Many mini miracles

Bonjour à tous! I hope everyone had a fantastic week! Happy late Birthday to SOPHIE!! She is finally an adult! Weird. Anyway. This week was pretty good here in good ol' Canada. We had some good things happen and some interesting stuff happened as well. Here it is...

Last Wednesday we started off with some really good studies. I just finished the Book of Mormon again from start to finish for the second time on my mission. I encourage everyone to read it from start to finish. It is sooo good. Literally life changing. After studies, we went out and did some finding with one of our amazing ward missionaries. He and Elder Taruoura both thought of passing by some lady but we couldn't remember who or where she lived. After some talking and a prayer, we finally remembered roughly where she lived and then as we got closer, it was kinda like Heavenly Father was playing a game of hot and cold with us. The closer we got, the more we were directed, if we missed a turn we got cold aha. We found her at the end and she was a little busy but invited us to come back next week and was surprisingly excited to see us. God does work miracles and directs this work. Later that night was had a nice lesson with one of the less active ladies in our ward and then we drove for a bit to find the Graby elders to do exchanges! I was back with my baby boy Elder Moellmer! 

Thursday I spent the day in Granby with him. We had a really nice lesson on the plan of salvation with one of the people they are teaching named Joseph. He has tons of questions and is truly searching for the truth. It was nice to see simple truths answer peoples questions. Our church really does have the fullness of the Gospel!  After that we had a nice dinner with the old branch mission leader there and we had a good chat with them. After that we had a lesson with a guy named Asagi. He is from Africa and speaks English. I think I understand more super thick Quebecois than I do his English. Elder Moellmer however was more used to his accent and was able to communicate with him. I kinda just sat back and watched my old trainee teach and testify with power and love. Later that night we unexchanged and I went back to Sherbrooke. 

Friday. Not a whole ton happened but was still good. We started off with district council but this time it was in Mont-Saint-Hilaire so we just Skyped in because we had a lunch appointment with one of the ward members. They were both wonderful! After that we went over to the bishops house to help them welcome home their son from his last day at school. It made his day and he was so happy to see us there for him. It was such a little thing we did but it made such a difference for this little kid. Like it says in Alma 37 verse 6 "...by small and simple things are great things brought to pass". Make sure you go out and do the little things this week. You never know what an impact you can make. Later that day we visited the hospital again to check up on Brother Woodman who has been there for a while. He looked so much better than before and he said they were finally letting him go the next day. That night we had dinner and visited with our ward mission leader. He is awesome and we are now trying to start up some activities for the ward and for our amis. I hope they all work out and and are fun. 

Saturday was my English day ahah. We visited a less active sister just after lunch and did that weeks come follow me work. It was so good. After that we visited Jimmy. He is English and we helped him move some things down from his apartment to the dumpster and then we did the come follow me with him as well. At the end of the lesson he asked about a guy named Brian. We had no idea who he was but after we checked in the area book, there totally was a Brian so we took it and went to go visit him. He is English as well. We had a good little chat with him. He is in a really hard part of his life right now but its slowly getting better. We will probably visit him again soon. After dinner we visited my favorite buddy named Ken. He is also English. He is soo close to baptism. He just has some memory and eye sight problems that hold him back a little. We read a chapter with him in the book of Mormon and had a nice discussion about it. Hopefully our next lesson with him will put him on date for a baptism. 

Sunday was interesting. Church was really good. We had a little more people than normal at church which was awesome. We had our African family that are members but not on our list come for the first time and also a couple other new faces that I didn't know. After church we went over to a giant yard sale that one of the ward members were in charge of and he gave us a table to set some brochures and books on. It was pretty cool. We had a few people come over and talk with us. There was an old lady next to us who was selling some jewelry and stuff but she wasn't super interested but liked to talk when there wasn't anyone at our place aha. After that we had a late dinner with the bishop and his wife and then called it a day. 

Yesterday was spent at the yard sale! We had some super cool miracles that happened. Right in the morning we talked to one of the friends of Pascal, the member in charge. He took one of the Liahona magazines we had about Jesus Christ and a restoration brochure. We also had a couple other people pass by and talk with us and take a few things. Gave away a couple Books of Mormons with our phone numbers. We also got to spend some time and talk with pascal's mom. She is not a member but pascal is and his brother is being taught right now. She is super nice and had a fee questions for us. I think the biggest miracle that happened was the lady next to us. Half way through the day she came over and asked if she could look at a few of the things we had on the table. We explained a little more about what we do and what the things were on the table and after a little bit of talking she ended up talking two books of Mormons and some things on family history and I think a couple of pictures. She was super interested and impressed with us. We saw her throughout the day looking through the family history book and she read some of the Book of Mormon too! She gave a couple of other booklets to her daughter. It was super cool to see the seed being planted and grown and nurtured happen all so fast. It was also super cool to see how she wanted to share it with her family right away too. The Good Lord knows what he is doing and as long as we are willing to do what he wants, he will place us in the right place at the right time and we can be an instrument in His hands. He then also blesses us and let's us see the miracles happen! We then helped pascal take down a couple of things and move them around. After dinner we had FHE with the LaRoche family. They are awesome and so was the lesson we had that came from the Come follow me book. After the lesson we played a little game and I was able to talk with Brother LaRoche for a little in sign language. They are less active because he is the only deaf person and they kinda feel out of place and no one can talk to him so I brushed up on what I knew of sign language and I try my best to talk with him aha. I love that family so much. 

Well, that's about all we did here this last week. It's been going pretty good and things are slowly but surely moving along. I love you all and I know our amazing Father in Heaven loves and watches over all of you! Keep being awesome and don't be afraid of doing the small and simple things! 

Love you all!

Elder Beckstrand

Don't drop the Potato

Star Lords helmet 

Ice cream cone

 

Back to the good ol' days aha

Yard sale kiosk 

Some pineapples

These are pictures that he sent though Google Hangouts while on his P-day adventure with his comp and the bishop's wife. 

Pres Phillip's last Zone Conference

Bonjour à tous! I hope everyone is doing great. Happy fathers day to all of the amazing fathers out there. Happy Fathers day to my amazing dad! Love you! This week here has been super interesting but super fun at the same time. Here is a quick run down of what happened. 

Last Wednesday we started off the day with studies like normal and then we had a couple of lessons. We had a lesson with jimmy and helped him do some of the Come, follow me. After that we went over and visited  our buddy Wayne. He is doing really good. He really likes when we come over because he can feel the spirit more and loves talking about the gospel with us. We watched a couple gospel videos with him. Those are so well made! If you have the chance, go watch them, especially for the ones for this weeks Come, follow me work. That night we had a lesson with a less active member. It was really good. We walked with her to the park and studied together from Preach my Gospel. We went through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and our life here on earth. We had a very nice discussion and learned a lot. 

Thursday we didn't get a whole ton done but we did have lunch with our bishop and his wife. They are amazing and take care of us a ton. Later that day we had a lesson with Ken. He is doing good and is really close to being baptized but we just visit him now to help him read the Book of Mormon more. We had a good discussion with him and hopefully he will be baptized here soon. Later that night we drove down to Montreal for zone conference the next day.

Friday was Zone conference. It was President Phillip's last one before he goes home. The next one we have will be with president Lowe. During the conference we talked about who we are. We are children of our Loving Heavenly father who has blessed us all with so much good. He has also blessed us with many spiritual gifts. We read in Moroni 10 about spiritual gifts and then learned how we can better use them to help ourselves and to help others around us. It was really good. We also talked a bit about the new changes coming up in our mission  and what that will be like. I'm excited to meet our new president and some of the other new missionaries there. After Zone conference, Elder Taruoura and I had interviews with president for the last time and it was awesome. I've enjoyed all of my interviews with him. President and sister Phillips are awesome. By the time we got home that night we had dinner with a ward member and had a nice lesson with Rada. She is from Syria and is very Catholic. We have seen her a few times but this time her family was over. She has three sons who are also Catholic. We tried to teach them the plan of salvation but there was a little bit of a language barrier because they mostly spoke Arabic and only a little bit of French and English. I said the couple of words I know in Arabic and then we just kinda kept going back a forth between French and English. It got kinda confusing but the spirit was still there trying to help us the best it could. I love the saying, "Do your best and the Lord will do the rest".  We did our best and left the rest to the Lord. After that visited another less active and I was able to meet her daughter who is getting ready for baptism as well. There is a reason why the Lord commanded us to be like a little child. She has such a strong testimony and spirit with her. 

Saturday was kinda weird. We started off with studies and then after some miscommunication and changes in plans, we finally had district council in Granby. It was pretty good but everything is kinda far from here so we got some good traveling time in. After we got a lesson in with Bruno. He is doing good but not progressing a whole ton so we will see with him later. Later that night we had a lesson with one of our recent converts here and it turned into a dinner appointment with him too. It was really good. 

Sunday was a pretty normal Sunday. Church was good. After church we did some pass bys and checked up on a few people and then had dinner with the herring family again and after that we got to call our fathers for fathers day! It was really nice to be able to talk to my dad and everyone else ahah. 

Yesterday after studies we passed by a few members houses and then tried to do some finding at the park. It's a little harder to find that way but we had some neat experience while talking to some of the people there. We had another lesson with Jimmy as well and talked about Jesus during his crucifixion and death. It was a pretty spiritual lesson. There is nothing that brings the spirit more into any room than talking about Jesus Christ and his gospel. Later that night we had dinner with bishop and his family again and Sister Bergeron cut our hair for us. Mine started off really good and then we just decided that it would be easier to cut it short and make it look better again. Finally at the end of it all, my hair ended up nice and short. 

That's about all of it for this week. The people we are teaching are progressing nice and well and the less actives are also slowly coming back to church too! The work is moving along here in Sherbrooke and I hope it's going well wherever you are too. I love you all and hope you have a fabulous week. 

Love you lots,

Elder Beckstrand

 Time to buy some new shoes.  These were being held together with super glue. 

New transfers and member work!

Salut à tous! Comment allez-vous? I hope you are all doing well and are loving life. This week has been really good and interesting. We sent Elder Arnold and Elder Bishop home (their 2 years are up) and I am now here with Elder Taruoura. It's been so fun. Our district is now a little bit bigger too. Here's what we did this week.

Last Wednesday was Elder Arnold's last full day here in Sherbrooke. We spent the day passing by members and people we are teaching to say one last good bye. We played a game of darts with Jimmy and did some knocking. That night we had dinner with the Herring family. They are awesome. One of the daughters took a giant shot of rice vinegar for $20 and it looked really gross aha. No one thought she would do it but she did. After the dinner we had a really nice lesson with Lenord. He has been with missionaries since 2012 and knows more about the church than some members. He just has a few questions and doesn't want to be baptized until he knows for sure it it the true church. We will do our best to help him more but he is already awesome. 

Thursday was kinda crazy to start off with. We finished packing everything up and then we changed up the companionship and then me and Elder T did a couple of trips between the apartments to move everything while the others went to breakfast with a member ahah. Once we got that all done we met up at the bishops house to say bye to the elders and then we were off! We tried to do some finding in the park and we passed by a couple of people we are teaching. That night we had an awesome lesson with Ken. He was with the other elders and he is so close to baptism. We just need him to read some more and have a strong testimony in the church. He will be baptized soon. That night we had dinner that night with our amazing ward missionary Serge. He is awesome. 

Friday we did our studies and then had lunch with Sister Lachance and Serge. It was so good. We shared Helaman 14:30-31 with them and had a really nice discussion with them. After that we visited one of the brothers in the ward who is in the hospital. He is doing better and will probably be out soon. After that we went back to the park with some chalk and drew the plan of salvation on the path and had quite a few of people that stopped and looked at it. After that we had two really good lessons. One with Fernand where we talked about the plan of salvation and a lesson with this woman named Rada. She is from Syria and loves when we visit. We went over the restoration with her and explained as simply as possible. She loves it and we just have to get some more things in Arabic so she can understand better. She is really open. 

Saturday wasn't too exciting. We had district council which was really good. We all counseled on what we wanted to work on for the transfer and how we can best do that. It's been pretty good. We are going to work with the members and less actives. Later that day we had a lesson with Sebastian. We went over the plan of salvation again and he remembered it and so we went back to the restoration and he already knew most of the restoration. It was pretty cool and interesting. Right after the lesson we saw someone riding a unicycle down the road so we hurried and stopped and I asked him if I could try it but he said it was kinda broken and not easy to ride so he just jumped on it and rode off leaving us on the road. It was kinda sad but there are a couple people here that ride it so we will contact at least one of them ahah. Later that night we visited a less active sister we are working with. She is doing really good and her daughter really likes the church and is planning on being baptized soon. They are both doing really well right now. 

Sunday was full of driving to Montreal and back for stake conference. It was really good. We had a return missionary talk and President Phillips as well. They both gave really good talks and the spirit was super strong. Right after the conference, We were able to stand in the circle as one of the newer converts to the church here in Sherbrooke received the Melchizedek priesthood. It was such an amazing thing to be able to participate in. Later that night we were able to have dinner with the Herring family again and we also passed by more of the people we are teaching but not much of any lessons. We then spent some time at the bishops house talking about the ward and things we can do this new transfer to help. It was good. 

Yesterday we didn't do a whole ton either. We started out the morning by going back to the old apartment with another set of elders and one of the senior missionaries to clean and move out everything that was in there. That took a bit of the day but was good. We got everything out of the place and are done with it now. After that we got some studies in and then visited some members. We had dinner with the bishops dad and his family and it was actually really good. After that we had a Family Night with the family LaRoche. They are amazing and said that they would finally come back to church this Sunday! I've been with them for a while and I haven't seen them at church yet. I'm really excited to see them at church. 

That's about it for this week. I hope that you all have a wonderful week. This week was full of spiritual experiences and I hope you all have find some time to go to the temple or share the gospel with someone this week and feel of that same spirit. 

I love you all!

Elder Beckstrand

Transfers and Service!

Heyo! How is everyone doing? This week has been awesome! We have had some fun little adventures, tons of service and some really good lessons. We also got our transfer call this week and we kinda knew what was going to happen. We have four elders here and two of them are going home so we were guessing that the other elder and I will stay and it happened! Elder Taruoura and I are staying here in Sherbrooke and I am finishing his training. He is from Tahiti and is super fun! Anyway, here is a quick run down for this week.

Last Wednesday we visited our buddy Jimmy and played a round a darts and shared a spiritual thought with him and are just trying to help him stop smoking. He is slowly getting better and is still doing pretty well. We also had an awesome lesson with our buddy Bruno. He is open the gospel and loves when we visit him. That night we went with one of the members to teach some of his friends that we helped move the Saturday before.  They were actually more open and receptive than we thought they were going to be. Brother Talbot shared some really good insights and we were able to share the message of the restoration with them and invited them to read and pray. They are really cool. 

Thursday was interesting aha. As we were leaving for the morning, we were busy trying to take stuff to the trash because we are closing our apartment and have to throw a lot of stuff away. Elder Arnold forgot to grab the keys so we got locked out. There was this really nice lady that let us into the front side of  building but our door was locked on that side so it did no good. There was a miscommunication and she couldn't open the back door for us so we were locked out and couldn't drive away. We had a lesson with someone at the mall just down the street so we just walked to it and then he canceled on us so we just walked to the church for District council. It was interesting aha. District council was nice and afterwards the other team gave us a ride back. We were finally able to get into our place and then we were able to go finding for a bit. 

Friday, I had Exchanges with Elder Bishop. We were supposed to help with some service that morning but then it got cancelled and then it was happening again. We were just helping someone move but when we got there nothing was in boxes, but they were all in bags. We used a hook and ropes to lower the bags from the 4th floor down to the bottom where the other elders grabbed them and took them to the truck. It was very interesting. After that we drove 35 minutes up to a tiny little town to help them unpack. Unpacking took us about 30-45 minutes tops. It was really quick. After we got some pizza and then visited the bishops house and had dinner with them. That night we spent some time with the bishop and the ward missionaries. They are all amazing people. 

Saturday we started off and got our studies in and then went to help someone else move. It was very well organised and more people were there to help so that was nice. It did take forever though. We loaded and unloaded the truck about three times and went from being on the 3rd floor to the 4th of different buildings. It was a good workout ahaha. That night we visited wayne and that was really good. He likes when we visit and he really needs the help. 

Sunday was pretty simple but the bishops kid did cut his head wide open just before church started and was bleeding like crazy. It was interesting way to start the church meetings. We did have a really good visit with our buddy joule. He is super hard to contact but when we do, the lessons are super cool. We talked about authority with him and answered all of his questions. he has a lot of questions and they are super good. 

Yesterday we did a ton of pass bys and got pictures of everyone with Elder Arnold before he goes home. We also did some finding and found this awesome Arabic guy and taught him the restoration. We also had family night with the family LaRoche. They are super cool. We have just been going through the Come, Follow Me book with them and it has actually been really fun. Everyone should make sure you are doing it. There are so many good things in there.

That's about it for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Make sure you do your church homework and go to the temple before it closes!

Love y'all lots!

Elder Beckstrand

District Pics

With bishop and wife

The Tahitian is my new comp

 Bridge

Moving Pics