Expect the unexpected‏

Hey everyone! 

This week went by in a blink of an eye and yet I feel like the things that happened on Tuesday actually happened last week.  My concept of time has become very skewed as a missionary.  If I didn't wear a watch and have a planner that has the date (d/m/y) and times for all hours of the day to write where I need to be I would be totally lost.  On the other hand my since of direction has been increased by the fact that we use a road map everyday.   Highlights from this week include: setting a baptismal date with an investigator, finding new investigators, and meetings that have strengthened my testimony in many ways.

First off on Tuesday we went to visit Sarah and Mariam.  They are a mum and daughter that were baptized back in March.  They are from Sudan.  The older brother, dad and younger brother were not baptized so as we visit their home we try to include everyone.  The dad is always at work or sleeping and the other brother is just barely warming up to us but little 9 year old Eddy is always there.  We have adapted our teaching for them by teaching a principle and then teaching them a primary song that goes along with it to help them remember what we taught.  This week we taught the 1st half of the Plan of Salvation and sang, "Families can be together forever."  We invited Eddy to be baptized so he can be with his family forever and he said yes.  We have him on date for the 21st of December.  What a great Christmas present right?

On Monday we were tracting and met this lady named Elicia.  We shared a scripture with her and asked if we could come back and share more.  She was hesitant but said yes.  We went back on Thursday and she had 2 friends over.  We sat at her dining table with all three of them and got into a good conversation.  We introduced ourselves and gave them a little background about missionary work.  We just established our purpose and then her friend Jo started to ask us some questions.  She started with, "Do you believe in God?" "Do you believe that Christ is the Son of God?" "Do you believe that Christ died for our sins and that through Him we can be clean of the wrong we do and can make it to live with God again?" To each we answered, "Yes!"  After her minor interrogation she seemed to loosen up and then let us have our little turn to ask questions and expound on what we believe.  They asked heaps of questions to which we had an answer for from the Bible.  We worked through the entire Plan of Salvation with them.  We finally had to tell them that we had to leave.  We told them to write down any questions that they have and we will come back to answer them or they could call us.  I handed each of them a pass along card with our number on it.  I didn't realize that the card had a picture of the Book of Mormon on  it.  Well Nina noticed it and quickly asked what the Book of Mormon is.  We gave simple answer and told them that they can have a copy and read about it from the introduction and testimonies if they'd like before we see them again.  They almost wouldn't let us out the door because they wanted their questions answered.  We left them hungry :)  It was cool to see people actually hungry for what we have to share.  Elicia was raised Christian but kinda just accepted it on her own as she got older.  Jo always knew there was a God but didn't know who Christ was until she was in her last 20s, and Nina used to be a Buddhist who has converted to Christianity.  It was soo cool to talk to each of them.  We asked when we could come back and Elicia said that they would figure out a day when they could all meet back at her house and they would let us know.  Less than 30 mins later we had a text saying, "Next Thursday at 10:30am!  We can all meet then.  Does that work with you girls?"  Of course that worked with us.  I can't wait to go talk to them again this week. 

At our Missionary Leadership Council this last week we talked about the difference from coming to church to worship and coming to church to attend.  What does it mean to you to worship?  We had words like praise, give thanks, remember, and serve.  Attending church is nothing more than sitting on a hard chair for 3 hours.  Coming to worship at church is what we should be inviting people to do.  We go to church to remember the Saviors sacrifice for us by focusing on and partaking of the sacrament, to renew our baptismal covenants, and to uplift, inspire, and support the other saints in our ward.  We worship at church.   I don't know if that makes as big of an impact to your heart and mind as it did to mine but I know my invitations to people to come to church with us have a lot more power and conviction then they did before.  We had dinner with a less-active family named the Lizayas on Saturday.  We spoke to the 20 year old son after dinner and applied this sense of worship verse attending church and he came to church yesterday.  Not only did he come but he felt peace and said that he found answers to the questions of his heart and soul.  That is why we go to church!  My favorite thing is to read the sacrament hymns while the sacrament is being passed.  I've done that for as long as I can remember and it just helps keep my mind on the reason that I go to church.  Hymns are amazing.  The lyrics are so much deeper than I ever thought they are.  Look up the scriptures that are associated with the hymn.  You can have a good study on the sacrifice that the Lord made for you when you do things like that.  I encourage all of you reading this to make Sabbath worship more meaningful to you.  Whether that be you need to start or you need to just up your spirituality of each meeting you attend.  It will make the world of difference.  I promise you it will. 

I love you all!  I love hearing from you.  I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving!  Write me and tell me all the things that you are grateful for, including your testimony.  :) 

Much love,

Sister Shayne

P.S  I get to Skype home in one month from today!  Would it be better for me to call on Christmas here which would in turn be like 9am Christmas eve there?  Or On your Christmas day at like 11am?  That would be like 8pm Christmas day here.  I think.  You may want to check that hour math for me.  President has asked that we stick to the white hand book of mission rules the best we can and keep calls somewhere between 30-40mins.  Shorter than last time but I think it will be just as great  :) Let me know what you think.  I vote the latter but it's whatever is most convenient. 

Faith Proceeds the Miracle‏

Hey everyone! 

 

Well this was a week definitely well needed.  At District Meeting on Tuesday our District Leader Elder Holyoak gave the most inspired meeting that I have been in on my entire mission.  The work has been really slow in our area.  It's been really hard to stay motivated.  For the first 15 minutes of his training all he talked about was hope.  I just sat in awe at how that was exactly what I needed to hear.  I said a simple prayer of thanks to God for hearing all of my prayers of need for help to soften my heart and help us find the people here that need the gospel.  I wish I could just type out everything that he told us but I don't have the time or memory.  We talked about the hope that the Plan of Salvation brings into our lives.   I left that meeting full of fire to go do the work.  My planner cover currently says, " Everything is going to be okay in the end.  If it's not okay it's not the end."  That has been a big strength this week as well. 

The next day I did a massive study on faith.  It's amazing how everything goes back to faith.  Faith is to believe in something that you can't see but know is true.  I have been trying to increase my faith a lot lately.  In the Gospel of Jesus Christ it all starts with faith.  I can't repent unless I believe that it will help, that it will change, and that things will continue to get better.  Faith is the key.  

 

On Friday we taught a lesson to Jayanthi and Morgan.  They are a couple we are teaching.  They are from India.  Jayanthi is Hindi and Morgan her husband is Christian.  We instilled the hope of the Plan of Salvation into their home.  Jayanthi the whole time was just smiling ear to ear.  She understood completely.  She so badly wants to see her family again.  I haven't felt the Spirit so strong in a lesson in a long time.  Last time we met with them we mentioned baptism and Jayanthi said, "Oh I can tell you right now that I won't be baptized."  At the end of the lesson on Friday she said, "What do I need to do to repent so I can have that (the celestial kingdom)?"  We told her that she needs to keep the commandments.  She asked what those were and we went through some but not all of them.  We are going to teach more this upcoming Friday.  We mentioned how baptism was one of those commandments and she took it a lot better.  It was amazing to see the change within her from just feeling the Spirit and giving her that hope.  We also talked about church and invited them to come.  They couldn't come this week but were super pumped to come next week.  I sure hope they progress here soon.  It will be amazing to be a part of.  We pray for them constantly.  

 

My scripture of the week comes from Romans chapter 12 verses 12 and 21.  They are great.

  12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

  21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

Yesterday we were kind of in a slump after church so Sister Terry and I just went out and got to work.  We tried to figure out what we could do to help boost our excitement and drive.  Sister Terry said that bearing her testimony would help her.  We tried about 6 doors (3 closed as fast as they opened) and we weren't feeling much better.  I said, "I just want to find one person that wants to talk about Jesus Christ!"  We started walking and I walked straight up to the next house and knocked.  This girl came to the door and after saying hi I said, "We are just looking for anyone who wants to talk about Jesus Christ."  (I was pretty sick of trying to just ease my way into a conversation.) Come to find out her name is Gloria.  She has been church hopping for about the last year and really is looking for a church with a good group of people her own age.  She is 29 so we told her all about YSA.  She was totally keen!  She is bringing a friend to church next week.  I asked if we could come back and she said yes Friday at 5.  I wrote it down and Sister Terry asked if she wanted us to shoot her a text on Thursday to remind her.  She said, "Oh no worries. I won't forget." It was a miracle.  We left the house and I was just in awe.  I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father knows just how far we will go to find these people.  They don't just fall in our laps.  I have a greater testimony on enduring to the end after this week.  

 

We had a ward party on Saturday.  It was awesome!  We had heaps of less actives and investigators from the Elders show up.  It was so much fun.  My camera isn't reading on this computer so I can't send pictures this week but I will upload them next week and show you all the fun.  We had face painting by the young women, line dancers came to teach us how to line dance.  It took me back to all of the dances that I used to go to.  We were able to dance with the members and have some innocent fun.  I had a lot of members come up and tell us how nice it was to see us join in.  It was a good way to show the ward that we wanted to be involved.  We mingled with everyone during dinner and were also able to judge the apple pie baking competition.  That was great!  They did pretty good.  Little Jordan Crooks baked a pie because I told him that he should give it a try when we had dinner with them last week.  He is like 9 and my best friend.  

 

Well Happy Thanksgiving to all!  It will be weird not celebrating it with all the Shelton's but I am definitely sending my love and thinking about you!  We will hopefully have dinner with the only American in the ward that day so we will see if she can throw some kind of little Aussie Thanksgiving.  Even though it's not a holiday here our lesson in Relief Society on Sunday was still focused on gratitude.  There were some quotes that I really liked.  She taught about living a spiritually abundant life and how blessed we are to even know how to have that.  She said, "In our quest for a spiritually abundant life we will find our destiny." "Your spirituality can be measured by the depth of your gratitude."  I encourage you all to write the things that you are grateful for this Thursday.  Not only the temporal things that bring us happiness but also the spiritual blessings that enrich our lives.  I know I have heaps to be grateful for!  I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful holiday! 

 

Much love!

Sister Beckstrand

More Holiness Give Me‏

Hey everyone! 

I don't have a whole lot to report this week.  It's been a pretty challenging week in Alexander Heights.  Sister Terry and I are studying faith and just working our hardest in this area.  We have been trying to really help our sister in our Zone with their work in progressing their friends towards baptism.  Well we have seen success!  The Midland Sisters had a baptism this last Saturday and the Ellenbrook and Wembley Sister both set baptismal dates with investigators that they are working with.  We've been really excited with the progress of the work here in WA.  The only  thing that is getting us down is that we are supposed to be setting the example with our area and we are trailing behind.  It's been a hard, frustrating week.  We also got less kilometers this month which basically means our car is for exchanges and p-days only.  We are back on the bikes in the wonderfully awful heat and humidity of Western Australia.  I finally have gotten some sun though so that is a plus.  I bought sunscreen and bug spray to keep the mosquitoes and flies away.  I don't know if I mentioned this last week but the fly is the state bird of WA.  They are EVERYWHERE!!! They are slow and fat too so when you swing at them you actually hit them.  I killed on the other day while we were trying to plan our activities for the next day.  Sister Terry drew a picture of it :) 

 

 

We, Sister Terry and I, have been really monitoring the music we listen to lately.  We have been listening to heaps of church hymns and its amazing what kind of difference it makes when you go from listening to good songs by good church artists and when you listen to the lyrics of the hymns we sing at church.  The song More Holiness Give Me has given me a lot of strength this week.  As we've tracted from door to door we've heard words I never thought I'd hear, met people that we less than rude, and just simply been shut down by the slam of the door.  It's been hard.  Missionary work is work!  I always know it's hard but we were definitely being tried and tested this week.  After about 45 mins of no one being interested I had this song come to my head so I started to sing as we walked to the next set of houses.  "More purity give me, more strength to o'ercome." "More faith in my Savior, more sense of His care." "More joy in His service, more purpose in prayer."  Those lines just continued to be played through my mind.  I've been grateful for the spirit that these songs bring.  It's just another way that I know Heavenly Father is watching out for me and cares for me.  Even though I need to learn something through the struggles we are facing I still know that He is there.  He always will be.  I know it!  I just know it.  Yesterday our primary had their primary program.  They were wonderful.  The songs they sang were word for word from the littlest sunbeam to the oldest valiant child.  They were beautiful.  They taught the entire gospel in the most simple and perfect way.  There wasn't a dry eye in the room.  When Bishop Holder got up he was in tears.  I couldn't help but think about Ben and David singing up there with their awesome knowledge of the gospel and having dad stand up after and bear his testimony of the strength of the future generation.  This gospel is remarkable.  I love it.  I loved when they sang,  "I want to be the BEST I can and live with God again."  Just like every ward I've ever been in in my life the word best was emphasized.  The gospel is the same all around the world.  This is the only true church on the face of the earth.  I love being able to share it with everyone I meet.  I love you all!

Much love,

Sister Shayne

p.s.  You can't see the Big dipper here. We have the Southern Cross which I found out is the start formation on the Australian flag.  They aren't just randomly placed there.  I'm a slow learner when it comes to some things. 

These pictures are Sister Terry fixing her bike before we went out for the day.

 The awesome sunshine that I got :)

Hope you enjoy.  Sorry this was a pretty lame letter this week.  I'll make the most of this next week and have a better letter next week :)

This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ‏

This was been one spooky spiritual week.  We had two exchanges with Sisters in our Zone, Zone Conference, and Halloween.

To start I'll tell you a little about my assignment as a Sister Training Leader.  We get the privilege of going on 24 hour exchanges with the Sisters in our zone.  We have 3 other Sister Companionships in our zone that we get to work with and help train.  We were able to do exchanges with the Midland Sisters and the Ellenbrook Sisters.  I was with Sister Billy one day.  She is from Micronesia from the island of Chuuk where they speak Chuukese.  Then another day I spent with Sister Suzuki from Tokyo Japan.  It was remarkable to help these Sisters with language study in the mornings.  I was humbled by the sincerity of their prayers as they prayed for the gift of tongues to be able to make a difference in one persons life that day.  I thought long and hard about my life before my mission.  I thought about how easily I could have shared the gospel with anyone struggling but I kept my mouth shut sometimes.  I've learned a lot from these girls.  Sister Billy's native language doesn't translate in the Book of Mormon completely.  So in their country they only have a partial Book of Mormon.  She is currently working on reading the entire Book of Mormon through for the first time in her life.  Not because she hasn't but because she has never had the full copy.  She is doing it in another language none the less!  I was floored.   I asked how she knew it was true when she was converted and she said, "It's like tasting a cake I had a little bit and I knew it was good.  Then I prayed and asked God and He told me it was true." How simple, beautiful and profound.  I am just continually amazed at the blessing it is to have the gospel reaching so many parts of the world.  I love being here and having the opportunity to associate with these people.

 

 

 As Sister Training leaders we also get to be a part of a Missionary Leadership Council that consists of all Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, the Assistants to the President, and President Lindsay himself.  This group meets once a month to review goals, set new goals, talk about training, practice teaching, and work to build the unity and power within our mission.  For the next couple of months our exchanges are specifically to help the Sisters progress their investigators to baptism by making the focus of everything always on Jesus Christ.  Why would the focus ever be on anything else?  We have really been fed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our mission this week.  At Zone Conference that was what the whole thing was on.  It's changed my life.  Everything and anything can be mended, healed, cleansed, and repaired through Jesus Christ.  With that knowledge we have to have faith in it.  Faith itself can be studied and restudied and you will continue to learn.  Faith leads to action.  That action is repentance.  Repentance always gets a bad rap.  That is the best gift that the Savior gave us.  He died so that we can repent!  That's the whole purpose behind the atonement!  It's remarkable the power the process of repentance has on our lives.  I use the simple process every day.  Many times a day actually.  I feel so close to my Savior.  I couldn't do this without Him.  Your companion (as incredible as mine currently is) can only help so much.  It all comes back to the Lord.  We take the sacrament to renew those baptismal covenants we made to always remember Him, take His name upon us, and stand as a witness of Him at times.   When we get squared away with God the spirit helps us.  A comforter, a guide, a mentor, a helper, a teacher and a friend.  That's what everyone in this world needs right now.  If we find that Spirit in our lives everything will start to pick up. Enjoy the journey.  Endure to the end sounds hard and can be intimidating.  Just enjoy the power of the atonement, the gift of repentance, and the love of the Savior. In 3 Nephi 11:41  The Lord says that the gospel will be preached to all ends of the earth.  When President Hinckley came to Perth to dedicate the Perth Temple he said, "Perth Perth, the end of the Earth."  He's right.  This is the farthest major city from Salt Lake City in the world.  The gospel as made it this far and the work that is happening here is incredible! 

 

I sat at Zone Conference on Halloween and thought to myself, "I can't believe that I got my call one year ago."  Time flies by.  The work is moving and it isn't going to stop.  Open your mouth and be a part of it.  At the end of Zone Conference we had a testimony meeting among the missionaries.  It is incredible to hear the strength and growth in the missionaries testimonies.  Elders who are nearing the tail end of their missions bore testimonies about how the knowledge they've received has changed their lives.  I was in tears.  This gospel changes lives for the better.  I love it!  Elder Boynton said, "I've been doing this all wrong for so long.  In 2 Nephi 2:25 it says, 'Adam fell that men. . . might have joy.'  If we don't end our day with more positives then negatives than we are going about life the wrong way."  How true that is!  I challenge you all to think back on your day at night and strive to have your positives outweigh your negatives.  It will bless your life in a really simple and easy way. 

Halloween here was pretty good.  It's nothing like home but they definitely gave it their best shot.  The primary's 1st counselor is from Seattle Washington so she put together a ward party for the little kids there were different stations of carnival games that we got to be a part of.  I'll send through some good pictures.  Instead of having people do Trunk or Treat however they had us line up in class rooms down the hall of the church and the kids came and did trick or treating to our classroom.  It was fun.  You can't really do trunk or treat here because they call the trunk a boot and treats, lollies.  Therefore, Boot or Lollie just doesn't have the same ring to it.  Hahaha!  We went over and visit the Pearsons because they know how to do Halloween.  I went as Sister Jekyll and Sister Terry went as Sister Hyde.  It was the quickest and easiest thing we could do with the time we had.  They thought it was clever. 

You're costumes were incredible this year!  Mom I laughed so hard when I saw the Duck Dynasty picture that my eyes teared up.  The missionaries around me didn't understand why I thought that picture was so funny.  Sophie of course pulled off the cute cowgirl costume perfectly.  Josh I think wins this year for the coolest costume.  I definitely approve!  It was pretty sweet.  Ben's make-up totally completed his costume!  he made a great zombie.  And I didn't know David had muscles like that!  I hope no body messed with him that night.  I laughed really hard when I saw all of the Wells family costumes as well.  I'm always amazed at how creative everyone is and how much we love this holiday.  I hope Thanksgiving brings just as much joy for you all!  The pictures of Ben and David's football games were great!   Looks like Ben will be a great quarterback in the future and David, just like we all thought from the time he was super little, will be a great defender.  I love you all.  I can't believe how tall Ben is getting.  Josh will definitely be taller than me when I get home.  It's so weird but really cool at the same time.  I hope and pray all is well with you all!  Have a great week!

Much love, Sister Beckstrand

Taco and burrito dinner!!!!

 

 Sister Terry doing the fishing for lollies

 

                                                                                    Elders helping with the bean bag toss
 

 Me and Sister Suzuki

Our Halloween costumes :)

 

This is my district, minus our zone leaders.  We set APM history this week by finding 44 new investigators this last week!  That is the new record of investigators found in a district in one week!  No worries we are just making history over here :)

Left to right:  Elder Richards, Elder Holyoak (District leader), Sister Bailey, Sister Suzuki, Sister Terry, Elder Faitua, and Elder Hall.