The one with a baptism

Bonjour à tous! I hope that y'all had a great week. Mine was awesome! Chris got Baptized! It was super cool and tons of other things that happen this week to so let's jump right into this. 

Last Wednesday we had our last district council here in Bridgewater for the transfer and it was pretty good. We then had a pretty good lesson with Chris that afternoon. He cut his hair. It used to be kinda long and shaggy but he cut it nice and short! It was quite the change.

That was about it for that day and Thursday was kinda slow. We did have our French class that night and we had a little spiritual thought right at the end and it was really good. We showed them a video from the church in French and then talked about it in English together after. They were pretty open to it and then we also explained how transfers work with the mission and they asked us for a hug before we left because they were not sure if we would see them again or not but sadly we had to explain that to them too. 

Friday was really good. It was completely filled with service opportunities. We started at the food bank and got quite a bit done there and then went over to the Daisy, which is a clothing bank for the Hospital. After that we went and helped an older lady from our ward move some end of season firewood into her house. She took us out to dinner after that which was good. I have eaten so much fish and chips here in Nova Scotia its crazy but it's soo good ahah. 

Saturday was really good too. We went down to Liverpool for our French conversational group. We had thirteen people there this time! It was super good. The librarian said if we get any bigger they will have to put us in one of the back rooms because there is not enough space in the library itself. It's a good problem to have. We then had lunch with the Mckenzies. They are awesome. They feed us every Saturday after the french group. After that we had another lesson with Chris just to help him prepare for his Baptism on Sunday! 

Here is where the real fun happened. 

So Sunday morning we woke up and went to the church by 9:00 a.m. and We started filling up the font with hot water but after 40 minutes the hot water went out so we had to turn it off and wait for the hot water to turn back on again and then we turned the font and later let it fill for 40 more minutes and then stopped it but then we're running out of time and then decided just to let the cold water run and get hot water from somewhere else. Elder constant and I along with our Ward mission leader and a couple other people grabbed big pots from the kitchen and filled them up with hot water from the kitchen and ran and dump them into the baptismal font. We just kept doing that until we thought we had enough hot water in there to keep it somewhat warm for the baptism and then we had a quick prayer meeting with Bishop beforehand to run through the program. Then we opened the program with the prayer and the songs and then Bishop gave a talk on baptism and Elder Constant played a piano piece and then we went in to perform the baptism after Chris was baptized we went back into the chapel and Brother Harlow gave it quick talk on the holy ghost and then Chris got up to bear his testimony. He started off by saying he has never spoken at a microphone before and that he is nervous and that if he said anything wrong that we should correct him but then went on for 10 more minutes just bearing the most pure and sweetest testimony and I have ever heard it was almost like a general conference talk. We all just sat there in silence because we were in awe of how awesome it was. Bishop got up right after, said some little final words and welcoming into the Ward and just talk about how great of a testimony Chris has already even though he's a brand new member. Then we closed with a song and a prayer and had a little linger longer activity afterwards, when four more members got to come to Chris and thank him for what he decided to do in also told him how amazing his testimony was in how much it affected them. Then that was it. After church we visited with some members and it our studies and went over to the Nilsson's again. That night we got our transfer calls which were cool.  I am going to MONTREAL were I can use my French!  Elder Constant is staying here to make sure every keeps moving forward.

Monday was a pretty average for Monday. We went and did some street contacting that are studies visits and members and that was about it. 

Tuesday were very busy we went around and did our studies and then went and visited some members in Liverpool and saw Chris again. He shared with us that he had tried to write down the testimony that he shared on Sunday and it take up 9 full pages front and back. He was just so happy and smiling and in such a good mood and so excited for next Sunday where he gets to receive the Holy Ghost and hopefully the Aaronic Priesthood. Then after that we ran over to our friend James's house, which was was really cool we haven't seen him in a while. We shared the, Ask of God video with him and he really enjoyed it and then after that we ended the night with the little ice cream run with him and one of the members here in town.  He is awesome.

 

Overall it was a good week. The mission is going well and they church is so true and can change people in ways you would never think of. I have seen it happen and I know it can continue to change and make us better. I love y'all and hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Beckstrand

 Elder Constant, Chris and Me

 Our Church

 

Steamy!

The contents of my bag.

The one with Chocolate Pickles

Bonjour à tous! I hope y'all have had such a great week with Valentine's day and everything. The title of this weeks email is about some chocolate covered pickles I made this week. We have a member family that we visit weekly and we had this joke about chocolate covered pickles because we always have pickles and chocolate while we are there but never together so I decided to break out my limited cooking skills from all those high school classes and made some chocolate covered pickles and they were really interesting.This week here has been full of adventures and stories that I'm so excited to share with yall so lets jump right into this.

We started this week off by going to the city for district pday and had some fun with the other missionaries so that was good. We also helped teach their english class that night and the next morning we had district council. We read a talk from april of 1973 called Success- a Journey or a destination. It was really good and I would encourage you all to read it too. True success is gaining eternal joy and comparison is the thief of joy. If you want to be successful, don't compare yourself to others, just to your past self. That was the main message I got from district council but we went a little deeper into it as well. After that we drove home in a small snow storm and saw about four or five cars that had slid off the road so that was kinda scary but we prayed real hard before we left and got home safely! God answers our prayers and watches over us! On thursday night we drove back to Halifax for our exchanges on friday which consisted of going to the food bank and doing some finding and a little teaching which was nice. Exchanges are always fun because we learn so much of how other missionaries work and how we can become better. 

For the time we were here in Bridgewater this week, we had some awesome things happen. We had a lesson with our friend Chris on Wednesday where we kinda went over his questions and watched the "Ask of God" video with him which really helped him and gave him another perspective of the first vision. He is so great and is getting really close to baptism which is nice. We also saw him on Saturday and had another great lesson with him. He also came to church on Sunday where he was able to meet with the bishop and we ended up changing his baptismal date to Sunday instead of Saturday. It will be better for Chris and will make it easier for a lot of members to be able to come and participate as well. We also had Elder Atkins and Sousa come here yesterday and hold his baptismal interview which went really well and relieved a lot of stress on Elder Constant and I because the night before, Chris had called us to cancel it all and just talked through it all with him and helped him feel the spirit again which calmed him. It has been such a testament to us all of the true power of Satan. He is real and works hard when things are not going his way. Chris is awesome when he is with members or us but when he is alone then that is when satan works his hardest and Chris has been able to see that as well which has been good too.

Other than that, our days have been filled with finding and member visits. One thing we have been sharing with everyone that we can has been the Ask of God video. If you havent seen it yet, Go watch it! It is so good and will help us prepare for genreal conference coming up. If you have seen it, Awesome but go watch it again. You can and will learn something new each time you watch it or read the account from the Pearl of Great Price.

I love yall and hope yall have a great week!

Elder Beckstrand 

The one with a great sunday school lesson

Bonjour à tous, j'espère que tout va bien pour vous autres. I hope y'all are staying healthy and strong and staying away from that Corona virus. This week has been really busy but really fun. That made it go by really fast too. This week has just been filled with service and teaching and so much other fun missionary activities. Here are a few fun things we did this week. 

We had a member that moved this week so we spent quite a bit of time with them trying to help them move. Its a lot harder to move people now that we dont have our truck so we have to make more trips but thats okay. We also had service at the food bank and the clothing bank this week which was great. The ladies at the clothing bank have been so nice to us. They found a suit that looked like it would fit me so they held onto it and gave it to me right before we left. It was so nice! 

We also had two really good lessons with Chris this week. He is getting so prepared for his baptism coming up. We talked with him about the temples, priesthood, law of chastity, Word of wisdom and quite a few other things. He has a really good understanding of what we teach and just loves when we come over which makes our job a lot easier. He always reads something from the Book of Mormon and then has a list of verses he liked and some questions he has too which makes our lessons really fun with him too. He came to church on Sunday too!

Sunday was really good. We had a wonderful sacrament meeting and heard some great talks and sang some nice hymns like always. The second hour of church was really good too. Our ward mission leader and the Elders quorum councilor gave a combined class about ward missionary work. It was really good. They started off by asking what our roles are as member missionaries and then explained how that is to basically be missionaries except for the teaching aspect. That's  what missionaries are for. They have been literally been set apart to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone in their areas and we can better do that when members help us find people who are ready to receive that teaching. We then discussed what is hard about all that and what stops us from sharing the gospel with our friends. One member gave a great example of one of his Christmas gifts that he got last year and how every time someone new came into their home since then, he would show them that right away because of how much joy that brings to him and he wants others to have that joy too. That is how we need to be with the gospel. We need to love it so much and not fear what others might think but have that instinct to share that joy and happiness with them as soon as we can. After that they invited the member who found Chris for us to share his story of how he found him and how we were able to teach him and then we told them all that he is planning to be baptized on the 22nd. It was really good to have that real life example that this stuff works! At the end we discussed the blessings that come from doing member missionary work and there is no reason why we shouldn't be doing that because the blessings that come from that far out weigh any negative that might come from that. It was such a good lesson. After the lesson we were told that someone has THREE more people for us to teach soon! 

Thats about it for this week but this next week will be such an eventful week with two trips to halifax and a baptismal interview! Pray for us ahah. Je veux finir cet émail en rendant mon témoignage que je sais que si nous faisons nos mieux que Dieu va " nous versez une bénédiction, qu'il n'y aura pas assez de place pour la recevoir". Le Livre est bleu et l'église est vrai. Ca traduire pas le même en français qu'anglais. Mais, je sais que Jésus est le fils de Dieu et qu'il dirige l'église dans nos jours. Suivez-le. Je vous aime tous! I hope yall have a good week! Keep being awesome! 

Love, Elder Beckstrand 

Elder constant holding a cat in the car

 Lobster and scallops.

 First time trying lobster.

And the view from the members house we helped move.

You can see all of Bridgewater.

The one that Chris gets a date

Bonjour Y'all! How is everyone doing? I hope y'all are doing just as well as I am here in Nova Scotia. This week was super great and went by so fast. We had a couple lessons and did quite a bit of street contacting and all those fun missionary activities. Here are a few of the fun things that did happen though.

Last wednesday we had a lesson with your friend Chris. We had quite a bit of stuff we wanted to discuss with him but were planning on doing it in two or three lessons but then when we got there, he had a list of questions for us and we ended up talking about teach of the points we wanted to and even more. it was such a good lesson. After a little bit, he told us that he found out from a member that he gets to choose who baptises him and he asked me if I would do that for him and if elder constant would do his confirmation. It was so cool! We decided at that point to actually choose a date with him to be baptised and we set on the 22nd of February!! We were so excited. There hasn't been a convert baptism here in this area in more than a year and a half. He even asked us about tithing and so I explained that it was one tenth of our income and he went and found out how much that would be for him and he was willing to pay it right then which was crazy haha. He is such a special soul. 

Friday we had zone conference. The night before we had interviews with our president and then we went and contacted some people on the streets of downtown Halifax and actually ran into our president again which was fun ahah. Zone conference was really good. We always have really good conferences. We talked about general conference coming up and how that is so important to prepare for that. So do it haha. In one of President Nielsons recent posts, he talked about how this April general conference will be a hingepoint, which I find really interesting because a hinge works both ways. To open or to close doors. If we truly prepare for conference but reading over the first vision and reading the Book of Mormon often then will use that hinge to open the door of possibilities of the ongoing restoration but if we fail to do that, then that hinge might work against us and close that door and thats sad to think so don't let that happen. I know that if we do prepare and head the warning of the Prophet than we will be blessed in so many ways. Anyway, we talked a lot about that in zone conference so that was fun.

Saturday we had another lesson with chris. It is always great to go and teach him. He always reads a ton and then has a lot of insights and questions. We talked more about baptism and tithing and a few other things which was fun. He also came to church on Sunday and talked to a ton of members which was great. He will be such a great member. 

Other than that we were able to do quite a bit of service this week again but we had to give our truck up for a new nissan rogue. You cant fit as much wood in the back of a rogue as you can in the back of a half tonne. I miss the truck but I can't complain. I'm just glad i have a car ahah. 

That's about it for us here but I hope y'all are doing well and having fun. Keep up the good work and find some time this week to go check out the amazing resources on the church website. There are tons of things there to help prepare for conference! I love yall! 

Elder Beckstrand 

Note from Penny - Josh knows that I love street art and I told him of a picture of one that I wanted him to take a picture of and he said that he walks by it all the time so he finally took a picture of it.  It changes colors in the light! 

 I also told him about an amazing Candy Shop that he should visit. So this rug that says Arcade is it!  He didn't go it but he looked through the window and said it looked awesome!

 New Nissan Rouge

 Old truck

 Our Zone!