Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!

It was a rough week, but Heavenly Father has been so good to us!

Our week started out pretty crazy.  We ended up doing an emergency
exchange late Monday night to help some Sisters.  Then the next day we
went on another exchange with some sisters who are also having a rough
time.  Theeeeennn....the next day we went on another exchange.  These
sisters are struggling as well.  Every one is just having a rough time
right now!  I feel like by about week 4 in the transfer the pressure
really starts building in companionships.  But all of these
companionships have a common denominator... Communication.  Ya know,
words can be really hard... To express, to pronounce, to spell, all of
the above.  But they are usually what can make such a big impact on
others.  I mean, it is through The word of God that we will be safely
guided through.  So what are our words doing for others??  Sis. Cook
and I have been pondering this.. Haha

The best new of the week is what happened when Sis. Cook and I were
back together on Saturday.  Andrea, our recent convert who we have
been having a hard time meeting with texted US and asked for a lesson.
And she said that she would have a friend there.  So we went to
Andreas house in Huntington and met Charlie.  He is sooooo great!  He
is a big, black, football player and he is fantastic!  He has been
going through some hard things and is searching for some hope, light
and truth.  Thank you Andrea for pointing him towards us!  We taught
the Restoration and the spirit was so strong!  Usually Andrea and
Joe(her boyfriend) are somewhat distracted during our lessons.  But
that night they were so absorbed in the lesson, it was a miracle!  We
invited Charlie to be baptized and he said that he would definitely
consider it.  He has been so prepared for this step in his life, it's
amazing!

Then at church yesterday, we had a ton of extra people there!  We had
3 new move ins (one being a priesthood holder which we need.  Another
is a recent convert we can teach.), and 2 investigators there!  One of
them had been once before about a month ago and he other is one of the
members boyfriends.  His name is Luis.  He is so great!  During Sunday
school he was so involved in the lesson and completely understood
everything.  We asked him after if he would like to have us teach him
more and he said yes!! Plus Christina came to Sacrament with us in the
Family Ward!  She hasn't been for years, so that was a huge step.  It
was such a great day at church.  We also went and had quick lessons
with Amalia and Jr. that night that they both set up.  We had been
stressed the whole week that we wouldn't reach our goals because of
all of the exchanges, but Heavenly Father prepared a way this week!  I
am so grateful.

Tonight Charlie should be coming to Family Home Evening, pray it goes well!  :)

Love you all, thank you for all of your support!
Love,
Sister Beecher

Boxes & Cough Drops

So here is my big news of the past two weeks.  Sis. Cook and I are
only in the Young Single Adult branch now, they took us out of the
family Ward!  We have mixed feelings about this.  We worked really
hard to develop some good relationships in the ward and we were
starting to work with a lot of less actives.  But it's okay, we still
love the YSA and this will take a little bit of pressure off of our
shoulders.  They brought in another set of Elders for the family Ward,
so there are now two sets serving there.  We just have a lot of
finding to do for the YSA.  Not many people to work with there when it
has a total of about 35 people.

The majority of last week was spent helping a new investigator pack up
and move, and staying home because my companion was sick.

Tammy was a media referral from a few weeks ago who asked for help
moving.  We told her we would love to help and went over a few days
later.  She is going through a lot with her health and doesn't have
any support or anyone that lives with her.  After assessing the
situation I knew that a lot more help would be needed than just Sis.
Cook and I.  So we enlisted the Elders.  Long story short, Tammy told
us she had to be out of her house in about 6 days from the first time
we met her.  So we spent Wednesday and Thursday at her house helping
her pack.  Friday we spent home because sister Cook was sick.  Had
some great time to work on my mommy skills by cooking and cleaning all
day.  Then we went to work on Saturday and Sunday.

This past week we have been really focusing on finding.  We went on
exchange from Tuesday to Wednesday, so I spent the day in Westbury
with Hermana Grass.  Westbury is great!  It reminds me a bit of
Brooklyn.  People are walking/hanging out on the streets, people are
much more willing to talk at the door, and it has a lot of little
corner shops.

On Thursday-Friday we were on exchange with the Patchogue sisters and
Hermana Ence was in Plainview with me.  She is wonderful!  We did a
lot of finding and ran into a few adventures along the way.  One of
our ideas s to try and find colleges that we can try and knock around.
Hopefully find some students nearby.  So Hermana Ence and I found Old
Westbury campus on our GPS and took a trip out there.  With the
changing leaves, It was the most beautiful thing I have seen yet on
the island.  But we could not find any housing around it and the
closest houses were all mansions.   But we did try knocking on a
mansion door.  That was one of the most intimidating experiences of my
life.  Haha it turned out fine though.  Friday night was the Ward
Halloween party.  It was so fun!  The Smith family was there dressed
as gnomes, Christina and her husband came (a less active member) and
so did Nanna Shirley!  It was so great and such a fun activity.  They
had a chili cook off and the missionaries were the judges :)  there
was some interesting chili there. Haha then it ended with a trunk or
treat for the kids.

On Saturday we were suppose to go to the temple with Leyla a recent
convert.  We waited and called and waited and didn't not here from her
until 8 hours after we were suppose to leave.  Turns out she is really
sick right now.  Satan is working really hard on not letting her go to
the temple, it can be a bit frustrating.  But we are trying to help
her stay positive, because she has her heart in the right place and
will get there eventually.

For preparation day we went to the Old Westbury Gardens.  It was
beautiful!  It had this huge mansion from the 1700s.  All of the
leaves are changing so beautifully here.  I love the fall!

Sunday was Stake Conference and we had Elder Dudley and Elder Packer
of the 70 come.  It was so amazing!  They talked a lot about change
and the importance of change in our lives.  Elder Dudley talked about
the faith to move mountains and then related it to moving the
mountains in our lives.  A mountain of pain, a mountain of guilt etc.
He said that change is the way we act upon that faith.  It was a
really great talk.  I know that is very true.  That we all have
mountains that need to be moved and CAN be moved.  It just takes us
stepping out of our comfort zone and allowing the Atonement to make
that change.

It has been an amazing week full of wonderful experiences.  I hope
that everyone will try to make the changes that are needed to move
this weeks mountains.  Love you all!
Sister Beecher

Hey I will send my weekly Monday.  We went to a mansion and some
gardens today!  Here are some pictures.  Sorry I'm out of time.
Here is a quick update.
Life here is good.  They just took the family Ward away from us. :(
so that was basically everyone we were working with.  There are two
sets of elders in the Ward now.   Both are training, so our district
is super young minus Sister Cook and I who are at the tail end.   We
are trying to
come up with smart ways to find YSA.  Knocking doors and asking if they
are single and ready to mingle hasn't been to successful so far... We
sent an email to a college to see if we can come set up a table and
hand out stuff in their common area.  Invite people to come watch meet
the Mormons.  We hope this will work.  We will see.  This school had
one active member at it named Jeff.  And he is the star Quarterback.
Haha everyone's calls him their Mormon Quarterback.  So we figured
that might be a good place to introduce "Mormonism".

My birthday was so great!  I felt so loved.  Sister Cook is the best!
The Members here are amazing.  It was just too good to be true.  I
don't have time to go into detail about this week, so here is the
photo version.

Transfer calls are in... We are both staying in Plainview!  (This is
President Nulty, the YSA branch Pres.  Doesn't he look like Dick Van
Dyke??)

Hey hey hey!

This one will prolly be quick! We actually need to use preparation day to prepare for proselyting! So, this week we had a general authority, Elder Bennett, of the 70 come to our mission for a mission tour.  That was a great experience and we had some sweet revelations as a mission! 

With getting a new mission president and all, our mission has definitely declined in the strictness of obedience and the defining role as a disciple of Jesus Christ. A lot of things have become comfortable and living pday to pday kind of lives.  And there has been a great decrease of baptisms and such... And so, elder Bennett really helped light some fire under us to correct ourselves and go!

We talked a lot about the two thousand stripling warriors and their duty to fight for their freedom, religion, families, and God.  Basically we are to be modern day two thousand stripling warriors.  We talked about the difference between the righteous nephites fathers/warriors who fought the good fight, but how many of them died and were injured and still greatly depressed, and the two thousand stripling warriors...which the amazing thing is, not one of these men died in the battle. What is the difference?  The two thousand stripling warriors obeyed with exactness.  And I loved that. 

Elder Bennett talked about how we choose.  And how important little choices in our missions are. It kind of struck me when he said, "if you're getting out of bed at 6:31 in the morning you are choosing to start your day in disobedience." Wow.  And "if you're getting to bed at 10:31 you're choosing to end your day in disobedience" it was kind of amazing and crazy how particular these little things are to our days as missionaries and the general authorities concern for being exact to these times.  But then I had this realization that hey, at 6:30 every morning there are 85,000 missionaries on their knees praying. Praying for the other missionaries, praying for their families, praying to be armed with the armor of God, praying for the people in their areas.... And if it's 6:31, it's like I'm missing this great spiritual plug in power source.  And so I just got like full of excitement to join this amazing army of stripling warriors around the world every morning at 6:30.  I'm stoked about it actually! And then the same thing right before 10:30! Amazing! 

So we are expecting a lot of big changes in the mission and I'm so excited to be the disciples that Christ needs and expects us to be.  God needs strong sons and daughters and this is one way to find those who are willing.  

Alma 56:17

now they were determined to conquer in this place or die; therefore you may well suppose that this little force which I brought with me, yea, those sons of mine, gave them great hopes and much joy....thus were we favored of the Lord...thus were we preserved.

In what ways has the Lord asked you to be exactly obedient?

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Here is to much conquering the daily battles and building the lords kingdom! 

Love,

Sister Beecher

Alma 56 recap 

...two thousand of these young men have taken their weapons of war, and would that I should be their leader; and we have come forth to defend our country....they were about to break the covenant which they had made....I would not suffer them that they should break this covenant which they had made, supposing that God would strengthen us...here is one thing in which we may have great joy....And I did join my two thousand sons, (for they are worthy to be called sons) to the army...in the cause of their country and of their God, yea, and they are happy.............Yea, and they were depressed in body as well as in spirit, for they had fought valiantly by day and toiled by night...now they were determined to conquer in this place or die; therefore you may well suppose that this little force which I brought with me, yea, those sons of mine, gave them great hopes and much joy....thus were we favored of the Lord...thus were we preserved.

My companion Sister Cook and I decided to tell you about our favorite day this week.  It was a week of madness, too many meetings, lots of exchanges, and amazing testimony building moments.  The text below is about this past Wednesday.

Oh my heavens! The restoration is true! It is the good news! Joseph smith IS a prophet of God. And because of this incredible outreach God had to his children our lives have been changed!!!! Our lives have been changed!!!!!! 

Here's what happened. First, let us review a few things.  Our lives are completely crazy. We like never have time to set up appointments and other schedule things because of our other responsibilities now.  So we have this amazing ward mission leader.  He actually sets up appointments with people and finds members to come to the lessons.  Well tonight we had a lesson set up with a recent convert, leyla. We love leyla. Zach, the mission leader, had been trying for the past 3 days to find someone to come to the lesson with us. No success. So he rescheduled the lesson for Thursday and then set up another lesson with a different recent convert instead, Andrea.  He then somehow found a member willing to come to Andreas lesson last minute.  Then all of a sudden we had another recent convert less active, Nick, text us and ask if he could have a lesson that night! Of course we said yes! Of course that's why leylas lesson didn't work out and had to be moved! So we had to hurry and find a female member to come to that lesson right away. And since it was definitely gods will, we found a member willing to come right then! Wow! Amazing how God works especially how he is filling our time for us when we feel like we don't have the time to plan it our selves! This work is sooooo true!!!!!! Thank you Heavenly Father for taking care of everything!!!!!! 

Okay. So then bring it back to earlier this day. We had a zone training meeting! We learned about how to really study and apply preach my gospel and WHY! And HOW! Incredible! So we focused a lot of the restoration and it's good news and how this blesses our lives so much because it's sooooo true and the GOOD NEWS! This is the great and marvelous work! And we are PUMPED TO SHARE IT! Like.... This is stand on the chair kind of material to share! So with this good news we knew Heavenly Father needed us to share it with nick. And so our heads were just exploding with the restoration material before nicks lesson! We met nick at the church. Sat down. Prayed. Then went ham as we testified.  Then our member present testified of everything nick was going through, she also went through but how she overcame because of the good news.  Nick was like "wow. You couldn't have chosen a better person to bring to this lesson."  Hashtag thank you spirit! So then as we testified of Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon scriptures we were all kind of awestruck by the spirit.  Practically almost in tears.  By the end of the lesson all nick could say was "I'm so grateful. I'm so so grateful."  We ended with a song "I know that my redeemer lives" and all of us were just like "wow"  then we got on our knees and prayed.  We left the room, looked at our watch, and realized that entire most spiritual lesson EVER happened in 15 minutes. Done. (When Preach my gospel says short powerful lessons of like 10-15 minutes long...they mean it.  It totally works! Glorious!!!!! Life changing!) Then we had to go find Andrea to teach her! And the member present that was supposed to come join us for that lesson actually went and joined the elders for a member present lesson with a new investigator, Andreas boyfriend, and it went perfect.  Everything worked out. A

We then had a different member all of a sudden appear to come to Andreas lesson and we all lived happily ever after.  The end.  Talk about some divine intervention.  Fist bump to Heavenly Father! Thank you Padre celestial! (: 

With love, 

Seesters Cook and Beecher (: 

My Bushwick Hermana is now on the island!  Hermana Gonzalez and I at the end of our exchange.

Transfer 10 Begins...

My new companions name is Sister Cook.  She is from Cokeville, Wyoming
and looooves sports.    We do iNSANITY Asylum every morning for work
out.  She loves to work out, and I just feel beaten up.  But it's
good. :)  So far, we get along great!  She is a really hard worker and
is very obedient.  We work pretty well together.

This past week was kind of crazy and we didn't have much time to teach
lessons.  On Wednesday, the day after transfers, we spent a few hours
helping Shirley.  She is a 85 year old lady in the family Ward.  We
went and did her laundry, straightened a few things and shared a
message with her.  She is one of the boldest, most funny, old ladies I
have ever met.  After her house we went and had dinner with the Smith
family.  I love them!  They are one of the most amazing families in
the Ward.  They are always trying to serve other people and have us
over for dinner almost once a week.  This time they also had the
Smedley family over (another young couple in the Ward) and they made
enchiladas.  But a miracle happened when we were there!  Right before
we walked into their house my companion tells me that she was having
some really bad stomach pains.  She said she might feel better after
we eat so she wanted to wait it out.  After we had finished eating, I
could tell she was still in a lot of pain.  She whispered to me if we
could hurry and give the message and head home.  So we quickly showed
the families the beta.mormon.org website (which if you haven't seen
it, check it out!  The 1 minute videos are so powerful!) and talked
about sharing the Gospel with others in a simple, yet powerful way.
Then out of the blue, my companion says, "before we go, can I ask a
favor?  I am having some really bad stomach aches, can I get a
blessing?".  Bro. Smedley and Bro. Smith immediately consecrated some
oil and gave her a beautiful blessing.  It talk about healing her but
also helping our companionship to be united so that we can find the
souls that are desperately searching for us.  It was amazing.  Right
after we left to go home so she could rest, we were climbing in the
car when all of her pain went away.  Just like that!  She was
completely healed.  She felt so good that we were able to go teach 2
lessons and play volleyball with the branch two hours later.  The
power of the priesthood is REAL.  I have never seen it work so quickly
like that, but it truly is a force meant to fulfill the will of God.

We went to the Mission Leadership Conference on Friday from 10-5 and
have basically just been planning ever since that day.  Haha They are
really trying to push Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders to
council and coordinate more effectively about trainings and meetings.
So we have 3 different Zone Training Meetings we are trying to plan
for with the Zone leaders and 3 different District Leader Trainings we
help plan and attend in prep for ZTM.   We also set up our exchanges
for this transfer and all of the different things we need to do for
our Sisters.  Whew!  We have not really had a lot of time to do normal
missionary work yet. So hopefully after this week, after all of the
ZTMs are over life will go back to normal a bit.

Sunday went really well and I know that Sister Cook is definitely
meant to be here in this area!  We got to know every single member,
their families, their callings, and what their careers are.  It was
crazy but it really helped.  We are back to the finding phase with
both of our units, so we are trying to incorporate some plans on how
to get the members more involved in that.

Things are going really well here!  Busy as always but I love it. :)

Thanks again for all of the love and support!
Love,
Sister Beecher