March 24, 2014

This week was incredible, and even that's an understatement.
Quick details-

One of my friends from another area is having her farewell next month,
and she's giving me her bike because she doesn't want to take it home-
so I'll have it for when I'm transferred.

We asked the stake president to come with us to one of Rubí's lesson,
and we managed (with the grace of God) to set both her wedding and
baptism date- which we've been trying to do for months. The wedding is
April 11th, and she's getting baptized that Sunday on the 13th. We're
her little wedding planners though, and it's a lot of work! I'm
grateful that I got at least a little experience from Katie's wedding
because she has no idea what to do for anything. I'll send you lots of
pictures though!

I started the Book of Mormon a few days ago, and am halfway done
already. Most of the scriptures are so much more powerful in Spanish,
and it has been an incredibly spiritual experience.

We had a special stake conference on Sunday and Elder Christiansen
came!! The first couple rows were reserved for investigators and their
missionaries so we were on the very first row with Rubí! He knew
Spanish from his mission in Chilé and his talk was super powerful!

I went on exchanges with our new sister trainer this week- she's
great! It was nice having a change from everyday work with the same
opinions.

We've been doing FHE lessons with members almost every night because
of an idea I had when trying to think of ways to get new referrals.
And it's been a huge success! We teach the members a lesson that we
would teach investigators and then ask them who they know that would
like to hear that lesson as well. We got five new investigators this
week!

On a sadder note, the woman I asked y'all to pray for (Gabina) has
stopped her chemo treatment because it wasn't working, and was put on
hospus. We do some kind of service for her everyday we can, and stop
in to see if she needs anything but it's scary that she lives alone.


You're right though, I can see myself changing a lot. This mission is
the best choice I've even made- I'm so blessed that The Lord has
guided my life and my decisions to this point. Thank you so much for
being great parents- that's actually what Elder Christiansen spoke
about. One of the many great points he brought up was that in order
for Joseph Smith to restore the gospel, he had to have faithful
parents that would teach him that if he were to pray and ask God a
question, that God would answer that question. And because of that
simple knowledge, the whole church was restored to the earth after
decades of darkness and confusion. A lot lies on the shoulders of
parents- and I'm so thankful for the grace with which y'all carried
that weight. Te amo mucho y estoy muy agradecido por tu apoyo y fe.


Hermana Beckett

March 10, 2014

¿Qué tal familia?
Wow- sorry to hear that life's kinda stressful for y'all right now!
How's Nan doing? What are your spring break plans? President told us
that we can call on Father's Day instead of Mother's Day if we want,
would you want me to do that? I'm fine with waiting, I think it's more
evenly spaced throughout the year like that. Do you have any pictures
to email me? What's the weather like there? We hit three digits this
week- it's killer! But we had a pretty good week. We were promised in
a zone meeting that for every person we dropped (stop visiting because
they're not progressing), we would be blessed with a new investigator-
so we cleaned and filtered through our area book and dropped a Whole
lot of people who just weren't keeping any of their commitments. And
we've received so many referrals already! I feel like I was
transferred; we're visiting all new people now. It's real good. I'm
also getting really close with all the members of our ward- I somehow
inherited the name "hermanita" (little sister) because Beckett is too
hard to say/remember? The Spanish is going so well, sometimes I forget
gospel words in English! I couldn't remember the word "priesthood" the
other day in an English lesson and it was super embarrassing to have
to ask my Hispanic companion. We speak English one day and Spanish the
next, so that we both get the chance to learn a new language- but I
get the better end of the deal because all of our discussions all day
are in Spanish regardless.

Well have a good week! I love y'all!

Hermana Beckett

March 3, 2014

¡Hola!

Oh boy, this week was so great. I have lots of awesome stories to tell you when I get home! Well- I think when I get back I'm going to sleep for like a week straight. But then we can talk haha. 

On Monday night we celebrated Rubí's birthday, taught a really great lesson about the restoration with a less active family, and had FHE with another. 

On Tuesday, we received a call from the doctor that they found a tumor in one of the ultrasounds my companion took last week. That was really tough news, because we thought for sure that if nothing else- she would at least be sent home for surgery. We got a few good lessons in and then drove the hour to the mission home in Arcadia to break the news to our mission president. We ended up meeting with his wife instead and she just went crazy; she's like a mom to us. But we got another call the next day that it's just a water packet thing that she needs to take vitamin c and folic acid to get rid of? I don't know, but it was a huge relief. 

On Wednesday, we drove back to Arcadia though to get me certified to drive because she's still really lightheaded. That didn't take long, then we contacted referrals and proselyted on Facebook before our dinner appointment. After dinner we got in four full lessons to different families- which was such a blessing! 

On Thursday, we had our last district meeting before transfers- so we took pictures and went out to eat together afterwards. After that we were going to teach one of our investigators but her son was home instead, so we got a new investigator! His name is Juan and he's so eager to learn. Then we watched the Finding Faith in Christ video with another investigator, taught Rubí her daily lesson, and knocked the door of an older entry in the area book. A 13 year old boy (José) answered and his face just lit up! He gave us big hugs (so not allowed) and pulled out his Libro de Mormón and said "I still have it sisters". Apparently he had been taught awhile ago and has been wanting to learn more since then. It's hard to teach the mom and son at the same time because she speaks only Spanish and he speaks only English. Could you imagine not being able to communicate with your own mom?! So Hna Angula would teach and I translated to José. Before we left I invited him to be baptized- he hesitated so I told him he should pray about it and give us an answer next time we come. But I know he will. We had two more lessons after that with less actives- they went way better than normal because we were still radiating with the Spirit that came from the lesson with José. 

On Fridays we have to do weekly planning, which takes a few hours minimum. We pray for our investigator's needs individually and plan what we want to teach them for the next week. But it was perfect because it poured ALL DAY. We were soaking wet for every lesson- which honestly got us a lot of pity points haha. We taught a couple discussions and then went to Héctor and Maryuri's house. Claudia gave us leche y galletas- which is really just hot milk with oogobs of sugar in it and cookies. Our dinner appointment was right after that though, and we were so sick with how much food we had to eat haha. Then we picked up a member for Rubí's lesson.

On Saturday we were supposed to go to the temple with Rubí and Uriel but he never came home- total bummer!  We had our dinner appointment with a lady in her 80s- I showed her family pictures and she talked about how handsome Dad is for ten minutes haha. Then we had a surprise girl's night with a less active woman who has very low self-esteem and usually doesn't go to church because she feels too ugly. We brought the Restoration video and curled her hair and painted her nails while she watched it. She couldn't stop looking in the mirror afterwards haha! We had a correlation with the ward mission leader after that and then waited by our phones for transfer calls! Only one elder in my district is leaving.

Today (because I'm writing this Sunday night) was an amazing day! I didn't get to bear my testimony in sacrament because so many people wanted to, but I did last month so that's fine. Oh ps I'm the pianist at church because no one else can read music- you'd be proud haha. After church we had a ward lunch to break our fast. I ate quickly so I could take a 20 minute nap to get rid of my migraine before our first appointment. We visited one of our investigators and found that she was moving everything from her house to her van- she told us the government is taking her house for lack of payment. She had a baptism date set, but she'll be living out of her car with no address or phone so we can't keep teaching her. That was rough.. my companion cried and cried when we left her house. We had a dinner appointment with a member, lesson with Rubí, and stopped by to set more appointments for the week. Then we got to teach our two new investigators that I told you abut last week- Asalia and Isaías. We talked about how the only thing holding them back is that they both work on Sundays, and we got them to agree to pray about it and ask for Sundays off.

So yeah, that was my week! I don't know if I told you yet but the set date that I'll be home is June 6th! I'm 1/6 done my mission already, how crazy is that?

Well, I love y'all very much! 

Hermana Beckett

February 24, 2014

Mi Querida Familia-

Another great week here in LA! The baptism this Sunday was pushed back
because they had problems getting all her family to fly here for the
wedding- but I'll send you pictures when it happens. This week I
taught Héctor and Maryuri English every night because they're
struggling in school. We also had a seven hour zone conference with
the Presidente which was INCREDIBLE. Very spiritual. And then next day
I went on splits with our sister trainer (the female equivalent of a
zone leader pretty much), and that was a great experience too! It was
awesome to teach with her, I think I learned as much as the people we
taught. We spent a couple days at the hospital because my companion
was really weak and dizzy- they thought she had the flu but it just
turned out to be anemia. Our doctor knew Ariel Davidson though! You
can tell them that she had a lot of respect for Mormons because of
her- and kept talking about this book that she showed her. Anyways,
small world! Yesterday all of the investigators and less active
families we've been working with came to church!!! It was nothing
short of a miracle. Then last night we knocked the door of a really
old contact in our area book- they were so excited to invite us in,
and ran to get their Books of Mormon that they'd be given awhile ago
(there were pages marked and scriptures highlighted). They said they
knew it was true, we invited them to be baptized, and they accepted
without hesitation. Your missionaries shouldn't be TOO jealous, things
like that don't normally happen. I just love telling you about the
miracles we see! The mother of one of our less active families had an
awful week, so please keep them in your prayers this week.  It was incredible
to see the power of the Relief Society in action though. They had her
pantry full of food in hours.

Time has been flying by since I left- I can't believe next week is
transfer week. But to answer your question- no, I'm not going anywhere
anytime soon haha. Presidente told me this is my area, the one he
immediately thought of when my picture came into his database- which
is exciting because I'm just getting to know everyone and street
names. I live on McBride in Los Angeles if you want to look at it on
google maps by the way! Oh and my companion wants you to add her on
FB- it's Hermana Palmyra Angulo. Thanks for the updates and pictures,
I look forward to it all week too. I haven't figured out how I'm going
to send you pictures now because we email off our iPads- but I'll
figure something out! SO excited to skype on Mother's Day though. For
now I settle with having pictures of y'all as my wallpaper. I miss you
but know you're doing well! The Lord will take care of my family as
long as I'm taking care of His. Love you each to the moon and back!

Hermana Beckett

February 17, 2014

Familia Beckett-

Well I'm not allowed to email in any other time, but we got iPads this
week so it will make it so much easier. I'll type you up a nice long
one every Sunday night to send in the morning. The baptism is this
Sunday, the 23rd. Her name is Rubí Silva (soon to be García!)- we're
so excited for the wedding, the baptism, and to go to the temple with
her. The other date is set for March 16th- Elisa Padilla. We were
teaching her and it was going really well but then she hasn't been
home/answered the door once this week. Which is really scary because
she's in her 70's- we're hoping she's okay. The third date is March
30th- María Mendoza. I talked about her in my letter I think, but in
case you didn't get my box yet.. She's the woman that had been praying
for us ever since she saw us in Target and felt the desire to talk to
us. We invited her to be baptized just a couple days ago and were
actually really surprised when she accepted, because it was our first
real lesson with her! We're teaching lots of other people but none who
want to make commitments any time soon unfortunately. We have two
Alma's- one is our neighbor and came to our door asking to be baptized
because she wants to turn her life around. The other tells us every
time we teach her that "Mormons are so beautiful and have this light
about them and I want that light". They're both so ready to accept the
gospel but have major things we need to work with them through first.
Other than that we have two or three inactive families that we work
with on a pretty regular basis- usually service or sharing what we
read about in our personal study to strengthen them. I taught a FHE
lesson to one inactive family this week alone because they speak
English, and God just put the most powerful words in my mouth and they
cried and came to church yesterday for the first time in such a long
time! This work is so rewarding. Alma 29:9-10.

We're finding though that as we see more miracles- the adversary works
even harder to stop us. Lots of trials this week. The men here treat
me with such little respect just because I'm the only white woman. It
was easy to ignore their degrading comments, whistles, winks, and
nasty gestures the first couple weeks- it was almost funny. But slowly
it started to really drag me down, and this week my self esteem was
just in the slumps. I was hoping y'all would have some advice- sorry
if it sounds like I'm complaining. I really do love it here! They just
need to get used to having me around.

Just send me your love. And American food is always nice of course hehe. There's only
Mexican markets in our area. 

Hermana Beckett

February 10, 2014

Hola!

I think we're going to have to talk a lot more in letters from now on, I'm sorry! I have no time after emailing my mission president because he wants them to be really detailed. So just a short summary of the week: it was a little harder than the others- a lot of slammed doors and inappropriate comments and blisters haha. But it was also the most rewarding! We now have three baptism dates set (one of which is next week), we had one investigator at church, eight discussions, four referrals, six with less active/recent converts, two tours of the chapel, and So many service opportunities. It was a huge success and President was really impressed. He also sat in on one of our discussions and said how surprised he was by my Spanish! Definitely gave me the strength to get through this week. Other than that, not much to report- the church is still true, the work is still great, and we still see daily miracles. I love you guys so much. Have a good Valentine's Day!

Hermana Beckett

February 3, 2014

Okay so get this-

I was just reading my emails and one of my friends from the CCM emailed me a picture with his trainer and guess who it was? Kamaehu Matthias. Not even kidding. That's so crazy!

This week in my interview with the President, he told me that as soon as he saw my picture on his desk- the Lord told him that I needed to come to this area. And even though he didn't want to, he said that this is My area and that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. But he promised that he would never leave me here without a companion that's a lot like mine- she grew up in Mexico and has like a sixth sense for danger.

I went to a training conference all day at the mission home the other day, so I got to see Hermana Covington again. She broke her arm already in a bike accident haha. It was sad but a little funny because we always joked about how she would do that.

Me and my companion got food poisoning this week haha it was bad. But we're all better now! I hope you all get better too. Tis the season.

This week we had the opportunity to teach relief society activity, young women's class, and bear our testimonies. Lots of good opportunities to practice Spanish! It's coming along slowly but surely- I just need to be more patient with myself.

We also had an amazing experience with a woman who, when we knocked her door, said she had seen us at Target and had the overwhelming impression that we had something that she needed to hear- but ignored the pressing thought all day. She opened a fortune cookie the next day that said something like "You don't need to search outside for opportunity, it will come to you" she immediately thought of us. She sat on the couch to think, and her door bell rang. Haha you should've seen her face when she opened the door and saw us there! We really do see miracles every day.