March 31, 2014

CONGRATULATIONS GARRETT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so happy for you!!! Oh my gosh! its exciting!!!

Mom, that's awesome that you had those 2 interviews.

And I am sure that you are exhausted. And I love the cake. Its super cute. thanks for the pictures! I heard sister Ker say that the temple pictures were nice. and she asked how I came home so fast.  haha :)

Dad, I didn't see any other pictures other then the one with the cake, the one with Garrett and Hayley with an apron on, and the one with Shaelynn. I'm dying to see other pictures!!!

This week was a good week.

Kacey got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited! my first baptism on my mission!!!

A week before, we were preparing for the baptism program and Kacey had asked her mom to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. Her mom was like WHAT?? but she was a champ and gave the talk. That was the first time that sister Dawson had given a talk (within the church) before. The spirit at the baptism was so strong, and Kacey's stepdad was in there who is not a member, and you could tell he felt the spirit.

Yesterday, on fast sunday, Pam (sister Dawson) had received a calling in the Young Women's. She bore her testimony for the first time in her life, and it seriously made me cry a little. Life as a missionary is bitter sweet. We go through all the hard times and when the time comes for a baptism, it is totally worth it. I am grateful for the gospel, and how it can strengthen peoples relationships with the Lord. This is why I am serving a mission.

So we are still working with JJ, and he is doing awesome!! He didn't read or pray this week, and he felt soooo bad! But that's okay, because he this week to get everything done. He is still set for the 12th of April!!

We tried to meet with Taree this week, but we couldn't because she had to take her baby to the Hospital. (he's fine. just a little constipation). But she didn't come to church this week or answer our phone calls. That worries me a little bit. 

So Friday and Saturday were a bit crazy, because we moved into another home. The lady that we used to live with, she came up to us at church and she said "I miss you!!" and gave us a hug. haha. and the people that we live with now has 4 other girls. and we are living in their son's old room who is on a mission in Japan. 2 are 16 (yes, twins), one is 11 and the other is 7. it is awesome, and I have never been in a home with this much estrogen.  haha. We do have to switch our shower schedules around because the girls have to go to school. But its awesome none the less :)

That is it for the week!!

I love you all!!!

Sister Rook

Hello!!

 

Mom, I am so sorry about your office job, and I really hope that you get this job for the Psychiatrist. that would be awesome.

You probably went through this trial, because the Lord wanted to teach you something. You don't know what until a couple of years later.

Don't worry about the package :)

 

Dad, I will keep you in my prayers this week. No worries :)

 

Garrett, I'm so excited for you!!!! Yeah, I won't get mad that you won't send me a letter next week. I know you will be preoccupied with........ other stuff

 

So this week has been quite interesting.

We have been teaching an 11 year old girl Kacey, who is getting baptized this Saturday and she is really nervous. But she won't pray outloud not even out loud to her mom. ugh. She's just being a stinker. But we will get over that hopefully soon.

We are getting ready to dunk two people on the 12th of April and it will have to be at the same time. Hopefully little JJ won't mind. haha.

But teaching JJ is so much fun, because his older brother is hilarious! We are going to teach him the rest of the commandments next week and then the baptismal interview questions. I am so excited!!! JJ was very focused this week and he didn't really have any random questions or comments. haha.

We also taught Taree our pure gold investigator, and we taught her the Word of Wisdom, and challenged her to refrain from ingesting from those 5 substances. She said "Of course!" oh.. okay! I am seriously waiting for the downfall or explosion of "no I can't do that". She's so easy!! I just love her :)

This week has been interesting because poor Sister Hoemann's first day here, we were tracting, and this guy opens the door SUPER stoned. And he is also wearing a robe. He is also too stoned to pay attention to his robe and it blows right open. Yup. We were flashed. At that moment I really despised peripheral vision. You were flashed, right mom? I guess it runs in the family. hahahah!!

That is pretty much it for the week! Trying to find investigators, but with no luck :(

 

I love you all!

 

Sister Rook 

March 17, 2014

Hey everyone!

 

Mom, I'm sure everything will be okay at work. Just rely on the Lord and everything will be alright.

I loooooooooove chicken run! that movie is the best! The line that I remember other then that one is "Eggs from heaven! No! from her bum!" haha. (omit that quote out of the blog please)

But just keep going strong and the Lord will help you. If dad gets a job in Seattle that is where he needs to be.

Dad, Keep on Keepin' on. Love you!!

Garrett!! Sooooooooo excited for your day next week!! AAAAGH!!!!!!!! anyways.....

 

We have been teaching our 11 year old Investigator J.J and he has been doing AWESOME. But he wanted to push his baptism date for the 12 of next month because they have a friend coming into town and they want to be there for that. But we were teaching him the commandments and at the end of the lesson, we quizzed him of what we learned about the commandments. We asked him of who brought forth the commandments, and he hinted of who it was (had a beard) and he responded "Chuck Norris?" hahahahaha!!! that was hilarious. Chuck Norris was so cool, he brought forth the ten commandments.

We are also teaching Taree who is our pure golden investigator. We talked to her about church when she stayed for 3 hours, and she said she loved it. She said "I am planning on going next week... and forever." well why can't all investigators be this golden???? We also taught the 3rd lesson to her and she loved that lesson and went to the RS dinner as well. :)

We are also teaching a daughter of a less active woman and we have been teaching her for almost 2 months now and hasn't progressed. So we had a very bold lesson with her on Thursday, and we told her that she has to keep her commitments and go to church or we won't teach her, and we won't just baptize somebody that is going to go Less Active in a couple of years. Her mom was there and we asked to talk to her alone, and told her that we were also talking to her as well. And her mom said its not fun for someone to tell me that, but I know it will get me going. So we will see...

Also last Monday, we had a huge taco party (yes dad, tacos) with the zone. And some member from another ward provided the tacos. It was a taco eating contest of who could eat the most tacos. I tried my best but I ate like 10 tacos. I'm not proud. haha. I was sooooo sick that day. But this one elder ate 19 tacos and a sister beat all the elders by eating 23 tacos. She's tiny too! not fair. But it was an awesome zone P-day. haha.

So transfers happened! My comp sister Johnson left to go to Brighton, and my new comp sister Hoeman has only been out for 3 months. I am senior and I am FINALLY driving! yay! No pictures with her yet, but there will be next week!

 

I love you all so much!!! talk to you next week!

 

Sister Rook

 

P.S. picture 1 is elder Mcgrath keeping tally at the taco party, picture 2 is just me eating a taco, and picture 3 is last day of transfers. I apparently didn't get the memo. Those elders (Mcgrath and Rupper) are in the ward

March 10, 2014

Hey everyone!

 

Mom, yup. Got a new journal. Its pretty awesome.

Also, how did the guy go on a mission to Denver North with a different mission president? Its the same mission. Unless he is going after July?

That's great that you are liking the job!

Dad, I'm so glad that I don't live in Post Falls right now, because I have been liking warm weather we have been having every other day. Congrats on writing the book! It sounds so exciting!

Garrett! Your apartment looks awesome! Your not excited for the wedding day are you? haha. I know you are. I'm so excited for you!

 

This week has been pretty good. Not as exciting as last week.

So we had a lesson with our 11 year old, JJ. He is super excited to get baptized on the 29th of march . And that family has been less active for the longest time, and I guess we came at the right time. :) He also has an older brother that wants to baptize him, but first he had to work out some problems with the bishop first.

So we also had a lesson with Taree our other investigator, and we taught her the plan of Salvation. At the end, she says "Well, that makes sense!" we set her on date for the 5th of April! And she also came to church, and she stayed for the whole 3 hours! which is a miracle, because not a lot of people stay the whole time for the first time around. I think she was overwhelmed and really tired by the time it ended, because she wanted to listen and participate, and her 8 month old wouldn't stop chattering. Poor girl.

We also found a new investigator! She is super awesome, and we said a prayer with her the week before, and told us to come back. She was very open to us sharing the restoration. She told us to come back because she felt really good about it.

That is pretty much it for the week! Next week will probably be better. Sorry for the short letter!

 

Sister Rook

March 3, 2014

Mom and Dad, I am so sorry to hear about the loss of a job. Watch the video on Mormon messages The Will of God

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1839005837001

Love that video!

Mom, don't worry about packages. I have a ton of candy left over from Christmas and valentines day from you and the members. haha :)

 

Garrett, where art thou?

 

This week has been awesome! (and kind of weird)

So we were teaching this 22 year old girl named Taree and she is so interested! When we went back to teach the first lesson, she said she went on Mormon.org, and watched the Restoration video! wow, we don't have to do that part of the lesson! She is amazing! and we asked her if it were possible that there was a prophet today, and she said "of course, the world in this day needs a prophet." She's golden! we are visiting her again on Thursday :)

We are also progressing with Radwa our Muslim investigator, and our whole lesson was just on prayer. I found out that they say the same prayer 17 times at certain times of the day. So she asked questions like "what time do we pray? what do we say?" We just reassured her that you can say anything at any time of the day. So at the end of the lesson, she said a prayer!!!! it was so amazing! the first thing that she prayed for was for her son. Its amazing what we have taken granted for especially prayers. To us they seem simple, but to other people they have a harder concept of it. I am so thankful that I am able to talk to my heavenly father at any time of the day.

We also picked a former investigator back up. Her name is Mere and she is from Botswana, Africa. We met with her and the reason why she was dropped was because elders tried to teach her, but they couldn't go in because her husband was not home a lot of the times. So we are teaching her again!

So her is the weird part of the week. I should start with the beginning a couple of weeks ago. We met this guy named Kahilil on a parking lot of apartments and he said he is looking for a religion, also an American woman to marry. good thing we have elders in the ward! So this past week, we went back to those apartments to go see potentials. Well, come to find out we were sitting in the car and we spotted Kahilil. and he spotted us. (oh just wait. its great) We ended up talking to him with our windows rolled down and after a couple of minutes he proposed to Sister Johnson. Yes. he seriously asked my comp if he could marry her. He also got down on one knee as he did so. After she said no about a thousand times he turns to me and asks me the same question! I of course said no. He was disappointed and he left. Sister Johnson said I am a real missionary now. I guess this is the 3rd time she has been proposed to on the mission.  hahahahah!  Oh the life of a missionary.

 

I love you all so much!! I know the Lord has something better in store for you

 

Sister Rook