Focusing on positive instead of Grinch's "wallow in self pity"

Emailing at the library

Happy Monday!!

I hope y'all had a wonderful week!! Well, to say it bluntly. This week was hard. Very, very hard. I am very happy for this week to be over, haha. But I was still able to see God’s hand in my week and throughout the day. He is too good. I am so grateful for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. No matter how my week went, how many doors slammed in our faces, or tough it is to get along with people or companions, He is always there for us. No matter what, He wants us to be happy. I've really tried to focus on the positive this week rather than, as the grinch would say, "wallow in self-pity" or something like that.. Haha which I wanted to do sometimes. haha. 

Krista, our cute miracle investigator was so busy this week and we were hardly able to get a hold of her or see her. She is in the process of moving and selling her possessions and overly stressed. We will just have to give her a little time, but start back up with teaching her soon. :) 

We had a cute new family move into our ward this week!! Yay! We have had so many people move out or die... Our ward is starting to get really small. This family moved from northern Virginia and the mom, Anna, (pronounced Iike the girl on frozen) was converted in her late 20's by sister missionaries, so she loves is ;). We helped them move and unpack this week and really got to know them. She is seriously the best member missionary. We helped her on Tuesday, then Friday she called us telling us all the people she has met this week and wants to invite over to her home for us to teach. She is so dang cute! She said once her house is unpacked and ready to go, she will start inviting them over for dinner.  We told her we would be over to help that process speed up. ;) haha 

We met this lady name Mindy while we were tracting. She said she knows everything about almost every religion, but she doesn't know much about Mormonism. She said she would love to sit down and talk with us. I was pretty excited, she was super cute and nice and I thought she was totally interested. We started sharing the restoration with her and next thing you know she just started bashing and saying she isn't sure if it could happen and just POUNDED us with questions. Half her questions I had NO idea how to answer and really relied on the Holy Ghost to help me answer them. After we shared our message, she got all calm and was like okay that was nice, sorry I just pounded and bashed, I wanted to see how you reacted and answered questions and to test you to see if you really believed. She said we could come by any time to teach her. It was so so strange. 

We had stake conference Saturday night and yesterday. We had two general authorities from the 70’s there and they had wonderful talks. We went with James, Lisa and Lisa's mom yesterday.  They weren't planning on going but we asked for a ride and  so they had to.  See what I did there hahaha!  The talks that were given were EXACTLY what James needed and he was able to recognize and see that. Afterwards, we introduced them to President and Sister Wilson. The Wilsons have heard a lot about James and were so excited to meet him. It was so good for James to talk with them for a little and feel of President Wilson’s sweet spirit. We had a really good lesson with them after stake conference about temple marriage. As we explained it, James mentioned he really wanted to be with Lisa forever. We told him he could; he just needed to be baptized first. He told us, he knows he will be baptized one day in the near future, he just has to really gain a testimony and live the way he knows he needs to. He is doing so well. I am happy for him and Lisa. He went to a bachelor party last weekend, scary thought- his friends all drink and he gives into peer pressure- Lisa shared this with us without him knowing.  But at the party, of course they went to a bar, James had only 2 drinks and started to feel funny and get a stomach ache. He knew he shouldn't be drinking and ended up drinking water for the rest of the night. WE WERE ALL SO PROUD OF HIM!!! I sure love them. 

We have been trying to work with less actives and go visit people in the ward we don't have any information on or we haven't met before. We have been able to get into quite a few homes and talk with them and get to know them. It's been so fun to meet them and help them know how much their Heavenly Father really does love them. 

On Saturday, we killed chickens again. I ended up killing this big giant rooster. I was pretty much a pro from last time ;) haha but we had dinner with the Despains last night and at the chickens that we killed, holy cow they were so good... I don't know if I'll be able to have a normal chicken again. We might have to start raising some mom and dad ;) Pictures below.

It's crazy, we have transfer calls this Saturday.  Thank goodness this transfer has gone by pretty fast.  I am interested to see what this next transfer will be like. 

Scripture of the week: John 20:29. This scripture was shared yesterday in stake conference. Jesus is speaking to Thomas and told him that because Thomas saw Jesus, he believed. But blessed are those who don't see Jesus Christ, but still believe. It really made me think of some of our investigators or people I have met. So many people want or expect a sign or some miraculous thing to happen to them so they will start believing. But instead, we really need to have faith in Jesus Christ and know, even though we don't see him, he really is always there for us and he does live. We all need to have more faith and believe in our Savior Jesus Christ. 

I love y'all so much. I hope this week turns out a little better. I just have to keep working hard and push forward, having faith and humble myself to God’s will. Keep being the amazing people that you are. I sure love y'all and pray for y'all constantly. 

Love Sister Brooks!

Me and Sis. Mailata

Rainy day photo shoot

Sis. Mailata had never met Santa yet. :)

We tracted into this guy at the beginning of the week who loved to hunt.
He had everything he has ever shot, on the wall.
This was only one wall of the house. SERIOUSLY, every wall was
COVERED with random animals.

 Saturday, Chicken Killing Again

Getting my rooster set up

Setting up rooster.

Getting grossed out!

Cutting the throat

I tried not to look at the blood.
  Bro. Despain made me laugh.

Prize Rooster

Bro. Despain made this plucking machine out
out of an old washing machine.
It was super cool.

Plucking the rooster and trying to
get it's feathers off.

Dunking the rooster.  
Trying to get a baptism-Just kidding.
This was boiling hot water and we 
dunk it to loosen the feathers to 
make it easier to pluck.

Trying to get the feathers off.  We made
another machine really quick.

Going in for the kill to gut the chicken.

Grossed out.  This Chicken had parts and things
I didn't recognized from the last time and it
freaked me out.