Transfer Calls!

Bonjour a tous! How is everyone doing?? I hope you all are doing well and had a great week! This week here in Mont-Saint-Hilaire was great and we found a few new solid people and had a good time. 

Last Wednesday we passed by almost all of our amis and some of them were home but some we not. We had two really good lessons though. One was with Klien and I let Elder Moellmer take control of the lesson and answer the questions. He did really good and I helped when he needed it but his French is getting better. After that we had another lesson with Fordi and his family. We are really trying to help them read the Book of Mormon more and gain their own testimony. We did a little exercise with them. We had them read two scriptures and we timed it. It took them 30 second. We them invited all of them to read two verses out of the book everyday because it will only take 30 seconds and they would be blessed so much for just doing that. All of his siblings took the challenge but Fordi really doesn't like reading and didn't really want to but said he would try his best. If you are not reading the scriptures everyday, I also challenge you to start by just 30 seconds everyday. I promise you will see the blessings. 

Thursday we woke up and did our studies and then went around to do some finding but didn't get a whole ton. Later that day we went on exchanges with the Granby Elders. I went there with Elder Tarati! He is a super awesome Elder from Tahaiti. We went to a Members house that night to eat and they were super funny and fed us a lot. We then went and passed by a referral that they had received and he was this super awesome dude that had a lot of questions and super open to learn more! We then passed by a few other people and then called it a Day.

Friday morning we had district council which was really cool. We talked about how our faith not only helps us but can help everyone around us. The power of Faith is so strong! Keep working to always increase your faith!  After District council we went to a Chinese buffet with some members and one of their amis who was going to be baptized that Saturday! They were all super nice and she was super awesome and definitely well prepared to meet the missionaries and be baptized. For the desert, Elder Tarati and I both wanted Ice cream but also were craving a piece of steak so we had both! We got a little thing of steak that we placed on top of our nicely scooped ice cream! It was actually pretty good and the members had a good laugh out of it. We then went over some of the preparations for the baptism and then passed by a few people and then unexchanged. Once we were Back in St. Hailare we did some more finding to finish off the day. 

Saturday was kinda relaxed a bit. We started off the day with studies and a little bit of finding. We then passed by a few members and delivered a few things to members who were in need. After that we went and had dinner with one of my favorite families here and then we all went to volleyball together. Volleyball was super great! We had about 7 or 8 non members come and everyone had a great time. After that we got our transfer calls and we found out that we will both be Staying! Super cool! 

Sunday was one of the best days of the week! We got to the church first and helped set up some chairs and shovel some snow. Church was pretty great. nothing crazy happened but it was really good still. After church was when it was better though!  We had received a referral from some sisters in Salt lake a couple days back and couldn't get around to it because it was all the way up in Sorel so we had to plan ahead to plan the time to drive all the way up there and still be effective in our work. We decided to go up there last Sunday after church. We got up there and met with the referral and he is super solid. His name is Stéphane and had requested a book of Mormon and we exchanged information and plan on teaching him through messenger to save on time and klicks. He was super interested and had some good questions. After that we knocked a few houses in the area and passed by a couple of potentials. On the way home we stopped in another little town and passed by a few potentials and one was super busy so we asked if she knew anyone who might be interested. She immediately pointed to her next door neighbor and told us to try there. We did. The mother answered the door and was super nice but wasn't super interested because the are catholic and stuff like that. Right after that her husband came down the stairs and asked if that was the Mormon missionaries at the door. She kinda just looked at us and we nodded our heads so she said yes. He then invited us in and started asking us really good questions. We found out that their church is kinda dying and they are sad no one is believing any more but they saw the light in us and had so many questions on why and what we believed. We had such a wonderful conversation and ended up leaving them with a book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation brochure. They are super solid. They even accepted the invitation to come to church on Sunday! It was overall such a blessing and an answer to our prayers. All three of those people were super solid gold people! 

Monday was kinda lame in comparison. We did some finding, some service, lessons, and studies. 

Overall, this week was great and we saw miracles! Keep up the awesome work and keep being Christlike to everyone you meet and find ways to share your testimony with someone everyday!!

Love,

Elder Beckstrand

Volleyball

Snow

 Roads and snow

You just won.... New weekly communication and a new car.....but wait, ..there's More!

Bonjour! How is everyone doing? This week here has been kinda crazy but still fun. This week we packed up all of the stuff at the old apartment and moved everything into our New Apartment! It is so much better and now we live basically in the same house as the bishop and his wife and are only 2 minutes away from our chapel. It's so much better than what we had before. We used to be in the basement of this house and we only had three or four really small windows and one exit in case of an emergency. Now we are living on the ground floor and upstairs with many big windows for sunshine and 3 exits if we need them. It's a lot safer and overall nicer. The moving took a long time though.

Last Wednesday we spent a good part of it packing and getting everything ready to be moved by boxing it up and prepping it all. I have found out that I am not very good at this part of moving. We did have some time to get out and knock a little and passed by a potential we knocked into a while ago and he was open and interested. We talked about the restoration and the Joy and the Good things and lessons they can learn from the gospel. He seemed to like it a lot and we left him with a Book of Mormon and an invitation to read it. We then went home and ate dinner and finished packing.

Thursday was started with good studies and a visit to a member who needed help with throwing away a couple big things from her house and she payed us with two big bags of food. super nice. We then packed our new rouge with as much stuff as we could and started moving. We took about 4 or 5 trips with our car and then another trip with a member who has a moving truck to help move our beds and some tables. That was about all we did that day.

Friday morning we took one more trip with our car and then found out from the home owner that the washer and Dryer were ours as well along with a hidden closet we have never looked in. We had to take another trip and then wait for another member to come and help us with his moving truck. After that he took us out to lunch to get Lebanese food. It was actually really good. We were then able to spend a little time knocking and talking to a couple of our amis and potentials. 

Saturday we didn't do any moving for us at all which felt really good to finally be back out in the field finding and teaching. We had breakfast with my Favorite Dumas family. They are awesome. We then went on a couple visits with Frere Dumas. We stopped by and helped a sister move apartments. It was really easy because she had not a ton but she moved up to the fourth floor so we got our work out in. We then visited the Hospital and then an old folks home. It was really good. That night we had volleyball and had an amazing lesson right after we ended the game. A new kid had questions and the whole youth group sat in a circle and had a big discussion with him. It was sooo cool! Member missionary work! 

Sunday was nice. We woke up and were both super tired and Moellmer was kinda sick. We went to church and it just flew by like always. It was really good. After church we went home and organized all of our stuff into the new apartment and and then went finding and passed by a few new people. Didn't find a ton of new people or have a ton of lessons but it was still good. That night we ate dinner and had some really good studies. 

Monday was awesome. We spent the first little bit by passing by some potentials and new people. We knocked into this one house however and the guy was super nice and open to us. He said he had met someone from our church before and learned about family history work. We invited him to the church to use our computers and use the family history work technology. He was super interested and asked if he could come soon. We then went to give him a card with our name, number and address on it but we didn't have a card but we did have a Restoration brochure so we wrote it on the back of that and he looked through the book while we finished talking to him. He was Awesome! We then went and helped finish the backsplash on the walls of her kitchen. It looks really good and it is now finished. We then had dinner and and finished the night by tracting a little more. We didn't find a whole ton but we got blessed anyway because we got a referral from Salt lake City! Some dude here in town wants a Book of Mormon and is super interested! Heavenly Father Blesses his children. That's about it for that day. 

This week was taken up a lot by moving but we tried our best to get out and Find and teach and we still saw blessings both ways. Super cool! Keep up all the good work back home and don't be afraid to talk to some strangers this week about the Church. You never know if it might open them up to the missionaries later down the road. I love you all so much and I'll talk to y'all next week!

Love, Elder Beckstrand

Pictures of our old place.

That Episode where Oprah gives everyone a new car

Bonjour! How is everyone doing? I hope everything is going well and that everyone had a great week. This week has gone by pretty quick. 

Last Wednesday we started off by driving down to Montreal and picking up our New Car!!! Its a super nice Nissan Rouge 2019. It only had 25 kilometers on it when I took it. It has heat warmers and so many buttons. It even had a button to start the car. Super cool. After that we went and had a lesson with our ami Ado. She is doing really good and really liked the plan of salvation and the fact that she can be with her family forever. She has seen many times in her life how God has blessed her and her family. We then went and stopped by our amis from Peru. They have been really busy lately and we haven't seen them in a while but we stopped by for a minute and set a time when we could come back. That night we had dinner with one of my favorite families here and spent the whole time just listening to their stories from their missions. It was really cool and I'm really glad that God has sent me here to Canada where it is safe and there are no bugs. 

Thursday we helped one of the older ladies in our ward who had a small fire in her house last Sunday. Her house really smelled like smoke and burnt plastic. Not good. She will have to find somewhere else to live for two weeks while professionals come in and clean everything. We helped clean up some things and throw away some furniture. Later that day we had a wonderful lesson with our Zimbabwean family. They really like the bible and the mom doesn't really trust the Book of Mormon so we taught the Plan of Salvation through the Bible with a few scriptures from the Book of Mormon. It was really cool and they understood it better too. Not a ton much else happened that day.

Friday we had district council in Granby with the Zone Leaders. We found out that they also got a new car. Same as ours. We had a really good council and found some new ways to go finding and to help pump each other up throughout the week. We then came back and did some knocking and passed by our ami, Emmanise. She and her husband are really nice but were busy and said to come back on Sunday when they would have time. After that we did some more knocking and found this really cool dude named Ben. He is a snowboard instructor and is super interested in learning more. 

Saturday we were supposed to have 4 solid lessons but they all fell through so we had a good amount of time to go knocking. We found this amazing Muslim family on the first door that we knocked. They seemed nice and interested and said we could come back next week! We kept going and didn't really find anyone until one of the last doors we knocked on. She was an older Quebecois lady. We stopped by as she was looking at pictures of her father because it was the anniversary of his death. We shared the plan of salvation with her and she loved it. We left her with the brochure and a date to come back on. That night we had volleyball and our Zimbabwean family came with a friend. Their friend had a couple questions that he wrote down on my phone. He asked if we could have a lesson the next Saturday before volleyball and discuss the questions! Super Cool. They are some good questions too. 

Sunday we went to church and found out that we had some miscommunication with a ward member so we had to grab a different ward member and went to go pick up our Zimbabwean fam. Fordi, Emanuel, and Danny all came to church! It was super good. We had a pot luck after so they got to chill and meet some members too.  After church we had a lesson with Emmanise and her husband. When we got there, he was watching a soccer match but turned it off so we could talk. It was cool. At the end of the lesson he said it all made since and he would pray about it because that's what John 1:5 tell us to do. He is super solid and so is the rest of that family. 

Yesterday we passed by a couple people but mostly used the day for knocking. We had some pretty cool things happen too. We went to this little town and we prayed before we started that we would be recognized as messengers from God. The second door we knocked on opened and saw our plaques. They asked if we were missionaries from Christ and we said Yes! They then slammed the door in our face but it was still an answer to our prayers. Later in the day we also knocked into this lady who works at a place where they discuss church and religion a lot and asked if she could have a brochure or something to share with others. It was really cool. She wasn't super interested herself but she wanted to share it with her son and those she worked with! It was super cool. That night we ran into this guy at a Tim Horton's that sat and preached to us for about 45 minutes. It was kinda cool to see his perspective on things but at the same time he was a little weird. Things that happen when you are a missionary ahah. 

That's about it for this week! I hope you are all still finding ways to give service to others and don't forget to continue to spread the love even though Valentines day is over! 

Love you all!

Elder Beckstrand

Funny signs we saw this week

 New car

Cold thermometer

Snow

Valentine's day = new friends to teach!!!

Bonjour! I hope you all had an amazing week and Valentine's day! Quick shout out to my amazing Valentine. Love you Mom! This week here in good old Canada was awesome. It wasn't as cold, we got more snow, and found some new friends to teach. 

Last Wednesday, we got over a foot of snow so we went around and shoveled for everyone. We helped a couple of random people and then helped a few ward members. It was a lot of fun and we definitely planted some good seeds out there. We then went out to lunch with Luz Nelly. She is an older lady in our ward. Every time we help her she gives us two big bags of food. She is amazing. We then passed by some of our amis. First was Ado. She is awesome and we just taught her at her door because her husband wasn't there. It was an awesome lesson and the spirit was super strong. That night we visited our Zimbabwean family. We had an amazing lesson with the son and then the mom came in with a few questions about us and the Book of Mormon. She wants us to teach only using the bible because she doesn't know if the Book of Mormon is true and wont read it to find out. We are praying for her and are going to be using the bible more from now on while quoting the Book of Mormon. It will be a fun challenge. 

Thursday was Valentines Day! We didn't do anything special for it. We had lunch with a sister in our ward and a super less active brother in our ward. We have been trying to meet him for a while and she was a good friend of him so we all went out to eat together. It was really cool. He is super cool but has had his share of problems in his life. We had a good conversation with him and he seems to really like us now. He will hopefully start coming back to church soon. After that we had a really cool miracle. We made a goal to find someone who was prepared for us and then went out finding. We passed by a couple of potentials and knocked for a bit. We finally passed by this potential named Klein. He immediately invited us in. He remembers a lot of the things he has been taught from the missionaries before but stopped meeting with them because he had some good questions. We answered a few of them and then asked if we could come back and continue and he agreed! He is awesome and is super spiritual. It was a great way to finish the night.

Friday we had district council and really focused on teaching simply because the gospel is simple and it only takes a simple truth to invite the spirit. It was really nice. Then went on exchanges after. I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Furness! It was soo cool. On the way back from Gramby, we had a member call us and he told us that we could call our families now on p-day. We didn't believe him so we went straight to the church and checked for ourselves. It was amazing. We couldn't believe it.  After that we passed by a few people and then helped clear the path ways at the church. We moved some snow and found 6" of ice. We got shovels and picks and started to break it up. We got most of it out of the way and then threw a lot of salt down to get the rest. We had volleyball that night because the youth had a dance Saturday night and a ward family was doing a birthday party Saturday at the church too. It all worked out nice. 

Saturday we unexchanged and then visited Klein again. We had another really good lesson with him and he asked us more questions. He also really likes the Bible so we have been using that to help support the Book of Mormon and doctrines. It was good. After that we went to Montreal to pick up some things from the mission office and then went over to LaSalle to watch one of Elder Moellmer's old investors get baptized! His name is John. It was really good to watch someone get baptized, especially for Elder Moellmer since he taught him. After that, we went back and visited a few more people and called it a day. 

Sunday we didn't do a whole ton. Church still feels super short to me aha. After church we did have a lesson with a new ami. One of our Latino members gave us a referral and let us teach them in their house. It was really cool. It was also completely in Spanish. Yes, that is right. Your French missionary taught a full lesson in Spanish. It was really cool and the gift of languages is real aha. We also had the members to help explain some stuff. It was a very good lesson. That night we visited Fanel. He is doing good but is getting ready to move. We went over the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him and are helping him learn more before we give him over to the other elders. 

Yesterday we started off with good studies and I was able to read some of my ancestors Patriarchal Blessings. If you log into lds.org, you can request the blessings of direct ancestors. It was really cool. The rest of the day was dedicated to finding. We went to some of the outer cities and did our best to find new amis. We didn't have a ton if success though out the day but we decided to pass by one more potential and knock two doors next to them and then we could head home. The potential and the first door we knocked were not home but the second door was a man named Christian. He has actually met missionaries before and knows a lot but has moved around a lot since then. He is currently having some hard times right now and is really open to hearing about the church again. He invited us to come back in a week and was really glad that we stopped by that night. It was a really neat experience. On the way home we got some pizza ahah. 

That's about it for this week. We saw a lot of miracles and had a lot of really good lessons. I hope you are all having a wonderful time. Keep up the good work and don't be afraid to share the gospel with someone this week! 

I love you all!

Elder Beckstrand

Quebecois

Bonjour! How is everyone doing? I bet everyone is super excited to have Sophie back home soon. Its crazy that she is done with her mission now and almost home! Make sure y'all go to the homecoming and tell her Hi and give her a hug for me. I hope everyone's week was amazing. This week here in Canada was so good.  

Last Wednesday we went around to a couple of the small outlying towns and knocked and passed by potentials. There wasn't a whole bunch of people who were open and interested but we did contact this one lady right after her husband denied us. She was super sweet and was kinda like a mom to us. She made sure that we were warm and had a good place to live while we were staying here and fun stuff like that. She wasn't super interested in changing religions but did accept a brochure on the restoration and we are going to try to contact her again later. That night we passed by our buddy Fanel. He is doing good but is moving soon. We will have to give him up to the other elders but they will take good care of him and baptize him soon. 

Thursday we had some studies and a member called us saying she had food for us to come pick up so we ran over to her place. We had a little English lesson with her because she is trying to learn English and then she payed us with two big bags of food. Super nice. Later that day we passed by a few more potentials and knocked quite a bit. It wasn't until the very end of the road before we decided to turn around that we found someone who was interested. She was awesome and really liked what we did as missionaries. We shared a quick message about the Restoration of Christs church on the Earth and she seemed to like it. We didn't have a ton of time with her because we found out she was working and had to leave but hopefully we will be able to meet her again soon. That night the Granby Elders slept over so they didn't have to drive as far the next morning to ZONE CONFERENCE!

Friday was zone conference! About 30 minutes into the conference we had power outage while we were talking about our spiritual power. I don't have my notes on me right now but the theme of conference was Fanning our Faith. We read and discussed Ether 12. I really recommend it. It was soo good but ended up taking most of the day because we had interviews with president after so we didn't get back to our area until later than normal. That night we had a lesson with our amazing Zimbabwe family and we went over the Restoration again and made sure they understood it and they said they would pray about it. They are progressing super well right now. 

Saturday not much happened. We had even more time to go out and knock and we got a couple return appointments. It was awesome. We stopped by the hospital that afternoon to help give a blessing to one of the Brothers who is sick right now. He was looking much better than the last time we saw him and he was very thankful to get a blessing. That night we had volleyball again and it went really well. Almost half the people that were there were non members and we got to share a little spiritual thought with them. 

Sunday was kinda rough for us haha. We both woke up a little sick. Elder Moellmer was more sick than me. We were also supposed to have 5 people come to church too but only one of them showed up. Kinda sad but they will come next time. I was also asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting about the Joy that comes from reading the Book of Mormon. It was all in French and it wasn't too bad. After church we went and passed by a couple of our amis and then did some studies to finish off the day. 

Yesterday we were feeling a lot better and spent most of the day out and about. So quick little back story, a few days before this I had lost my mission card and had been looking everywhere for it. It was no where to be found. We had some plates we had to give back to some members so I set them in the car for later that day. We opened up the door to grab a Spanish Book of Mormon, We found my card just sitting there on top of it. It was crazy. It wasn't there early that morning when I put the book in the car but it showed up later. Heavenly Father loves and Blesses his children! After that we went out and spent time with this old man that used to meet with missionaries. He is super cool but is sick and is kinda lonely so he was glad to see us again and be able to talk with us. We talked about cars for a little bit too because I found out he was a mechanic. Oh man, If you think trying to understand Quebecois would be hard, try thick Quebecois while talking about differential and other things like that for cars. SOOO Hard but fun. I actually understood more than I though I would too.

That's about it for this week. The work is moving on here in Canada but the cold is still here. I hope you all have a great week and continue being awesome and sharing the gospel with your friends and neighbors. 

Love you All!

Elder Beckstrand

Temple

Temple

MTC buddy's elder Wai and Vargas

Tractor braking ice off the road

Tag pic

Thermometer for -30

Temple

Elder MOELLMER

Bonjour Yall! How is everyone doing?? This week has been an adventure up here in Canada. We have still been doing a lot of shoveling of snow and helping people move and I got my new comp! His name is Elder Moellmer. He is from the town of Tomball in Texas. This is his second transfer in the field so I am half training him! Anyway, here is a quick run down of what happened this week.

Last Wednesday we had some studies and then helped our bishop get ready to move by taking down a big tent for his car. Everyone has them here because no one really has a garage so they have tents that cover their cars in the winter. The only problem was that it was covered in snow and completely frozen to the ground so we had to get a sledge hammer and break up the Ice. That night we had a activity at the church with all the youth and some of their friends. We played some games and talked a little about the temple and going on missions. It was super cool. 

Thursday was transfers so we got up and Elder Furness and Halliday finished packing up their stuff and we headed off to the mission office. Once we figured out who everyone was going with we moved suitcases around and I got Elder Moellmer and we headed back up to our place. We dropped his stuff off and went back over to bishops house because the movers were there so we helped load the truck and move everything to the new house. We did that a couple of times and then had dinner with the Candia family and helped them learn more french. 

Friday we started off with district counsel in Granby. It was about an hour drive away and when we got there we found out that their meeting house is just part of this strip mall thing. They just bought part of this building and re did everything on the inside and made it into a church building. It was super cool. After that we headed back and passed by some of our amis and helped an older ward member shovel some snow off her balcony. We also had a lesson with our amazing family from Zimbabwe. We taught them about the plan of salvation and they loved all of it and kept saying how it all makes sense. It was really cool.

Saturday we had some really good studies in the morning and then went by a couple peoples houses and knocked a few doors. Not a lot of success but we did plant some seed with the people who let us in and out of the cold. Not everyone is interested but there are some really nice people who let us come into their house and let us warm up and grab a drink before continuing on with our work. That night we had volleyball and Elder Moellmer got to meet everyone and we had a lot of fun. Out of the 21 people there, about 8 of them were not members. It was amazing. Each week we are having more and more people come. Member and nonmembers. 

Sunday we had church and it was fast and testimony meeting. Its one of my favorites because of the spirit you can feel as people are bearing their testimony's. I had to translate almost all of it for Elder Moellmer but it wasn't too bad. We spent most of the day after church walking around and knocking. Planting more seeds! We also did some finding through Facebook because Elder has never tried it before and he actually found someone who was somewhat interested and was asking us questions. It was really cool to see that. As missionaries, we have soo many tools for finding and teaching people and technology is one of them. I still think that one of the best tools that we have though is all of you. Members have so many friends and know so many more people who live in your town than the missionaries do and you also might know who is more ready for the gospel than others. Don't be afraid to help the missionaries who might be serving in your ward or stake to find new people. You might be surprised with what comes out of it. 

Yesterday was a day full of service. We started with a member who needed help finishing her kitchen. We redid the ceramic backsplash on the walls of her kitchen. It was actually really fun because we were able to talk to her the whole time and learn about the things she is doing in her life to introduce the gospel to her friends and family who are not members. We finished up the walls and it looked really good once it was done. After that she ordered us a pizza and we ate some food before going to the next place. We then went to bishops again to move some furniture around in the new house and help put storage stuff away and some heavy outdoors stuff in their garage. It wasn't too bad but that whole night we had freezing rain and there was a 5mm layer of ice over everything. We had to spend some time breaking it off our car and everything that was left outside. It was crazy. We then went out to dinner with them at this nice restaurant and I got a really big poutine! It was super good. We then passed by a few people and then headed home for the day. 

That's about it for this week. Keep being awesome and going to the temple before it closes down if you are in the St. George area. Also don't forget to keep reading the scriptures everyday and find ways to serve others! 

I love yall so much. 

Elder Beckstrand

Moellmer

Trio

Church

Freezing rain