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.