Merry Christmas! 🎁🎄

Wow, what a week! Who knew that missionaries were so popular at Christmas. As Sister Ellis said, "I've probably gotten more presents this year than I normally so back home." Holy cow! We got so much from our families and from members, and even investigators! I'm telling you, it was a shock that we even had stuff to open yesterday morning. But, it was a lot of fun... 

We also had a really great week just teaching people. We got to teach a lady that we have been trying to get in with for a whole transfer, and we had a great lesson with her. She just wants to understand what we have to share, and I'm so excited for her to learn more about the gospel. It's so good. We were also able to finally talk to a couple investigators about our purpose, a talk we have been avoiding for the last one or so. It worked out very well, and they are still willing for us to come over and teach them. It is a huge relief to talk to them about that.

This week the zone had a challenge:

🎄CHALLENGE 🎄

✨Go CHRISTMAS CAROLING to as many people you can this week and when everybody opens the door, State the Quote "The best way to spread Christmas Cheer is singing loud for all to hear" and then Sing your heart out loud✨

🔹Text it out to Zone when you have completed ✅ the challenge!! Adios & Have FUN Y'all! 

We got 21 throughout week. It was a lot of fun. And it was a nice door approach. It was a really fun week.

I have super loved looking at all the Christmas decorations all week, well all season really. I feel like if anyone was trying to judge people's Christmas decorations for their house/yards, they should just have the missionaries do it because were walking around comparing anyway. And we defiantly knock on our favorite doors. We saw some pretty cool stuff. People go all out down here. I love it. 

I also really enjoyed the opportunity to finish reading the Book of Mormon on Christmas Eve. It was really funny when we walked into the Book of Mormon class Wednesday and nobody was there except Brother Lane, the guy who teaches the class, and we were debating whether or not to stay, but I mentioned that I'd been reading Ether a lot lately, and I had been loving it, and hen we spent the next hour talking about mostly Ether and how incredible that book is, and by the end we were starting to branch out to the rest of the Book of Mormon. It was so good. The elders walked on about halfway through. It was a really good hour to learn from each other, and to get the opinion of Brother Lane. He has studied the scriptures a lot, and he has a lot of great insights. One question he posed was why there were so many wars in the Book of Mormon. And having just read about all the wars in Ether, I thought about how is there we can see what Heavenly Father means when His prophets prophecy destruction, we can see the blindness of the people, we can see what got them to that point, how the destruction comes, what it takes to get over everything. It is just a road map of the important things to avoid, and to understand the way that everything works. It was an eye opening experience as we discussed it all. 

I love reading the Book of Mormon, for all of you who know me and know that I can't leave the house with some sort of book in my hands, I'm telling you that the Book of Mormon has been the best book by far. And the Bible is fighting hardcore for that place. Everything in there is so interesting. There is so much light and understanding about life and God and everything that matters in life in those two books it blows my mind every time I contemplate it. I love it! 

Anyway, I love y'all, Merry Christmas, 

🎄Kimber 🎄

Sister Beckstrand

 

I got bored!

🎄❄️💨🎄❤️ Merry Christmas!

Dear family and friends,

I love all your letters, thank you for your support and prayers. This week has been an interesting one. I was in a trio again for half the week, I mentioned that last week, but most of it happened after I emailed. I really like being in a trio. It's so fun when there's more of us. And Sister Wood is so much fun to be around. 

This week was busy, but not. First of all, our phone gave up the ghost. It just died. So we didn't have a phone for several days. Luckily Heavenly Father is in charge, and He knew that would happen, so he provided a way for us to survive, Sister Wood to the rescue with Arlington 2's phone!! So we limped along with the numbers in LDS tools
and whatever was right in area book. So walk week ended on Tuesday, and we got a car!!!  Yay, I love having a car. Especially when it's really starting to get cold out here. On Wednesday we went and did Toys for Tots, and were organizing toys all day. Then that night we had a practice for the Christmas program for the zone conference Thursday. It was fun, and we got to pick up Sister Wood's new companion for the night. It was fun. 

Thursday was the closest thing we get to a holiday here, we had a meeting all day that ended around 4-4:30. We got to hear from President, and others he asked to speak, then we had our Christmas program, and we got to sing Oh, Holy Night, it turned out really well, and the whole thing was just amazing, President said they recorded it to send home, so hopefully you get it soon. Then Elder and Sister Bahesti spoke to us, and it was so good. I loved what Sister Bahesti said about 'o to e' instead of saying 'I've got to do' say 'I get to do' and life is better. Also, Elder Bahesti told all of us to "get over being a sugar cookie." Marine stuff, if you want to get it, ask them I
guess. It was really good. Then we had lunch, and Sister Hugentobler, one of my most favorite people ever, (a senior sister that works in the mission office,) came to this side of the river for this meeting just to say goodbye to me☺️. I just love her!

Then we had a minute to win it game for everyone put together by Sister Wakolo. And we sang the 12 days of Christmas with all the fun things that missionaries could think up to do for it. Hen we had a super great talent show. There was one talent that the zone leaders and STLs put on of an islanders dance, just for president and sister Wakolo, they asked them to do it again, and they went up and danced with them the second time!! It was so fun to watch.

All that took basically the whole day. Then we went home and had dinner. We lost Sister Wood though ☹️, but we got a new phone!!! Heavenly Father is kind.

We did the Toys for Tots thing again on Saturday, and we got to hand out the toys this time to families, I like that part much better. It was so rewarding to be able to give those people presents for their kids.

And Sunday was just fun as always. We had an extra punch to get stuff done yesterday, and we were able to see some people that we haven't been able to see in weeks.

Also, interesting note, I thought that as missionaries that we wouldn't get much presents. I figured that we might get one package dorm home and maybe something else if we're lucky from a member or the mission president, but not likely. But that is so not true. We have so many presents under our tree from all the members in the area that we have gotten close to that I can't believe it! It's crazy, and a pleasant surprise.


Anyway, I love y'all, and hope you have a very merry Christmas, thank you for what you do, but mostly, thank you for who you are! I love you for ever, and I invite y'all to study Mosiah 16 this week, that is when Abinadi prophesied the coming of Christ. It is a beautiful chapter.

Love y'all!
Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

 I asked her about the cold/humidity, and she said, "Our walk week ended on Tuesday, and just in time, it was getting pretty cold, and yesterday morning the temperature dropped. This morning with the wind chill it was 3 degrees outside. Crazy! It's been fun though." Brrrrrr. Our Utah dry cold, with the cutting winds is cold enough for me!

Mary Christmas!🎄 Happy birthday!! 🎉 (for Samuel)

This week was crazy. We ran out of miles for the end of the month, so we took an extra walk day. It was a little tiring. We didn't wander too far, it was unplanned and we had t coordinated too many members for that day. But the next day we had the car again! It was great! We went out to try a less active member that has been MIA for the last couple weeks. I'm pretty sure she's a spy. Then we had an emergency storm drill, so we had to drop all we were doing and go sit in our apartment until they said it was okay to go back out. We also went and helped a member set  her Christmas village. She had so many pieces that it barely fit on this big table that her husband had made for that purpose. It was so fun. It was just a lot of crazy things happening this week, and even he Ward Christmas party. It was so fun. The theme was The Polar Express, and there was a hot chocolate bar. It was so good. Needless to say, I did not eat dinner that night. It was a good week, but not too many things happened. 

Next week, however, is walk week. That's going to be so fun! Especially with how cold it's supposed to get next week. One thing we've enjoyed sharing with people is the #LightTheWorld program that the church has put out. It's super fun, and all y'all who read this should do it. Plus, the little videos they do everyday are so cute! Christmas spirit people! Christmas is coming, woot woot woot!🎄

Love Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

Question - I've been wondering if you bring a change of clothes with you all the time so that you can change for all the service projects you're always doing - many of them wouldn't work in regular missionary attire! Curious!!

Love, Mom

Usually we do. In fact we have a couple bags of service clothes in the car right now. It's useful to have on hand.