September 29, 2014

Hello!

This week was an awesome week!

Mom, Casey comes home next week????? holy cow! Time really does go by sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fast! Hug her for me when you see her!

congrats on school!! that is so awesome that you almost have an A!

So, just be thankful that the lady is smoking cigarettes and not Marijuana. Big problem in Colorado.

Yes, I did see the Women's conference. It was awesome! Elder Uchtdorf spoke and it was awesome!

Dad, CONGRATS ON GETTING A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is sooooo awesome! So happy for you!

Garrett, your moving to Boise? That's awesome! no snow!!!

Gavin, You got to see elder Corbridge?????? I love him! He's sooooo awesome. He came up when I first came out. He talked for 3 hours on the most important thing (MIT). He is the bomb.

Congrats on being a zone leader! wooooooo! You get the jeep now. where did you get transferred to?

So, this week was an awesome week!

We taught two investigators this week. One was when I was on exchanges. I really never met her before, because my comp always see's her when we go on splits with the members or when I'm on exchanges with the STL's. haha. oh well. hopefully I will meet her this Saturday. haha.

A really cool experience happened when we were teaching a less active, and she started asking questions about the temple. So our whole lesson was on the temple. SO we asked "how can we help you get to the temple?" She said "well, I probably have to start coming to church first." Heck yes you do! So that is motivating her a little bit more to get to the temple

Todd Betz is also coming along. He has come to church for a while now, but now we have to get him to come to church for all 3 hours! we are talking to him about the priesthood on Thursday so we will see how that goes. so excited!

Saturday was a pretty awesome day. and that never happens because its Saturday. haha. But we decided to do a sisters tract. The sisters in our district tracted in our area to find new investigators. Me and sister Johnson (my former comp. it was awesome) tracted in the town of Wattenberg. A tiny little town that contains 4 streets and about 50 people. If you don't know exactly where it is, then you can miss it in like two seconds. But there was this guy that we tracted into and he is hilarious! We ended up taking a pear off of his tree and he also sent us with a tomato. haha! He's so awesome.

That is pretty much it for the week. I love you all!!!

Sister Rook

So, we volunteer at this place called Kidz Quiltz. Its this place that makes quilts and sends them all over the world. So it has been really slow the past few weeks and I started my own project. Its a baby blanket! Its super cute. I'm really not thinking about babies, but its the fact that I made my first quilt. (we volunteer there about two hours a week. promise I am not wasting my time )

September 22, 2014

Hello!

thank you for all the pictures!

Mom, I am soooo glad you had a good time. Never been to seattle, but that is on the places I want to visit. Including my mission. There is so many places I would really like to explore when I come back. Just like what Gavin said "we need to invest in this trip" :)

Dad, good luck on your job! I will be praying for you today! That is awesome that you enjoyed the seattle trip. Getting away really helps.

Gavin, that spider is terrifying!

Also an elder Jason Gordon is now in Tempe mission. That is my comps cousin! look out for him!!

So, this week was a little slow. We had a lot of appointments cancel, and some of these were just driving around trying to find former investigators. It is crazy how fast miles are wasted with trying to find new people to teach. Which is why members are so important!

Nothing too exciting about the work, but the person sister Jurgens is now on her way to getting active again. Its so exciting of what the gospel can do for people. She has come regularly In the past couple of months and now all she needs to do is to come to all 3 hours! She is so excited about all of this happening. She just wants to know more about everything, and is even starting to ask questions about the temple! Super happy for her.

We are working a lot with our members to try and be missionary minded. Every single dinner we go to, we leave a challenge to give something to a friend. And then we follow up when we are at church with them. These people need someone who is bold, especially when we have a member who refuses to do missionary work. Ugh! I am still working on my boldness. But the challenge with the youth is going well. we are winning! But its also a bad thing at the same time, because we want them to win. Its a work in progress.

By the way. Can you guys provide me with some family history stories? can can be church related, if not then a regular story would suffice. We talked a lot about family history in zone meeting last week. Just wondering.

So, yesterday was an alright day. The big super bowl rematch was yesterday. The Colorado Broncos against the Seattle Seahawks. NOBODY would open their door to us. It was so crazy. These people are soooooooo football crazy, its nuts! we saw this one house that had a bouncy house in the back yard, and a inflatable football guy in the front yard. People here are crazy.

That's pretty much it for the week!!

Love you!

Sister Rook

went to the temple this week, and our member Sister Hollands took us. She's super awesome :)

September 15, 2014

Mom, congrats on school! that is so exciting!

your going to Seattle? :'( I will be there in spirit

It feels like sometimes that the houses in Post Falls are reserved for the people of the ward. haha.

Divorce is seriously the work of Lucifer. Families are the strongest thing in the gospel, and he is really working to destroy the family.

 

Dad, Crossing my fingers on the  job interviews!

 

Gavin, I haven't received a letter in so long! where are you?

 

So, this week has been kind of a slow week for teaching. Tuesday we taught an investigator, and we brought a member with us! that was a great experience for her because it was her first time in a lesson with missionaries. we taught the first lesson, but it was a little crazy because she brought her kid under 2 with her, and played with our investigators (Esther) kids. It was a little distracting, but we got through it. We are teaching her on Tuesday again, along with the same member. But we are challenging her for baptism, so cross your fingers and hope it goes well!

afterwords we had to go home because I was a little sick. (dad this answers your question). So we didn't get anything else done that day. haha.

We did teach another one of our investigators DeRie. and she is so awesome! We taught lesson 3, and emphasized on baptism and how important it is. at the end, we challenged her for baptism for the 3rd time, and she said she is still thinking about it! UGH! driving me crazy! she still won't accept baptism! It is a little frustrating, but we are going to try and help her get through this and set her on date this Friday (hopefully). It is happening! Cross your fingers on that one! we could potentially set 2 people on date this week .

So we had a mission tour on Saturday with Elder Lawrence of the 70 come up. I was super excited, because last mission tour with Elder Corbrage was amazing. Sister Lawrence ended up talking about the 12 tribes of Israel, and how everyone is connected. It was really cool. Then Elder Lawrence got up and to sum up of what he said is Your all terrible missionaries and you should be more obedient. It was more of a chastizement for an hour and a half, then a talk. He went on to say that P-days are for preparing to teach people the next week, and not to go out and have a good time. Basically he said to not have anything fun. haha. With elder Corbrage, what he talked about, we could apply of what he said into our teachings and our studies in order to become a better teacher. But with this mission tour, it was just a huge chastizement then anything else. It was really disappointing.

 

Well, thats it for the week!!!

 

I love you all!!

Sister Rook

September 8, 2014

Hello everyone!

 

Mom, Casey Connery is coming home October 18th?? Holy smokes! Time flies.

Keep going on the school! your doing great!

I didn't know you had another Kidney stone! That's terrible! Just keep praying. :)

I have actually read Jesus the Christ. I finished it about a month ago. It was sooooooooo good! Its really hard to read at first, but it gets easier.

 

Dad, That is awesome that you have these little jobs. The Lord really is watching out for you.

I did see the boat pic. that is so awesome!

I love Moroni 7. It is one of my favorites in the Book of Mormon. (along with many others).

 

Garrett, I am glad you and Hayley are doing well. :)

 

Gavin, what is your mission address?

 

This week has been a great week.

We are teaching a lot of less actives, and the challenge to the youth is going great. They are pretty competitive. There was this one kid that we had dinner with his family, and we shared a message about missionary work. I used the example about Taree and her baptism and how we needed the help of the members in this work. The kid said "well, it takes you a month to convert someone to the gospel, it will take us a lot less." Burn! haha. I love it. This challenge is going to be awesome at the end of this month.

We are also teaching a Less Active who is pretty much an investigator. She knows absolutely nothing about the church. She still thinks she's catholic. She wasn't really converted to the gospel, but she was baptized because she had a friend in the church. We were teaching her the first lesson, and we were talking about the apostasy, and she said so Catholics are not the true church? there is an actual prophet today? She knows nothing! So we are basically teaching her like we would like an investigator, and reconvert her.

We also taught our investigator Esther this week, and she didn't do any of her assignments!!! ugh! so we had to forgo our lesson that we were planning on, and teaching her about the book of Mormon again! ugh. we are seeing her tomorrow, so we will see if she progresses.

Yesterday was a rough day. At church I wasn't feeling too hot, and so afterwords, We went home and I laid down. 3 hours later I woke up. Yup. I took a 3 hour nap. I still didn't feel that great. I met with my ward mission leader that night, to do correlation, and he said it is probably just pure exhaustion. Oh boy. The perks of being a missionary. I am feeling a lot better today though. :)

 

Love you guys!

sister Rook  

 

This picture is our former ward mission leader and his family. (looks like jerry sienfeld a little bit)

September 2, 2014

Hello

 

Dad, I am truly sorry about the job. I will be praying extra hard for you guys :( Don't worry about care packages.

 

Mom, keep on with school! you are doing awesome!

 

Gavin,  year out! woo! 

There was this elder that I was talking to at one point in my mission, and he was getting ready to go home. he said "two years. whoa." That is seriously what it feels like. time goes buy so fast. Realizing that I have 3 transfers left just feels not right. haha. I haven't been out for over a year. I just got to the field yesterday!

 

 

This week, has been super stressful! (as you can tell from my email title)

It was last week of transfers and it was my last transfer with my companion, and I was super stressed because I didn't know who I was going to be with, plus we were moving houses ON transfer day, so that added with the stress of everything! Plus we didn't really have time to pack anything, so we had to pack on sunday. WAAAAH! and of course my comp doesn't get stressed at all, so sort of had to calm me down sometimes. haha. Oh well. everything worked out, because sister Bertagnole and I are staying together another transfer! woo hoo!! This is my second companion I have had who I have been with for 3 transfers! I am so excited! We did move into our new home which I am super sad we left the Tandbergs, but the Pierce family is also really cool.

 

So, the teaching pool for investigators is really struggling. So we had a district blitz on Saturday (when our whole district tracts in a companionships area to find new investigators), it was kind of a disaster because 2 sets of elders got lost, but they found it , and they were on bike so they could only stay for 20 minutes or less then had to bike back to their area. so really, nothing got done.

 

Funny teaching moment:

So we had planned to teach Brother Betz, and we felt we were supposed to teach the Law of Chastity. My lease favorite subject to teach, especially when it is a single guy in his 40s. So I ask him the question What do you know about the law of chastity? just so I could see where he is at. His eyes grow wide like "what????" haha. But it all worked out in the end. He understood everything. :)

 

also, last sunday, we extended the challenge to the youth of who we can bring more people to church then us. by October 11th  the winning team will get breakfast by the losing team. We asked them if it was something they were up for, and they were super pumped by it. I am so excited about this challenge! There is a lot of youth in this ward and there is going to be a lot of member missionary work going on in this ward.

 

I love you all!!

 

Sister Rook