October 3, 2016

Tours this week were so good! It got really cold which was kind of hard but there is no where else I would rather stand in the cold rain.

There were a ton of people that came to the open house this week and everyone absolutely loved it there were tons of good comments people were impressed with how well done it was and how friendly all the staff was.

Stories of the open house:

tithing: I was talking with a couple that attends a congregational church in the area and their pastor came up behind me and didn't realize that i was a missionary and started talking to the couple and said "man these mormons must be in a ton of debt over this thing" then the couple i was talking to said "actually this missionary just told us that this church doesn't build anything that they haven't already paid for, so the whole thing is debt free." the pastor was pretty embarrassed but mostly just impressed with the dedication that goes into a "mormon temple" then he asked how we could possibly pay for something like this and i got to explain tithing to them it was really neat.

crazy spider guy:this guy walked into our video tent and he looked like he came straight out of a haunted house it was crazy he had a black wig on and his face was painted with spider webs and he had all black on, oh and he was carrying a purse. very interesting looking. so he went all the way through the tour and then he went to the reception tent at the end of the tour where people ask questions and look at displays. Spider boy went up and talked to everyone he could telling everyone that the church was full of lies and that we are racist etc the people that we were talking to said "oh we are so sorry that he said that some people just need attention you should have him leave though he is ruining the good atmosphere" it was cool though that people didn't treat him any different and that it didn't disrupt the spirit and that it didn't affect what people thought. 

good vibes:we went on a tour so that sister morris could translate (ASL) for some guests I was following the tour and making sure everyone was with our group, there was a woman standing at the end of the group she was tearing up and told me how she just felt so good and that it was the prettiest building she had ever been in. I asked her if she knew why she felt that way and she said no then i explained to her it was because she was in the house of God, she thought that was so cool and i told her to fill out a comment card and she said she was going to have missionaries comes see her.  

Jesus in the chandelier:there was a comment card where someone said she saw the face of jesus in the chandelier in the celestial room and so she requested that missionaries come see her.

jokes from the open house that random people told us:
 what prophet broke the most commandments?

         Moses, he broke all ten

how many times could noah go fishing?
          twice-he only had two worms 
i know what you're all thinking, missionary humor is very dry but how could i not share these wonderful bible jokes 

So this week we got a call from sister miller our mission president's wife and she said that we would be going back to our area for a week so that they could try to get all the sisters in our whole mission to the temple open house... needless to say i was a bit frustrated we have no plans, no lessons set up, our members all think we are gone, the elders are working with all our investigators so we don't have anything to go back to but it's okay i know that God will help us find people who are ready to hear the gospel we just have to try!

key principle:

conference was wicked good!

I loved all the talks of course and learned a lot but one point that i want to share is from Elder Rasband's talk, he spoke on when we go through trials and tests of faith he pointed out that its easy to have faith when things are going well but when it gets tough its hard to have a positive attitude and keep an eternal perspective one of his suggestions was that we write down spiritual experiences or just our testimony in general so that when we do go through hard times we can look back and remind ourselves of how God really has blessed us.

    
XOXO

-Sister Sophie Brooks

1204 Kristins Way 

Bloomfield Ct

06002