First Transfer done and Its starting to get Cold!

Bonjour toute le monde!
How has everyone been this week? Ive already been here six weeks now and its already passing by really fast. The work here is going just as good as normal. The weather is starting to change here now. The beginning of the week it was up in the high 20s. I think the high for the week was 30 or something like that and yesterday, I think the high was 13 or 14. Its super nice here but all the members are starting to warn me about the winter. The lowest Ive seen so far was about 8. I'm not even sure what that is in Fahrenheit. Im super excited! 

Last Tuesday we had a Lesson with Guy! He is awesome and was even sober for our lesson! He knows the Bible really well and a lot about other churches too but so far he really likes what we have been teaching him. We have another lesson with him today and we are going to show him around our church! He does like to smoke, like everyone else here, so when we left the lesson, Elder Holt and I both smelled strongly of smoke. Oh well. That's missionary work here. 

 

Wednesday was pretty good but we didn't get to teach one of the lessons we had planned. She had a baptismal date for this Saturday but has kept skipping our lessons with her and she doesn't even seem interested anymore. We are going to keep trying with her but we might have to drop her. That morning during our studies, we got a call from one of our members asking for the sisters phone number so we gave it to him. He called us back 10 minutes later to see if we wanted to have dinner with him that night because the sisters already had a dinner appointment. We were his back up plan but it was okay because we got a good dinner out of it. The members here feed us really well. After diner we had a lesson with Line. She is doing awesome but we have some time before she can be baptized. We are helping her finally quit smoking which is really hard but the church  as some awesome programs and groups to help with that. 

 

Thursday we started off with some service for our ward mission leader. He is redoing part of his house so we helped him move some stuff around. He has a big trench that needs to be dugout but he said he is going to make the sisters do that next week. We then had district council for the last time with this district. There are some pictures for that haha. We had a lesson with a new ami on Thursday too! Her name is Ida. She is amazing but that's about all the information i have on her right now. She has a thick accent and its kinda hard to understand her. We then decided to pass by an old ami that I haven't met yet to see if he was still interested because he kinda dropped the missionaries a while ago. He was really excited to see us and wants to continue lessons so we have a lesson with him later this week. I'm excited to teach him. We ended that night with a super powerful lesson with Kathy. We talked about Jesus Christ and how he was perfect throughout everything that he did. The spirit was super strong! 

 

Friday was pretty good too. We had a couple lessons that all went great. The best one was our ami named Marc. He is super funny and soo smart. He quit drinking beer all on his own. We didn't even really teach the Word of Wisdom yet. He asked once and we quickly mentioned the things we don't do. After that he quit drinking. Even if his buddy's come over. He is super close to baptism! 

 

Saturday is when the weather really changed. It was about 10 the whole day. We had a lesson with Adonis and we brought a Member. His name is Maxime and he is getting ready for his mission. He helped us a lot in that lesson.  Not a ton happened that day other than that. My studies that day were awesome though. If you need something to read, Go to Ether. Read the story of the Brother of Jared! If we had as much faith as he did, just think of the things we could do in this world. Faith is an important part of this church and if we exercise the faith we have, the Lord will bless us in so many ways. 

 

Sunday wasn't the best day for our amis. Because of the cold weather now, everyone is starting to get sick. We ended up only having one ami at church on Sunday. Sunday we got our Transfer calls! Elder Holt and I will both be staying here like we thought but the sisters in our district are changing. We had a lesson with Sylvain. We talked about the First vision and all of the things we can learn from just that one experience. Soo much. 

 

Yesterday went by kinda slowly and we didn't get to do a whole ton. Elder Holt got a little sick. We did have another lesson with Kathy though and one of the first things she said to us is that she only had two smokes today and they were here last two. She is giving up smoking now. It is her birthday today and she really wants to be done smoking. She even said that maybe if she can quit then she will be baptized! MIRACLES She has been taking lessons from the elders for about two years now. She is progressing and had a good desire now. 

 

That's it for this week. We have a lot coming up and hopefully a few people getting a baptismal date here soon. Keep the prayers coming haha. I hope you all have a great week and you are always in my prayers! 

 

Love Ya!

Elder Beckstrand 

This was our lesson last night at Kathy's. It was about 10 degrees outside so she asked if we wanted any blankets. I was okay but he wanted one aha.

My fried banana chips with cinnamon and sugar. Not the best but okay. And accidental Popsicles. Elder Holt spilled the smoothie in the freezer so we left it to make Popsicles.

 

Chocolate Favoris and Victoriaville

Bonjour!
What another crazy week here in Drummondville. How is everyone doing back at home? How is everyone's scripture reading and stuff like that going?
 

Last Tuesday we went to a place here called Chocolate Favoris. It is soo good. The best Ice cream place in town. There will be pictures of that. That night we had a lesson with one of our amis but she wasn't home so we just talked and shared some scriptures with her family. It was really cool and they seemed pretty interested.

 

Wednesday we went down to Montreal for a new trainers meeting. I was able to see all the people I was in the MTC with again. They are awesome and are doing great work already. We had some good trainings from The President and his assistants. I was also able to finally get my tennis shoes aha. I didn't have room in my bags so Elder Sorenson offered to take them for me. I forgot to get them back when we arrived but I have them now so its all good haha. After that we went to check the mail and right before we left, a mailman came in with another package for me! Miracles. Thank you to everyone who has sent stuff! I love it! 

Thursday we had another lesson fall through with one of our ami named Selena. She was supposed to have a baptism on the 29th but I have only had 2 lessons with her in the time that I've been here so its very unlikely that will happen now. We did have two other good lessons that night. Our ami named Kathy made us some awesome rice crispy treats. She is progressing well but we are working on her smoking right now. It will be hard but she really want to.

 

Friday we were able to go to another town called Victoriaville for District Council. It is a pretty town but it is only a branch there so the church building is smaller than some homes back in St.George. The inside of the church was very well decorated though. Super nice. That night we had a lesson with Adonis. He is awesome but has a hard time understanding things. We tried to teach him how to pray and during the lesson he seemed to be understanding everything but when we asked him to pray, he didn't change his prayer at all. It went in one ear and out the other. We tried again Sunday night and he understood a little more but not completely so it will take some time with him. Friday night was kinda sad but also really funny. We have had a spider living between two different parts of the window in our kitchen. That night Elder Holt opened the window to see the spider better and it fell in the sink. Instead of just picking it up with a paper or something and putting it back outside, he just killed it right there. We don't have a pet spider anymore. Maybe one day a new one will move in. 

 

Not a ton happened on Saturday but we had one lesson with our new ami named Luke. He is super interested but we have a few things he will need to fix before much can happen but I think he is willing to change. He loves the church. 

 

Sunday was awesome! Church was the same. We had three of our amis come so that was really nice. After church we had an awesome lesson with an ami that the sisters just gave us. His name is Sylvain. He used to be a member but got excommunicated at one point in his life and now wants to come back. He has taken all the lessons from the sisters already and is now taking them from us as well. He still has 6 months or so until he can be baptized but he is amazing. He showed us around his house that he built completely by himself. Like all of it. He had some family help with the raising the walls but other than that he did it. It is a super beautiful house! 

 

Not much happened yesterday either. We had a lot of weekly planning and stuff like that. We tried to pass by a couple of peoples houses that night but no one was home or interested. We were able to talk to one dude named Guy. He is awesome but is usually drunk or high. He told us to come back to teach him though so we are going later tonight. He is really open to everything but I'm just hoping he is sober tonight haha.

 

That's about it for me this week. I love hearing from all of you and I hope you have an amazing week! Keep Reading the scriptures and saying your prayers. Heavenly Father wants you to talk to him and he wants to talk to you as well!

 

Love you all! 

Elder Beckstrand

1. The biggest hill I've seen in Canada. its in Victoriaville

2 and 3. the same view but one is zoomed in. The silo is about 70km away. Soo flat here.

4. Just a dead skunk we saw after a dinner appointment

 

 

This is one of the Kids in the African family we are teaching. He was really cool and took this picture of us.

CHOCOLATE FAVORIS! Dipped ice cream cones. This is a medium. It is a big come dipped in white chocolate.  

This is our ami Luke. He speaks English aha. super cool. 

 Just a neat sunset the other night after a dinner appointment.

Huskies!

Bonjour! Comment ça va?

How is everyone doing? It is always super fun to hear all the fun adventures everyone is going on. It's starting to get a little colder here each day and I'm so excited to see some snow! This week went by really fast for me but I guess that's what happens when we keep ourselves busy. 

Last Tuesday I didn't have a ton of time to email because we were supposed to have a lesson with one of our amis that we have been trying to get in contact with for weeks now. It was a miracle that she called us and asked for a lesson! We showed up at her house and she didn't answer. It was actually really sad but the person who lived in the next apartment over thought we were knocking on his door and he answered so we talked to him. He invited us in and we taught him a little about the Book of Mormon! That was another miracle!  After that we were still on P-day so we decided to go get some Poutine with one of our members! I was finally able to try the magical poutine. It was super good and hopefully we will be able to get some more in a bit. That night the Zone leaders came for Exchanges.

Wednesday was exchanges and I was with Elder Desvergez. He is amazing! He is from France and has such a thick accent when he speaks English. His French is perfect though. We started the day out with a trip about 40 minutes out of town for a service project. We helped this member move her fencing for her dogs. It took all 8 of the missionaries we had to do it in 2 hours. It was a lot of work but we got to play with the dogs after so it was worth it! She has 11 huskies and 1 fox. I'm not quite sure if it is a full fox or a mix. She explained it to us but I didn't understand it soo. Pictures are coming! That night we passed by a couple amis houses and one or two members houses. Elder Desvergez was trained here too so he knows most of the people here. It was a fun night with him. 

Thursday we made some cookies during our studies to give to one of the youth in the ward because it was his Birthday. His Grandpa is our ward mission leader and that whole extended family lives here in Drummondville so we have gained such a good relationship with them. That night we had a really good lesson with our amis, Line. She is doing so good but she is still smoking. Everyone here smokes. So we made some goals with her this week to help her quit so she can eventually be baptized. She is down to 2-4 cigarettes a day but its this last little push that is so hard for her.

Friday was crazy. We woke up to this awful smell coming from outside. It didn't go away all day. When we got home that night it still smelled terrible in our whole neighbor hood. We never found out why it was there or where it was coming from. We were supposed to have 4 lessons but 2 of them fell through and because of that we spent about 2.5 hours street contacting because it was Friday and a lot of people were out. We talked to a ton of people and hopefully now have a few new amis!  

Not much happened on Saturday. We had lunch with one of the members in our ward. He is really funny. We found out that he is a professional musician. After we ate some pizza, he took us down stairs to his studio and played two songs for us. He is super good. After that we spent most of the day just making sure our amis had rides to church for the next day. 

Sunday! We left the house earlier than normal to pass by like 7 peoples houses to make sure they were awake and ready for church. All of them were up and getting ready except for two. It is amazing the miracles that can happen if you do everything you can do and put the rest in the hand of our Father. Our amis named Marc has never come to church before so he was one of the people we were going to pass by. As we were parking at his house, he called us to tell us he was coming! It was such a miracle! We ended up having 5 amis come to church! So many prayers of gratitude were said on Sunday.  ahah. 

Yesterday we had lesson with Marc and we had a member come with us to help teach because the member was actually one of his teachers years ago when he was in school. The lesson went really good. Members have such a big impact on those that are being taught the gospel. If you have missionaries in your ward, go ask them if you can go to a lesson with them! They would love it and it would definitely be a lot of help to those who are preparing to serve too. We did a few other pass bys and knocking but no one was really interested yesterday. They will be one day though!

I hope all of you are having a wonderful day and an amazing week! My prayers are with all of you and I know you can do anything if you just put a little more faith and trust in your Father in Heaven. Love you!

Elder Beckstrand

These are some pictures from the service with the dogs!

More pictures with the dogs

The group with the dogs. From left to right. 

Elder Desvergez, Elder Holt, Moi, Elder Rossi, Soeur Pincock, Soeur Furger, Souer Garcia, Soeur Broadbent

 A tag Pic. 
This is Melvin. He is a super cool member. 

Poutine!! with Melvin again aha. and a really cool lightbulb at the restaurant.

This is my study table now. I leaned a little too much on it and the legs gave out. Hopefully I will get a new one soon.

A nice sunset.

Apartments like these are everywhere.

and an Ice rink! They are everywhere too!

The football team here isn't very good they lost 72-7 the other night as we drove past I took a pic.

A road called St. George!

Zone Conferance and Exchanges

Bonjour! This week was soo busy and Fun! 

Not a ton happened last Tuesday. We were supposed to have a lesson with one of our amis but she wasn't home. As we were walking back to the car, we heard someone say, Elders. We hurried to turn around to see who it was and it was a man named Guy and his Buddy Eric. They looked kinda scary because we were in not the best part of the city at that time but they were super nice and we talked to them for a bit. We ended up giving them a Book of Mormon. 

 

Wednesday morning we left our house at 6:30 so we could get to Quebec City by 8am for Zone Conference. It was awesome and I learned so much about missionary work and how to Gather Israel better. It was nice to get to know the other missionaries here because they are all so cool. One thing that was emphasized in Zone conference was that we need to listen to the spirit in all that we do. President implied to meetings and how there can be a ton of information shared but we need to have our minds and hearts open to the spirit to know what is for us. The spirit is the real teacher and If we listen to it, we will learn the things we need to know. After Conference, we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Rossi. He is from Saratoga Springs and graduated from Westlake back in 2015! He was really cool and taught me a lot. We went knocking that night and got about 6 or 7 return appointments in just 2 apartment buildings. Most of them were in Spanish though so I didn't understand any of it. Elder Rossi did all the work with those. Since we started the exchange after conference, we just stayed the night there and did exchanges for part of the next day as well. 

 

Thursday after our morning studies, we started with a lesson with another Hispanic who was really cool from the little Spanish I could understand. After that we passed by a few people to see if they were still interested and then Elder Holt and I headed home. By the time we got home, we only had enough time for one lesson so we went over to this African family's home to see if one of our amis were home. She wasn't there but all of her little siblings were so we spent a little bit of time there talking with them. They are super nice and super funny.

 

Friday we did some service with our ward mission leader. We helped him move some furniture and cabinets. He took us to McDonald's after which was really nice. He shared a lot of stories of his life and he is super funny. Later that night we were able to have a lesson with that African family and it went really well. 

 

Not much happened on Saturday but we did have a lesson with our ami named Adonis. He is awesome! We were finally able to give him a book of Mormon in Haitian Creole so hopefully he can understand that one a little better than french. He can speak like 5 different languages though. 

 

Sunday was super busy, we decided to leave our house earlier today and stop by each of our amis that said they would come to church to see if they were up and ready. None of them were that we passed by. It was kinda sad but hopefully next week. During church we had a miracle! We had just got out of sacrament and went to our next class when we were pulled aside to talk to someone on the phone who was speaking English. His name was Luke and he wanted to go to church finally but doesn't speak a ton of french so he wanted a church that spoke English. We ended up leaving right then to go pick him up. We showed him around the church and he was just soaking up everything we told him. He has such a big desire to grow closer to Jesus Christ and his Father in Heaven. After church we sadly had to hand him off to the sisters because he lives in their area. He actually lives not even 200 yards from us but we live in the sisters area for some reason. Hopefully he continues because he was prepared to receive the Gospel.

 

Yesterday was just all around crazy. We completely changed our plans like 10 times throughout the day. I was finally able to meet one of our amis named Marc. He has been on vacation for about 3 week now but came home and immediately had a lesson with us. He is awesome. He is super smart and is not far away from baptism. We also had a lesson with one of our members in our ward. It was a lesson for us to help us learn french better. That was one of the last minute things that made us reschedule. It was very helpful however. The people here are really good with helping me learn the language better. We had dinner with the Family Proulx. They are awesome and have a son who is about to put in his papers. We also tried to pass by Guy and Eric again. He was home but we stopped by as he was rolling a joint. He was already so high so we told him we would come by later. It was fun little experience. 

 

That's all I have for this week. I hope you are all doing great and having fun! Keep reading and praying. I have seen the blessings that come from that and I know you can too. 

 

Love Ya!

Elder Beckstrand

This is a pic of some art work in town and the others are our drive to Quebec city.