Walk Week

This was a beautiful week. The weather was great. Super hot, pretty cool, tons of rain, light drizzle. It was great. We met a lot of great people, and had some really good Spirit led lessons. We have this one man we are teaching who wants to get baptized sooooo bad, but he kept missing appointments so we had a talk with him about that, and it really helped. I love how the Spirit is able to guide us to say exactly what people need to hear to help them come closer to Christ through the restored gospel. It is beautiful. Also, we keep finding more amazing people at his house. I love it! And I had exchanges this week. I went with Sister Zollinger again. And we had fun. The most crazy part was when we came home for dinner, I slipped off the curb and scraped my ankle. But that wasn't the worst part, my sticks (The Holy Bible that I've been marking for the last nine months, and the Book of Mormon) and my iPad fell out of my hands. Now the reason I slipped was because I was standing over a different section of curb than normal. This one had a big hole right where I tried to put my foot. His big hole went into a storm drain sewer thing. My heart stopped as I saw the blue books sliding under the curb. Luckily Heavenly Father is in charge and my iPad landed on its corner against the ground and the tops of the curb, it stayed where it landed, but my poor Bible and Book of Mormon kept going. Then I heard something hit the bottom of the tinned underneath. I quickly squared down to look under the curb, my heart leaped when I saw the Book, but then I realized it was just my Book of Mormon. My bible was the one that fell. It had my beautiful plan of Salvation card in it. My commandments cards. Some things I've been working on memorizing. And all my marked scriptures. We moved the car, and Sister Zollinger pulled out the Book of Mormon (her arms are longer). And Sister Wakolo was on the phone parked in front of us. (Ok, so the STLs live with members, and they are in the Wakolos Ward, and the Sister they live with teaches Jasmine Wakolo piano). We looked around for an idea, and saw a manhole in the ground right over where it fell. Idea!! Let's open it and get my bible back. We couldn't lift it. So we went and asked the Brother they live with for a tool to lift it up. So we got it up and looked down. There was my Bible. In a small stream of water because it had rained in the last two days, oh well, but my plan of Salvation cards were ok, they were in ziplock bags and we could see them on the rock. Then Sister Wakolo came out to see what was happening, and she joined in on figuring out how to get it out. Then the Brother climbed into the hole and got the Bible and passed it up to us. Then we had to figure out how to get him out. He couldn't get back up the ladder on the wall, so we went and grabbed a ladder from his garage, it didn't work, so we grabbed a step ladder and he got out! Then we had to get a hoe to get out the step ladder. It was so fun, and Sister Wakolo was there to join in. And I scared the members' dog because my ankle started to bleed a little from my fall. It was fun, my Bible was completely soaked, but the papers were ok. There was no way to save the Book so I made an art project out of it. I'll just have to start over my marking.

But also this week, the power went out. Some of the traffic lights are still out. Saturday night there was a huge storm and it knocked out our power, and the power at the church. So we had to change where we were meeting, but at least we still got to go take the sacrament. Is was sad though because the man who is super excited about being baptized didn't come because we were in a different building. That was hard, it then we had an amazing lesson last night, so we're not worried.
It was a fun week. We learned a lot. And I want to say that I just adore Sister Brumett. She is amazing and we have so much fun teaching together. I love it!

Love y'all!
Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

My art project!

The people are always golden on the Otter side of the Creek!

Sister Esplin is really good at these titles. 😃 (Asked her how she got a title from Sis Esplin already, and she said, "I just talked to her - we just talked on the phone - and asked her for a title, I've been doing it for all my areas since we got separated. ")

Sis Fifield & Sis Beckstrand

Also, this week has been so fun! Whitewashing is great! This Ward is great! We have a great guy we are teaching that is so excited for his baptism at the end of this month. And we have met so many great people! And we are going to be doing ASL work! We haven't been able to meet with many deaf people outside of church yet, but that'll probably change this week. And we found out yesterday morning that we were starting walk week right after church. So we are car-less. And so far it's been great 😅. At least we found a ride to grocery shopping this morning. So, ya, my area is a little section in SW Little Rock, and we can go outside of our area for ASL work, but we haven't done it yet. My new address is .... It's really nice that the church building is literally a five minute walk from where we live. It's like being back home again. Fun stuff!

And Sister Fifield and I have had a ton of fun already! This transfer is going to be so fun! We've gotten to know each other really well already, it doesn't feel like it's only been a week, it feels like it's been longer. And we are also in sync for our mission timeline! We will be going home together! She's from Kaysville Ut, and she does voice acting for people on YouTube. (Look up 'Bloctor Who' she's Scarlet). She does a lot of fun things. Lots of crafty artsy stuff, it's fun to watch her work! It's great.

Blessing this week:
Yesterday we were sitting in the foyer waiting for the bishop to text us back when I saw the Tithing slip and envelope on the wall, and decided to grab one, I was thinking why am I getting this now? I've got a couple weeks until the first of the month, but I grabbed it anyway and stuck it in my bible. Then last night we were teaching our investigator about Tithing and Sister Fifield started explaining how the slip looked and worked and then I remembered that I had one in my bible! So we were able to have that and to give it to him so he could see it and have one. It was so cool! And I loved to see how the Spirit was able to just make me grab one even though I didn't need it yet. It strengthened my testimony of following the Spirit, even if the lesson would have gone well without it, it made it better that we were able to have one.

It was a great week.

Love y'all!
Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

PS - And no, I'm not in the area of the mission office anymore, so I don't get to go there unless it's a big meeting or something. But one of the office couples goes to this ward so I get to see them on Sunday, it's fun. 

The following pictures appear to be from Sister Beckstrand's previous area, Mountain View:

The best people in the world!

Hiking! In our service project!

 

Driving in the car!

My district!

Tender Mercies

It just gets busier and busier every week! For Halloween we went to a members house and I got to hold a little puppy for two hours as we handed out (pass-along?) cards to all the trick or treaters. It was so fun, and it kept me really warm 😊.

On Tuesday we had another district meeting, but they told us where it was this time. We double checked. We had a lot of good meeting that day. We had two lessons in particular that were really great. We talked to one guy who is really fun to talk to, and we read the Book of Mormon with him, and he said that he would try even harder to read because we talked more about what it talks about and he got a little more interested. Then the other lesson was also our dinner appointment, and we got a lot covered. This guy actually came to church Sunday to fast for a date he would be baptized! Hopefully after more thought he'll know what revelations he received at that time.

Wednesday felt less busy, but we had a really good day. We had a great missionary correlation mtg, and that was really helpful. And we met a lot of people, so things accomplished! We also contacted a referral! It was a pure miracle how we found him. The address we got had a good road, but the house number did not exist, so we decided to knock on a random door that had a number near it and ask for the guy we were looking for, and it turned out it was him! That was a tender mercy. He's a really funny guy. I'm excited to go back and teach him.  And I finally got to meet one of the most incredible investigators here that Sister Ellis has been really excited about but has been sick a lot lately, so it took four weeks to get back in with her, but she is totally awesome.

Thursday was a crazy day. Planning for that day was super rough. And then as we were trying to contact the people we planed for the next day they all cancelled. All of them. Our day fell apart before it even began. We were still in companionship study and all of our plans had fallen through. So we decided to scratch all our plans for the day and go to Covington, a town we don't get to very often because it's so far away. We had several miracles happen after that. We went and saw a lady that we found a week before and she was walking up just as we pulled in, so we got to have a lesson with her right there. It was really good. Then we tried some others, had good run-ins, and then went to contact a referral that had never been contacted from way back in May, and when we gave her the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon and told her about it she was super excited to read it and asked for our number so she could call us and set up an appointment. It was really cool. She also totally drove up as we were knocking on her door and we're just about to leave. Tender mercies! Then we went to an appointment with someone who had a baptismal date. Lately we had been thinking that we needed to talk to him without his wife there so we could get what he was feeling and thinking and we were thinking he wasn't saying much because she was super excited about it all. We had no idea how to facilitate that but we had been praying about it. Then we show up for our appointment, and he said that she was at the hospital with her dad (he'd had a surgery recently and it had gone over surprisingly well). So she wasn't there, but we asked if we could just talk to him outside right then. We had an amazing lesson with him. We got to talk about things and what he is feeling. He really opened up about things. We got to know where he is coming from more and just had an open conversation. He said that he still wasn't sure about his baptism, but that he just needed more time to pray about it all. It
was so cool. That day was full of miracles. All because we had had to re-plan the whole day, God knows how to get done what he needs to have happen.

On Friday you'd figure we would've learned to plan better after Thursday, but the same thing happened where everything feel apart as we were solidifying the day, so we had to re-plan the day, and then that day also miraculously turned out. After weekly planning we went and did service for a member, and her less active husband. He hasn't been open to missionaries in the past, but our service with him has really been softening his heat, and he super appreciates it, especially since they've been sick lately. We barely fit everything we needed to do that day, but it all worked out for the best. So many miracles that day too.

Saturday was really fun. We went way out in the country to see some investigators and we had a great time visiting with them and having a little lessons and being able to do some service with them too. They have a million animals. No joke. It's pretty much a farm. And we got to hold some kittens! It was really fun. That's mostly what happened that day. Except we did have an accidental less active lesson because we went to the wrong member's house, but it turned out great, and we have a dinner this week that we wouldn't have otherwise. It was fun. And finally Sunday... Well, we had a wonderful sacrament meeting. Church was as amazing as always. I just love going to church. We only had one investigator at church this week, but he is one that hasn't been here for a while, and it was really fun to sit with him and his family. We had a great lesson with the investigator that I finally met this week, and we were able to formally invite them to dinner with a member family that volunteered to have dinner in their home with an investigator. So we are really expected about that this week. 

 

Also, Sunday was such a funny experience when we went home to study. Sister Ellis took out one of the fruity tootsie rolls, and I asked her what flavor it was because with yellow you can never tell. We went through all the yellow flavors, and we came up with pineapple, lemon, pina colada, banana, and I was thinking really hard of other yellow flavors when I though of something that is yellow and yelled it out before I thought of what it was. CORNBREAD!! That's what I said. We laughed so hard I was sobbing. It was way too funny. 

 

Oh, it was a funny week. Just so fun. I love it. Also, something incredible that one of my district leaders once showed me, and I'm not sure if I've shared it with y'all yet. It's I. The Book of Mormon, a wonderful connection that means so much more when you understand the stories behind it. It's in 1 Nephi 1:20, "...But behold I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all the those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance." That is how the Book of Mormon starts, and then in Moroni 10:3, "Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall receive these things, if it be wisdom in God that he should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been u to the children of men..." That's how the book ends. Start to finish it is full of the tender mercies of the Lord.

 

I love his gospel. I know win all my heart it is true. He Book of Mormon is the word of God, as is the Holy Bible. They testify of the love our Heavenly Father has for us. It is a beautiful gospel that changes lives. I know it, and I love it.

Love Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

 

(This longest ever letter from my missionary with a testimony like that at the end...exactly what a mother wants to read!!! Cry, cry...

A Pomelo

 

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