Hermana Kent Takes on Florida: Irma Brings Blessings of Service

Hello friends and fam!

Wow! I am just beat. This week was full of service and I LOVED it. I forgot what it was like to wear a skirt because the entire week was spent in pants, t-shirts, and sneakers. This email could be a mile long if I told you all about all the service I did. Last night we tried to count how many hours of service we did. Guess how many hours.... just guess.... okay I'll tell you. It was 47. 47 HOURS OF SERVICE! That doesn't include all the driving time to get to those places. Here are a few places we went this week to help clean up debris, fallen trees, etc.

Give Kids the World (a place for the kids and families to stay that come to Disney from foundations such as make a wish. Super cool. Look it up.)
A shelter where a bunch of elderly people were staying because their retirement center was completely wrecked. So we just helped out the Red Cross there.
Lots and lots of neighborhoods
Our churches
COCOA BEACH

Yes, after nearly 11 months I FINALLY GOT TO SEE THE BEACH!!!! The Cocoa zone is right next to ours and they had a lot of damage so all the missionaries in our zone went over there and helped out all day Saturday and Sunday. We woke up Saturday at 4:30 to be there by 7 to help Brother Müller from Cocoa drove over an each way to pick up all the sister missionaries from our zone. The elders drove in the AP van. We worked until 5:30 Saturday and it was truly amazing. I've got lots of battle wounds from the trees, and muscles that I didn't even know existed ache, but it was all 100% worth it to see the joy in people's face and we cleaned up their devastated yards so quickly. After clean up, Brother Müller drove us to the beach so we could see it. Guys. I got some sand. Don't freak out- we got permission. :)

Sunday we did the same thing. We got to Cocoa by 9 and had sacrament meeting in our service cloths then headed out to clean again. It was a very cool sacrament meeting. We didn't get to take the sacrament last week because that's the day the hurricane hit so I was pretty excited. That was just the spiritual boost I needed to hit the rest of the day hard. Our service group was a bunch of people that work on the Church ranch (one family being the CEO of the ranch). It was so cool. I tell you, those people know how to work. We had a good time.

One more really cool experience that I feel like sums up how incredible this week was. Friday we were looking for places to serve. There was a neighborhood that we had been working in that was... well..... now a Lake. It had been flooded pretty bad and tons of huge trees were down. We had done several yards already and were looking for more. So my companions and I drove way far in scouting out places to go before all the other missionaries got there. We passed several yards that needed help but we felt like we needed to keep going. At the end of this very long road we found an older man standing outside and looking at his 5 acre yard. We got out of our car and asked if we could help him. At first he just kind of looked at us. Then he said "well, if you want to.." we told him that about 12 more people were on their way including some men. We talked for a minute longer then got to work. He is the sweetest man. He grew up on a farm in Georgia and has all that southern charm. He had spent the weekend of the hurricane at his fathers funeral and had just arrived home to see his house for the first time when we pulled up. He didn't even know where to start or how he could do all of it. We spent the next 3 hours cleaning up his yard and by the time we finished, had cleaned up everything that wasn't flooded. He couldn't believe it. He liked the sisters better then the elders. He said we worked harder. Haha. There were tears in his eyes as he expressed sincere gratitude for helping. We came to find out that he loves books about American history. We can hardly wait to go back and give him the worlds greatest American History Book (Book of Mormon).

Ironically this week my reading in the Book of Mormon was in Mosiah. In Mosiah 2:17 is says "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." That pretty much sums up the week. I have never felt more love for the people here in Florida or love my savior and my Heavenly Father than serving so much this week. So go do some service this week! I promise you will feel all the warm fuzzies. :)

Con mucho amor,

🌴🌊☀️Hermana Kent☀️🌊🌴