The one with 2 weeks because life is Crazy

Bonjour à tous! I hope you all are doing super well. As you can tell from the title, these last two weeks here have been just been crazy and I want to apologize for not sending a message last week! Here is a quick over view of the last two weeks with a couple cool stories of the people here. 

So over the last two weeks starting Wednesday we have driven into the city of Halifax 4 times with another travel to Annapolis royal the other Wednesday in there as well. Over all about 14-16 hours in the car but it was all well worth it. We had a district p-day last week were we played volleyball and soccer and ate pizza together which was really fun. We had a district council which is was nice. And this last weekend we went into Halifax for interviews, zone conference, and stake conference. Those were all very good. It was my second zone conference of the transfer because of how transfers worked out for me. it was really nice because I got a refresher on everything we talked about the first time but also learned so much on humility and patience. It was the subjects and same basic layout but with all different missionaries and different questions and things in mind during the conference and I came out of it with new answers and spirituality edified again. It's just like going to the temple or reading the  book of Mormon or going to church. It may be the same time every time you go or read but our lives change and we get different things out of what we read and learn new things that the Lord knows were are now prepared to learn. That's what I love so much about this church is that we can continue to learn no matter how long we have  been here. Even Elder Eyring says he learns more and more each time he reads and he is an Apostle of the Lord. I would highly encourage and invite you all to continue to read and go to the temple if you can. Keep learning. 

For the time we have spent here in Bridgewater however, we have been going around and visiting almost all of the members. We were just given a couple different ward lists so we have been trying to visit literally everyone and update everything and get to know all the members better. Everyone here is very nice and most of them already know who we are and why we are here so we have been trying new and creative ways to find those that God has prepared for us. We have found a lot of less active people and part member families that we are hoping to work with but along with all that we have also found a food bank to volunteer at. The ladies there were very nice and asked us a couple of questions. We also started up a French class because I have been struggling a little to switch back into a full English area. I think and pray in French still and speak it whenever I can but now I am teaching it to people as well. We had about three people show up last week which was awesome and they said they would bring more next week.

We are also starting to play volleyball this week and many different things to hopefully find more people to teach. We have found a few people to teach last week. One of them has been coming to church on her own for the last two months or so and we have started teaching here. She has definitely been prepared by the Lord to meet us at this time. Her name is Annette and she has a friend back in Montreal that is a member and they have talked about it a bit and then in the therapy clinic that she works at she has a couple clients that are members as well. In her Therapies, she does what she can to help the people calm down and one of the member reads the book of Mormon to her because that helps her calm down so she has heard parts of the book of Mormon. We had an amazing lesson with her last Friday where we answered any of her questions and one of them was how can she become a member! We explained the process to her and taught her more of the restoration. It was a super good lesson and the spirit was really strong. We also found two other people because we were visiting a member and as we were leaving there were two other ladies sitting under the tree so we sat down with them and asked them a few questions and then taught her the whole plan of salvation and that was another really good lesson. The Lord really does put people in our paths when we are doing what we are supposed to. Heavenly father wants to bless us so bad and as soon as we turn to him and do what we should be then he will shower us with blessings.

We have also done some cool random things lately as well for p-days and stuff. We have done a lot of service. We ripped out an entire basement and because of the flooding with the Hurricane. We also have stacked a lot of wood and done a couple other service projects as well. We also sang in the stake conference with all the other missionaries in Nova Scotia. It was really good and we sang a cool version of Called to Serve. Oh yeah, My companion also got his visa to go to California so he will be leaving me here on the 15th. I don't know what will happen after that but it will be interesting! 

And that's about it for these last two weeks. Sorry again for not writing last week but hopefully stuff will start to calm down here and go back to normal. I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week. Keep being Awesome!

Love Elder Beckstrand

Our new place came with a Squatty Potty and a TRUCK!

 

 

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

The one with crazy transfers!

Bonjour a tous! I hope you are all doing well. Lets jump right into this with the subject line ahaha. We got transfer calls this last Sunday night and we found out that I am staying here in Sherbrooke for the next transfer which will actually be 8 weeks long. Elder Taruoura will be going to my training grounds of Drummondville with a new kid from the MTC. I will also be receiving a new kid from the MTC but along with another that came in the same time as Elder Tarouora. They are both from France. I was super excited! This morning we get a call from our wonderful mission president. He called to inform me that this next transfer will be different for me. I will be staying here in Sherbrooke for only 2 weeks. My job here is to help train the newbie and also train the other on how to be a trainer. Double training! I am also helping them get to know the area while I wait for my new comp to come from the MTC in two weeks. When the other one comes, I will go with him to the complete other side of the mission to Nova Scotia. We are also opening up an area that has been closed for a while. I was completely mind blown ahah.  This will be an interesting transfer but I'm so excited! Anyway ahah. Here is a little about what I did this last week.

Wednesday we had district council out in Granby and it was pretty good as always but on our way home from there we got a text from Jean-Michele saying that he didn't wanted us to come over that day or ever again. He said he was good off in his own religion and didn't want to learn anymore with us. He said he respects us still but if we kept trying to talk with him or tried to visit that he would block us so we didn't. He still blocked us anyway. We  know what happened to him between our lessons with him but it did teach us two good lessons. First was that Satan really focuses on those we get ready for baptism and does everything that can to shut them down and stop the work of the Lord here on earth. Second was that God did really give us our agency and we have the choice to chose if we want to follow Him or not. He will help us as we ask for help but he always leaves the choice up to us. It was kinda sad to see him take that choice but he is just not ready right now. He has a good heart still and I believe he will one day run into the missionaries again and accept. After that we did a little bit of service and had a lesson with the wonderful Bernadette. She really opened up to us and started asking us some questions that she was kinda afraid to ask earlier because she didn't want to offend us. We had a really good lesson with her. She said she wants to baptized but her husband isn't super okay with it but she is talking to him ahah. 

Thursday was pretty good. We had a lesson with Francois where we kinda went over all the lessons again asked him if he was willing to be baptized. He is not super ready right now but he is not closed to the idea. He wants learn more and make sure that he is ready before he gets baptized. Super good. Later that night we had a lesson with Mary and talked more about baptism and she said she could be baptized the 12th October! Pascal is also getting ready for it because she asked him to do it. She is ready for it and we also have more time to make sure she understands it all too. It was a good pick me up from the day before. Lose one and pick up two haha. 

Friday and Saturday were kinda slow and not much happened. We did a lot of finding and tried to visit a lot of the less actives in our ward. We took a trip out to some of the little side towns to even visit those less actives. We were able to find and get in contact with a few that we have never met before so that was nice but other than that not much happened.

Sunday was good. We didn't have anyone at church but we did have a recent convert give his first talk that we helped prepare so that was really good. After church we passed by a couple members and had a lesson with Christ and Esther! Its been a while since we have seen them because of vacations but we were able to see them again and have a really good lesson with them. He has some questions about the plan of salvation but other than that they are progressing well too. We then had dinner with the Herring family which is always nice. That night is when we got our transfer calls round one haha. 

Monday was good. We had lunch with the bishops family and then we had a lesson with Jessika who we found two weeks ago. She has been sick for a while so we gave her a blessing and talked a bit. After that we just went around and visited some of our friends and members so that Elder Tarouora could say bye to them. That night we had dinner with the Salvador family. They make the best Mexican food I've had here in Canada. We then had another lesson with Mary and Pascal. They are awesome and she will be ready for her baptism. 

Yesterday was interesting. We started off the day with a lesson with Bernadette where she asked more questions about the baptisms for the dead and the apostasy. That was a really good lesson and she learned a lot more because she wasn't holding back her questions anymore. After that we had lunch and went over to the church to help with a Blood Drive. It was pretty good. The time went by fast and we were able to talk to a quite a few people and even showed one of them around the church. There were a lot more people that came that I thought would be. When we were all done, we went and got some dinner and had a lesson in the restaurant with a friend of the member we were with. He accepted a Book of Mormon and we set up another time to go visit him. It was cool.

That's it for this week! I hope you are all doing well and are having fun. If you have any questions about the things I talked about go to the nearest church or ask a friend who is a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and they can explain it to you. I know this church is true and that God blesses us as we follow his commandments! Keep up the good work.

Love y'all!

Elder Beckstrand

The one with a baptismal date

Bonjour à tous! How are y'all doing? This week has been pretty good and it felt like it just flew by. We had some pretty cool things happen this week and I definitely saw the Lords hand in my life and in the life of others this week. I hope you have too. Here is what happened this week. 

Last Wednesday we decided to go over to a part of town we haven't visited yet and pass by some of the people we haven't seen at church. Some of them were not home but we did get to meet this awesome family that let us right in. The best part of visiting members that you don't know is that they know who you are. They have had missionary visits before and were super nice. They are not ready to come back to church but said they would be open to having a Family Home Evening each week with us! As we were talking however, it was clear that they haven't been to church in a while because they didn't know that President Nelson is now the Living Prophet of God on the earth. We helped catch them up on some things. We also did some finding while we were down there and found this dude who is super cool and has a lot of good questions. He has talked to a lot of different people about every religion there is and is looking for the right one to join. We are excited to visit him again. After all that we went to another small town to visit a friend that elder Arnold found forever ago and a member. Our friend was super nice. We accidentally visited right as they were eating dinner but they invited us in and sat us down at the table with a giant t-bone steak! It was soo good because we decided to skip dinner because we were running late but we were blessed for being diligent! She ended up not being super interested in our message but we did have a wonderful talk with her. We then visited the Côté family. They are awesome and live on a very beautiful piece of land out in the countryside of Sherbrooke. 

Thursday not much happened other than the two lessons we had. The first one was with Jean-Michel and two of his friends. It was pretty good. His friends were not super interested in learning more but he seemed to understand it all and wasn't afraid to show his beliefs to his friends. The second lesson we had was with Mary. She is just awesome. Her daughter sat in on the lesson with us but her sons didn't want to yet. We shared the plan of salvation with them and then also talked about baptism. Her daughter wasn't sure if she was ready for it yet but Mary agreed to be baptized! We don't have a date for her yet because they want all the kids there so they have to figure all the things out with their ex's. Mary is Pascal's girlfriend and they are both divorced from their first marriage and both have kids and they have to change things around so they can have the kids on the same weekend for the baptism. They are currently looking at that and finding a date! 

Friday we did a lot of finding and found this awesome lady named Crystal. We introduced ourselves and she invited us right in. We taught her the restoration and she had a couple questions about church and our meetings so we just invited her to come and see and she agreed! She is amazing. She has been here in Canada for 2 years and hasn't been able to find a church to attend yet but she wants to have one. After that we visited a less active lady that we didn't recognize. She was home and when we stopped by she asked us why. We told her that we have just been trying to visit all the members and she was on the list. She then told us that we were actually an answer to her prayers. She had been praying lately because it been hard for her and she humbled herself and told the Lord that she would do what He wants her to do. A couple days later we showed up at her place. It was really cool. We had a really nice discussion and invited her back to church. Later that night we finished with a lesson with one of our friends we haven't seen in a long time. He is a pastor for the Seventh-day Adventists. We have really spiritually good discussions with him but he is not open to change at this time. With him we spent a whole hour just talking about enduring to the end. That could be to the end of a trial or difficulty or to the end of your life but in any case, we have to stay strong and continue to do what we know is to be good. 

Saturday wasn't too exciting either. We had a lesson with Jean-Michel where we read over Alma 34 and talked about how the time that we have been given here on earth is for us to prepare to to return to live with our loving Heavenly Father again one day. Along with that we talked about baptism and how that is the first step and we asked him if that is something he would do and he said yes. We then invited him to be baptized on the 14th of September and again, he said yes! He is doing really good right now but we are going to keep doing what we can to help him prepare for that date! 

Sunday was good. We were hoping to have a lot of people at church but Marie's son got sick and a couple other people didn't show up. We did have Crystal show up. She came and said she really liked it and is planning on coming back next week! Talk about elect! We also had our less active lady come back too. We have been seeing a ton of really cool things happening with less actives here in our ward. After church we went around town with our bishop and handed out flyers for a blood drive our ward is doing next week. It was pretty funny to see that some people still wont listen to us even though we aren't talking about the gospel. We had a couple of other people be more open because of the same reason though haha. 

Yesterday we had a first lesson with this new lady named Adeline. She is super nice. We taught her the restoration and also invited her to church. She is pretty open to hearing the Gospel. After that we passed by a couple more less actives and were able to connect with a few of them more and we figured out a couple of ways to help them more. We also had FHE with the LaRoche family again. They are awesome and it's been fun learning more French sign language and being able to speak with the dad more. We think we have finally convinced them to come back to church ahah, we will see. Sister LaChance said she would make a real effort this week. It will be a great day when they are finally able to come back to church. 

That's about it for this week. I just want to end this by giving y'all the same advice that our high council man gave us Sunday during his talk. His name is Brother Poulin and is from Drummondville. He advised us to put our priorities straight by putting God first, Family second, work third, and everything else after. He promised us that if we do so then we will have more joy and Happiness in our lives. That really applies to all of us especially those who have just started school or are soon going to. Make sure you have your priorities down and follow them. It will help you so much. I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Love y'all!

Elder Beckstrand