In the summer of 2021, Sarah and Josef were blessed enough to be Life Teen missionaries at Camp Covecrest! Both Sarah and Josef attended Covecrest as campers in high school at separate points, and they each had extremely transformative experiences where they encountered the Lord and began to truly love, know, and serve Him. Both of them agreed that it was a full-circle moment to be back at that camp on staff.

One week during that summer, many of the missionaries who were Florida-natives got assigned to serve a parish from St. Augustine, FL. Sarah, Josef, and Mary Kate (bridesmaid), were the University of Florida Catholic Gators crew who were serving the parish of Santa Maria Del Mar. If you ask Sarah and Josef, they would say that this was the week where they truly became friends. They bonded over an inside joke on the pronunciation of “Theotokos” which was the name of one of the cabins. Theotokos is a Greek Marian title that translates to Mother of God, or God-Bearer. So if you think about it, Mama Mary (and niche Catholic humor) really brought the two of them together ;) Their friendship continued to grow while at camp. Once they both returned to UF in the fall, they continued to spend more time together and eventually realized that this could be more than just a friendship…