November 7. 2016

One of the highlights from this week was teaching a class at the Westminster boarding school! It was so much fun! So one of the administrators from the school called us and asked if we would come in and teach her class because they were studying history and religion including Mormonism, they even went to the temple as a class! So we taught for three days and it was just such a neat experience, it was a class of seniors and our objective was to help the kids understand some of our beliefs and explain why in the world anyone our age would leave home, school, and family to serve God.
So the first two classes we taught we led a discussion on who we were and why we are serving missions, it was really fun we got to know the students really well and they even had us stay for lunch with them. The last day, Saturday (yes they have classes on Saturday) we were asked to teach one of our missionary discussions. The teacher said missionaries in the past had taught the Plan of Salvation so we decided to just do that, but as we were planning with the elders who we were teaching with, I had a really strong feeling that we should do the restoration. It didn’t make sense because the teacher asked us to do Plan of Salvation and she said they already knew a lot about Joseph Smith, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling so just as we were about done with planning i told the other missionaries that I felt we shouldn’t do plan of salvation and they all agreed. As we taught that next day it was clear that we were supposed to do restoration.
One of the kids, who was sort of a punk and always asked super obnoxious questions, at the end of the class said he really appreciated what we did as missionaries and he respected Mormons a lot more he said "i could never say anything bad about a Mormon". Then one of the elders asked him what his life would be like 10 years from now if he was Mormon and he said, "well i would probably have a wife and kids and my life would be really happy and put together" then he realized what he said and countered it with "what if I don’t want my life put together."
One of the other kids in the class, who seemed legitimately interested, said that he really loved learning from us and that he thought a lot more about God that week, more than he ever had before.
A girl from the class was talking to us before class started and took one of the Book of Mormons before class and was looking through it, and as we were teaching about the Restoration I said "there isn’t much proof that this restoration actually happened," then the teacher cut me off and said "there is no proof" then the girl with the Book of Mormon said "no there are witnesses in the beginning of the book!" it was just a really awesome experience to see how receptive and thought provoking the class was for everyone, it helped me to stand up for the things that I believe and reiterate the feeling.

Key Principle:
Keep your line in the water
“None of us should be like the fisherman who thinks he has been fishing all day when in reality he has spent most of his time getting to and from the water, eating lunch, and fussing with his equipment. Fishing success is related to how long you have your line in the water, not to how long you are away from the apartment. Some fishermen are away from home for twelve hours and have their line in the water for ten hours. Other fishermen are away from home for twelve hours and have their line in the water for only two hours. This last type may wonder why they do not have the same success as others. “The same principle applies to missionaries, whom the Master called ‘fishers of men.’ A missionary’s line should drop into the fishing water the moment he or she leaves the apartment”
Daylight savings is awesome in the morning when its already light out and you get that extra hour of sleep but its not very fun when its dark at like 5pm and so everyone thinks its time to go to bed and ignore the missionaries  who are standing in the cold on your door step.... lets just say it was cold and dark and we were feeling a little discouraged but sister Morris and I were really trying to keep "our line in the water"  so we decided to contact a few more people and it worked! We were able to contact a couple of our investigators who had gone MIA while we were at the temple and it was such a blessing! #fishersofmen
I think that this can apply to anything we do in life, sports, school, relationships, the more effort and time you put into something the more success you will see. So keep your line in the water.
Love you all have a good week!

-Sister Sophie Brooks

1204 Kristins Way
Bloomfield Ct
06002