The one with a new area and no area book

Bonjour a tous! How are y'all doing?  I hope everyone is doing well and having fun. This week here has been super crazy. I am actually now in Nova Scotia in my first English area! I'll just jump right into it to give the full story. 

Last Monday night I got a call from the assistants to president and they told me to make sure my bags got packed because I would be leaving Wednesday for Nova Scotia. We had a couple things that we had to work around for timing because I had interviews with president Tuesday and zone conference Wednesday. We eventually got it all figured out. Wednesday morning I made sure I had everything and then we left to go to Longueil for interviews. President Low is awesome and I really enjoy interviews with him. After interviews we had some dinner and then worked in that area with the Zone leaders. I was finally able to have an exchange with the amazing elder Taylor who used to be in my district. We have never had the chance to do an exchange for some reason but we have been looking forward to that for about 8 months now ahah. It was really good.

Wednesday was where most if the exciting things happened. We got up and went to zone conference where we talked about planning and humility. It was really interesting. Humility is something we all need to work on constantly. It's being willing to submit to Gods will instead of our own and as we do that we can see so many miracles. One of the best parts of zone conference is that it can such a revelatory experience just like General conference or going to the temple. If we prepare for this upcoming general conference with questions and listen to the spirit then we will definitely receive answers to our questions. I sadly had to leave zone conference before it was over because the AP's showed up with my new comp Elder Lee! We hurried over to the airport to try to catch out plane but the traffic made us late and we missed it. We talked to the reticketing lady and she was super nice and didn't make us buy new tickets and also saved us $20 on our luggage. She booked us for the next flight which was only two hours later so she was definitely a huge miracle! After that we finally found our gate and got on the plane. I was so excited to go because that was my second ever commercial flight and I just really enjoy flying. When we arrived in Nova Scotia, the one and only Elder Thacker was there to pick us up. It was really nice to have a familiar face to greet me at the airport. We then headed back to their apartment because it was already about 10pm local time. 

Thursday we went to the stake center to get cars and everything all worked out and then we drove out to Bridgewater! It is such a nice little town of about 45,000. So about half the population of St. George but in an area a little bigger. Not a whole ton of people and lots of old houses really spread out. We also do not have our area book or LDS tools that are updated so we have no addresses or phone numbers or even names so we just spent the day finding members and visiting them. We had dinner with the Olsen family. They are super nice and even had a service opportunity for us the next day!

Friday we spent the day at a different members house helping redo the drywall in his basement because he had flooding with the hurricane that just passed. It was super nice to spend some time with the members and to serve the people here. 

Saturday and Sunday and Monday were all spent going from member to members houses and getting as much information about the area as possible and asking everyone for referrals. It's been nice to see all the members so far and getting to know them all. Everyone here is so nice and takes such good care of us. We did find out there are two guys here that were close to baptism before so we went and contacted one of them and he was super happy to learn that he had missionaries back in his area. He didn't have a ton of time that day but we set up another time to come back and visit him. We also met this super nice lady at church who we thought was a member but ended up not so we set up an appointment to meet with her. She has been coming to church on her own for about 4 weeks now. There are definitely people here that have been prepared and have been waiting for us. It's been so cool to see the Hand of the Lord work with us as we get to know this new area and do what we can with our limited information.

Other than that, not much has happened this week. I know that the Lord is truly in charge of this work and that the church is true. I live you all and hope you have a fun week!

Love y'all

Elder Beckstrand

The Montreal Mission map and the Halifax Mission map and the new Montreal Mission boundaries.  

 Elder Thacker

Sister Hoag that I had Seminary with at PVHS & Elder Robinson from Snow Canyon High School

 Elder Taylor 

 A cool house and our house.

Guess which bed is mine.

The one with member visits

Bonjour a tous! How is everyone doing? This week here in Sherbrooke has been pretty good. No updates so far as to when I am going over to Nova Scotia but I am still excited to be here and to have the chance to go over there soon. They just got hit with a hurricane so I'm super excited to be able to go over there and get some service done! This week here was filled with a ton of member visits and less active visits and a couple of really cool lessons. Here is what happened.

Last Wednesday we had a district council out in Granby where we were able to meet the other new elder in our district. He is from Switzerland and is pretty cool. After that we came back and visited our buddy Jimmy. He was supposed to be on his patches to help him stop smoking but he stopped using them for a bit so we had a really good lesson with him about how our body is the temple and how we need to take care of it. He is working on it. After that we had a really nice lesson with Bernadette. We kinda talked a little about everything. She had a few really good questions about the Priesthood and we ended up just inviting her to do here own studies and then gave her a couple of chapters to read and study. She is progressing pretty well right now. She is really looking to learn more and know the truth. That night we finished off by visiting the amazing LaRoche family. They are doing good too. They really want to come back to church at least once before I leave but they have been since I've gotten here so we are really praying for them. 

Thursday we started off the day by doing some knocking and found some really good immigrants who just all happen to be from Syria or Afghanistan or other countries over there. They are really cool and open. After that we went around and visited some members to introduce the new missionaries. We had dinner with the Gingra's family and it was really good and we talked for a long time with them. After that we visited another member that we have never visited before. They are really nice and we had a nice talk with them. 

Friday we didn't do a whole ton that was exciting. We did a lot of knocking and passed by a couple people but no one was really home or interested.

Saturday we started off the day with studies and then went and had lunch at a restaurant where we met up with this guy named Jacques. He is pretty cool and somewhat open to the gospel. We had given him a book of Mormon before and he said that he has read some of it already and is going to keep reading until the end! He is a very smart guy and has a lot of friends of other religions and knows a lot about churches too. It was a very interesting conversation with him but he said he was open to talking with us again which was good. After that we went and visited another less active that has been slowly coming back to church. She is doing good but really needed our visit to help encourage her to keep coming back to church. To finish off the night we were supposed to have a lesson with Mary so we went over to and Pascal, her member boyfriend, wanted to show us his garage so we went and ended spending the rest of the time in there talking about his conversation and the church so that was good too. It was a really good visit but Elder Calabuig had some trouble following along because he speaks very Quebecois but it was good. 

Sunday was really good. We had a ton of people at church for some reason. Lots of member visitors and stuff like that. It was really good. We also talked to talked to a lot of people and now we have a dinner every night for this week with a member. Mary also came to church which was awesome. We then had lunch with the bishops family and then went out and did some finding and passed by a couple of the people we found recently. We tried finding one family again but ended up knocking on the wrong door but found another Syrian family that was open and really nice.  We then had dinner with the Herrings again and then visited the McFarland family. They are doing really good and it is cool to see the spirit work in us as we are open to the spirit. The spirit will actually give you idea and words to say as you are worthy and are open and follow what it puts into your mind and its been fun to see that work through me throughout my mission. 

That's about it for this week! I hope you are doing great and having fun! Keep being awesome and keep reading your scriptures and doing all the good things so that the spirit can work in your life.

I love you all and Ill talk to y'all next year! 
Elder Beckstrand

Edler Calabuig and Elder Bourlet

Dorian

Thursday, 5 September 2019


Dear Missionary Parents:

As you may know, Hurricane Dorian is headed for parts of our mission.  It has weakened but is still expected to bring strong wind and heavy rain.  If your son or daughter is serving in Atlantic Canada (not Quebec or Ontario) theyhave been asked to take the following precautions;

Hurricane Force Winds and Heavy Rain to hit the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland Saturday and Sunday.

Dear Missionaries:

Some of you may have heard about the Hurricane Dorian moving up the eastern coast of the United States.  This storm has weakened, but it is still a category 1 hurricane, and it is expected to hit Nova Scotia and then Newfoundland on Sunday.  Other parts of the Maritimes will also experience strong wind and heavy rain.  Please be cautious and wise in the next three days and avoid any coastal areas next to the ocean, as in some places the storm surge and surf will be as high as 30 feet. Here are some other suggested precautions you should all take in preparation for this storm:

-have a 72-hour emergency kit ready (see below) and communicate with your mission leaders and the Mission President regularly during the storm to report on your well -being.  Every apartment in the Maritimes has a power pack.  Please ensure these are fully charged before the storm his as power outages are likely.
An emergency kit should include items like food, water and a battery-operated or wind-up flashlight.
The federal department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness ACT also recommends doing the following to prepare for a hurricane:

Be extra careful doing anything more than local travel during the storm.  Heavy winds and rain will make for dangerous conditions on highways and roads.
Flying objects such as garbage cans and lawn furniture as well as broken tree branches can injure people and damage property so be careful when out of doors.

Stock up on water, and ready - to - eat food.
We love you and know the Lord will bless and protect you.!

Love,
President and Sister Low

The one with a trio again

Bonjour a tous! I hope you are all doing well. This last week here has been kinda crazy. We had transfers and a lot of service which went pretty well. I also got more news about this transfer and I will probably be in Sherbrooke longer than expected because the other apartment is not ready yet. My trainee in two weeks will be staying in another trio for a couple days when he gets here and then when its ready we will both be going over to Nova Scotia. As for right now, I am still here in Sherbrooke and waiting for Presidents call. Lets jump right into what we did this week.

Last Thursday was transfer day so we got up early in the morning and headed down to Montreal to the Office. We got there at about 9:30am and it took us about an hour and a half to find everything Elder Taruoura needed for Drummondville and then we went over to the mission home to pick up both of our trainees. We had to play Tetris to get the luggage of three missionaries and 4 people into a Nissan rouge. It eventually worked and we went to find the Drummondville car. After we found the car we unloaded all of their stuff and then we were supposed to pick up two other missionaries to take them back to the mission home. We thought they were in the church we were at so we found an open door and walked it but the alarm started going off so we got out and called the assistants for the code to the alarm but the door locked behind us and we couldn't get back in. Elder Sorenson and Elder Berg from the MTC finally came with the keys and disarmed the building and then the other elders showed up so we packed them in as well and were off to the mission home again to find the third part to our trio. We found Elder Bourlet and got his bags and everything and then headed back to Sherbrooke. For the rest of the day we helped a less active member move into a old folks home. It was pretty fun. 

Friday we started off with helping another person move and then got some studies in. After that we got some tracking in but not a whole ton happened after. 

Saturday, Sunday and Monday we visited a whole ton of members and did quite a bit of knocking. We found a couple of really nice Arabic people. One of them is named Eva. She was super nice and really open to the gospel. We gave her a Book of Mormon and a Bible and she said she would read them both! God has really put new people into our paths this last week and it's been really cool to see it all happen. We also have seen some less actives that came back to church this week which was awesome. We also had another service where we helped a member family here make their parking space bigger at their house. We had to tear up some of the grass that Elder Arnold and I help set down a while ago so that was really fun. 

Other than that I don't remember a whole ton of what we did this week. Sorry for the short email. I'll make sure that I write more next week! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love y'all

Elder Beckstrand

Service

Sorenson and Berg

Trio plus a ward missionary