First full week in the field

Bonjour!

How is everyone doing back home? I hope everyone's week was just amazing.

This last week was full of so many different miracles and opportunities. Last Wednesday we went out knocking and met this guy named Sylvain. He is super cool and is really interested in our message. That night I had my first dinner appointment with a member. Frere Packette served his mission in Provo so he spoke English which was super nice. All of the members here are super nice but not a lot of them speak English so my french is definitely being put to the test.

 

Thursday morning we started with a lesson with one of our friends named Line. She is awesome and progressing very well. We went knocking a little after that but didn't have very much success. We had another dinner appointment that night with the Lefebre family. They are a wonderful couple. He has served in the Canadian Armed Forces for over 20 years and she is just awesome. We had a discussion with them during dinner about temple work and they pulled out piles of stacks of temple names that they have done. It was super impressive! They live about 40 minutes out of the city but it was a super beautiful drive. We kinda got lost on the way back but we eventually made it back and were still able to go contact a few people that night.

 

Not much happened on Friday because two of our lessons fell through and so we spent a good amount of time passing by less actives and knocking. 

 

Saturday morning we had another lesson with Line. She made me practice my french more and lead the lesson. She doesn't speak any English which has been fun. After that lesson we stopped by the church to set up all the chairs for sacrament meeting. The building here is nice but the chapel is the same room as the gym and we set up and take down the chairs each week. After that we went to see if one of our friends was home and she wasn't so we knocked a little and met this lady named Maryeve. She was super nice and we talked for a bit but she had her beliefs and didn't want to change. She even kinda questioned us and our church and we didn't know what to say so we shared our testimony and left. 

 

Saturday night we had a lesson with a friend named Adonis. He is from Haiti and is just the best. He agreed to come to church and bring his friend Micheal but they ended up not coming which is sad but hopefully next week. 

 

Sunday was just as good as always. Church is where I get to practice my listening skills haha. Everything is in french and I'm trying my best to understand what they are saying. 

 

Monday was full of meeting less actives. There are quite a few of them here in Drummondville. We met this older lady who can't come as often to church because of her health but she let us in and talked with us for a bit. We were really looking for her son because he is falling away and the ward here has some amazing activities coming up that we were going to invite him to go but he wasn't there. We ended the night with helping a different less active repot some of his plants. It was nice to do some service. The work here is kinda slow but it is still coming. Some of our friends have been meeting with missionaries for years now.

 

That's all I have for this week but this next week will be Fun. Love you all so much and have fun!

Elder Beckstrand

 

These are some pictures from the Drive out to a members house this week for dinner. It was super pretty. I will try this week to get some pictures of every day life in the city.

 

DRUMMONDVILLE!!

Bonjour! How is everyone? 

This week has been so crazy. I don't even know where to start.

We left the MTC last Wednesday morning at 4:45am and made our way to the airport on the train. That was the first time I have ever ridden a real train. It was honestly cool for the first minute and then I got bored, haha.   I did a lot of things for the first time this week. We got to the Airport and met one of the Elders dad and he bought us all a smoothie to drink while we were able to call home. After that, I got on my first flight that didn't land at the same airport we took off from. The plane wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be but it was still pretty cool. We landed in Detroit and had to basically run across the entire airport there to catch our next flight and we barely made it and were the last to board. The Montreal airport was really cool because everything was in French. I just followed my group to go get my visa. That took a while but it was kinda nice to just sit and relax for a second. We finally were able to get out and find President and sister Phillips. They are amazing. She fed us very well and we stayed at their house that night. 

The next morning we went on a little trip to the top of Mount Royal to get some pictures and see the City. Right after that, we went to the mission office to find out who our trainers would be. My companion is Elder Holt from Rexburg Idaho. He is amazing and had my same teachers at the MTC. We got assigned to Drummondville French speaking. The drive to Drummondville is very beautiful. 

The last couple of days here have been an adventure. We have done some door to door contacting and met quite a couple of people. The people here are very nice but very Catholic. They like their own beliefs. We are currently teaching about 5 or 6 people. They all speak with very thick accents and its really hard to understand some of them. There are a few that speak English though and they are all amazing. I love the people here. We have about 2 people right now that are on a date for baptism. Selena and Line. They are both awesome but we still have some things to help them with before then. Our other friends are also close but have more things we need to teach them. Hopefully we will stay busy these next couple of weeks and get them closer to baptism. 

Saturday President Nielsen came to our area to speak but we were too far North to travel to listen to him.  But we were given a code to get onto the internet to get patched into a live link so that we could listen in.  Our mission President didn't want us to miss out.  Here are my notes:

The prophet talked about ten things he knew to be true. His wife also gave an amazing speech and shared information on how her husband receives revelation. Here are those 10 things. 

1. God is our father

2. Jesus Christ is our savior

3. We were created in God's image

4. God communicates with his children through prophets

5. The scriptures are true

6. The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints is true

7. Satan is allowed to function

8. The youth of Zion are a chosen generation

9. Joy comes from keeping the commandments of God.

10. Salvation and exaltation is the work and the goals of our father in heaven

Sunday was amazing here. We got to the church early and met everyone as they came in. We have a small ward here with those that are active but they all have such a strong testimony. Bishop invited me to share my testimony during sacrament and it didn't go as well as I had hoped, ahaha. I have had so much practice in the MTC bearing testimony but I froze and said half of it in English, aha. It all worked out in the end. Most of the talks and lessons went over my head but I was doing better than I though I would with trying to understand what they were saying. It was a cool experience. I'm excited for these two transfers here in Drummondville. Some things I've noticed about it here in Canada. Everyone is always outside and walking around. It is kinda quiet for the amount of people here. And It is super flat. I can walk up a flight of stairs and basically see all of Canada.

 It has been fun. I hope you all have a great week. I love you lots.

Elder Beckstrand

This is my Apartment and the road we live on. It looks like it came straight out of a movie. 

There is a picture of our living room and dining table and the other is of the study room. My table is the one with the brown blanket on it. The Quebec flag is elder Holt's.

Here are some pics of Me, Berg and Berns, "Les Trios Amis".  Montreal and of the mission Home. 

CANADA!!

I am here at the mission home! We spent a lot of time traveling and waiting for Visas but we have made it. We unloaded the car and then ate a lot of food. We are now just finishing up some role plays. Canada is beautiful and everything is in English and French. It was definitely a culture shock but I get to find out who my trainer is tomorrow as well as my area I will be serving in. The pres and his wife are awesome. Love you!

Elder Beckstrand

Dear Family,

​Elder Beckstrand has arrived!  We are so pleased to welcome him into the Canada Montreal Mission.  We met him at the airport and spent time getting to know him at the mission home before introducing him to his new companion.  His first companion is Elder Holt, whom we have prayerfully selected to be his trainer.  We are excited for this companionship and know that the Lord has great things for these missionaries to accomplish together!

​We want to thank you for entrusting Elder Beckstrand to us.  It will be a sacred privilege to share in his experiences as he serves the Lord.  We know that Elder Beckstrand will work hard both mentally and physically, build relationships of trust with companions, members, and investigators, and experience miracles in his life.  We are excited to watch the growth that will occur in the next two years!

​We will stay close to Elder Beckstrand throughout his mission through personal interviews and other meetings. We will work shoulder to shoulder with him as he serves the Lord.   If you have concerns at any time during the mission, please do not hesitate to contact us by email. (robmichellephillips@yahoo.com)

​May you share in and feel the blessings of Elder Beckstrand’s service!

Sincerely,

President Robert L Philips & Sister Michelle L Phillips

Sachez votre valeur D&C 18:10

Know Your Worth D&C 18:10

Bonjour! How are y’all doing? I hope everyone is doing well and having fun! This last week here has been full of little adventures. It’s really weird to think that I only have a few more days here. It feels
like I just got here. The MTC has been an amazing experience and I’ll miss it but I’m really excited to get to Canada already. 

This last Sunday was really interesting because it was fast Sunday and our 1 month mark.  During sacrament meeting, we had a testimony meeting where testimonies were given in Spanish, English, French, and even Norwegian. It was nice to feel the spirit no matter what language was being spoken at the time. Our devotional Sunday night was with Jenny Oaks Baker. She is an amazing violinist and has a very talented family. She shared a couple of stories with us between her different musical  numbers. Music is one of the best way to bring the spirit into any situation.

Monday wasn’t too eventful. I accidentally broke a button off one of my pants but thankfully my mom taught me well and I fixed it with my sewing kit when we got back to the room. 

The Tuesday night devotional was really cool. The Relief Society president of the church talked to us about search, ponder and pray. She compared it to our physical life where we need patterns to get through our lives and to make them beautiful. She showed us a couple examples in the real life such as the Fibonacci sequence. If you don’t know what that is, go look it up aha it’s really neat. She continues by saying that we need patterns for our spiritual lives as well. That’s were search, ponder, and pray comes in. It was a wonderful talk. Her husband spoke about the sacrifices we make for our missions and Jesus’s sacrifice for his mission. He informed us that there is an elder at the MTC right now who gave up a rugby contract for $300,000 a year so he could serve his mission. It was really cool to hear that story and stories of a couple others that gave up sooo much for this cause. 

Wednesday was kinda a mess. We started our day off with an early morning run. It was really nice to actually get out and run again. Right after that we went to gym time and then showered off real quick so we could get to some tutoring. That was really helpful and I’m working really hard to pronounce everything right in French, haha. Right after tutoring, we ran all the way across the  campus to the health clinic because elder poll was having some problems with his teeth. They told us he had an appointment in 5 minutes so we had to sprint all the way back to the travel office on the opposite of the campus again. Once we got there they told us we had about 15 minutes until the van could take us so we ran everywhere for nothing, haha. It made the day really interesting though. We went on a split with the District leader so I could stay and Host the new missionaries again and they went out to the dentist. I was able to host 4 new elders out of the 485 new missionaries that came in on Wednesday! The MTC just keeps getting more and more busy. We also got our travel plans on Wednesday and everyone has been getting excited for the flight.

Yesterday we woke up to the smell of smoke. We found out that there was a fire in Scofield and the smoke from that just covered everything. It kinda cleared up later in the day. Our last workshop was yesterday and it was for most of the missionaries that are leaving this week. The workshop was in the form of a play where they taught us how to use member for contacting. We were some of the first people to get to the workshop so they asked Elder Berns, Sœur Black and myself to help them with the performance. Elder Berns was a ward missionary, Sœur Black was the primary president and I was the Elders quorum President. The teachers did a really good job with the play and it was really funny but also taught us a lot about our roles as missionaries. 

This morning we were able to go to the temple again but this time we did some baptisms and
confirmations. It was really nice to be able to go to my Friday morning temple trips again. This week has been really interesting but I know this next week will be some much different. I’ll be in Canada
this time next week and I’m so excited.

The church is sooo true and everyone needs to hear the messages it has about joy and happiness and families. I love the temple and the MTC. I hope y’all have a great week and keep being you!
Love ya!
Elder Beckstrand

We got our travel plans today and were told to send you a picture of them. We arrive there at about 5:30 pm. I am the travel leader for my group so this will be interesting. 

We took another picture with our flag, haha. 

J’aime voir le Temple

Bonjour!
    I just want to start this weeks letter off by talking about the temple.  I LOVE THE TEMPLE!!! The Provo temple opened back up this week and we were allowed to go his morning.  I didn’t realize how much I missed the temple.  There is a special spirit inside of the temple and I hope that everyone who reads this will take some time out of this upcoming week to visit the temple.  That could be anything, a full session, sealings, baptisms or even just going to walk around the grounds for a little bit. Just Go!

This week has been pretty good here at the MTC.  I’m under two weeks away from being in Canada!  I should be getting my travel plans here any day now. This last Sunday was really good.  We had President and Sister Smith from the MTC Branch Presidency speak at the devotional and they talked about how everyone needs to put their faith in our Heavenly Father with everything they do. He said that everyone gets scared or anxious but if we put all our trust in God then we don’t need to worry. 

On Monday, we had another TRC lesson but this time it was with a member through Skype.  We were able to chat with a sister from Tahiti.  I’m kinda glad I’m not serving there because they have a thick accent and it was really had to understand her.  One of the other companions had a member from Quebec however and they had a harder time understanding them so it will be fun.  We went into the TRC with a full lesson plan but ended up just talking to here about her life and then we sang I am a child of God in French and she would pause us and correct our pronunciation.  It was really fun but we just asked her a few questions at the end and called it good.
Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal day except I fell of my bed right after I woke up on Tuesday.  I sleep on the top bunk too.  I woke up and rolled over to see what time it was and just rolled of the bed.  It didn’t hurt too bad but I did wake up the other elders in my room. 

Yesterday was really interesting.  We did a lot of contacting.  We would just walk around and talk to random Elders or Sisters and then share a quick message with them in French.  It was cool to see that they could feel the spirit of what we were talking about even though they couldn’t understand anything we said. The spirit is always present and will always bear testimony of truth when it is spoken.  It was also pretty good practice for just opening our mouths and talking in French. Our teacher invited us to have another English fast for the second half of yesterday and those have become some of my favorite activities. We were all given 3 little stickers to put on our tags and those were our lives for the day.  If we spoke English we lost a life.  I’m proud to say that I didn’t lose a life but then again, only one person out of the 11 of us lost a life, haha.  It has been been a good stay here but I’m excited for this next week to pass so I can actually get to Canada.  I hope all of y’all are having a great time where ever you might be.  I love all of you!  Remember to go to the temple this week at some point!

Elder Beckstrand

This is the MTC cat.  It really lives next door but loves to come visit.

 My DL took this.  I am reading the scriptures.  D&C 4 to be exact.

Blurry shot and up the nose shot.

Penny's side note -  Ashley sent this to me from her mom.  It said..."These French elders spoke to us in the bookstore today.  They are so happy!  What great representatives of Jesus Christ!"