🕺🏼😁😂👋😀👂👋😴 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)

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!

A MOUNTAIN VIEW of Zion

Ok, I can't take credit for that, (the title?) it was Sister Esplin, but I figured it would work for this weeks email. First off, I'm feeling so much better, thank you for all your prayers. Second, I LOVE MOUNTAIN VIEW!!!!! This place is amazing, and while I am desperately missing Millington, this place is great. We have three people that have baptismal dates, and two of them are for next week. They even came to stake conference yesterday. We got a new stake presidency here, so there were two members of the Seventy here, and they got to meet them! Even President and Sister Wakolo got to meet them. It was really neat. The other guy who has a date didn't have a car and the meeting was two hours away, and we had a hard enough time finding a ride there that I don't feel too bad that he wasn't able to come. Anyway, he'll be at church next week. I still have yet to meet this guy, but I've heard a lot about him from Sister Lloyd, and he seems pretty cool. His wife is a member that we've taken to a lesson this week. One of the few members I've met! Stake conference kind of messed that up, I still don't know anybody (except for the people that gave us rides, and the second counselor and his family because they fed us this week at the church, and then I briefly met the branch president at the gas station.) Did y'all catch that? Branch president. Yes, I'm in a branch. And I still don't even know how tiny it is because we have not had normal Sunday yet! I'm not bitter, it's just rough because we already have exchanges this week, and it's most likely going to be members with the new STL (sister-training-leaders). Oh, well, the members I've met so far are really nice. Plus, this area is HUGE, so yay for cars! And this week,,,

This went through our minds. But wait...

This is what we woke up to on Friday. What?!? I wasn't supposed to get snow my whole time here!! And it was freezing!!! Cold wet (humid?) is soooo much colder than dry wet. Utah is a breeze compared to this. My feet about fell off several times this week.

Sister Beckstrand & Sister Lloyd (who is from Livermore CA)

We had fun though.

That's my hobo look after freezing outside and sitting in front of the space heater. It was so cold, (maybe not as cold as Alaska). Anyway, it was fun this week. Lots of busy stuff, and walking in the freezing cold, talking to people on their front porch for forty minutes while my feet turn into blocks of frozen flesh, this is the life of a missionary. I love it 😍.

Love y'all!
Kimber
Sister Beckstrand

So we had a back and forth discussion by email for a few minutes...

M-Happy ONE YEAR MARK on Friday! [I got her mailing address in case anyone wants to send her a note for that! Or you might want to email her a note. Just ask.]

K- Oh, yeah! I forget about that, every day is just the same and busy as every 😋

M- Is the sister pointing to you Sister Lloyd? Where is she from? 

I knew snow would be colder in the humidity there. Stay warm, and enjoy those baptisms!!

Love,Mom

K- Yes, that's Sister Lloyd. She's from California.

M- 13 million citizens of CA, and it's huge - can you be more specific? Your dad is from Cali!

K- Ok, I'll ask...Livermore

M- That's sort of close to San Jose, Dad dated girls from there, ha ha.

K- Haha, she's mentioned it before as a place near her

M- Love you tons. Have a great week, and think of Annie going through the temple this Thursday!

Heading home from work now.

Love,

Mom

K- Ok, that's super exciting! Tell the boys I love them. And all the cousins too :)