November 30th, 2015

Hey everybody!

Alrighty well this week was pretty good. We ate a lot of food and talked to a bunch of people. 

We went to the Parkers for our 1st Thanksgiving dinner it was nice they are this Elderly couple of converts they are pretty funny sister Parker told us that LDS stands for "lets do something" which i thought was a pretty cool saying. 

For our second dinner we went to Danyelle and Jose's it was not my favorite.... lets just say it wasnt the most appetizing food and instead of plates they served us on platters. 

Also the night before thanksgiving we went to a chinese buffet with some members and i made Sister Williams (aka Sister trunky) eat squid- she didnt like it. But we went with this little boy who is like 6 and when we asked him what he was thankful for he said the sister missionaries because they teach about God and Jesus it was super cute! 

On thanksgiving it was the annual Stonington vs. Mystic high school game apparently it is the oldest high school rivalry in the United States so thats pretty cool.

We went to visit one of our members this past week we walked in and starting petting their dog then they proceeded to tell us that they have super lice... yup super lice! you can imagine we got out of there pretty fast and dont intend on going back anytime soon. it kind of stinks cause these members were less active then they finally started to come back to church now they cant come for a while. 

ha okay so we had branch council this sunday and it got pretty heated! we were discussing the branch Christmas party and we were debating when it should be and people were getting mad cause the date kept changing anyway then out of no where the primary president was like "do we want santa there" and then the relief society president was like "uh no christmas is about christ not santa" then the primary president was like "but the kids love santa" then our relief society president was like "they should love jesus more!" it was pretty funny adults are so childish sometimes they get offended super easy about the littlest things and have tempers. sister williams and i just sit there and try not to laugh out loud. now whenever someone says they love something we say "they should love jesus more" haha 

so we ran out of miles this month- thank goodness its almost December. but we decided to walk places to save on miles and it was raining, but it was awesome a member drove by and totally offered us a ride- so if you ever see missionaries walking offer them rides and feed them food and go out on splits with them they appreciate it- thanks on behalf of missionaries everywhere!  :)  

And of course the highlight of the week was seeing Lauren and Hunter! I cant believe that I got to spend time with them! I just love them so much! Oh my gosh Lauren was so surprised to see me! Shout out to Hunter for making it happen! 

key principle 

"its not blind obedience to make a conscious choice to set our personal cruise control on keeping the commandments" 

i dont know who said this but i just love this quote, its important to follow the commandments and to not question but to understand and follow faithfully, not in ignorance 

i love you all so much and think about you frequently i hope you all have a wonderful week! get ready for Christmas its coming! 

xoxo 

-Sister Brooks 

November 23, 2015

Family,

Wow can you even believe that it is thanksgiving this week?! INSANE! Well lots of you have asked what Sis Williams and I are doing for Thanksgiving and let me tell you what we won’t be doing is going hungry! Everyone invited us over so we will probably stop by a lot of different people, but we are going to this old couple's home, the Parkers, which should be fun they don’t have any family so it will be nice to be with them and not too overwhelming, then we are going to Danyelle and Jose's they are awesome. Danyelle is this big black lady who absolutely loves feeding people and her family will be over so that should be fun. She always tells us to come over and wear jeans or sweats and we tell her every time we can’t its funny. But I’m excited it’s like a day off for us!

Okay so this week was good but it’s also difficult with the sun going down so early it is honestly like pitch black by 4:30 so everyone just hibernates for the night so we can never find anyone to talk/visit and it makes us really tired cause it feels so late! 

Okay so for Danielle (the Wendy's girl) her baptismal date got pushed back because she won’t be ready, she needs to stop smoking first but she is just so awesome and so genuine. She has a really hard living situation which she needs to fix first before she can worry about baptism but she will be readyIi know it! Also all of our investigators are going out of town this week for thanksgiving so it should be interesting to find people to teach.

So we had our branch "variety" show this week which is like a talent show but they call it variety cause let’s be honest some people just don’t have talent ha-ha. So sister Williams andIi did a rap it was hilarious and super fun! I just love our little branch everyone is so unique and brings so much to the group as a whole. 

Ha okay so something that kind of made me laugh... this week during Sunday school with the recent converts we were talking about families and we got on the discussion of favorite child... ha the teacher was asking if anyone had a favorite child and of course everyone said that they loved their kids for different things and whichever kid they were with at the time became their favorite. Anyway he said that like our parents here on earth our Heavenly Father has favorite children too and guess what? We are ALL the favorite child or as my family calls it the FC. 

Okay so fun fact, I don’t know if you knew this but someone pointed this out during sacrament meeting that on the top left corner under the title of each hymn there is an adjective that tells you how to sing that particular hymn... Kind of cool I think I knew that before but I’m going to try to pay attention to that and sing the song the way it was intended. 

Well I am so thankful for the opportunity to be here on a mission and for all of you and your support I love you all dearly and i pray for you daily! Love you all don’t forget to spread sunshine! 

Xoxo-Sister Brooks 

Key principle 

Okay so dad you shared that talk "All Hell is Moved" with me and I seriously loved it was so enlightening especially with all the controversy going on with the church being in the news. 

One of my favorite parts was this 

"Those who presently say life is meaningless will yet applaud the Atonement which saves us from meaninglessness."

-Neal Maxwell

The atonement is so cool and I love learning about it and I know someday everyone will understand and appreciate it. 

It’s almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged daily knowing this we should not let little things shake our testimonies. 

Nov. 9, 2015

Hello Homosapiens! 

     Some of you may be wondering why I used such a strange word for human it’s because the elders in our district challenge us each week to use weird words and that was one of them so crossed that off the to do list! One of the words was diastema- shout out to dad because Iactually knew what that meant and everyone was impressed! 

This just in: 

We got approved to have a building in Westerly! Yay! We went to the town council meeting on Wednesday it started at 7 and ended at 10! We had to leave early and the whole time they were discussing our case! It was insane. This guy from the bowling alley was the only one objecting because he was worried about parking- like who goes bowling on a Sunday morning ugh! He was also worried about his precious liquor license so dumb but hey it’s all good cause we are finally getting a building! They have been trying for so long! It is going to take like 3 months for it to be ready but it’s going to be so cool I hope I am still here for that first Sunday! We even made the front page of the newspaper and they talked all about it at stake conference this weekend it was a big deal! 

That brings me to my next topic stake conference- it was super good and fun we gave some elders in our district these ugly ties we had in our apartment as a thank you for driving us somewhere and they wanted to get us back cause we made them wear them so they gave us "ugly" scarves which were actually really cute and we got lots of compliments on them so we all wore them stake conference and took a pic- the things missionaries do to keep things interesting. ha-ha

So at stake conference they talked all about the importance of keeping the Sabbath holy- it made me a little homesick because I miss being home with family on Sundays and relaxing but instead we get to tract.. Super fun.... in the cold.. with mean new Englanders... but I really want to get good at tracting cause its hard here so I’m working on it and practice makes perfect so ya.. gonna keep trying. 

They also spoke on importance of church auxiliaries and how they support the branch or ward I never realized how much effort a ward or branch is until I was a missionary because we have the unique opportunity to be in a small branch we are really involved in the lives of our members especially because almost all of them are converts, but it’s really good because they love missionaries and they feed us which we love! So our branch is doing a 40 day fast on behalf of our building and growing the branch so the branch council and missionaries fast every Sunday aka every Sunday I have been here because they started this after a fast Sunday.. so it has been good we have extra time for studies because we don’t eat breakfast (100% sarcasm). Anyway we had a dinner scheduled for this Sunday and we were all excited but 2 hours before they cancelled!! Ugh! and we had no food in our apartment either and we couldn’t go buy something because hello its Sunday and we just had a lesson on keeping the Sabbath.. anyway so we ate broccoli we had in our freezer and some quinoa... yum nothing says Sunday dinner like broccoli and quinoa after you have been fasting all day. It was kind of funny but mostly not. Then we wake up and we are excited because its pday and we are going to the store (Aldi’s) to get some food and we get a call from the lady in charge of the 40 day fast and she asked us to fast today... our pday because whoever signed up didn’t want to... and she was so worried that the 40 day fast would be broken so we agreed to fast today and sister Williams has been sick so i told her she didn’t have to fast because she needed to take some medicine so basically I am the only one fasting which is kind of rough... then the elders we email with ordered pizza... so this has just been a stellar day so far but really it’s just humbling me I know it. And hey I really shouldn’t complain because all the fasting and prayers paid off we got our building and a new investigator and less actives are coming again! So hurray for fasting   

Also, I just read over that and please don’t think that we starve because we have no food in our apt we just don’t usually need a lot because members feed us and it was the end of the week :) ha-ha

This day should get better because we are going to have dinner at a member’s home and he teaches us to box so it’s super fun! We went boxing with him last Monday and i was so sore it was so nice to be sore boxing is an intense workout!   

Also i heard Claire just signed with FRESNO!!!!!! That is WICKED awesome! I am so excited for her! Congratulations! 

Okay key principle for the week: 

I am reading in the book of Alma and I just love it like really all the stories are just so good! One scripture that I read that I wanted to share with you is 

Alma 26:2-3 read it

 We are all instruments in the Lord’s hands not just missionaries and we are so blessed to have the gospel we need to always keep that in mind especially when we share the gospel because if we do we will be sharing it out of love and concern for our fellow brothers and sisters.

Alright well that’s a wrap love you all! Be good and spread sunshine!

Xoxo

Sister Brooks  

Nov. 2, 2015

Hi every one! 

    Okay so I have to start off by telling you about Danielle, yes the one from Wendy's :), she is our newest investigator and she is so GOLDEN! It’s amazing! We had a lesson with her this week and it went so well! We started that day by fasting on behalf of our branch's 40 day fast and of course they asked us to fast on the day we do service and of course we do service at a kitchen serving food to elderly people and of course they had red velvet cupcakes that day and of course they had extra.... anyway lets just say it was a rough couple of hours. So we went straight to our teaching appointment with Danielle and she is living with a friend at the moment with her two children and she doesn’t know if her friend is comfortable with us teaching her inside so we sat on the porch. Anyway she began by telling us a little bit about what she believed and she told us how some people think she is weird for believing that there isn’t just a heaven or hell but she thinks there are "levels" of heaven. And how she thinks that her grandparents who passed away are waiting for her to be with them! Ah at this point sis W and i were holding in our excitement! Anyway we taught her the restoration and she said everything we taught made sense to her! Then- the best part- since I am the greenie I was in charge of reciting the first vision to her and asking her to be baptized and guess what... I recited it perfectly and she said YES to being baptized!!! 

Well she came to church this Sunday and sat by us and it was fast Sunday that can be a little scary in our branch sometimes... anyway it was an amazing meeting and she cried the whole time and totally felt the spirit. as soon as she walked in the building she said "this is where I am suppose to be" it was so cool! 

Also the Walters, a less active couple like 20 years less active, came to church and loved it. We have been visiting them a lot and had dinner with them and got the LDS app for the husband, bud, and he just loves it! He studies from it for like 4 hours a day and he says we helped him gain more faith than he had when he was baptized! I know it’s not us but the spirit that has helped him gain his testimony but it’s just so neat to be a part of it and to have helped facilitate that for him. 

Okay a bunch of people have asked how Halloween was it was pretty fun! The night before Halloween we went to the Groton ward's trunk or treat, we combine because we are so small, but it was fun we helped the Groton Elders get a new investigator, and we were in charge of deciding on a winner for the chili cook off so we tried all the chilies and some were really good and some.. Not so much. But it was fun then for actual Halloween we went in early watched a movie (church approved of course) and ate ice-cream made cookies, and went to bed early plus daylight savings so wahoo extra sleep :) it was fun! 

We found out who is getting transferred this week and...... I am getting sent home... jk both sister Williams and I are staying in Westerly its sister Williams last transfer so I will probably be here for a few more transfers which is nice cause i know the area and members really well and be able to get work done! 

This week is the town council meeting to find out if we get our building in Westerly!! I really hope we do! if we do it will be like 3 months before we can actually meet there but it will be so nice to be able to walk to church and to tell people that they don’t have to drive 30 minutes to get to church especially because a lot of members/ investigators don’t have cars so we have to find rides for everyone and it is such a pain.

Key principle 

Power of prayer: the power of prayer is so real! One of investigators- the cat lady one- is learning all about prayer right now and she doesn’t think she is getting answers to prayer and we told her that sometimes instead of asking Heavenly Father to tell you what you should do sometimes you need to go telling Him what you are going to do and if its not right then he will make it known to you. We need to think and act for ourselves HF gave us brains for a reason, act in faith and He will guide you. 

Love you all so much!!! Thanks for the letters, emails and support 

xoxo Sister Brooks