She's HOME!!!

Coming down the escalator with the hosts of
elders that arrived home with her...

Daughter & Mother reunited

Daddy's girl - we're just a bit happy!

Aunt & Niece

A couple of  Mom's siblings, an aunt & uncle

It happened - the youngest brother became taller
than her while she was gone!!

One of her best friends gave her this canvas -
it precisely captures what she learned in the past
eighteen and a half months!

Sunday Aug 13th will be her homecoming address - 

contact Susan for details - 

we'd LOVE to have you there!

Alma 26:5

Pres Hansen & Sister Beckstrand

Sister Beckstrand at the Memphis Temple

Playing with Sis Beckstrand's long hair...

This week was so good. I loved it! On Monday a member took us to explore Downtown Memphis, that was so fun. We had a blast.

Tuesday was my last District meeting, and we all shared spiritual experiences. It was so good. Pretty much every story from the elders was a time they had given a blessing. It is so inspired to send young men new to the priesthood out to teach about it, and to have such amazing opportunities to use that power to help others. It is amazing. Also, I had my last exchange! I went to Walnut Grove with Sister Povey and Sister Anderson stayed in Bartlett with Sister Ellis! STL exchange, a new thing! It was fun, and it rained! I love the rain here!!  So fun. Sister Povey is amazing!

On Thursday we had Missionary Leadership Council in North Little Rock, wow, it was so good. And I just keep having my testimony of President Hansen grown every time I meet with him. He is so close to the Spirit! Everything was amazing.

Miracle
8:45 at night we have to drop off these cookies at our investigators (M's) house. So we run up to the door to drop them off, and she invited us in for a minute. We came in, and met her friend (W) who was over, and W mentioned a text we'd sent out a couple days earlier to M. She said that when we sent it at the perfect time, she has been stressed about things, and it was exactly what she needed to hear at that moment. (Something about Fear not and seeking the kingdom of heaven first, it was good.) So we got to talking and then started spontaneously having the first lesson with her. It was crazy because Sister Anderson had to focus on talking to M so she didn't keep moving the conversation away from where it was going, and hen I focused on talking to W and answering her questions and all the answers were in lesson one! It's so cool, because most of people's questions have to do with the answers that come from lesson one. It was incredible because W asked if we could set a date right then for her two sons to be baptized. And we set a return appointment to come back an officially teach them the lessons. Then we drove home as fast as we could while keeping to the speed limit. That was one of the most amazing lessons I've ever been in, and it was all because we were bringing cookies to our investigator! I love my life!!

To top it off, yesterday our recent converts were finally able to make it to church (they had missed the last three weeks due to being out of town, sick...) and the young man was able to receive the priesthood!!! It was amazing! His family is so beautiful! I love Bartlett!!

A scripture that I found a little bit ago, maybe last week, that I just loved: Alma 26:5, "Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered into the garners, that they are not wasted."

I though it was so beautiful! It connects so well with D&C 4, one of the scriptures I have been quoting my whole mission. This has been a beautiful and wonderful experience. I have learned so much. One of the most important things I've learned is the why of the gospel. The why of everything, and I would not trade it for anything! I love the Gospel! I love the Bible and a Book of Mormon! I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I love it all! And I know it is true.

Love y'all!
Sister Kimberly K. Beckstrand
Sister Beckstrand

Note the change in her signature? I did. She's on her way home!!! She's at the mission home now, and will be flying home tomorrow!

Wahooo!!!

Outgoing missionaries with President Hansen

Sis B & Sis Ellis saying their farewells - Love you!

Love y'all! Goodbye!

Sister B with one of the Mission Mamas,
Pat Baker Christensen from Millington

Outgoing missionaries got to go to the temple today!

We'll get to hug you in a few hours, Kimberly! Lots of love, Mom & family

There are also many other things which Jesus did...

This week was so fun! We were so busy again, but this time we only had one exchange, and then we had so much to do in our area. Wow. First, Hermana Olson came here while Sister Anderson went with Sister Burk to Lakeland. We had so much fun! We were able to teach these two different people we have been in contact with for a while. One of them is a family with fun kids. I love them. The mom had so many thoughts and questions that fit so perfectly in with the restoration. She is so golden!! Plus I love her! And everyone was home that day. That was a good day.

Sisters Anderson, Hansen & Beckstrand

Also, week I saw both President and Sister Hansen three days in a row, Thursday night we had an amazing meeting with them and the stake president, and then Friday Sister Hansen came out teaching with us, and then Saturday President Hansen came and gave a blessing to one of our investigators!! It was crazy. In the meeting with the stake president, President Hansen talked about his vision for the mission, and the Spirit was so strong in the room. We all had chills the whole time. I know that he is called of God, and he is needed at this time. I have never been so sad that this week is my last week until that meeting. I was so excited for all the things that will be happening in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission. And then when Sister Hansen came out with us the next day, she was so excited to go tracting. President Hansen just loves to tract, he talks about it all the time. So, naturally, Sister Hansen is beyond excited to try out tracting. So she was coming out with us to do it. She'd been out with the sisters twice before but had not had the opportunity to knock on a single door because people had been out on the streets. So we were going to get her that experience. And we started walking. We saw one guy outside so we talked to him. At this time, we needed to walk a good distance to go see someone we really wanted to see, but we told Sister Hansen if she sees a door that she feels like we should knock to point it out and we'll go. And then, of course, because I was talking about it I saw a door to knock on. So we went to go knock on it. And as it turns out, the red car that just passed us pulled into the driveway. So we talked to them. They're from Russia! It was fun to talk to hem, and we get to teach them now too! It was whole night with Sister Hansen things like that happened. We never made it to our destination, there were too many people to talk to, and Sister Hansen never got the opportunity to knock on one door. It was pretty funny. And she is amazing, and her greenie fire is the best. Then the next morning President and the APs came to our investigators home, and we talked for a bit, and then gave her a blessing. The Spirit in the room was so powerful. And the timing of our teaching her is just right. I know that the Lord arranged her life just so we could talk to her at his time, usually she'd be working all the time, but because of an injury, she has time to sit at home and learn the gospel before she has to go back to work. She is amazing! I am so excited to see how she will progress!

And Sunday is always amazing. We had several people come to church, but only one of them was an investigator, the rest were less actives and kids of less actives. We had so many miracles this week. One was when we had this less active referred to us, and I didn't even know you could refer less actives, but we got her, and were finally able to go over and meet her. Her life has been getting worse and worse over the last months, and I can tell y'all, the Lord's timing is impeccable because she needed us right then. We were able to get bishop over the next day, and then she got a blessing the day after that, and her kids were able to go to church yesterday. I love her, and I am so grateful we were able to go by when we did. I love how the Lord works. I've definitely missed a ton of miracles in this letter (John 21:25), but Bartlett is amazing. The people are so ready for the gospel in their lives. All these good southern people who love the Lord and are starting to see the holes and searching for the truth. That is why we are here. We had one lady tell us this week that she wants to be a Mormon. Well, your talkin' to the right folks. I love her. This place is the best. I have learned so much, and I have loved it.

Love y'all!

Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

Sallie got baptized!! (She's the 8 yr old daughter of some members we've been working with)

I love these kids!!!

I'm not praying, I was stretching, but Sister Anderson found it hilarious.

This is our weakness, who knew?? 

Mom received a text with all these Memphis pictures (above & below) today: "Hey Sister Beckstrand, this is Carlee Tagge I live in Memphis Tennessee where your daughter is serving. I am a member of the ward your daughter is over. I moved here with my husband and one year old daughter about six months ago from Utah. I got to take your daughter out for the day to downtown Memphis. We went to the pyramid, the Peabody hotel, walked the Mississippi River, then had some delicious pizza. I just wanted to thank you for raising such a great daughter, she is working so hard and is so spiritual. She is so amazing and I am so happy that I have got to know her."

🕺🏼😁😂👋😀👂👋😴 gosh, it's been a week...

Wow, this was a crazy week! It was also really hot, the temperature said it was in the 90's but the heat index was in the 100's, and we were out in it all week! We had a leadership training meeting on Tuesday where we got to know or mission president and his wife better. Man! They are inspired! Wow, I learned so much from them. It was great. And then all that afternoon evening in we walked and just talked to people and met quite a few cool people, and one interested person said we could come back. And then we met some pretty neat people from India on our way back.

Wednesday we had a great miracle of a new investigator. We have had this potential we haven't been able to see in a long time, but we've found people to teach in her neighborhood in the meantime. So as we were driving to go contact some of those people, we dropped her. Then we saw that her car was home, and none of the other people were, so we decided to just try her. And we had a beautiful lesson. We both felt very prompted to teach tithing. So we taught tithing. She totally accepted our challenge for her to pay tithing.  It was really cool, and we immediately un-dropped her.

Then that night we went on exchanges with the Jackson Sisters. I went to Jackson with Sister Tyree. We had so much fun, and again, it was soooooo hot. But, of course, that lead to one of our best miracles that day. We were contacting a bunch of people, and standing out in the hot sun for several hours. So we decided that we should get ourselves some ice cream or something for standing in the heat so long. At first we couldn't find anyplace to go for ice cream, so we decided that we'd pay attention as we drove to the next person we needed to see and go there after we saw them. So as we were driving we saw a snow cone place and we got to go there after we found the referral's house and talked to some people. The guy at the snow cone place is amazing. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, and then we taught him about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He was super nice, and they are totally going to go back and keep teaching him now! It was neat.

Snow cones!!! (Sis Tyree & Sis Beckstrand)

My old home

Then we exchanged back that evening and went straight to bed. Then on Friday we had weekly planning, and then another exchange. This time in Southaven to help our with the ASL, so I went to be in Southaven with Sister Fifield. We had so much fun! We contacted some deaf people, and we had a lesson with one deaf lady, and it was amazing because I totally understood pretty much everything she said I could follow our conversation!!! That was a miracle. It was great. We also had dinner one family's house, the same one as last time, that I found and then they got baptized in December, with the cute little kids. We had so much fun teaching them, the two little girls are preparing for their own baptism now. They gave us some fun art project things they made. That inspired us, so we went home and made our own with nail polish. Sister Fifield made Snoopy and I made a fancy jar. It was fun.

Our art projects!

Then the next day we went to ASL class where we were going to exchange back, and Sister Anderson and Sister Vaitai were a little late getting back to us, so I got to interpret for the deaf member that comes to the class. It was so fun to interpret again! Gosh! I've missed sign language.

Two exchanges this week was super exhausting, but we had so much fun. On Saturday we got to see this amazing less active in our ward. She's the one that we miraculously found a few weeks ago. She love it when we come over, and we have so much fun talking to her. She's so cute!!!

And then yesterday was the best and hard. The best because we got to go to church and take the sacrament. Yesterday was so good. Everything at church was amazing and I felt the spirit so strong. It was hard because nobody came to church, and we were both exhausted by our long week. But we had one really good lesson, and then a really good contact with a guy we found a couple weeks ago.

It was a long week, but we had so much fun with all the people we saw and met and all of our exchanges. We learned a ton, and loved a lot. It was so fun!!

Love y'all!
Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

18 Months!
(ASL "18" on the left)

Mom Post: Pics Sent to Mom

We're down to days! Can't wait...
...but we're not saying a thing to her!

One tender mercy of having a missionary in the states is that every now and then you get a random text from members in your missionary's area with a picture of them. The first time I got one of those was magic!! It was just what I needed then. Now, with only three weeks left in her mission (!) I still love getting them. Here are four I received recently, together with the intro text they came with...

"Beautiful!"

"Zone Conference today (with meet the new ALRM president) 😊"

"We fed the Sisters dinner and I always love getting pictures of my son on his mission, 

and thought I'd send y'all a picture too."

"Zone Conference Meeting  😊"

Happy 4th of July! US 🎇🎆

Hello all! This week was so fun! And so many amazing things happened.

Happy 4th of July! It poured so much rain. It did that Monday too, so I'll send the video from Monday, but the same thing happened the next day. Also, that day we quite an interesting discussion with a couple Jehovah's Witnesses who don't think we know what we believe, so that we super interesting. Wow, I'm so grateful that I can tell the truth by the Holy Spirit (Moroni 10:3-5). It was really strange because halfway through the lesson neither Sister Anderson or I could feel the Spirit anymore, so we were pretty happy to leave. They were both really nice, and I like them, they are just not ready for our message.

All wet! You can see the clouds move! The whole sky is beautiful

On Wednesday we spent a good minute studying for a very confusing instruction the next day. Neither Sister Anderson or I had ever instructed before, so the fact that it turned out ok is all on Heavenly Father, as it should be. But one fun thing that day is that we ran into a guy I had taught back in Millington, so that was exciting! We'll go see him again soon. He's so cool.

Ok, then on Thursday we had a Meet-the-President meeting. We met President and Sister Hansen!!! They are amazing, and I just love them already! I am so grateful I get to spend the next couple weeks with them, they have such fire and so many new insights into missionary work. When he first started talking to us he kept telling stories he had tracted on his mission here thirty something years ago. Then he said that he LOVES tracting. It's fun. And Sister Hansen is also amazing. They had both spent the last six-ish months memorizing our names with our pictures, so they had us pretty well down. It was impressive.

Also, he gave us a blessing, as our mission president with the keys he holds for that. It was incredible. I will be studying my notes from that blessing for a good minute. The whole thing was so inspired.

President and Sister Hansen!
Happy Birthday Sister Hansen! (That was last week sometime)

Ok, then on Friday we went out to see the two that we have been preparing for baptism to teach the last little bit that they had. And then we came back for weekly planning. It always takes too long, but I appreciate all the things we get prepared for it. Also, that evening the two we saw earlier came for their baptismal interviews, and then we played volleyball with them and some members of the ward, and we had three inactive young men that we had invited last Sunday there. It was so fun! I love volleyball, even though I'm terrible at it. Haha.

And then it was Saturday morning. We had to get up early, to get all the things done we needed to that day, and so we set our alarms early so we'd be up in time, the. Went to bed. So when I heard the alarm I jumped up and went to brush my teeth as Sister Anderson went to the bathroom. After I brushed my teeth I came into the room and the light was still off and Sister Anderson was lying in bed. So I turned on the light and asked why she was in bed? Then she turned over and asked what are you doing? Then I glanced at the clock. It was a little after two in the morning, we didn't need to be up until six. That dumb weather radio! It's been going off all week with the crazy storms (that I happen to LOVE). So I was up way too early, and she'd just been going to the bathroom, my own alarm had never gone off. I'd totally jumped the gun, and was still exhausted, so I climbed back in bed, and fell immediately back to sleep. Next thing I knew, it was actually six in the morning, and I didn't like it any better than I did at two, but that's ok. Either way, Saturday was amazing! So the reason we got up at 6 am? Our investigators got baptized!!!!!! They are amazing and it was just beautiful. There was so much support from the ward, we had two youth give the talk, and two members called us asking if someone was bringing refreshments, and we hadn't had a chance to take care of that yet, so they kindly brought some. Bartlett is amazing! They just swept up those kids into their arms and have taken them into the ward family so fully. It has been so fun to see the power of the ward counsel in bringing souls unto Christ. Truly, I've been doing it backwards my whole mission, the ward is the key, we are the support to all that the ward does as they grow their ward family. It was amazing.

Love it! They were so excited!

But that's not it, as soon as the baptism was over, we drove out to West Memphis to have a day exchange. Sister Anderson came back here with Sister McNall and Sister Johnson while I stayed in West Memphis with Sister Chapple. We had so much fun. We literally talked to everyone, and met so many amazing people. There were so many people out and doing random things that we had ample opportunity to talk to people. We didn't have any appointments, so we just drove from point to point literally talking to everyone and heading out so many cards and meeting so many. It was so fun. We turned around a ton to go back and talk to a person we saw, and we took forever to get to the next destination, but it didn't matter, we had nothing set and we were accomplishing our purpose. Also, we got lost or turned around a ton, and we just continued to talk to people as we did that. Every time a missionary gets lost it is for a purpose, the Lord is so completely reg, (?) every time was a blessing for us. It was so much fun! I want to have another day like that. Then we switched back at the end of the day.

Exchanges! Sis Chapple & Sis Beckstrand

And the it was Sunday. Another beautiful day. Our two beautiful people that just got baptized got confirmed (the gift of the Holy Ghost), and they loved it. The ward is so excited to have them. Then in Gospel Principles we had another man who the teacher focused the lesson on, and he was asked at one point what he would do if he found out that the Book of Mormon were true, and he said that he would go all for it, completely, with everything he has. This man is so humble! He's amazing, and I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to be here teaching him the restored gospel. We are so excited to continue teaching him.

It has been a beautiful week. I have truly loved every second, no matter how much stretching happened in the process. I am not done yet. The field is white, already to harvest, and I will thrust in my sickle with all my might (D&C 4). It's the day of the South!

Love y'all!
Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

Haha, love it

All in one day

That's MOSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!