Family!!! Monday's are my P-days :)
I made it to Spokane!!! The plane ride was awesome! Take off at the SLC airport was unreal. It was so crazy to actually be going! I sat in a single seat in the plane because we were riding 1st class. I didn't mind too much. It was definitely a tender mercy of the Lord that whomever signed us up for that new flight had the right connections so that we didn't have to pay for our luggage up here. Such a simple blessing but it didn't go unnoticed that's for sure.
When we arrived at the Spokane airport we found our carryons and then headed to the baggage claim area. There were 35 missionaries on our flight. 7 of us are visa waiters. They call us waiters too. One of the other Australian sister just happens to be Sister Jennie Ellsworth from Olympus High School :) She was the closest person sitting next to me on the plane too! I found her! haha Anyway we finally got down the last ramp and saw President Mullen and his wife. They were so happy and excited to see all of us! Their happiness was soo contagious! I couldn't have been happier to be here with all of the missionaries. There is definitely something amazing for me here. We loaded up all of our luggage into a trailer and headed off!
The first thing we did was go "fear busting". We met up with missionaries from the area at the local institute and paired off. Once we had our companion for the day we got it cars and went to different neighborhoods and just started tracting! It was soo cool! My companion for the fear busting was Sister Edmond. She is actually a Temple Square Sister who is doing her our reach mission here in Spokane. The Temple Square sisters all get to serve part of their missions somewhere else in the states for a while. Kinda cool. Then after about an hour of tracting door to door we headed to the Stake Center.
We all met at the stake center because the mission home isn't big enough to house 35 missionaries. The coolest thing about this state center? It shares a parking lot with the Temple!!!! You literally walk out of the stake center and the only thing you see is the Temple. It is the smallest temple I have ever seen but it is a temple non the less! We will hopefully be able to go do a session when it opens back up at the end of the month. We had lunch there at the stake center and then went into training. Most of the training just do's and don't of missionary work. Our white handbooks are our best friends. The MTC called them our Personal Liohona's :) President Mullen was pulling us out one at a time for interviews while his Assistants did most of the training. For the 7 of us visa waiters they didn't have a ton for us to do. A lot of the time training was filling out the Spokane missionaries paper work and whatnot.
Cool random story! While I was at the MTC I had to go to a meeting for the new Coordinating Sisters to figure out what we were supposed to do for the new missionaries coming in that week. Well while I was in that meeting I met another Sister who ended up coming to dinner with Elder Plocher, Elder Edwards and I. When we sat down to eat I looked at her tag. Her name is Sister O'very. I asked her, "Do you happen to be related to Megan O'very?" She replied, "I am Megan O'very." I freaked out. I asked her if she swam and she said yes. I asked if she was a breaststroker for BYU and she said yes! I about died. I told her that I was the captain for Pine Views swim team for the last two years and that we've swam against each other for years and never actually met! We both just busted out in swimming lingo and talking and my Elder's were soo confused. She said she did remember seeing my name on heat sheets and things. It was soo sweet! Well low and behold she is serving in the Washington Spokane Mission! Crazy right? It was soo so neat. Anyway so I got to hang out and talk with her a bunch while we were here the first day.
After training we had dinner, got to chat with the President and his wife at our table and then had and awesome testimony with every new missionary. We all circled up and just took our turn bearing a quick 2 minute testimony. It was amazing to hear the strength of all of the missionaries in that room. One thing that hit me was that one of the Elders bore his testimony in Spanish because that is what he had been learning at the MTC. I understood everything that he said. The spirit definitely testifies of truth no matter what language or where it is shared. It was a neat experience that I won't forget. Then after all of the testimonies were shared we had dessert and waited for our rides to show up.
We spent that first night at members homes. Random members of that ward had just opened up their homes to house missionaries for the night! How nice is that?! I got to stay at Sister Peck's house with the 3 sisters waiting for visa's to Taiwan (Mandarin speaking) Sisters Chen, Tsoi, and Ting. I think they'll do fine there :) I asked Sister Peck if she had any family in Lehi but she said all of her husbands family live in Idaho. I still thought it was pretty neat that she was a Peck haha.
The next morning we met back at the stake center for more training. As soon as I walked in the door the first person I saw was Sister Sue Earl. She instantly started crying and gave me the biggest hug ever! She had no idea I was coming. She had heard my name as they were announcing the new missionaries that morning but couldn't believe that it would really be me. It was a fun reunion and nice to see a familiar face. We (the new missionaries) went into a training with Sister Mullen while the Trainers went into a training with President Mullen. Sister Mullen basically just explained how she is our mom for now and if we need anything that we can come to her. We also talked about unity as a mission, God's will, and how we need to protect each other.
We then merged into the gym where our trainers were and we lined up in front of everyone until they told us who our companions were. My companion is awesome! Her name is Sister Dickerman. She is from Palm Springs California. We got to talk a little about Palm Springs and all that. It was fun. She is a competitive rower. She rows crew out in the ocean. She also did MMA. She is the girliest non girly girl I've met. She loves the color pink and Hello Kitty. She's been a great trainer. She is brilliant. She is a triple major and has no idea what she's going to settle on when she gets home. She is exactly half way through her mission. She is a 'Jane of all traits' and amazes me. She says she learns a lot from me which kinda makes me feel a lot better about how I'm doing.
Washington is totally awesome! I'm in a little town called Cheney. It is on the eastern side right by Eastern Washington University. They call it the Promised Land because we cover an awesome little YSA ward and people are moving in and out all the time. New people, some super prepared and ready. It's going to be awesome! Yesterday totally made me miss my YSA though. Such a fun group of people no matter where you go. The Bishop is Bishop Tait. He is a convert to the church. He wasn't converted until about 3 years after he was married. He is an incredible man and really cares about the missionary work in the ward. About half of the ward is less active so we have a lot of work to to do get them all back but it's going to be awesome. The work was pretty slow this week because it was spring break so they all went home but it will definitely pick up this week. We basically went through ever area book and cleaned everything out. It feels like we have done nothing but plan. Our first 3 nights we had and hour and a half of planning and then Thursday we had two hours for just planning the next week. It's been mentally exhausting but it is definitely good stuff to learn and just absorb as we go.
 |
| The YELLOW part is the Mission boundaries. |
We live right by the train tracts! We hear the train pass by all the time and it totally reminds me of Lehi every time! I absolutely LOVE it!!! I kind of get excited every time and Sister Dickerman just laughs at me. Between the train and the amount of trees here I can't stop gawking at everything.
The biggest problem we face with people here is smoking. You know you've had a good day when you come home smelling like smoke. It's kind of fun. The other day we were teaching a lady named Laurie. She is an other lady from the home ward that the Elders can't teach so we go and help where they can't and they take the men in the YSA that we can't visit for a number of different reasons. It ceases to amaze me how big of a blessing it is to have the Priesthood with us no matter where we are. I absolutely love it. Anyway we had taught Laurie the Word of Wisdom and then the next time we forgot something and when walked out of that lesson said, "What just happened?" and the next comment was something like, "We just saw a mini miracle". The Lord definitely knows exactly what people need to hear.
I also did my first church tour. It was the neatest experience. I invited Amanda to be baptized at the end and she said she would once she knows it's true! We meet with her on Wednesday :) This work is soo awesome! I love every bit of it. The gospel is true. I'm soo blessed to be out here in Spokane and on a mission. It is so remarkable. I'm grateful for all of the letters and love from the support team back home. Everyone is amazing!
Love you all soo much!
Sister Beckstrand :)
p.s. I need Lily's address and John Utley's email. If you can get me those that would be wonderful! Thank you!
p.p.s. Read Elder Hollands talk "None were with Him" from the 2009 April Conference. It changed my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment