February 29, 2016

Happy Leap Day everyone!

So last week for pday we went and walked around Boston down town it was so much fun! We road on the T (subway). it was a good time! 

We had such a fun lesson with Maureen this week, unfortunately she told us she doesnt think she will be ready to be baptized on March 12, she just wants to make sure this is what she wants and that she understands everything which is so good! She had us over for dinner again and we helped her make some curry it was really good! So we asked her to say the prayer over the food and she was a little hesitant but she said it anyway, it was one of the sweetest prayers i have ever heard! She thanked Heavenly Father for the sister missionaries because "we are the daughters she never had." how cute uh?! Also she has two sons one in law school and one in high school who she wants to investigate the church and they have been asking her questions which is so cool cause that means she is already spreading the gospel and she always asks us if we would ever consider marrying a non member... and how good looking and tall her boys are... its kind of awkward but hey flirt to convert right? just kidding! but she is in florida right now for vacation but we sent her links to the restoration movie and videos about the BOM and she loves them so things are really progressing with her! She is amazing!

I took Sister Black tracting for her first! it was pretty interesting. We were out kind of later at night and we knocked on this lady's door and all of a sudden out the back window we hear "who dat!" it scared us so bad i think sister black may have peed her pants a little! we look in the window and  this big black lady with curlers in her hair says "oh baby cakes its too late for that, just leave your brochure on the porch." it was funny.

 Also we talk to a lot of people who only speak spanish so i have been working on it but i wish i knew more... should have payed more attention in spanish class oops. 

So today we went to go get hair cuts we made appointments at a salon in the mall, so we get there and i told the lady i wanted it cut like at my shoulders a little longer and she just chopped it so its kind of shorter than that but oh well it will grow back... but it was totally worth it because she asked where i was from and we got talking turns out she is a less active member in the weston 2 ward! Crazy uh? what a small world! Her daughter and ex husband go to church but she doesnt she gave me her card with her name and number so we may go and visit her this week!

 We had events this weekend in Waterbury and Lowell, we got back at 11:30 pm on saturday night then we were up at 5:30 for the event in Lowell so needless to say i was a little tired and to top it off we fasted with our mission on sunday but looking back it was a very fruitful week with lots of great lessons and some fun contacting! 

Key Principle 

DC 123:17

February 22, 2016

Hey everyone!

Wow so this week was pretty crazy!

Family history: okay so I always thought family history was cool but I never really got into it, but this week wee had dinner with some of our members,the Shearers, brother shearer said that he was related to some brooks on his dad side, he told me all these cool stories about how they joined to church and how they were leaders in their community, it was so interesting a so we pulled out good old relative finder to see exactly how we are related and to our surprise we found out we are related but not through the Brooks side from our moms side! It was kind of funny but it made me interested in learning more. Also you can see how you are related to famous people so that's neat!

Maureen: okay so Maureen is our massage therapist investigator! She is so awesome we went over for a lesson this week and she asked what our favorite food is and being from Utah sister black said Hawaiian haystacks, the only problem is no one here knows how to make them so we ended up just having a pile of rice and random toppings it was pretty good anyway. She is such a sweet lady and loves the gospel! We set a baptismal date  with her for many March 12 and at the rate she is learning and  just soaking it all in she should be ready! Also she must be really good do at what she does cause she was telling us all these famous people she has given massages to like Leonardo dicaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, a bunch of politics and lots of athletes!

Hartford: We had an open house in Hartford on friday and it was so fun! we set up all our displays and had a bunch of missionaries in the area come it was cold but really fun we handed out 108 Book of Mormons! we talked to a ton of people! and i found out that Hartford is pretty ghetto. good times good times... oh and sister black and i found a stray cat named so we named her stacy and she followed us around as we contacted people.

A day in the life of a PVC sister: alright so Saturday was a pretty crazy day. Sister black has been  really sick all week with a bad cold and it was really bad on Saturday so even though we had a ton of events I made her stay in bed, so I called the digital sisters and we went on exchanges, so I went with sister Egan and sister o'keefe stayed with sis black. We had two events so we were planning on switching so they each got to go to an event. So we went to Franklin for a baptism of a convert and it was so goood everything went nice and smooth and one of the members of the mission presidency was there and it was his first time seeing them pvc And he loved it so that was really awesome! So then we went to the storage unit to drop off some displays and get some other ones for our next event in Cambridge. So we loaded everything in they elevator locked the car and went to unload, as we were pushing the carts out of the elevator I may or may not have (I did) drop the keys down the elevator shaft! It was so bad it had our car keys, the keys to our apt the church keys, the office keys, and our storage unit keys and to top it off we locked our phone in the car and we were on exchanges I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! We did everything we could think but we could not get them or even see them! So we went to the main office and the lady there gave us a hanger and a flashlight, we still couldn't get them so we went back, she realized how upset I was (I didn't cry I swear) so she called the maintenance guy and he said he couldn't be there for like an hour so the lady at the desk, Kathy, gave us $20 and told us to go get some lunch down the street. So we went and had lunch at some weird vegan place that was actual,y pretty good and when we got back she had the keys in her hands, I love Kathy I gave her a big hug and we hurried and got all the stuff and we even made it to our next even t on time! It was such a tender mercy!

This week we also went to a "interfaith" meeting with the woman Reggy who we met in the laundry room at our apt it was very interesting there were all sorts of people there of all different faiths, they sang they read and they prayed. Sister black and in were talking after and we both commented on how we could feel the spirit and we felt loved there. We realized that it was because the spirit was there. This brings me to my

Key principle
Truth is truth wherever It  may be.
Although we do have the fullness of the gospel other religions have bits and pieces of truth and the Holy Ghost testifies of truths no matter what. i have had the privilege of meeting so many new and interesting people with different points of views and beliefs and I have learned and grown so much because of it so I invite you to be open minded and find truth wherever it may be!

As always I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!
i loved looking through all the wedding photos!

February 15, 2016

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Well this week has been great! We had zone conference and zone meeting both were spiritual and uplifting. Those meetings are always such a spiritual boost and really make me excited to get work done and just be a better missionary!

So yesterday we drove all the way to Norwich Ct, two hours south of where we are, for their ward conference, they first asked us to come to bring our new Sabbath day display which actually isn't ready yet so we brought other displays then we realized that we forgot the ipads.. all 8 of them (miscommunication) ... which is like the most important part of the display because they play the videos! and we couldn't drive back because their sacrament was about to start so we had to improvise we set up air play and made it work, it was so stressful and just hectic, but we figured it out we ended up using one of the senior couple's iPad, and to top it off it was -11 degrees yup.... it was a regular heat wave here in New England, also our apartment is so stinkin cold in the mornings which makes it wicked hard to get up in the morning. Well after the event we had another event a Haitian Creole baptism, but it was cancelled because of the cold so we didn't really have anything else that day so we were going to do some stop byes and eat food and go home and study then the Norwich missionaries invited us to their dinner it was so fun this couple had a few of the single people in their ward over it was a really nice night, we shared a scripture about the savior's love with them and had a wonderful discussion about the perfect and pure love of Christ it was very enlightening. At the end of the dinner they showed us their chocolate cabinet... they have a cabinet with tons of European chocolate in it and they just let us each pick some it was sooo good! All i can say is you have to have some serious self control to have a cabinet full of  European chocolate in it.

Ooo also i got to drive this week! Its not too bad but its just such a big car with lots of expensive equipment so its kind of stressful, but sis Black helps me out, she is great!
We got to go to the temple this morning it was cold but very beautiful, with our zone. We drove with the digital sisters and the Weston 2 sisters.

Also one of my favorite parts of New England is all the funny street names for example this week we found
Alphabet Lane
Bacon Street
Bittersweet lane
Moody St
Pacemaker St
Home Ave
and my personal favorite..... Brooks street!! Yup thats right i found it!!!

shout out to Skyline swimming and my very talented sisters for another State Win! Whoop whoop! (I was cheering you on from here  )

key principle

Recipe for charity:  Moroni 7:45


--
     XOXO
-Sister Sophie Brooks

Mission Office
182 West Central Street suite 203
Natick Mass 01760

February 8th, 2016

Hi everyone!

Wow some pretty exciting stuff with Claire officially signing with Fresno and being crowned queen and Sam getting first in his heat! Im so proud of you guys and love hearing what you are up to! also thank you for the Valentines day package so cute sister Black and i played with those sticky hands for at least an hour.. we are easily entertained. 

Alright so this week was a crazy busy/fun one! the title of this email is A'okay because that is sister blackss favorite saying- she says it at least 100 times a day haha but its A'OAKY and its her birthday today so we celebrated by doing morning sports with the elders and breaskfast with everyone it was a good time. Oh and sister Black hit her halfway mark this week! 

so last pday we walked around Wellesley College and it is such a gorgeous campus! 

Then on tuesday we headed up to Cambridge to work on some videos with the chinese elders for some of our displays because we attended their Chinese new year this past weekend which was so much fun! there were a bunch of non members there and we took them on chapel tours they were all very interested in our family history display it was a great night it took  forever to set up because we did all the displays and the BOM table with over 100 copies of the BOM in all different languages! 

then we "casually" had dinner at Harvard business school with Emily Snyder: Clayton Christensen's secretary. She is in the single adult ward that Sister Black served in her last area and she was talking about her one day and we made the connection that she is Lizzy Snyder's (friend from USU) sister. Anyway it was wicked awesome! 

So we had a crazy busy weekend we drove three hours to Goshen CT to set up displays for a family feud activity with their ward then we stayed over night in Avon with the sisters in that area then we woke up early and drove by the new hartford temple its coming along nicely... slowly.. but its comin, then we made out way to southington CT to do displays for one of their primary activities, then we drove to cambridge and set up for the chinese new year! then we drove home and woke up went to our ward for the first time and then we left early to go to a spanish baptism in Providence which i loved because i got to practice my spanish a little and they were pretty impressed i could even understand what they were saying i talked to this one girl who was from Guatemala and she asked me what it was like to be a missionary and she told me she thinks she might go on one now, which is amazing considering she is the only one in her family who is a member! it was such a long weekend and i am so tired but it was so fun! 

the PVC is awesome we get to meet so many people and hear some pretty amazing stories not to mention all the places we get to go to. 

We have been getting lots of snow but thank goodness we havent been red dotted/ purple dotted yet cause we have so many things to get done! We did stay in one day this week because sister Black had kidney stones so needless to say she was a ton of pain but she is all recovered and we are back to work! She is such a harder worker and im so lucky to be serving with her! She is so sweet!  

Alright so we picked up three new investigators this week! which is really amazing since we literally spend almost all our time traveling and working on PVC assignments! Its such a tender mercy to see that when we are doing what we are suppose to the lord puts people in our path for us to help/teach. so we met our first investigator in the parking lot of where we live her name is Judy and she  is from nigeria she is interested in gaining a stronger relationship with God we gave her a BOM and are planning to meet with her again this week! 

then we have another investigator Maureen who is one of our member's personal masseuse, she seems pretty interested and told us she also wants her son who is 16 to come to church with her! okay and last but not least Reggywe actually met her today while doing our laundry,i had just gotten out of the shower and it was snowing and we ran over to get our laundry and we just started talking to her, told her who we were and what we do as missionaries and she was fascinated!  she is christian and lives in our building and has two sons and moved here from brazil 10 years ago. It was probably the highlight of my week to see the way she lit up as we told her about Joseph Smith and how we believe in Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost! We didnt have any of our proselyting materials with us but she told us she would wait there while we ran and got some! Because we are PVC sisters we have almost every language of BOM hanging out in our apartment so we were able to give her one in Portuguese and English she was so excited and told us she wants to come to church! Ah miracles people miracles! 

Key Principle 

holding fast 

this week i learned that sometimes you just have to hang on.... it was an extremely exhausting week and i was getting frustrated with all this new stuff i have to learn and i was starting to wonder why we even do the PVC i was discouraged because we meet so many people and we help other areas pick up investigators but we never see the results and we dont get to teach them, but as we had dinner with one of out members last night we shared one of our videos  and i just felt the spirit so strong testify to me that what we are doing is worth it and that Heavenly Father is watching over us and caring for us even when we arent necessarily thinking about him. it is worth it and one day we will be able to see that fully but for now we just have to "hang on"

 i love you all very much thank you for all the support and love and prayers! 

p.s. shoutout to my trainer/mom in the mission, Sister Williams for getting engaged i totally called it! love you lots! Congrats! 

February 1, 2016

Family & Friends,

What a crazy week!!!

Okay so this was my first week in the PVC and I love it so much! it is so fun! Like really it’s awesome and I am so spoiled and blessed to get to serve here, I didn’t know this but apparently every sister in the mission wants to do PVC.

We spend a lot of time in the mission office so we get to work with the senior couples a lot and the full time Digi sisters it’s so fun we also spend a lot of time with president and Sister Miller. Also it’s so fun when we travel we get to meet many other missionaries and so many people! I have heard some amazing conversion stories this week. And I get to see missionaries I have served with in my last area!   

So this week we traveled in our super cool car (aka the spaceship) its massive and yes I "get" to drive it, anyway we went to three events and two baptism, the baptisms were in Nashua New Hampshire and Boston the one in Boston was with the Haitian Creole branch they are the only Haitian branch in the world outside of Haiti and they speak a dialect of French it was so cool to listen to it we had a translator who translated our testimonies as we spoke, and we even played the videos in Creole, technology and it’s amazing to see how these videos bring the spirit, not that speakers don’t but when we turn the lights off everyone gets quiet and they all pay attention and that’s when the spirit speaks to people! At the end of the baptism in Boston the woman who was baptized her daughter went up to the missionaries and asked to be baptized it was incredible! 

Next week we are going to a baptism for someone who saw the PVC and after watching some of the videos decided to investigate and now is getting baptized

Sister Lucy Black is awesome we have so much fun she is from Provo, Utah she was a ballroom dancer in high school and she is the youngest of 5. Whenever we go somewhere in public we take turns picking out people for each other to contact it’s kind of funny but it works and makes it easier to just go up to random people and contact them. We have also decided that google is our third companion cause if we don’t know something we google it! And we can do this because PVC has IPads!!!! Yay!!!! 

okay something that is also super neat is that because the MBM started the PVC, other missions who see it want it so a mission in Arkansas got it, i know random, but the mission president from Australia was in the MTC with president and Sister Miller and now we are working with him to get the PVC in their mission, his name is president parker and he is insanely nice, he calls us with questions and he just keeps saying how blessed he is to be working with us and how he amazing this program is! 

A lot of people have asked if PVC has a ward we are with the answer is yes we serve in the Weston 1st ward, we spend 3/4 of our time and the rest with investigators we just had a lesson last night with one of our investigators, Medina, and invited her to pray about a baptismal date she is awesome but concerned that she doesn’t know everything but we whipped out some scriptures and she is feeling better about it. 

Well we are going to tour Wellesley College today so that should be fun, this week we Chinese New year activity to go to and Cambridge to work on some new videos for the program should be a blast!

Key Principle

"A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it"

-The Candle of the Lord 

-Elder Packer 

this week i learned to not worry about saying something profound all the time or making sure what i said changes someone’s life, think about the times when someone has said something that has made a profound impact on you and they didn't even know. 

I am surprised every day by how much the spirit guides and directs my thoughts and actions to benefit others, when i bear my testimony to anyone i realize i know much more than i thought i did- so share your testimony love you all have a wonderful week!  

     XOXO

-Sister Sophie Brooks

Mission Office 

182 West Central Street suite 203

Natick Mass 01760 

January 25, 2016

Wow this has been quite an eventful week I must say! For starters We had pizza for like 5 meals in a row...  Haha just kidding that wasn't the most eventful thing 

First off we got in a car accident but don't worry it wasn't that bad, no one got hurt and the car just got a little scratch, yes I was driving no it was not my fault! We were turning left and there were two lanes of traffic coming the other way the car in the lane closest to us stopped and flashed its lights for us to go and as I inched out to go a car in the next lane just came and hit the back of our car, the drivers here are crazy and no one knows who's right of way it is. 

There was a worldwide mission broadcast this week that was really good they talked a lot about how to use the Holy Ghost in our lessons and how we should be working with the members and that they are our best resource for finding

We had a car fast this week where we were suppose to go one whole day without using the car at all it was actually not that hard and we had a super successful day! 

Alright so we got t-texts this week (transfers texts) and our whole entire zone is getting changed every companionship which is just crazy and kind of sad because we all get along super well it's a super fun zone!  So yes I am getting transfered to WESTON MASS PVC!!! I am so excited so you are probably wondering what Pvc is it stands for portable visitors center it is something that is unique to the  mass Boston mission. There is only one set of pvc sisters and what we do is we go around to events all over the mission and set up displays that explain what we believe it is so neat and I am so excited to be part of it! We get to work closely with the president which will be really cool and best of all we get to go around to the whole mission so that means I will get to go to the westerly open house! And it will be really good for my postcard collection  My new companion's name is sister black yes I am going from sister Blackburn to sister black, who I actually already met last week because the PVC came to our branch party.

 Oh also we carpooled with the elders to district meeting and ttexts this week and on the way back we made a little stop at the beach... So we were walking on the beach a and I found a little baby sand dollar  I was so excited so I ran to show the elders and one of them said "hey that is Heavenly Father saying good work in westerly sister brooks here is a dollar" haha I thought it was kind of funny.

Then Saturday we had a big snow storm so we had to stay inside most the day but it was fun we deep cleaned the apartment and I packed a little, and of course we played in the snow.  

I'm going to miss westerly so much it kind of stinks because we didnt have church on sunday because of all the snow so i didnt get to say bye to everyone but there was a baptism for an 8 year old in our branch that was suppose to be on saturday but because of all the snow they changed it to sunday so i actually did get to say bye to a lot of people there! I am very excited for this new adventure with the PVC!

oh also last pday after we emailed sister blackburn wanted to go get icecream so we went to mels and the whole district was there! they threw me a surprise birthday party! it was so much fun then of course we went and played on the beach.

okay key principle

Heavenly Father is in the details of our life He is there watching out for us, and life is better all around when we recognize His hand in our life. 

I have often thought that maybe its just a coincidence that things happen or that things just happen but not for a reason, i have been able to recognize the little tender mercies much more while i have been on my mission so this week look for the tender mercies each day and i know you will be happier. 

this is sally she is awesome! 

January 18, 2016

Hey family and friends!

thanks again for all the birthday wishes i love and miss you all so much!

so we had a really fun week! We went to go see one of our less active members and while we were in the area we decided to "six pack it" or tract the houses around his house. literally the first door we knocked on a man named mark answered and told us he was interested in learning more and seemed really excited to see us which might have been because he said he was expecting the police so i guess we were a nice surpise, but still sis Blackburn has been out on her mission for 14 months and said it was the most positive tracting she has ever done which was cool!

also the building is coming along nicely it should be done by february i just hope i am still here to go to an actual meeting when its done! Transfers are coming up on January 27 and we find out who gets transfered this friday fingers crossed i dont get transfered i love it here and i finally feel like i have a handle on things! 

also bud walters spoke this week in church! he told us he wrote like 7 different talks and he didnt use any of them but he did a really good job! and he is getting ready to go to the temple for baptisms in february!! he is gonna love it! i hope i am still here when he gets to go!

this past sunday was super overwhelming and fun at the same time! we got a new family the swansons they are a military family so they move around a lot they have a son who is in high school and swims which is neat his name is Rope... yup Rope he is super nice they are recent converts and are struggling with the adjustment of living in new england since they are from cali.

Oh man so this sunday we got asked to teach the lesson in Gospel Doctrine because the woman who teaches it had a seizure and was in the hospital, so usually there are only like 4 people in the class but the youth's teacher was sick so the youth came into our class and then they just combined all the classes aka the whole branch came to our lesson that we didnt really prepare, it was on the tree of life we were told the day before so when we were sending out our weekly correlation email i thought hey ill just take some quick notes and i am so glad i did, thanks to the spirit the lesson went really well and everyone kept commenting on how good it was!

we also had a combined activity with the Groton ward it was a luau it was so fun! one of the gorotn elders is from hawaii so he taught us a hula that we performed it was fun!

for my birthday we went with the Groton elders to Kelis deli and of course to the beach to fly kites it was fun! also we went to a members house for dinner and they made cupcakes and sang to me! it was so sweet (pun intended) 

In the town of westerly there is a little boy whos name is Dorian maybe you have heard of him but he is dying of cancer and his last wish is to be famous so people all over the world are trying to make him famous, he has been on tons of talk shows and  he got to have dinner with one of then new England patriots players and they put #dstrong all over the town its such a cute story it really restores my faith in the world its amazing to see what people are capable of.

i have seen a lot christlike love and actions this week from rallying around our member who is in the hospital to welcoming a new family to fulfilling this kids last wish to be famous  

key principle 

from our tree of life lesson, we are all on the path to the tree we all fall away sometimes or take our hand off of that iron rod we need to help others who have fallen away to find their way back. think of someone who needs a little extra help this week, someone who has fallen who is struggling and do something to help the, you will be blessed for it!

I love you all so much have a great week