Oct. 12, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

Well thank you all for your emails this week I really do love reading how everyone is doing keep me updated! 

Well it has been a busy week, each time i think ill write less than last time then i think about everything i did this week and how can i not write about it all?! seriously the weeks are so long and jam packed!

alright well lets see this week was seriously full of so much disappointment, i dont mean to sound pessimistic but it was kind of rough, just to name a few.... 

the meeting to get our own building in westerly got postponed till Nov 4! ugh! we sat through a 2 hour long town council meeting (super boring) just to have them postponed our hearing :(

we had a recent convert temple trip on Saturday and one of our recent converts was all ready to go she had her names to do, we arranged a ride and we would get to join her at the temple and what’s better than that i was so excited?! then that morning she totally bailed on us! she also bailed that Sunday cause she wasn’t feeling well so we had to do her yw lesson with no preparation at all (good thing there are literally two girls in the YW.) 

we had a meeting set up with one of our potential investigators, which was surprising cause when we called her she said her family told her not to associate with Mormons but she said she was still interested. she called as we were planning her lesson and canceled :( i was so excited to teach her but it’s okay cause she did reschedule to this coming Tuesday! Fingers crossed!

Sometimes we get referrals from church headquarters of ppl requesting a BOM or bible or a visit from the missionaries and we got one this week! i was really excited and hopeful. We stopped by 3 times and the third time someone answered! We explained who we were and why we had come, they laughed and said someone must have recommended them as a joke they laughed and shut the door..... not funny.... but as we drove away all upset i started to laugh and sister Williams looked at me and i said i thought it was sort of funny that someone did it as a joke like not funny for us but kind of funny if we weren’t the missionaries. I’ve learned you have to let stuff go or else everything would suck! 

We had a zone meeting this week it was fun to get together with all the missionaries in our zone. our challenge is to find three new investigators each week which in our mission is like really, really hard.... like right now we only have one investigator so we have to try extra hard and talk to everyone! 

Okay sorry one more bad thing everyone has cats here including our only investigator, Barbara, okay so her cat died this week and we were there with her when she got the call. some may think its only a cat but no this cat was like her best friend. it was super sad and she hasn’t met with us because she is so depressed, which is unfortunate. i already don’t like cats but this made me dislike them even more also if you didn’t know i am super allergic to cats so every time we go somewhere with cats, which is everywhere, my eyes swell up so bad i can barely see and i sneeze like crazy, but hey its all part of the experience right...? 

okay sorry for the negativity here is the GOOD from this week!

okay so this week i hit one month!!!! yay! on that day i got a package from my lovely mother with some cute Halloween stuff and yummy chocolate treats! my comp took me to Mel’s creamery and we got ice-cream! i got graham central station flavor seriously so good it’s like speculous ice-cream Emma would love it! 

a little bit about sister Williams everywhere we go people tell her she looks like brook shields which is pretty true, i think it’s mostly because of her eyebrows but anyway we teach this 10 year old big black kid who is pretty funny and while we were talking to him he paused and said "sister Williams can i touch your eyebrows they look so comfy" it was hilarious... sister W is also super competitive and one of the members we have dinner with invited her to complete the grinder challenge the challenge was to eat this humongous grinder (sandwich) which no one in her family had ever done before... and these people are big black people who love their food like really love it! no one had ever done it before and sister Williams did! I couldn’t believe it i could only finish one quarter of it! it took her two hours and lots of tums that night but she did it! (let’s just say we did not work out the next morning)

so since we didn’t get to go to the temple we went with some members to the christening of a submarine! a ton of people here work at the sub base/ build/ engineer the subs. it  was seriously so cool... very long but really cool Groton Connecticut has the biggest sub base in the country and guess who christened the sub?! Michelle OBAMA! cool uh? you should look up the video of her doing it took her three tries but she finally broke the bottle the subs name is the USS Illinois and it is sponsored by Michelle Obama. also this Sunday a convert who used to live in the area but moved away called and invited us to dinner at their beach house so i had Sunday dinner on the beach it was awesome! 

Coming up

I’m so sad i didn’t get to go to the temple this week but I get to go tomorrow for return and report, a big meeting with all the new missionaries and we get to go to the temple! Also we have to go to the dentist this week because sis Williams has a cavity!

i know it may seem like it’s all fun and games here but it’s really not a mission is hard work and it comes with lots of up and downs. I’m lucky to be here in this wonderful area and yup fall is here just gets better and better the leaves are gorgeous!

KEY PRINCIPLE

this week is about how being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is an everyday thing not just Sundays. I watched a Mormon message called LIFT you should all watch it. 

We have a lot of part member families here in our area and it amazes me to see how difficult it is for them because their families are split they still love and respect one another so it is possible but it brings more struggles because being a member of this church is a way of life and it should and does affect every aspect of the way we live. 

I’m grateful for all of you and your love and support keep reading your scriptures and be good 

All my love 

xoxo Sister Brooks