Serving All In Montreal: 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