Sister Kaylee Brooks: 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!!