Elder Arnold's birthday!

Bonjour a tous! How have y'all been doing? This week has flown by and was so much fun. It was Elder Arnold's birthday this week so we made sure we had a little bit extra fun this week to celebrate. Here is a quick run down of what happened. 

Last p-day we picked up a member and took him to Bernadette and her family. They are awesome. Non of them are members but the Bernadette is basically a member and answers her kids question! We talked about the importance of Family prayer and scripture study. They all agreed to do it the best they could and the Spirit was so strong. 

Wednesday we started off with some studies like normal and then went and did a ton of pass bys. We Visited this guy we met last week and he was super open to us and we talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and we could see and feel the peace that it brought into this mans heart and life. It was super cool. We read a couple of scriptures with him and then left the book with him so that he could read more. 

Thursday we had district council where we talked about teaching the gospel simply. It was soo good because the Gospel is simple and easy and the more we try to add to the easy truths, the more confusing it can be. It was a pretty cool district council. The rest of that day was spent passing by people and knocking with nothing to special. 

Friday we were on exchanges with the zone leaders! I was with Elder Ludkte. We started off the day by passing by a member and going through the 12 step recovery program with him. It is super good and I recommend everyone to do it if you need help overcoming something. We then went and did some knocking and found this guy who seemed really interested and cool. We left him with a Book of Mormon and told him we would come by later to talk to him. We then had lunch at this restaurant called "Le snack" it was actually pretty good. I got another poutine. We then did some more knocking and found this awesome lady from Africa. She said she had seen missionaries before and we shared a quick message with her about the Plan of salvation and how families can be together forever. She really liked it and told us to come back next Friday. That night we finished by doing some social experiments on Facebook about the Book of Mormon. It was actually really cool and we have seen some cool things come out of that. 

Saturday was Star Wars day and also Elder Arnold's Birthday!!! We decided to spend the whole day knocking and passing by people we had found in the earlier weeks. We took a small break in the middle to go with a ward member to a less actives house and read scriptures to him. He is really cool and speaks English and french but i have a really hard time understanding either of  the languages. It is always super fun and very interesting. That night we had dinner with the bishops family and they made us home made pizza. It was super good and then they surprised Arnold with a birthday cake. It was super cool and really good. 

Sunday was really good. We went to church where Elder , the newbie, and I introduced ourselves during sacrament and then after church this member came up to us and gave us a couple of gifts. One of them is this super dope little flashlight to help us remember that we a light to the world. After church we went and passed by a good amount of less active families that we didn't know super well and shared a quick message with them and offered to help them with anything they needed. It was really cool. We met this family that moved here from Haiti and are not on the records but after we started talking to them more, they said that they would like to start coming back to church. It was super cool what a small act of kindness can do to open people back up to the Church. That night we had dinner with the Herring family again. They are awesome and gave us cheesecake for Elder Arnold's Birthday! It was really good. 

Yesterday was pretty good. During studies, Arnold is doing this thing called MyPlan. Its something all missionaries do their last six weeks to help them get ready to go home and prepare for life. It is super funny and pretty interesting too. Later we went over to Jimmy's house. We helped him with the 12 step program again but also played a round of darts with him because it helps him focus more on the lesson if we do that with him. He is really good at darts. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Shelton, I'm not too bad myself at darts. I took second out of us three. After that we did some knocking too and then we went over to a different less actives family's home and had family home evening with them. It was really good. The mom said she would do the spiritual thought this time and it was really good. Half way through the lesson I saw two guys outside on the street riding unicycles and I got a little distracted but we finished the lesson and played a quick game with them and then ran outside to see if they were still there but they were not. It was kinda sad but we will just have to knock their building and find them some day ahah. 

That's about it for the week. I hope you are all doing awesome. Keep up the awesome work and try to have a good FHE this week. Also if you think of anyone that you should stop by and visit, do it!

I love y'all!

Elder Beckstrand