Technology and SNOW!

Salut a tous! How is everyone doing back home? This week has been kinda weird here in Drummondville but in a good way. First off, Canadian Geese are a real thing and there are soo many of them. There are always big groups of them flying over us and they are loud too. Just the things you don't see in Utah, aha.

Last p-day we made some homemade poutine and it was soo good. That night we had a Livre de Mormon study group through Facebook messenger. We had 5 of the people we are teaching join us and it was so cool. They answered each others questions and we were just kinda there to lead the reading and help answer questions if they needed it. It worked out a lot better than we thought it would be. 

Wednesday morning we woke up to about an inch of SNOW everywhere!!! It all melted by noon and I felt like I was back in St. George. We had an amazing lesson that day with Shane. He is the most prepared person for the gospel anyone has meet. He is amazing. We were kinda scared to have this lesson because he wants to be baptized so bad and we were going to tell him that we had to move it back again. Last time it was because he had to work instead of coming to church and that would have been three times at church. He got mad at his boss and told him he cant work on Sundays anymore. This time its because of Stake Conference. The Conferences are in  Longueuil and Quebec city. Both about an hour and a half away and he wouldn't be able to get the Gift of the Holy Ghost for another week. BUT, he will be Baptized on the 10th! I guess I will have to let Sophie have a baptism before I can have mine. Oh well aha, she deserves it. 

Thursday we had a couple lessons but nothing too special happened. We did have some time to do some Facebook finding. We use technology here a lot and if we know what we are doing and do it right, it can bring so many blessings. We actually found someone on Facebook who was open and ready to hear our message. He had been contacted before and given a Livre de Mormon but wasn't in our area book or anything. He has a lot of questions but that's why we are here. 

Friday we did some service again with Frere Gaudreau. He is still stocking up on his wood supply for the winter so we helped him move it into his shed and stack it. I kinda smashed my pinky finger right at the beginning but didn't think much about it. At the end I looked down and and I was bleeding so we cleaned it up a little. We did some street contacting later and its getting easier with the weather because I just have to say I'm from the US and this is my first winter here and almost anyone will start a conversation with us. Most of the time they tell me I am just going to freeze so prepare. I'm so excited.

Saturday we had a lesson with Shane again and he told us he read the brochure that we left him and realized that he had somethings he had to change so he prayed to his Father in Heaven for an hour just repenting and asking for help and strength. I don't even have much more to say about him. C'est ça!  That night we had another study group and our Facebook friend joined us too! It was awesome. It also again that night and I was skipping around town and Elder Holt was just walking like normal. I Love the Snow more than most people I think. 

Church on Sunday, we had 8 people come to church! It was pretty cool. Sacrament meeting was the primary program and it was super. The first song was I am Child of God and half of it was in English. The rest of it was in french however. The Sister and us sang with the primary for one of the songs and it didn't turn out too bad! All of our amis were proud of us ahah. 

Yesterday was actually really fun. We started out with a lesson with Marc. He is really close to baptism but we are just helping him with a few things first. That night was when the fun happened. We invited our buddy Melvin to the church with the Sister Missionaries and some of the ward missionaries. We made a video of us giving a chapel tour! My Shelton side came out and I kinda took charge and directed it haha. It turned out pretty good for only taking 30 minutes. 

The work is still going strong here in Canada! We have many people close to baptism and the weather is slowly getting colder and colder! Technology is great and please use it to share your beliefs! Keep up the awesome work where ever you may be! 

Love Ya!

Elder Beckstrand

Some cool sunsets. 

Homemade Poutine!

A cool lookin church with our Toyota Rav4

These are some awesome slippers this old lady in our ward made for me in two days. The slippers like grandma makes are huge here in Quebec. Everyone wears them but this ward member took it to the next level. Elder holt and I got the first two pairs like these ever made! 

Followed Soph's example with the turtle and shared the restoration with this cat.

This is Marc. He is super funny!

My winter gear!! 

Big winter coat = $115

Boots = $65

Socks = $20

reeses = Free from a member! 

p.s.  Here is a little story I though you would like to hear because it reminded me a lot of something Mum would do. 

Sunday after church, Elder Holt and I went to go get in our car to go home and eat some lunch. As soon as we opened the door to the church I immediately heard some music (not church music) coming from a car that was parked over at the end of the parking lot. I didn't think a ton about it at first but as we walked to our car one of the guys yelled at us saying, "c'est les mormons". Being my missionary self I politely yelled back just saying hi. He then yelled two quick sentences in French that I could not understand at all but I caught one word and it wasn't a good word. I put my stuff in the car and then made Elder Holt follow me. I walked back into the church to grab a leader that spoke better french than Elder Holt and I. As soon as we went back in. The guy that yelled at us started walking towards our car so we just sat and watched but he hopped the fence and walked through the park for a bit and then hopped back and headed strait for the church. I hurried and walked over to the door he was going to because I wasn't going to let him in. He then walked back to his car and I followed inside the church to make sure he didn't get in. There were still quite of bit of people in the church and some little kids too. We then grabbed the Elders Quorum president and walked out to the car. He told them to turn off their car and asked them what they were doing. They got defensive and said smoking weed is legal now, which it is but only by one week. He then took their plate numbers and told them if they yell at anyone or anything happens then he would call the police. They stayed quiet after that and I was able to go home and eat some food. I'm learning to stand up for myself and others too. Love you All! 

Saturday is transfers so I'll let you know how that turns out next week!

SNOW!

Salut a tout!! Comment ça va? I hope that you have all have had a great week! This week was pretty crazy. 

Last Wednesday we started off with studies as normal. If you are not reading the Book of Mormon daily right now, just say a quick little prayer and repent and then start reading. The Book of Mormon is literally the best and most correct book on earth. There is soo much you can learn and so many blessings you can receive if you just read a little bit each day. That night we tried to start a basketball night here at our church. It was kinda a failure but we have found some other ways to get more people to come so hopefully the next time will be better. 

Thursday was the coldest day so far. Thank you Grandma Beckstrand and Aunt Jelly for the scarfs. They are awesome! It was 0 degrees almost all day without the humidity or wind chill. We has a lesson with Shane and he is doing really well. He has soo much faith and has already repented and changed his life so much before we even started teach him. We had a lesson with Gabrielle after and had Frère Vallée come with us to that. We watched the movie for the Restoration while Frère Vallée talked to her daughters about the church and ended up inviting them to Young Womens on Tuesday nights. Members are awesome! The best part of that day was dinner. Our ami Kathy made dinner for us. Homemade poutine is soo much better than at a restaurant. Fries, cheese, poutine gravy, turkey, and peas. It was probably the best food I've had since I left Utah. 

Friday wasn't super exciting. We talked to Luke and Marc and they are both doing pretty well. They are both really close to baptism but have questions and are taking their time which is awesome. 

Saturday morning we had breakfast with our ami Sebastien and his family. After we ate we had a lesson with him and his daughter went into the living room to play on the Wii. I knew what she was playing as soon as it turned on. They have Mario Cart '64 on the wii. That brought back some awesome memories. The lesson went really well. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to be baptized and he said yes! We don't have a date for him yet because he has some trouble understanding so it might take some time with him. When we got home that night, there was this kid about our age standing across the street waiting for someone so  we  went and talked to him like all good missionaries would. He was not interested at all so we let him go. About 10 minutes later, I looked out our window and he and these two girls were walking across the street to come knock on our door. They got right up to the door but never knocked. They eventually went back to their house and didn't come back out. We definitely planted something in them. 

Sunday was just odd. We only had two people come to church. We then had to practice with the primary because we are singing with them during the primary program next week. That will be fun. Don't worry, the sisters will be singing too so it shouldn't sound too bad. During our lesson with Sylvain, it snowed for about a good 10 minutes and then stopped. I was kinda sad that I didn't get to be in any of it but that will change shortly. That night we had another lesson with Shane! We brought a member with us that he knows from school and he helped a lot because he just got home from his mission about a year ago. We went over the word of wisdom and he told us that he has already stopped smoking and taking drugs and drinking. We knew that he had a problem with coffee like everyone else here so we continued on with the lesson. Once we told him that we shouldn't drink coffee he was surprised at first but then took a second to think and agreed. He said he had thought to quit before but didn't know why so he didn't. He then got up and went to grab his coffee mix. He had just bought a brand new can of mix and has only used it for one cup. He thought to give it to someone else so it didn't go to waste but then realized that if he shouldn't be drinking it, no one else should be either. He gave it to us to throw out.  He then texted  us the next day to tell us he hasn't had any withdrawals yet and threw away his coffee machine away too! He sadly wasn't able to come to church this week so we have to push his baptism back a bit and he wasn't too happy about that so he talked to his boss and told him he cant work on Sundays anymore because he needs to go to church and be baptized. He is amazing.

Sunday we had a good lesson with Marc, We brought up the idea of him being baptized as well because right now he is living like a member but isn't baptized yet. He reads every day and comes to church. He doesn't have a problem with the word of wisdom or anything like that so we decided to ask him about it. The only problem he has right now is tithing. He doesn't want to be baptized yet because he cant pay tithing. Any money he has goes to his son who is really sick. He said he would like to pay the tithing but just cant do that right now. He is amazing. He just wants to follow all the commandments and that's the best! 

Yesterday we didn't get a ton done. We had a couple lessons fall through and not be there. We had a lot of time for finding but didn't have much success. Right before we called it a night, we were frapper port a port (Penny - I have no idea what this means, I am thinking It means, Knocking door to door.) and were hoping that the last door we planned to knock on would be the person who needed us like those awesome stories. We knocked on this door and we saw that there was someone there. He didn't answer so I turned to leave and Elder Holt told me to knock again so I did. He answered that time but just started yelling at us and told us to go away so we did ahaha. Oh well. We tried and he will remember us for the next time we pass by his house. 

That's it for this week. Its getting cold, people are going to bed sooner, our amis are progressing and the CHURCH IS TRUE! Keep up the awesome work and have a formidable semaine!!

Love you all!!

Elder Beckstrand

The awesome trees and the colors

Canadien Geese are real and there are a lot of them. Hopefully you can see them in these pictures. They are the small little lines.

Poutine from Kathy!!!!

A painting I did at a lesson with Sebastiens little girl.

A magazine we saw asking if I'm ready for winter. I'm not aha

The sunset

Shanes awesome apartment window with the brochures we have given him!!

The can of coffee mix we threw away for him 

His text the next day

Bonjour!

Bonjour! How is it going? This week has been awesome here in Drummondville! We have had some really big things happen though a lot of prayer and hard work. 

Last Wednesday we passed by someone that the Elders had dropped a while ago and talked to her and ended up setting up a time when we could come back and start teaching her again! She knows a lot about the church and has a lot of faith. 

Thursday was awesome! First off, Happy Birthday to Shayne! Hope it was awesome because you are getting old ahaha. We had a dinner with our ami Shane and taught the Plan of Salvation with the help of Uncle Jared's wonderful drawings! He just soaked it all in and loved it. We then brought up his baptism and told him that we had prayed and found a date for him. He agreed to be baptized on the 27th of October! He was soo happy and said he would go put it on his calendar right away. 

Friday was another crazy day. We had a lesson with Guy and are now thinking of dropping him. He likes what we teach but doesn't want to change yet and is attending a different church every Sunday. Its really sad but Heavenly Father gave all of us agency and he is choosing for himself. We will try again later with him. We then had a lesson with Luke and he was really glad to see us. He has been reading quite a bit in the Book of Mormon and has come to church for the last 6 weeks. We ended up inviting him to be baptized and become  a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He had a few moments of silence and then said Yes!  He has some problems with the law that will need to be fixed but other than that he has a lot of faith and a desire to do whats right. It has been really cool to see the change in him as we continue to teach him and give him the truth.

Saturday we had District Council in Victoraville. It is such a pretty town and nice drive to get there. We stopped by Tim Horton's and bought donuts for our district and they all loved it. That night we had a lesson with Gabrielle, the person we picked back up. She is super nice and knows a lot about the gospel. She still has a lot of questions though and doesn't understand some doctrine. It was a really good lesson and she invited us back for another lesson too! 

Sunday we didn't do much but we did have 4 of our amis come to church so we took a picture with all of them! That night we tried to have a conference video call with everyone to read together but our newest ami, Sebastien, was the only one to join ahaha. We are going to try that again this week at a different time so hopefully more people can join that. 

Yesterday we had a lesson with Marc and he is progressing a lot. The lesson was one of best that we have had with him. He is really close to baptism as well. That night we passed by Sebastien after he got off work and just followed up on his reading and how he was doing. He is reading about a chapter or two every night after work. For the most part, he doesn't get off work until midnight. If he can read every night like that, I know that all of you can find some time through out your day to read a little. Even one chapter a day will bless your life soo much!! Sebastien invited us back for this morning so we could have another real lesson with him! He and Shane are golden people. We just finished the lesson with him. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were going to invite to baptism but during the lesson we felt like it wasn't quite the right time to ask him but he is so willing to try and change. 

This work is definitely watched over and ran by our Father in Heaven. He knows all of us personally and knows when people are ready to receive his Gospel. As long we do our best and try with all our heart, mind, might, and strength, He will do the rest and bless us! Thank you all for the prayers! I hope y'all have a wonderful week and continue to follow the council of the Prophet and Apostles. I love you all! 

Just some pictures of all the trees and all the different colors they are right now. Also some pictures to show how flat it is here. I miss the Mountains.

Here are our 4 amis that came to church on Sunday! De gauche à droite, Luke, Shane, Adonis, Kathy, Elder Holt and I.

General and Zone Conference with Exchanges!

Salut! How is everyone doing? This week has been full of so many adventures and miracles!

Last Wednesday, I had exchanges with the awesome Zone leaders! We stayed here in Drummondville and I was with Elder Desvergez. He is awesome and is straight from France. He started his mission here so he had some people he wanted to go pass by that we haven't had really any success with. The first person we passed by was really not interested and almost called the cops on us. We decided to leave him alone and try someone else. Her name is Gabrielle. She is super nice but never really accepted lessons. We stopped by and invited her to the women's session of General Conference and she Agreed! It took some persuading she agreed and actually did show up! She has been a little more open to us since and hopefully will want to take some lesson here soon.

Thursday didn't start off the best. We were supposed to have a lesson with Luke but he wouldn't let us in. It was the first time that that has happened and we were getting a little worried. We just set up a different date to come back and hoped for the best. That night we had a good lesson though. We are now teaching the son of the woman named Judy that I mentioned last week. His name is Shane and is super awesome! We had a quick lesson with him and just shared a few of our beliefs. He liked what we had to say and asked us if he could come to church this week! Heavenly Father has prepared him to meet us!

Friday we started the day with some service for our ward mission leader. We moved sooo much wood from his shed outside to an indoor storage room. He has so much wood stored up for the winter. He is still getting more too. We ended up having two dinner appointments that day. Line invited us over for dinner so we tried to cancel our dinner appointment with a ward member but french is confusing and we ended up eating two dinners. I have pictures of both meals but here you never just eat one plate. You have to have seconds and desert. We ate soo much food. The members here are soo nice too. If you have missionaries in your ward, find a day to feed them dinner. They will love it and maybe invite someone they are teaching too. Keep doing member missionary work! 

Saturday! First off, I hope everyone who ran the marathon did great and are recovering well. I didn't realize how much I would miss running for 4 hours strait and being sore for days after. It was nice to watch Saturday morning conference though! 2 hour church!!! That will be so nice for everyone! But with that, make sure you are studying and spending time with family on Sunday! There is soo much I can say about conference but it will be better if y'all just go watch it or rewatch it if you already have! Also, after we got to the church, Luke showed up on his bike and stayed for both sessions! He is still doing great.

Sunday conference was amazing! WE ARE GETTING A NEW TEMPLE!!!  If you cant tell I'm a little excited about that. Also The prophet talked about the importance of the name of this church. Follow his council and please call it by its full name and not a nick name. Merci! We had 6 people we are teaching come to the church to watch conference! One of them was Shane. He loved all of it. In between the sessions, we all started eating the lunches that we had brought. I started talking to him just trying to find out more about his life and what he does for a living and we ended up talking a little about baptism! I decided to show him the baptismal font and tell him a little about where they change and little things like that. He then asked how that happens. He asked if he needed to set up an appointment or something like that to be baptized! We told him we need to teach him a little more but he could definitely be baptized! We then went and started a little reading group with the people who were still at the church. It was a really good day. 

Monday morning we had interviews with President Phillips because our Zone conference was changed from this Friday to yesterday. Sister Phillips talked to me about winter here and told me about how I'm going to freeze. It was really helpful, ahah, but then she told me about a few stores to buy good clothes so I'll be okay. That night we had another lesson with Shane! We found out he had already read the first 6 chapters of the Book of Mormon and tried to bring a friend to the lesson to listen in. He is amazing. We taught the Restoration and invited him to baptism and ,of course, he said Yes! He then invited us over on Thursday to have another lesson but he said he would make us some dinner to eat during the lesson. We must have been doing something right to be blessed with him! He is awesome!

Yesterday was Zone Conference and it was just as good as the last time. When people are gathered together for the same reason to follow Jesus Christ, the spirit has to be there. It was such a spiritual experience. We received some training on how to teach and ask inspired questions. We finished yesterday with a lesson with Kathy. It was also amazing. She is progressing so well but her smoking is holding her back. We are working on it. 

Thank you for all of the prayers that are coming my way! The work here is really good and hopefully we have some baptisms here soon! Watch or rewatch conference this week and don't forget to go to the Temple! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! 

Love, Elder Beckstrand

Elder Desvergez and me with a Kitten

This is the two dinners I had in the same night. Both within about an hour. One is an old american meat pie and potatoes and the other is very french!

A cake that a member bought us for my birthday. 

The biggest church in Drummondville. It has a real bell tower that rings every Sunday.

A picture I took from the bridge. There is land there but it was soo foggy you couldn't see it.

Birthday week!

Bonjour tout le monde! Comment ça va? How is everyone doing? This week has flown by and I'm doing great here! We are staying really busy and seeing progress from our amis. 

Last Wednesday we did a lot of finding and ran into a lot of nice people. We were supposed to have a lesson with one of our newer amis but when we got there he was on the phone with his girlfriend and basically told us he was just being nice before and isn't interested at all in religion. We had seen it coming because he was always busy or not home. We had to drop him which is always not fun but we have others we need to spend our time with. It also rained really hard all day but there were two bright rainbows that night right before sunset! 

Thursday we had an amazing lesson with Luke! We talked about the Book of Mormon that he has already been reading everyday. We showed him how it works, who is writing what, and stuff like that. We also testified about Joseph Smith and how we have received the Book. The spirit was so strong and we are going to be setting up a date for baptism here hopefully this next week. I will let y'all know more about that next week. We had a dinner appointment with a members family that night. They are awesome. Frere Aroujo is from Brazil and so is his wife. He is here for work and speaks less french than I do. Their whole family speaks perfect English though so that was a nice little break. We also passed by someone who was contacted like a year ago but never followed up on. He let us right in and we just started talking. He is really cool and super nice. His mother came in about 10 minutes later and started talking to us too. She says she is Catholic but doesn't practice much. Like most of the people here, but she doesn't practice because her beliefs are closer to ours than to the Catholics. They were both pretty interested so we will visit them again later this week. 

Friday was my Birthday! Elder Holt made German pancakes for breakfast which were okay but they aren't my favorite aha. It was also the day after the new missionaries arrived. The sister that stayed here in Drummondville with us is now training so they picked up packages and stuff while they were in Montreal. They brought it to District council and I got all of it on my Birthday. That was when Elder Holt remembered that it was my Birthday ahaha. He had forgotten which day and thought it was the next. Thank you to everyone who has sent something! I love all of it! That night we were pretty busy. We had passed by and had lessons with 5 of our amis. We almost didn't have time for dinner but we hurried and stopped at MacDonald's in between some of the lessons to eat dinner. The Poutine there isn't too bad! Not as great as others but still good. 

Saturday we had a lesson with an ami named Wakilongo. We have been trying forever to get in contact with him but is never there for lessons. This time wasn't any different. He wasn't home again so we asked his wife what was going on and she said that he is just busy. We decided just to drop him too. We might try again toward the end of the transfer. That gave us some time to go finding and we ran into this couple from New Zealand! Super cool people with a weird story. They were kicked out of NZ because they claim to have seen an angel in they sky and tried to tell the government and they didn't like it so they got sent out. They are not interested in joining a church but it was a interesting Contact. We finished the night by visiting Kathy. She has decreased her smoking from 25 cigarettes a day to only 5 or less. She is also reading everyday and doing great! 

Sunday was pretty nice. We had 4 of our amis at church! Not much else happened until later that night. We spent some time street contacting people and we met this really nice lady and her Friend. Judy and Ray. She has had some bad experiences with churches and wasn't super interested at first. They just really liked to talk. She did have some questions about the plan of salvation because her son had died without being baptized and her father recently passed away but was super religious. I quickly testified of the spirit world and life after death. She started crying and said she had been thinking about that for 8 years since her son died and never had an answer until then. She invited us to meet with her son but it was late so we got her contact info and her sons and then had to leave. We have a meeting with them hopefully this Wednesday. 

Yesterday was a beautiful day! Bright blue skies and about 14 degrees all day long. We had a lesson with Marc and we talked about General Conference that is coming up! It was a good lesson and he is super funny. We then did some service. From what the member told us, it sounded like it would take an hour and a half. When we got there, we just moved a little shed and freezer and few other little things. It only took us 30 minutes and she was so happy she went and bought us two big pizzas for dinner. I wasn't complaining. One of the people that worked at the pizza place, however, was someone that we had run into before so we talked to him for a little and found out he was the boyfriend to the daughter of Line. She is one of our amis. We will hopefully have an appointment with him this week too! We have found a lot of new potential amis! 

We have been staying busy here finding new people and teaching the ones who we already know. They are all making good progress and loving the Gospel. I know that as we put in the time and faith, Our loving Heavenly Father will bless us with the things we are looking for or the things we need at this time. General Conference is also coming up so I'm going to extend the same Invitation that I have received from President Phillips. Go to this general conference with some questions you have right now for your life and you will receive and answer to them! Listen to conference and Have a wonderful week!

Love You! Elder Beckstrand

My last district

Me, Elder Holt, Soeur Cameron, Garcia, Lopez, and Broadbent