The one with many moves and Chris

Bonjour à tous! How are y'all doing? I hope that you have all had a wonderful week and have just been serving all those around you and being good people. The world today can be such a crazy place and needs so many people who are willing to be nice and help others. I have been blessed to be surrounded by nice people here who are always willing to help and bless others. This week here has been awesome. There were a lot of amazing things that happened. Let me tell you a few of them. 

Our friend Chris has been progressing so well lately. We had church this week so he was able to come and see what it was like. He really enjoyed it and wants to come back. He even participated in the Elders Quorum lesson and stayed for our Linger Longer. All the members came over and introduced themselves to him and were so excited to see someone new at church. We had a lesson with him last Saturday and it started off kinda scary. He had taken a few notes down from his own personal study of the Book of Mormon and told us of his concerns and of the things that he didn't quite believe in. We went over every point with him and just testified of all of it and reexplained it to him and it finally made sense for him. He thanked us for the reminder of the things that he already knew but was doubting. We had a really good lesson with him after that and talked about baptism and the importance of that. We asked him if he would like to and he said yes but not now because he sees the importance and wants to make sure that he is ready to make that covenant. We will hopefully have a date for him tomorrow however. He is amazing. 

Our other friends are doing pretty good too but we did lose one or two of them this week so we are focused on trying to find more people teach at the moment. We have been doing a lot of service recently too which has been really helpful in meeting more people. We have moved so much wood and helped about 4 people move and helping at the food bank and clothing bank. It has been really fun.  We have met so many cool people and have made so many friends here already. 

This next week we have interviews with our president and Zone Conference too so that will be really fun so I'll let y'all know how that goes! Keep up the awesome work and find someone to help out this week. Pass around the positivity and be like Christ! I love y'all! 

Elder Beckstrand

Cuts from working that I didn't even notice until the next day.

The one that canceled church again

Bonjour à tous! How is everyone doing? I hope y'all are doing well and are having fun. This week has been pretty good but not much has been going on special. If you want a good read from a missionary, go read my cousin George's email for this week! I'm so grateful to be serving a mission at the same time as three of my cousins. They are awesome and are doing great things and will have amazing times on their missions. Anyway, here are a few cool things that happened this week.

We had p-day on Wednesday so that kinda cut this last week short but last Thursday we had an amazing lesson with Chris. We also have been working a ton with members because we know how important they are and how much they can help us with the work so we brought brother MaKenzie with us and it was great! We kinda did a review of everything we had taught him up to that point and then talked about church and baptism. We had it all worked out and planned that he would come to church and we would show him around just before the meetings and all that on Sunday, but fast forward to that morning and we woke up to about half a foot of snow with it still coming down and received about 10 texts telling us that church was cancelled again so we hurried and called Chris to let him know. We were both really sad because we really wanted him to come to church and he was really excited to come but oh well. He said he is looking forward to next Sunday so he can come to church. He is such an awesome man and loves the gospel with his whole heart. The brother that came with us told us it felt like he was already a member because of what he already believes and does. Its been great working with him. 

Because of all the snow we have gotten lately we have been doing quite a bit of shoveling as well and doing service around the community and it has been great to be able to meet people through that. People here are so nice and treat us so well. We have also been doing a lot of the normal things of missionary life and been trying our best to find as many of our brother and sisters and trying to help them discover the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. One day as we were walking around we were looking around and found a little Italian market in town and so we went in because Elder Constant speaks Italian so we thought we could find someone there that spoke Italian as well. One of the guys there did but then we found out they are all from Sherbrooke! My last area! We spoke french with them and they are such a cool little family and were super nice. We got some fresh spaghetti from them for dinner and it was super good.

Not much else has been going on. Sorry for the short email but I promise next week will be longer. We should have some fun things planned this next week. I hope you all have such a great week and keep working hard and have fun! I love y'all so much and never forget, The book is blue and the Church is true!!. 

Love Elder Beckstrand

The one with transfers!

Bonjour à tous! I hope you all had a great week! This week for us was super eventful and has been great. Winter has officially set in here in canada. We have had a few good snow falls and had a few days in the negatives. Nothing crazy yet but it's starting. Nova Scotia is generally a warmer area than Quebec is so this winter so far had been warmer than last but we still have 4 more months so we will see how it goes. We also got transfer calls but I know that if I put that in right here most of y'all will stop reading this letter right about here so I'll save that for later and sneak it in somewhere else. Here is a quick update on what happened this week.

To start off, I want to talk about our friend Chris that was a member referral a couple Sundays ago. We have been able to meet with him twice this week. He is super smart and knows so much about a lot of different things. The first lesson we had with him, we invited him to read 3rd Nephi chapter 11 and the restoration booklet that we left with him so when we went back this week, we asked him what he had read and he read from chapter 11 all the way to 18 and the booklet. It was awesome. We were not expecting that so we went over all of it and he really did understand it and we talked more about the book of mormon and he already has such a strong testimony of it. He knows that it is true because there is no way in his mind that anybody could write a book like that especially with the education and the time he had to do it. He also believes all the teaching he has found within the Book so that has been incredible. He had quite a few questions for us and we were able to answer a few but then had to leave so we gave him the plan of salvation booklet and a few more chapters to read and the next time we came he had read all of it and had taken notes and had questions prepared. He was so relieved to know that there is a church out there that really believes in the same things he had believed his entire life. He had some questions on the atonement of Jesus Christ and so we had a very deep and meaningful conversation on what that was and what it truly meant to each and every one of us and how it really cleans us of our sins as we repent and turn to Christ. He said he has always had questions about that but at the end of our visit he thanked us for everything we have done so far because we answered questions that he has had for a lifetime and have never been answered. He said that he loves our visits because he learns when we come by and teach him which was such a great complement and super nice to hear. Elder Constant and I have had a focus on praying to be guided by the spirit of God in everything we do and say that we can do what needs to be done and we could feel that in the lessons with Chris. We didn't teach him anything. We just presented the message to him and the spirit of God testified of its truthfulness to him. It was awesome to see that happen. Before we left his place he asked us about baptism. He wondered how one gets baptised into our church and what that means for us a members so we explained it to him and asked him if that would be something he would like to do one day and he said yes. He is planning on coming to church this week and he is just great and progressing greatly. It's been fun to work with him. 

Other than that we had a great couple lessons with some of the other people we are teaching and played some volleyball with a few less active and non-members. We also got quite a bit of service done this week which is nice. I love having a truck because then we can help out with service that we couldn't do otherwise and we did find out that they will be selling my truck and we will get a rogue or rav 4 or something like that so that kinda sucks but oh well. We have also been doing quite a bit of deep cleaning this week because of transfer and the mission office told us to take some time out of each day to deep clean each apartment so that it is clean for the new people moving into each area. We got it all done and found out that we will both be staying another transfer! This is the beginning of my 4th transfer here and my 3rd transfer with Elder Constant. That's the longest i've been with any of my companions and now tied for the longest time in an area so that's fun ahah. I'm excited to stay another transfer here and be able to continue the work here. 

That's about it from me here in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. I'm so grateful for this opportunity that I have to be one of God's missionaries and to be here on a mission. There is no place I would rather be, even if it were on a surfboard out at sea, lingering in the ocean blue. But, If I had one wish come true, I'd serve till the sun sets beyond the horizon. 

Love you all and I hope y'all have a great week! 

Elder Beckstrand 

District lunch with amazing banana splits. I ate a full by myself and everyone else split the two others.

Picture outside goes left to right:

Elders Albertson, me, Thacker, Constant, Hsu, Sousa, and Sisters Watson and Rhodes.

The one with snow and service

Bonjour à tous! I hope you are all doing well and had a great week. This week has gone by really fast. We finally got some snow up here and it has stayed. Here is a quick update on my week. 

We had district council in Halifax last Wednesday and then we came back home to Bridgewater and helped a recent convert move out of her office and into her house which took up most of the day. 

Throughout most of the week we were just going around trying to visit referrals that we had gotten. We got two from the St. George Visitors Center that ended up being the same person but that's fine. We tried visiting him a couple times and then he ended up not even being interested but we did what we could. We had a lesson with one of another referral named Chris. He is super nice and knows a ton about the gospel and is super smart. He read the brochure on the Restoration and and some of the Book of Mormon. We talked a lot and he had a lot of questions that we helped answer and he really likes some of the doctrine we teach but still questions some of the other ones. It's been good. 

We also had a lesson with our friend James. He is also progressing pretty well. He has been reading in the Book of Mormon and we have been finding a lot of things in common. He has been trying to get back in touch with his first nations values and traditions and he has been finding our religion very close to what he believes so that has been awesome. We are really working hard with him because he is so nice and wants to learn so much. We have a really good relation with him right now too so that helps. We talked a little about the plan of salvation with him the last time we were over there and he agrees with a lot of it. After our lesson we had with him we were supposed to meet up with a couple of other people that day but they had to run to the hospital and were not able to meet with us we are going to try again this week. The work here has been going pretty well here and has been progressing which really nice because this area was kinda considered a slow or dead area before but there is still good people here that have a lot of potential. 

Sunday we woke up to a giant snow storm so I was super excited and we got ready for church and went early to shovel the sidewalks and get things ready for church and as the time got closer and closer to 10 am, there was no one there. Apparently, church got cancelled and no one thought to call the missionaries. It was all good. We had some other things we did instead. We also grabbed our shovels and went around helping different ward members. I absolutely love service. Every single person we went to go help we were able to visit with them and even talk to a few people not of our religion. It was super cool. Service is the Key to people's hearts. Everyone should get out there and do some random acts of service this week and see how you feel after you do that because not only will the person you helped feel good and loved, you will feel better too and closer to God. I can promise you that. I love service! Other than that, not much else has happened. I hope you are doing well and are able to get out and do some service and have fun this week. 

I love yall!

Elder Beckstrand

 This was his Christmas present!  It's one of those things that covers your windshield so you don't have to scrape it!  Look how great it worked!!!

The one on New Years Eve

Bonjour a tous. How is everyone doing this amazing New years eve! I hope you all have some fun plans and are gonna stay safe tonight. This week here in Bridgewater went by really quickly. Here is basically what happened.

Last Tuesday we had Christmas eve with the Dorey family. The father is a chef so the food was amazing and we ate so much food. It was so good. They also gave us gifts which were ties and slippers and a screwdriver. My favorite was the screwdriver and let me specify why haha. Over my mission with all the service I have done, I have just slowly been collecting and growing my tool bag. I have a pretty good bag right now but one tool I have never been able to get and I almost went to go buy is a square screwdriver. We don't really use the squares in the states but in Canada they are everywhere and I haven't been able to do anything with those...until now! I was so excited haha. 

Christmas day we woke up and opened our gifts and then went and called our families which is always great. It was so good to see the whole family and be able to skype my cousins who are also on their missions. It was really neat and definitely a once in a lifetime experience. After that we went to our first dinner of the night and it was very good as well. It was with the older couple I first lived with when elder lee and I first got into this area. They had invited a few other people over as well. There was so much good food and it was hard not to try all of it and then get full. After that we drove back up to Bridgewater and had our second dinner of the night with our ward mission leader and his family. It was just as good as the first two dinners but by that time I was not hungry anymore but somehow managed to finish my plate and almost all of my desert. God works in mysterious ways. That was basically all of our Christmas here. It was nice and calm compared to Christmas last year. If you didn't hear or read about that you can find it on the blog somewhere haha. HERE

The rest of the week was fun as well. We spent some time going around and giving out little boxes of food and treat to those we knew would be in need at that time. It was super cool. We left a big box at our neighbors door and he came over later to see if it was supposed to be our and we said no but that he was lucky to be getting that and he just smiled and walked back home. It was fun. We also went around and visited some less active member in our ward and handed out our Christmas cards and tried to get to know some more people. 

One really cool thing that did happen this week was that we got a referral from a member this Sunday so we dropped everything and went to visit him. His name is Chris and he is super cool! He is super smart and has had a ton of interesting things happen to him throughout his life. We stayed there for about an hour and a half and learned that he already knows quite a bit about the gospel and is very religious. It was such a great referral and we will enjoy teaching him! It was a good example and experience, that shows the importance of being obedient to all the rules. There is one rule that says to contact referrals within 24 hours and we did it and were blessed because of it! It was awesome. 

Anyway that was about it for this week. We did drive down to Halifax yesterday to clean out one of the old apartment because I have the truck and a trailer so I get to take care of all that. It was fun and we are still in Halifax today for a district activity to go bowling and be with the other missionaries. I'm excited. Either way, I love y'all and I hope y'all have a great week and stay safe!

Love Elder Beckstrand 

Us with Elder Sousa and Thacker

 Sousa, Thacker, Constant, me, Hsu, Sister Watson and Rhodes, Elder Albertson up front

 Tv are just for the 70s music videos

 The pins are extra skinny.

 No holes!

 I accidentally made this dent in the pillar with the ball.

 This is a picture that Josh sent when I told him of a fellow student that passed away this week from a car accident earlier this month.  He was on the football team and Josh sent this message...Sending my love and prayers from Canada #CB4L

The one on Christmas Eve

Bonjour à tous! How is everyone doing? I hope everyone is having a great Christmas eve today and have a good Christmas tomorrow. 

We have had a pretty good week here. We didn't have anything super special happen this week other than we did have two district councils because of christmas. Both of them were really good because we had a focus on christmas and Christ. Since it is Christmas eve today and not much happened this week I thought I would make this email a little different than the others and talk about the life of Christ!

Christmas is literally my favorite time of the year and favorite Holiday for many reasons. Lets start off by reading a few scriptures though.

In Luke chapter 2 we read, 1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all athe world should be btaxed. 2 (And this ataxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called aBethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) 5 To be taxed with Mary his aespoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her afirstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the binn. 8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the aglory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you agood tidings of great bjoy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is aborn this day in the city of David a bSaviour, which is Christ the cLord. 12 And this shall be a asign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 aGlory to God in the highest, and on earth bpeace, good will toward men.

And in Matthew chapter 2 we read: 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found  him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. 9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 11¶ And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and afrankincense, and myrrh.

I love these two passages of the Child's birth. His birth was probably the greatest event to ever happen on earth and the shepherds and the wise men knew that. WIthout the birth of Christ, He could have never performed the atonement and died for our sins. Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and was exactly obedient to his Father's will and fulfilled his mission here on earth by sacrificing himself for us. That was the second greatest thing to ever happen because without that, we could not repent and be forgiven of our sins and return to live with God and our families again one day. It says that the shepherds came with haste after learning of His birth and the wise men searched diligently for Him as well because they knew of his greatness and everything he would accomplish. They all worshiped him and thanked God for His gift he had given us. God gave us the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, and Jesus gave us the gift of the atonement. Both great gifts that show us their never ending love for each and every one of us! I am so eternally grateful for those gifts they gave us and during this Christmas season, I always try to emulate the spirit of the wise men and try giving a gift back to God and Jesus. We all give gifts to our family members but we should never forget our Father in Heaven and our elder Brother Jesus Christ. That might seem like a weird thing because we cant really give them physical things but we can do other things to show them we love them and are grateful for what they have given us. Like what it says in Mosiah 2:17 ...When you are in the service of your fellow being, you are only in the service of your God. I love being on a mission because I get to serve my God every day 24/7 by serving my fellow being here in Eastern Canada. It has been so much fun and I have learned so much and become so much closer to my Father in Heaven and my elder brother Jesus Christ. I want to challenge each and every one of you reading this (yes you) to think of a gift you can give to your God and saviour this Christmas season. It can be so many things. Serving a family member, helping a friend, improving something personal, doing something to get closer to Them, or really anything. I know that we will grow closer to God by giving him a gift and serving others and He will bless us for our efforts.

I love you all so much and hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and have fun with whatever you are doing. Keep being awesome and remember the reason for the season and if you haven't seen the new video, The Christ Child, then go watch it!

Love ya,

Elder Beckstrand

Crescent Beach

 Food Bank

Elder and Sister Joanne Newsome. She used to work with my parents.

 A members house.

 Bridgewater in 1958