Hey there!
This
has been a really long week. I don't know what made it feel so long
but I don't feel like I've emailed you in ages. I think having General
Conference last week kind of threw us off a little because we didn't
have sacrament meeting. Everything in the life of a missionary is so
repetitive and exactly scheduled that when we have a change in something
it just throws off my groove.
We did heaps of tracting this week whilst trying to find more
people to teach. One thing we kept noticing was the number of Burmese
families that we ran in to. They were all extremely nice and interested
in learning more about Jesus Christ. Between the increasing number of
Persian recent converts we have in our mission and the number of Burmese
families that everyone seems to be finding I can't help but say that I
feel like I'm seeing the literal gathering of Israel right before my
eyes. People leaving their home lands to travel to a new country
looking for a better life for themselves or for their families and they
just happen to find the church on their path. I'm going back to the
thought that there is no such thing as coincidence.
I have to tell you about a story. One day two lovely sister
missionaries were deciding on a street to go tract. One said to the
other, "Well it's the middle of the day let's go to Koondoola since
we've been told that it's a pretty dodgy (sketchy) place to be after the
sun goes down." The other agreed and off they headed to Ellerby Way :)
Ellerby way is a nice little street with enough houses to keep you
tracting for about 2 hours. As we went from door to door we met some
rather interesting people that I never thought I would come across. The
first of the lovely people we met was a full on nun. She was clothed
in her nun attire with her cross hanging around her neck. She was sweet
and politely turned us away from her home. As we carried on down the
road we came across two different families that were both of the Greek
Orthodox religion. The first lady wasn't interested but was concerned
for us and both of us a bottle of water. The next man let us share a
scripture with him, thanked us for the message from God and gave each of
us a banana for energy while we went and spread the good word to those
that would listen to us. There was a cute little boy named Levi with
his dad in his front yard. The father didn't acknowledge that we had
even walked up to his house and said hi but cute little Levi ran right
up to us. He shook my hand and said, "I'm Levi!" Sister Kennar put her
hand out for a high five and he looked at it gave her a quizzical look
and then ran off. There are two more houses that are worth mentioning.
One house we walked up to and knocked. A man came to the door,
listened to our little schpeal, and said, "I'm not the house owner" and
went to get his friend. His friend was dressed in a full-length gown
looking thing. It looked like it was made from the same stuff that
flour bags from the Lehi Roller Mills are made of. He was a hard-core
Muslim. He instantly knew who we were, took our copy of the Book of
Mormon and said, "We believe this is true. We believe everything to be
true. We just have a higher knowledge of many other things." You could
smell the stink of whatever he had been smoking. He walked over to his
car and pulled out a Qu'ran. If you read it from the front it was
English on one column and if you read it from the back it was Arabic in
the other column. He has a car full of friends pull up at that moment
and they all started to share things about this book he was giving to
us. We took the book and got away as quickly as we had arrived. As we
walked away Sister Kennar said, "I see how this would be a dodgy area to
come at night." We only had 3 more houses on the street and we didn't
think that much else would come about. We knocked on our last door and
this man opened it and walked out to talk to us. He was this large
Croatian man with a thick accent. (We weren't really sure if he was mad
or if that's just the way they talk. . .) He began by saying, "Why are
you not Catholic? You young and going around telling people to change
their religion. Why? You! (He pointed at me) Your parents were
Catholic!" I cut in and said, "No they are member of our church." (I
pointed at my badge). "No!" he said, "They were Catholic!" I just
decided to bite my tongue. After about 5 mins of him just
talking/yelling at us about Catholicism and how no one should have ever
change from that we walked back to our car trying to figure out exactly
what had just happened. I've never had such a random and exciting day
of tracting in my entire mission so far.
Thank you so much for the new scripture mastery card! I spent an
entire personal study comparing the scriptures from the 2004 version to
the 2012 version. It's amazing how many of the scriptures that I
learned and leaned on growing up through seminary have been taken off. I
find it interesting that my generation had scriptures that talked about
trusting the Lord, getting to know Him, studying His words, not
procrastinating repentance, and even Jeremiah 16:16 talked about God
calling many missionaries. There is no doubt that those scriptures were
for my generation to prepare us for this time. Now Jeremiah is no
longer on the 2012 edition. The year when the age dropped for
missionaries and many many many were called. The new list has a focus
on being fulling converted to God in all we do every minute of every
day. A lot of the scriptures on the new one are also scriptures that we
use every day on the mission field. It's just amazing. There is no
longer time to be a half hearted member. We have a huge responsibility
to share the gospel with as many people as we can. We must raise to the
level that God expects us to be. There are scriptures that are the
same but have different key words. One that stood out to me was Joshua
24:15. My generations said, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve."
The new one says, "Choose to serve God." They aren't messing around
with these scriptures that we need to know. The Savior is going to come
again and we must be ready. Find something to change today and get
closer to the Lord and His gospel than ever before.
Sister Kennar is done being trained. It's been amazing to be a trainer
and to help her know the ropes of missionary work here in the Australia
Perth Mission. I've learned so much about myself, about the gospel, the
atonement, and about this work. My testimony has been strengthened
like never before. We just received transfer calls. I am staying in
Alexander Heights for another transfer. Sister Terry is going to be my
new companion. She is from England. She has about 6 months left on her
mission. I got a call from President on Sunday asking me to be a
Sister Training Leader again. I said yes and am sooo excited! I love
being a Sister Training Leader. I can't wait to see what this week has
in store, and what is going to happen in this next transfer.
On Sunday I got pulled out of Relief Society to go play the
piano for primary. They have their primary program next week and the
pianist child got sick so they didn't have anyone to play the piano. I
didn't do awful but I definitely didn't do well. Ben keep playing the
piano! Practice every day. It's going to be such a blessing when you
get older. I really want to teach myself how to play properly when I
return home.
Last thing. I found a Maori Book of Mormon and have decided
to pull an Other Side of Heaven and read it alongside an English
version. Who knows maybe I'll be able to bare my testimony in Maori
when I get home. Don't hold me to that though. Hahaha
I love you all :)
Sister Beckstrand
Our Qur'an that we respectfully placed in the bin when we got home.
Sister Kennar insisted that we go eat Vietnamese food one day. Yes I ate my entire meal with just chopsticks!
This is my little friend that only comes out at night. We see him every
time we pull in at night. I finally got a picture of him. I don't
think he's poisonous though because he doesn't have red on him. The red
backs are different from the Black Widows. Pretty sure they are more
poisonous.
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