Sister Sophia's Florida Fun: Miracles!

Hey all!

This week has been quite the adventure and tons of miracles have been coming our way!!

Wednesday we had transfers. The STL's that were living with us got transfer so we have new sisters with us now. They are Sister Luissaint (from Boston) and Sister Brown (from Cedar). They are so much fun. I got a package from mum that was way awesome. I love getting stuff from home. They always seem to come right when I need it. We had a lesson with Alex on Wednesday and we invited him to be baptized but he said no :( so we probably won't be meeting with him anymore so that kind of stinks.

Thursday was full of lots of hard work. We have basically lived at Miami Dade North campus recently. It is a way good place to find YSA and we have had tons of lessons there with gators that are super solid. We met with Margarita on campus and invited her to be baptized! We don't have a for sure date yet but we are going to pray about it with her this week when we meet next. She will be baptized sometime in October and we are soo excited to see and help her grow spiritually.

Friday we spent another long 5 hours at MDC. We had lesson after lesson and OYMed in between when we could. We had some not so good lessons but we also had some awesome lessons! We got two new gators named Odly and Sebastian. They are super cool and we are excited to keep teaching them.

Saturday we woke up at 4, met at Miami Lakes chapel at 5, and left at 5:10 to head down to the Keys!! It was a long 3 hour drive but such a pretty and fun drive. Upon arrival at Camp Sawyer we set up camp on the beach. We got to sleep. On. The. Beach. We got our work orders and off we went. We went to someone's house but he wasn't home. His neighbor was though and we got to help him out. All the house in Big Pine Key are just wrecked. We had to clear everything out of his home because they are still out of power and everything is just covered in mold. We put our masks on and didn't take them off for a couple hours as we stayed and helped out a lot of people on his street. We met a lady named Amy. She is from Boston and is living down here cause her husband got transferred down here for work. She has loved it but has been so stressed since Irma. She said we were such a blessing to offer her help. When we serve people we always leave them with a prayer. She asked me to say the prayer as we were leaving and I was more than happy too. She immediately started crying. She came and gave me a hug after and said that she is very catholic but we got her to start questioning the church she is a part of. Huge testimony builder for me. We are different and people can see it. It has been such a blessing to help people whether it's moving logs, shoveling muck, or dragging branches. We have seen how softened their hearts are and have loved every second of it. We ended the night at Camp Sawyer with some rice and chicken for dinner. We played Mafia for a little with all the missionaries before heading to bed. It wasn't the most comfortable but it was the best memory. It was kind of windy so it cooled way down that night which was really nice.

We woke up nice and early and got to watch the sunrise across the ocean. Coolest experience so far. We got ready, packed up camp, then met Mary and another gator Chris at our first work order! Chris is the gator we had lunch with last weekend in the Keys. It was so cool to have them there helping us out. We were done with everything by lunch and were ready to head back but we couldn't find Mary's keys. We instantly felt so bad that we had lost them. After 3 hours of diligent searching and praying, a lock smith showed up. We felt bad that we couldn't find her keys but we got to sit and read the Book of Mormon with her while we were waiting so that was cool. She asked us to just keep reading so that's exactly what we did until her car started up. We left camp at 5pm with a super cool member from higher up north and got back to the Miami Lakes chapel to grab our stuff and our car at 9pm. We got to listen to Piano Guys on the car ride back. The greatest way to end the greatest weekend. We also got a text from Chris on the ride home. He was riding with the other Elders in YSA with us and he asked us if he could go in the temple and if he could get baptized!! We are still trying to get a hold of him so we can start teaching him the actual lessons so we can help him out! We are so excited!

Missionary work is different since we are doing a lot of service. Last week at Zone Conference we talked about being 100% responsible for finding. We have been doing everything we can to do follow that and have seen the miracles that have been coming our way. We are so grateful for what is happening. We did not get to watch conference due to service but we are so excited to read and watch talks when we get the chance. We heard lots of great things. The work is still work and we wake up excited to teach repentance and baptize converts every day. I love it here. I feel all your love and love hearing from you! Keep being awesome and don't forget the words of the living day prophets. Try and find ways to apply what they asked of us into your lives everyday. Also, keep going to the temple!!! Take advantage of it while you can!

All my love,

Sister Beckstrand

Florida Sunshine - The Sunrise!! It is so beautiful here. I brought the conch shell home.