My wonderful companion is so kind and is sharing her weekly summary
with my friends and family!  I've been trying to plan a bowling party
with the zone for one of the sisters birthday so I haven't had much
time today.  But dear Sister Passey is here to save the day!  I love
her.  I will just add a few things and second what she has said.
We had 4 dinner appointments this past week which is crazy!  It so
great.  We ask members if we can come over to set up family mission
plans with them and they offer to feed us.  It's pretty great :)
We also found a "frozen ocean"!  I've never seen anything like that
before.  I loved it!  We were doing some look ups in Mastic, drove
around the corner and BAM! There was the ocean. Sometimes I forget I
am living on an island.  I have always wanted to see what the beach
would look like when it was snowing, this is the next best thing.
Oh. ASL class was amazing!  I learned so much in such a short amount
of time.  By the end I could start to pick up a little bit on to what
people were saying and learned many new signs. I look forward to
learning more.
But like Sister Passey said, this week has been awesome and we have
seen many tender mercies.  The Lord is taking good care of his
children here in Southshore, we just need to help them realize it.
Has anyone had any amazing experiences with family history classes or
enrichment activities?  We are looking for some good ideas...
I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!
Sister Beecher


>
> Hello all you lovely humans!
> This week has been awesome!!! On Monday we went to dinner with a less
> active member, and she really needs to experience the church on the
> east coast. Because it is the same gospel, but very different kinds of
> people. And it would be very good for her. But it was very kind of her
> to take us out to dinner and it was some of the most wonderful Italian
> food I ever had. :-)
> On Wednesday, one of the families invited us over for dinner and help
> them set up a family mission plan. They made amazing food and really
> seem to have some desire to do missionary work. One of the things we
> work on with families is getting to the temple. And when we talked
> about that, the teenage daughter, said "well I need to go to the
> temple!" Apparently She's been trying to get there for a long time,
> but something always comes up the day of. And so we are pretty excited
> to help her get to the temple. Actually, that reminds me, one of my
> favorite parts about this Ward is that we get to work with the youth a
> TON! :) I love getting to be in young women's and being with these
> girls that really have these great standards because they have to. But
> they are each so good and so strong. :) But also in thinking about
> that, the youth leaders asked us to help brainstorm some good youth
> activities to help bring some unity to the youth and also to the Ward,
> so if anyone has any fantastic ideas, please send them my way. :)
> Thursday is always a nice day because we get to meet with 2 of our
> investigators. :) So Nicole is still progressing like a champ. She is
> flying through the Book of Mormon and has such a desire to do what is
> right and follow Jesus Christ. She's fantastic and she has the best
> stories. The other that we meet with are a family and Rose is the mom
> and she is so funny, but has a good heart. She actually read this week
> and then this Sunday before church she called us wanting to double
> check what time church was this week! She wasn't able to come because
> we got a good 5 inches of snow, but she's planning on it next week.
> And it sounds like her son, who said he is 'not interested' but always
> shows up and stays for the lesson and participates at least as much as
> his sister, would like to come too. So it's great! :)
> On Friday, we had an incredible opportunity to hear from Elder David F
> Evans and Elder Stephen Allen of the missionary department in giving
> us training for 'Becoming a Disciple in the Digital Age' and it was
> just wonderful. That's part of why we are taking a break from
> facebook, but  it was really wonderful because the point of this is
> not just to help and change missionary work here, but also to help us
> to better handle technology at home and make sure it is a tool and we
> are not slaves to it. :)
> And Saturday was just crazy. We started the studies but then got a
> call that we needed to help clean the church. But when we got there it
> had all almost been done! So then we had correlation and we had ASL
> class. It was awesome!!!!! I have missed using ASL SO much!!! And it
> was fantastic! We had a really great turnout too. So it's been decided
> that we'll do that every other Saturday and it'll be great. :)  So
> then we had an appointment with  family for dinner so we went to that
> and set up a family mission plan with them and then we had planned to
> set up a family mission plan with our Ward mission leader right after.
> So we headed over there and set up the plan with them, which was fun
> because they were beyond excited and wanted to do so many things. We
> helped them to set some achievable goals, but then they sat us down
> for dinner! That was a surprise... And it was all very good, but at
> the end of that night, Sister Beecher and I were about to explode! :)
> Two things that keep coming up in my studies this week are humility
> and discipleship. And really, they're super connected because you
> can't truly be a disciple without humility. And true discipleship
> fosters humility. As we humble ourselves and 'becometh as a child' we
> can be more devoted disciples of Christ.
> Well, I love you all dearly and hope you're having a fantabulous week!!!
> Sister Passey

Time is flying...

I feel like February just started, holy cow!  This week was really
great.  I got to go to the temple last Thursday because it's my 6
month mark.  Yay!  It was wonderful and just what I needed.  The
temple is a place that can help any situation make sense and give you
a clear head to think.  It is amazing that God has allowed us to have
a place where we can help so many people, while being taught and
guided in so many ways for our own lives.
The crazy part is when I was leaving the temple.  I walked out and
heard "Sister Beecher?" and then I was enveloped in a large embrace.
It was Heather Childs!  One of my college friends who is here in
Brooklyn trying to get a job, was there at the temple!!  We sat there
hugging and crying for a minute, snapped a few photos and then it was
time to head back to the island.  But it was so wonderful to see my
sweet friend Heather!  Someday I hope to serve in Brooklyn, Heather
goes to appointments with the Sister missionaries all the time.  But
if not, that was a tender mercy to see her that day.

We got to skype Emma this week.  Which was really exciting because she
has been really busy with work.  We have only skyped a few times since
her baptism in December.  Emma is amazing though.  She has such a
strong testimony and should be getting her temple recommend soon!  She
is so excited to go do baptisms and is already counting down the days
until she can get her endowments.  We talked with her about building
her spiritual fortress and ways we can better "endure to the end".  We
used a really cool visual aid my brother Brad sent me for Christmas.
It goes along with some scriptures in Alma.   It was perfect and Emma
really liked the visual even though it was over Skype.  She is amazing
and continues to teach me new things about the Gospel every time I
talk to her.

Other news... Our "test" time for our iPads is over.  We are now in
the "training period".  Aka we return the iPads we have and they give
us new ones with more software and restrictions. I didn't plan on
coming home with an iPad.  In the beginning, I didn't even know I was
going to a mission that used iPads.  But I think it is amazing how the
church is teaching this rising generation how to correctly use the
Internet and technology.  They are teaching us to get in the habit of
using it for missionary work then sending us home with the tools we
need.  The world and technology is about to be hit by a powerful
spiritual force, get ready for it!  It's crazy!

As far as South Shore goes, we are still trying to work our hardest
and meet as many people as we can.  We have met the majority of the
active people in the ward and are currently working on setting up
family mission plans with them.  (They set goals for missionary work
as a family.)  I know that Pres. Calderwood was very inspired when he
started up these family mission plans.  They should help our
missionary work move along so much better.  The members will now be
working together to get referrals for them to teach WITH us.  It's
genius!  We have yet to find any Deaf people, but our fingers are
crossed.  There will be an ASL class taught by the missionaries
starting up in March.  Hopefully we can find some people that way!

This Gospel is amazing and I have seen the difference it makes in
people's lives.  I'm so grateful for the knowledge I have of my Savior
Jesus Christ and sacrifices he has made and continues to make for me
daily.  I pray that we all strive to make repentance a daily thing and
continue to change for the better.

Have a great week everyone!
Love you all!
Sister Beecher

Me and Heather Childs outside the temple

This week was really long, but it was great!

Women's conference
We had her sisters conference this past week. It was awesome! All of
the sisters from the mission got together at the Mission home and went
to a bunch of different workshops together. It was all based off of
Elder Klebingats talk from conference.  President Calderwood talked
about being spiritually self reliant.  I think we sometimes forget to
build ourselves up spiritually just as much as we do temporally.  Our
spirits can be much older and wiser than our bodies, we need to make
sure we are helping our spirits to continue growing as we get older.
If we aren't continuing to grow our spirits, that is when the natural
man starts to take over.  President explained it much better than I
do, but it was a great workshop. One of the other speakers was Sister
Glass, a lady that lives here in New York that has a Im a Mormon video
made about her.  She felt abandoned as a child by her father and had
to learn how to forgive him. Her workshop with about Obedience and the
blessings that come from being obedient.  It was really good!

Mareike got baptized!
Yesterday Mareike got baptized! I got to go back to Lynbrook to watch.
She was so excited and this whole process has been really quick. She
started meeting with the missionaries in January, Developed a faith in
God, and was baptized on the 15th of February. It is amazing to me
that someone who has never had a belief in God can develop so much
faith so quickly.  Both her and James were so happy and their new goal
is to go to the temple in a year. They both told me that they are
planning on coming to visit me in Patchogue someday. That would be
sweet!

Nicole came to church
When we came to this area we only have one investigator in our
teaching pool.  (We have a lot of finding to do) Her name is Nicole
and she is really sweet. She knows that the church is true but has to
work some things out with her husband before she can be baptized. But
she always return scriptures, prays and is getting better about coming
to church.  Hopefully things will work out for her so that she can be
baptized soon.

Service is the best
The past couple weeks it has snowed a couple inches each week. We have
had lots of opportunities to go shovel and provide service for people.
Today it is about 9° outside and the wind makes it even colder.
Hopefully it will warm up a little bit this next week.  On Valentines
sister Passey and I went and heart attack a bunch of people doors.
Little did we know the other sister missionaries had done the same
thing. So some people were just extra loved on Valentine's Day and
were heart attacked twice.  :)

6 months!
I hit my 6 month mark on the 6th so I get to go to the temple this
week!  Yayyyy!  I am so excited.  It has been so long since I have
been able to go.  The temple is such an amazing place, don't take it
for granted. That is my highlight of this next week :)

I hope this past week was amazing and everyone is looking forward to
this up coming one!  I know I am!  Thank you again for all of your
love and support.
Love,
Sister Beecher

Snow, China town, Transfer calls, and more Snow!

This week was an exciting one for sure!  Wow, a lot has happened I
don't even really know where to begin.  I guess with last Tuesday.
Tuesday was the day of the big snow "blizzard".  It did snow all
through Monday night and most of the day Tuesday.  But I guess I have
a different definition of blizzard.  A blizzard to me means the snow
is coming down in thick sheets and you can barely see I front of you.
Basically all it did was snow all day.  Just steady flurries it wasn't
too thick or wet.  Anyway, we ended up getting a little over 20 inches
which was enough that were not allowed to drive the car that day.  We
had to cancel our appointments and decided to have a snow day.  We
went shoveling from 8-5:30.  We started at the Malinkas house and then
shoveled out their whole road.  We also went to Sister Tessells and
shoveled her house as well.  It was really fun, exhausting, but fun.

Wednesday we had our first lesson with a Spanish family.  Husband,
wife, and two little boys.  They are so amazing and very ready to
receive this Gospel!  Of course I couldn't really communicate with
them, Sister Coleman had to do all the talking but I did get to
testify at one point and she translated for me.  Xiomara, the mom,
came to church this past Sunday!  Her husband had to work.  But she
said both her and her husband are practicing praying and will be
willing to say a prayer this next week.

On Thursday we had a mission wide Sister exchange.  I was assigned to
the Flushing Queens, Chinese district for the day.  I was serving with
Sister Hironaka (from Hawaii).  I felt like I was in China, almost
everyone I saw was Asian, the majority being Chinese.  After we
exchanged we went to a ward counsel meeting for their ward.  That was
interesting.  Everyone spoke chinese except for me and Sister Jones (a
sister from my zone that was also assigned there).  So the two of us
sat there for 2 1/2 hrs not understanding a word.  Except for one
sentence about half way through the meeting.  One of the men said
"Chinese no like white."  Hahahaha we were trying to hold in our
giggles considering we were the only white people in the room.  We
found out after that he was talking about white paper.  Apparently the
Chinese print their funeral programs on white paper.  It was really
funny.  After the meeting we went to their apartment and went to bed.
The next day after studies we met up with the other sisters at the
food mall.  That was such a cool place!  It had about 2 mini grocery
stores and a million little food chains all squeezed into one
building.  It had every kind of Chinese/Japanese/Korean type of food
you could have wanted.  I was told I needed to try the dumplings so I
went in there with that goal in mind.  I ended up getting Chinese
dumplings and some rice balls.  I had tried Italian rice balls a
couple weeks earlier and loved them so I was hoping these would be
similar.  Boy was I wrong... It was like the outside layer of Mochi
ice cream except 5 times thicker with this weird black bean sauce
inside.  I could only down four and then I gave up.  The dumplings
were alright, nothing too special.  But Sister Jones got fried
noodles, oh those were good!  She was nice enough to share with me.
We also stopped by a Korean/French bakery on the way to the church.
Oh man was that place fancy!  You took a little wooden tray and some
tongs to go pick out what pastries you wanted to purchase. It was so
classy.  After we ate we had a lesson with a 60 year old lady named
Grace.  She could speak a little English and really wants to learn
more.  It was a simple lesson about hope but I think she understood
most of it.  We ended the day with a district street sweep passing out
flyers for English class.  I can now say free english class in
Chinese.  "Meinfei yingwen ban"  People just looked at me crazy as I
was saying it, probably cause I couldn't say it fast enough as they
walked by.

Then on Saturday we had transfer calls!  I'm OUT!  Which means I am
going to a new area tomorrow!  I'm really sad to be leaving Lynbrook,
there are so many people I love here, but I am ready for a change.  I
will let you all know where I end up next week!

Today, it is snowing/raining again.  I've been told that when the
temperature drops all this slush will be black ice.  Sooo maybe we
won't be going to transfers tomorrow??

Have a good week everyone!  I love you all and hope you have a blessed day!
Sister Beecher


This is half of my zone.

Last Sunday none of our investigators showed up to church, bummer.
But!  There was a couple there that I have never met before.  Come to
find out the husband is a less active member and the wife is not a
member.  They found the church on their own and came!  We quickly
swept them up and took them to our Doctrine Principles class.  The
Elders ended up getting their info and setting an appointment for
Tuesday.  Well on Tuesday Elder Rogers was home sick so they asked us
to go to it instead.  Awesome!  Their names are Mareike (from Germany)
and James (from Haiti).  Mareike (pronounced Mariah but with a "k"
sound in it.) has been living in Phoenix Arizona of all places for the
past few years and James had been in Mesa for the past two.  They got
married this past summer and moved out here!  James joined the church
when he was 18 but has been inactive the majority of his life.
Mareike doesn't have much of a religious background in her life but is
very open to trying and learning new things.  She is very supportive
of her husband.  The best part is that during the whole lesson James
was testifying to her of everything we were saying!  He has such a
strong testimony of the Book of Mormon.  After the lesson, we ate a
Haitian dinner James had prepared.  It was delicious!  They said they
plan on feeding us every time we come over.  They are so sweet.

We went to court this week for the stop sign violation back in Nov.
(Sister Russell didn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign and we
got pulled over) That was... An adventure.  Oh Sister Russell, she was
freaking out the whole time. Hahaha  We had to wait for this huge line
to all get checked in and then go wait in the court room for the judge
to come in.  I had never been to court before, or even in a court
room.  It was cool to see how the court system works.  When we got
checked in, some official lawyer man told us that if she pleas guilty
for a jaywalking violation the price would be reduced and she wouldn't
have any points on her record.  But the stop sign offense was a $300
ticket and 3 points.  That is what I don't understand.  We did not
jaywalk, so how can we all of a sudden switch our offense to that and
get off like that?  I don't know, maybe that's just my naive
government side speaking.  Well that's what we did.  When the judge
came in we had to wait for her name to be called, she walked up to a
microphone in front of everyone, the judge explained her case and then
said she would pay $150 and have no points on her record.  The end.
Took a long time for all of that to happen, but that was it. But hey,
I only have to pay $75 now.  That's nice.

Yesterday church was amazing and we had a billion dinner appointments
(That never happens!).  Mareike and James were at church and a lot of
fantastic lessons were given for them to hear.  After church we went
to a member, Sister Kovalys house for a late lunch (chicken soup).
Went from there to Bishop Pegueros house for dinner (lasagna!), and
from there to Sister Tessels house for beef stew and rolls.  We were
suppose to go to Ambers house after Sister Tessel but she ended up
canceling.  Which was not good, but my stomach was glad because they
always feed us food too.  I'm not complaining about people feeding us,
this was just the first day other than holidays I have really
experienced the over eating missionary problem.  We don't get fed too
often, the missionaries in the Spanish program experience that
problem.  Also, we are not really teaching anyone who only speaks
Spanish so poor Sister Coleman isn't getting much practice with her
Spanish.  Maybe when I leave she will get a spanish companion.

It finally snowed here only to get washed away in a ton of rain a few
days later.  It's getting cold!  This was Sister Colemans first big
snow storm, she was so excited.

It's been a great week.  We were able to exceed all our goals and to
get new investigators!  God is so good to us, we never could have
accomplished any of that without His help.  :). Well I love you all
and hope you have a fantastic week!