Taking the Gospel to the world, Via Sofia ;)

My Florida Sunshine this week are the Sunsets. I know I've done it before but I don't get very more to see so I'm soaking them up while I can :)