A Series of Unfortunate Events

Hello, Hello. This week was a crazy one to say the least. Missionary work always keeps you on your toes. 

Saddest news of all, I’m leaving Sister Tadd and getting transferred.  I don't mind I'm being transferred cause I love seeing more of Virginia. But I don't want to leave Sister Tadd!!  When I received the call Saturday night, we were at the Innsbrook sister’s house, who lives by us and we just looked at each other and started crying. When we got home, we just sat on our bed and cried some more.  Yeah... We don't want to leave each other. Transfers are on Tuesday.

Sad to leave Sister Tadd

Get comfortable, this is gonna be a long story. . . 

So, Monday night Jesse had his baptism interview and President
Anderson, in the mission presidency, interviewed him again. This was a do or die moment. We were really scared, to say the least. But we knew whatever happened, it was supposed to happen.  After the interview, President Anderson told us to come into the room to chat. He said that he nailed Jesse and he just had a really good feeling about things and told us Jesse was good to go! Ahh yay!!! We were so excited. He said he would contact our bishop and let us know as soon as possible how bishop felt about it and if we needed to continue to plan Jesse’s baptism. So, we patiently waited. We finally heard from him on Tuesday and he said Bishop said it was okay with him. We were really happy about that. But Wait.... It doesn't stop there. There was a worldwide missionary broadcast, it was amazing and you'll hear about that very soon, and President Anderson came walking towards us and sat down by us. Oh great. He then started telling us how Bishop just texted him and said he isn't sure how he felt anymore about Jesse being baptized so he didn't want him to. By now, we had everything confirmed for his baptism and ready to go. So, being the sweet guy he is, President Anderson said he would call Bishop that night around 7 when Bishop is off work. WE HAD TO WAIT 7 HOURS.  It was way long. We had an appointment with Jesse that evening and wanted to fill his baptism record out.  We filled it out anyway, just in case. When we were done with a lesson with him, and only seconds later, President Anderson said he talked and softened up bishop and he now supported it. Woot woot! We just prayed nothing else would get in the way-- hahahahahahahahaha--- boy were we wrong.  I'm leaving you hanging, story continued in a few paragraphs down.  

So, the world wide missionary broadcast was so cool!! They haven't done one of these for like a decade, or something around that time. The mission presidency was able to talk to us and all about how we can better work with our investigators and be full purpose missionaries. I love conferences and broadcast, because I always leave them on a high. It just makes me realize even more how wonderful my calling is and how lucky I am to be a missionary and spread this wonderful gospel to those around me in Virginia, even if they are mean and crazy.  My calling is so great.  I see how fast time is flying and it makes me want to be that much better of a missionary, because I know I won't have the opportunity to wear this badge on my heart for too much longer.  It was fantastic. We have great leadership, that's for sure. 

This week we had so many lessons set up and guess what?--- No one showed up or was home for their lesson except Jesse. Yay Jesse. 

We had a lot of Virginians tell us to be prepared there was going to be a big snow storm hitting this weekend. Virginians exaggerate a little so we didn't think it was gonna be that bad. But it started dumping on us so hard Friday morning.  It was constant until early Sunday morning and then it finally stopped. We were expecting to be shut in for the weekend but, oh no. Not on President Wilson’s watch. (Chris is probably thinking we are such babies cause he had to deal with this all winter in Montana.) But it was crazy for the Virginians.  President told us that our cars were grounded and we had to walk everywhere. We didn't think it would be too bad until 30 minutes later it got TONS worse. We live in the elder’s area, and on foot it would take us about an hour to arrive in our area. We didn't feel like tracting in the elder’s area, so we decided to journey to our’s. We got about half a mile from our house and realized we had to go on a little highway and we didn't want to risk it because cars were fish tailing like crazy and the last thing we wanted was to get hit and fly over the edge to the freeway. So we decided to go to Monica's because she was the closest person we knew in the elder’s area. So we started our 3 mile walk in the storm. We didn't think it was that far, but boy were we wrong. After about an hour and a half later, we arrived at Monica's house safely, but completely frozen. We stayed for a little and then begged the Innsbrook sisters to pick us up. (Sister Hendrickson knew how to drive in the snow, that's why we dared call them).  We arrived home safely and decided we would stay in the elder’s area the rest of the night and make some phone calls. Saturday wasn't much different except the storm was worse. We still tried contacting people, but we didn't find too much success; they all looked at us like we were dummy's . Yes, we kind of were.  We then called/texted every single potential in our area book that night. It was funny, we have people from 2003. We had a few good responses so that was good. But we mostly didn't get any response back. 

The snow was so crazy, but we got some cool pictures out of it. So
that's all the matters right? Hee hee just kidding.

The worst part about the snow storm was, we had to cancel Jesse’s
baptism :( it was so snowy and plus our car was grounded and NO ONE was on the roads.  We had to reschedule it. Ugh. And I probably won't be here for it,  but it's okay. We also had church canceled yesterday and President Wilson just wanted us to help people shovel their driveways because it was nice and sunny. So we did. We finally got our car out and went to Vicki’s and cleared her driveway and walkway. I've never shoveled snow in my life. It was fun. Now I can help Dad in Pine Valley!!  I'm pretty much pro now. 

Now, for the better news. . . 

The elders texted us one night and asked us if we have ever contacted this less active in our ward named Sani Johnson, we didn't admit, but we had no idea who that was, so we decided to see her the next day. We went to her house and knocked and there was no answer. It was FREEZING outside and we just wanted to find someone to teach and go inside. We started walking towards other apartments and then Sani opened her door and yelled for us to come back. She even invited us in! She is so cute, she is in her 30's and is married with 3 little boys. She has been having bad marriage problems and told us the only reason she married her husband was because she was living with him and knew she couldn't be baptized unless she got married to him, so they got married. Anyway, she really wanted to come to church with her boys but her husband wouldn't allow it. They have had a lot of problems lately so she was kicking him out of the house and he had to be gone by the end of the month. She said when he leaves, she will be taking her sons and herself back to church. She can't wait. She then told us she works at Bath and Body Works. She told us to come into her room and see her collection. And WOW!! She had this HUGE shelf full of products. She told us she appreciated and loved us so much already that we could pick a set to have. So we took home a lotion, perfume and body wash! That's like $30 or more worth of stuff, it was pretty cool. She wants us to start teaching her son who is 9 and help him get baptized :) 

We were tracting one night and ran into this guy named Christian. We introduced ourselves and the first question he asked us was, "what ward are you in?" We were really shocked and couldn't believe he knew that. He then started to explain to us that he did all the heating and air conditioning in our church buildings and knew a lot about the Mormons. He said he would be interested in learning more with his family. We were really excited. We had an appointment with him this week, but couldn't go to it because of the snow. 

On Thursday, Sister Tadd went to mid mission (a meeting you go to with President and Sister Wilson when you're half way done with your mission, it's a day and a half).  Sister Hendrickson’s (Innnsbrook sister) companion had to go as well so we were companions for Thursday and Friday while they were gone. We went to the Innsbrook area and did work there for the day. It was really fun to meet her investigators and to meet their ward. It was so much fun. 

In my personal study the other day I was reading about the life of
President Hinckley in the "Our Heritage" book.  I am obsessed with
that book.  But it had a few quotes in there that he would always say and I love them.  He said "Forget yourself and go to work".  I love this because as a missionary you really need to forget about yourself and go serve the Lord. Then there was, "be believing, be happy.  Don't get discouraged, things will work out" which also applies to missionary work. It gets discouraging sometimes but the best way is to just continue to be happy and know everything will be okay. 

Scripture of the week. Mark 8:35. When you lose yourself in the Lord’s work and in His gospel, you will be able to feel more of His love. 

I love y'all. Have a wonderful week!! 

Love Sister Brooks

Sister Missionary tries to be Skateboard Queen ??

Yeah, that hurt my wrist real bad!

P-day with our Zone at the church

Saying Goodbye to Sister Tadd :(

On Friday, January 22, we (Sister Brooks' family) received a special text on our phone with a picture from Monica:
Sister Brooks, your daughter is a truly dedicated missionar.y She walked through a blizzard, not realizing my home was so far from hers. She knew I am pretty much a shut-in who had heart surgery about a year ago. She wanted to see if I needed anything. She and her companion walked for an hour and a half, 3 miles. Fortunately, they got a ride home with some encouragement. Thank you for sharing her with me. 

Monica Dean

Roller Coaster week!

Emailing from a Restaurant today.  The Library is closed for MLK day.

It's me again!!! 

I hope y'all had a wonderful week. Boy has this week gone by SOOO fast and a big roller coaster. It's seriously been so crazy and stressful but of course, the Lord is so wonderful and has blessed us with many miracles. The mission is so great and everything you hear is so correct, I never thought I could be so happy at one point of the day and then the next want to curl up in bed or hide under a rock. But it only makes life more interesting and helps my testimony grow even more because I have to rely on the Lord and know that it is all His will. He's so great. 

We met this lady the other day named Jane and we had a return
appointment with her on Monday.  Jane doesn't have good eye sight at all and can't see within 2 feet in front of her without it being blurry. But she is so sweet and loves her cats. We thought of this lady in our ward to bring to the lesson and knew they would get a long great. That was the worst mistake we have ever made, hahahaha. They got along too well. They talked and talked and talked for 2 HOURS about stinking cats. Eww, I'm not a fan of those little creatures.  In Virginia everyone has a dog(s) or cat(s) and they crawl all up on you and try to lick you, bleh, it's so gross. Anyway, we finally were able to get a lesson in real quick, but it didn't last long until they started talking about their cats again. It was miserable. We learned our lesson. The worst part was, we drove with our member so we couldn't leave until she left because. So we learned- 1. Don't go with that member or 2. If we do, drive separately. :)

We had zone conference this week and we had some really good
trainings.  I love zone conferences because I leave the meeting having so many ideas and so excited to go try and apply the things I have learned. Talk about a spiritual high!! President and Sister Wilson taught us a wonderful and more effective way to introduce the Book of Mormon. They told us to use the pictures in the front of the book to try and grasp their attention. We have tried that this week and we have so many more people willing to read the Book of Mormon, it was great!!  The AP's talked about how we should try and introduce baptism on the doorstep and how we need to try to work on setting people on a specific date on the first lesson.  If you're like me, you're probably thinking the same thing I did when I was back home,  like ARE YOU NUTS??  But boy do I promise you it works, yes it scares people off on occasions, but it really brings the spirit in. We have had so many more people accept baptism, not all accept a date quite yet, but they are close. I have loved to see the different ways we have tried to approach it. It has been working really well. Our president has challenged each missionary to baptize each month so we can help bring more children into the fold.  We have been praying and working hard to find those who are ready and prepared, but we know it will come, on the Lord’s timing. 

Second Missionary from the right- Elder Sam Slivers from Santa Clara. 

Sister Missionaries from the Richmond East and Richmond West Zones 

We met this lady and her fiance a few weeks ago. They used to be
investigators about a year ago but ended up dropping the missionaries because they didn't want to learn anymore. We ran into them this week and were finally able to get a hold of them. We were talking to Connie, the Lady, and she started talking to us about Isis and Muslims and was saying very mean things about them. Then her fiance came up and started getting mad at her for bringing this up. Next thing you know they are just yelling at each other so loud and Sis. Tadd and I were like, uhh.. What the heck is going on? Then they finally cooled down a little. The guy, Shawn, kept bragging on how he was a marine Corp and how he would snipe down people. Connie was just going off about how we need more Christians in the world and how we need to elect a Christian president or else this world is going to burn. They kept talking and talking and yelling at each other still and finally we were able to calm them down and share a message with them. They were very nice, but boy, they were interesting. 

Okay, so here's a long confusing story, so, we have been trying to
figure everything out with Jesse (our blind lady’s friend) and him being baptized. As you know, we called president and got his advice and he had president Anderson come with us to the lesson. The lesson went so well. Jesse’s testimony has grown so much and he just wants to be baptized. President Anderson was really impressed with him. After the lesson, we were talking to president Anderson and he said from his point of view, he thinks it's okay for Jesse to be baptized, but he was going to run it through president one more time. After what seemed forever, 3 days later President Anderson texted us and let us know that Jesse could be baptized!!!! Woohoo!! So we started planning and getting things done. Well... It doesn't end there, of course. We were talking to our ward mission leader yesterday and he was telling us that our bishop, who was just called two weeks ago, wanted to hear from President Wilson himself that Jesse could be baptized. We understood where he was coming from and talked with him about it. President Anderson is going to have another interview with him tonight to seal the deal. If the interview goes well and President Anderson feels good about it, he will get baptized this Saturday.  If he doesn't, well who knows. He probably won't until they get married.  It's been super crazy and stressful trying to figure all this out, but it will work out how it needs to! 

We had a really cool miracle this week. We were going to contact some potentials and we saw this guy by his door and went to talk to him.  Of course, he was smoking.  Anyway, we talked to him and he explained that he lives in New York but he is staying here with his daughter for a while. He has been looking for a church but hasn't seen or heard of any he is impressed with. We talked to him a little about what we believe, invited him to church and then we continued on finding this other potential. The potential didn't answer the door, so we decided to knock on the doors around it. This cute girl named Joy answered her door and we started sharing our message with her.  Next thing you know Arthur (the man from New York) comes down the complex.  He asks if he can talk to us real quick. Sis. Tadd started to talk with him while I continued to talk with Joy about the church.  Arthur goes on to say that he talked to his daughter and would really like to attend our church!!!!! Yay!! He was excited to come. He doesn't have a car, so we told him we would set up a ride for him. Sister Tadd came back to talking with Joy and I while I was explaining the Book of Mormon to her. She then asked us where she could purchase one of these books and we told her she could have the one that we had for free. She got really excited and happy and just started laughing and saying "wait, really?" It was so cute. We set a return appointment with her and hopefully that goes all well. 

We set up arrangements for Arthur to get a ride to church, but sadly
the person who went to pick him up couldn't find his address. Ugh. But we went over there after church and he said that he would love to meet with us and come to church next week! It was definitely a cool miracle. 

Last night, we were coming out of Cami's house and noticed a bunch of fire trucks and police officers. Being the nosey missionaries that we are, we decided to investigate. We talked to this guy named Matt and his neighbor, some energetic cute black lady, and they explained that Matt’s mom, whom he was visiting, was very sick. We offered to have a prayer with them that things will be okay and for comfort. They gladly accepted. The cute little black lady then said, "do y'all come out on these streets every night?" We explained who we were and what we were doing. She was so surprised and happy we came by at that moment.  Matt had a lot of tears in his eyes and couldn't thank us enough.  Matt’s brother came and the little cute black lady was telling EVERYONE who we were and that we prayed with them.  It made us feel so good ;) 

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's already time for transfers again.
Holy cow, where does the time go? We will be getting transfer calls
this Saturday!  I'm interested to see if I stay or go.  I'm excited for
either one though. Time sure has been flying. 

Scripture of the week: it is John 5:30.  I have been studying about
humility lately and how we need to do God’s will instead of our own. The scripture says, "I can of mine own self do nothing..... because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." I have learned so much on my mission that we need to really trust in God and know that whatever His will is, it will be done. We can't be selfish and do what we want all the time, sometimes God has a different plan for us and we need to be humble enough to accept that. 

I love y'all so much, I hope this week is fantastic :)



Love Sister Brooks!!

We attempted to sign out CTR in our reflection. 

This dog's outfit???

This is the best description of a mission. I love it.

It's raining like crazy and we always get caught in it. . . . 

. . . .  we spent three hours in the rain.  

The temperature high this week is going to be 29 degrees and snowing again this weekend.  I AM GOING TO DIE, ha ha ha.

Busy missionary work makes for a fast week!

Sorry, No Sister Tadd with me right now (while emailing). She had to go to the restroom.

Hello sweet family and friends

This week has gone by so fast, holy cow!! I seriously blinked my eyes and now it’s already preparation day!! YAY :) This week has been crazy, busy and fun, so that's why time went by so fast. I love it when it’s busy!! 

We have been tracting so much these past two transfers, but we have met so many cool people and many who are progressing very well. But of course, there are those few who don't progress and aren't too interested and we have to drop them. It’s so sad but it’s not their time right now. It will come soon though :) 

We met this sweet girl tracting earlier this week. Her name is Michel'le (pronounced Miss Chalet). She was really excited to see us. She told us she met with missionaries about eight months ago, right before they took the sisters out of this area, and hasn't seen any sense. She is really interested in learning and should be having a baby any day now and wants to have the baby grow up in a church. She is so sweet. She was definitely a little miracle :)

We also have been meeting with this 17-year-old named Malik, but we call him Leek. We also tracted into him. When we first met him, he was kind of hesitant, but we set a return appointment with him and started with the lessons. We realized that he knew NOTHING. He was asking us who God and Jesus were, so we have had to take it really slow with him. After every lesson, he sets a return appointment and will text us the day of our appointment to see if we are coming still. He has progressed so much the last two weeks. We have been teaching him a lot about prayer and at first he didn’t want to pray in front of us at all, but now he asks to pray. His prayers are so sweet and sincere and he always makes a point to pray for us and our safety. He is a nice guy. We have taken some laurels in our ward to his lessons. He has been liking that a lot, haha. He is a really nice kid. 

We met this guy a few weeks ago named Brandon.  He is in his 30's, and he has had a really hard life. We started just talking and getting to know him. He then mentioned something about the Mormon church and we were so confused because we didn't tell him anything about us being Mormon. He then explained he knew who we were because he grew up as a Mormon and was baptized when he was eight. He fell away from the church a little after that because he went through so many hard things with his parents and he didn't believe God was there anymore. He is now a Jew and has a CRAZY big brain and knows everything about every church on this earth. He is very smart. Anyway, we have been trying to get him to come to church for the past three weeks and he texted Friday night and said he was coming to church and HE DID!!! He said he really enjoyed it and wants to start coming more. He has a little boy and he is dating this girl who doesn’t have any religious beliefs and she has two kids, so he wants us to come over one day and talk with them! We are really excited :)

We have been teaching Jesse, Jo's boyfriend, the blind lady we take walking. The Elders were teaching him, but he was in our area and too far away from them so they gave him to us. It’s been about a month now and we just started the lessons over again because he had no idea what we were talking about half the time. I am not sure what the Elders taught him.  He said we explain things way better than the elders do and go at his pace, so he is really liking to meet with us instead of the elders, haha :), We have him on date for baptism, but because he is living with his girlfriend, he can’t be baptized until they are married. But they honestly are more like roommates than actual boyfriend/girlfriend. We talked about marriage with them, and because they are both on social security for their money, if they get married, their money will split in half and they won’t have enough money. So marriage is out of the question right now. But, he is so ready for baptism. We talked to President Wilson about it and we are going to have someone that is in the mission presidency come to a lesson with us this week to see their situation and to see if he can get baptized or not. Pray that he can, he is so ready!! But if he can’t, we will understand!! 

Now... for the funny stuff. . . . 
We just got out of a meeting Thursday night and we had about 20 minutes until curfew, We decided to tract really fast and hoped to find someone who was really cool and interested. We found this sweet girl and she invited us to come back, so we were excited. Then.. we knock on this last door. This big old black guy comes out and just starts YELLING at us and telling us how "john smith"
hahahahaha, was a false prophet and he was on drugs. He then started saying some random things and just bashing on the church. He said the only reason we are out here talking about Jesus is because we are getting paid to. We told him that we didn’t get a penny for doing this and we had to actually pay to be out here. That made him quiet... for a little. Sister Tadd and I were getting so frustrated. I prayed so hard after we talked with him and just thanked Heavenly Father for not allowing me to punch him in the face. Ugh, he made me so dang upset!

We were at dinner the other night and this little boy (he is 5 years old) was chasing his little 3-year-old sister around the house trying to kiss her. Next thing I know he LUNGES toward me and just lays a big wet one on my cheek. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard in my life. He was dying of laughter too and his parents were so embarrassed. 

Oh man, y’all will laugh at this one. We were driving down to Monica’s and I saw this guy walking down the street dancing, with this dress on and bows in his hair. I told Sister Tadd to pull over right now. I just had to give him a mormon.org card. I couldn’t waste this opportunity. I walked up to him and boy, he was more of a girl then I was. But I gave him a card and he kindly accepted, then, as we were walking off, it blew out of his hands and he started running for it. HAHAHAHAHA that’s all I can say, I died laughing! I love being a missionary! 

With Hermana Unga

I went on exchanges this week with Hermana Unga, I think Heavenly Father is trying to tell me something because I went to their area again and (tried) to speak Spanish again. This is 3/4 now. It’s a sign. It was so much fun though, I had a blast with her. 

With Hermana Ward

We had district meeting this week and I had to give a training about bearing our testimony more frequently. It really made me realize how important sharing our testimonies are. They are so powerful and we need to always strive to share it with others. Go read the scriptures in Doctrine & Covenants 62:3. I LOVE IT! One of the Elders gave another training and he said something that REALLY stuck with me. He said (I can’t remember the exact phrasing but something like this), Our parents gave us our first name, we can do what we want with it and use it how we would like, but with our last names, we share them with our family, we need to live up and honor our last name and not make a bad reputation to the last name. But for the next year and a half or two years, we are wearing Christ’s name on our chest.  We need to do everything we can to be the best representative we can of Him. Tell everyone about Him and show our love for Him. I loved that!  It really made me think to make sure I really act and be a good example.

Our mission had 506 baptisms this year of 2015, HOW COOL IS THAT?!!!! 

Scripture of the week: Romans 8:5, it says even though we are sinners, Christ still died for us and loves us so much. He loves us so much and went through everything for us even though we are sinners, THAT IS SO AMAZING!!!!! WE ARE SO LUCKY AND BLESSED.


Man I love being a missionary!  It’s such an amazing blessing. 
I LOVE Y’ALL SO MUCH!!! Have an amazing week :)

Love Sister Brooks

Christmas Tree that we helped decorate

With Gina

The good, the bad, the crazy, weird and funny!

Emailing Home at the Library

HAPPY NEW YEARS TO THE MOST AMAZING PEOPLE AROUND!!!!! 

I hope y'all had a wonderful New Years Celebration!! This week has been so crazy and fun, that's all a mission is! The good, the bad, the crazy, weird and funny! 

This week we were going around to contact some potential investigators. We were walking around this apartment complex when this black guy sees us. Of course, we went and talked with him. He started explaining how he met with missionaries before and read the Book of Mormon but he doesn't agree with our church because the blacks weren't able to join the church for a while. We tried to explain everything to him, but he was so bugged that he didn't even care to listen. His name is Ishmael, which is a Bible and Book of Mormon name. I told him that and he just started laughing and said, "duh they wrote it all about me." He then started asking if there were cute girls in our church and we were like heck yeah.  He then said if they all looked like us he would get baptized right now. He said once we get off our missions, he was going to find us and try to marry us. hahaha We don't think he was all there. He was probably high.

This is Ishmael!

On Tuesday, the Struksimas, (Cami, mom you know her.) took us to Cafe Rio for Dinner. MM MM GOOD!! How I missed it. It was Tuesday so we all got tacos because they were super cheap. It reminded me so much of Jeff because we would go get those all the time. Good memories :) It was so good and way fun. I sure love that family.

Of course, we were tracting like crazy this week. What's new?  We were freezing and about to give up because no one would answer and those that did answer, they would yell at us. Someone even threatened to call the cops on us. I told her to do it, but cops never came.  We decided to do one more house. We knocked on the door and this cute girl came to the door. She invited us right in. We still get shocked every time someone lets us in, cause it doesn't happen often. haha So she started explaining to us that she used to date a Mormon and he had the missionaries come over and teach her for a while and she would go to church with him every Sunday. He went a little crazy, so she ended up breaking up with him, but she knew so much! She started asking us a lot of questions and asked if we could come by more and talk with her. She works at the hospital and said she would try to get it off so she could come to church, but she didn't show up yesterday, so we are assuming she couldn't get it off. But her name is Siri, yes like the iPhone. She is so sweet and really cute!! 

We had a lesson with one of our less actives name Gina. We read the Book of Mormon with her every Wednesday night. We went upstairs and started talking with her and next thing we know, she was OUT!! Dead asleep. I don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time. I of course took a video of her. She would start snoring and then randomly start laughing. It was literally so funny. We eventually left and wrote her a little note. She called later that week apologizing and she was so embarrassed!! 

New Years Eve was great! Our President didn't want us going tracting or anything because people here are CRAZY!!! He said we had to go to people's houses we knew or go to member's homes. We Went to the Struksimas, again, and Derrick, the husband made home-made In-n-Out Burgers. It tasted JUST LIKE THEM!! I was in Heaven. Then we played games and had a little dance party around 7:30 and celebrated the New years!! It was really so much fun. They are so sweet for having us over there! We then hung out with Monica for the rest of the night! 

News Years Eve with the Struksimas- awesome family!!!

Well believe it or not,  we talked with Monica about quitting smoking again. She was going to go a whole 24 hours and then work on the next 24 hours. Saturday we took her out with us all day so she wasn't at home thinking about it. (On Friday night, the Elders took all of her Cigarettes she had in the house and grounded her car so she couldn't go anywhere. So we took her out with us.)

We were street contacting earlier in the week at Walmart and met this guy named Dennis, older black guy, and he said he would have a lesson with us on Saturday at the Church. We called him an hour before the lesson to see if it was still good for him, he said he was ready and excited. We got there and waited for 1 hour and guess what? HE NEVER SHOWED UP!!! We got stood up so bad!! haha It was really frustrating!

We had this really sweet ward member give us some money last Sunday and said to go out to eat. We took her up on that offer and went to Olive Garden. I'm pretty sure our waiter thought we were lesbian the whole entire time. Afterwards, we told him who we were and started talking with him. He had some Mormon friends who are on missions right now and asked us all about our missions. Then when he brought us our check, and of course they bring those amazing mints, he brought us a huge hand full of them. It was the best thing ever!!! I was tempted to get some breadsticks and send them to mom, but they probably wouldn't ship very well. haha

This week's weather has been crazy and cold! It is currently snowing right now. ahh!! It's suppose to be in the 30's all week. Pray for me hahaha.

Holy Cow!  It's 30 degrees outside.  We are going to die!

Scripture of the week: Romans 1:16 - its says that I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ and because of Him we are able to have salvation, which is one of the greatest things and gifts we can have!!!! 

I hope y'all have an amazing day and week. I love y'all so much :)

Love Sister Brooks :)

Partying with the Struksimas!  

We welcomed the New Year in (Disney style) at 7:30 PM- yippee!

Ready for Zone Meeting

Sister Brooks has a new camera (Christmas present) that she can email pictures from.  

As soon as she has wifi, the camera will send us any pictures that she has selected to send.  

We were happily surprised to receive this picture during the week