Sister Kaylee Brooks: President Wilson's last week here :(

Emailing time!

Hello to my sweet family and friends!!

I hope you had a wonderful week and are having a great summer! It is sure feeling like summer here. I never thought I would say I miss St. George heat... But I do. This humidity is killer sometimes. And it doesn't help that I am in it all day and have a pool right behind my apartment... I won't get into that rant again. Anyway, this week has been really good and we have still done a lot of finding. And of course we have been able to see many miracles :)

Funny story- we were walking to our club house to email this morning and we couldn't find our car anywhere. It was towed hahahaha. They are working on the road and we didn't know, so they towed it. After emai, we are going to play the game of, "where in the complex is our car?"

Our investigator Desmond is doing pretty good. He is scheduled to be baptized on July 9... But he has a few commandment issues so we are trying to work on those with him right now. We went to a lesson with him the other night and he was pretty high. We went over the next day and he had no idea what he said or what we said to him the night before. But we are trying to work on him with that. He didn't show up to church yesterday either, so that was a big bummer. We see him tonight so we are going to whip him into shape. Bold Sister Brooks will be coming out tonight that's for sure.

We have had so many members come out with us this week! They have been so willing to come and teach with us. They usually come out with us at 6:00 and then they have been staying with us until 9:00. It has been so awesome!! They are even tracting with us. The Aquia Ward is seriously amazing. The members here are so motivated and love doing missionary work with us. Because really, it's their work, we are just here to help them! We usually average 7-10 lessons with members each week, but this week we were able to get 15 and get return appointments and new investigators out of them. It was so amazing. This week we were able to go on actual splits as well. Sister Burgess went with Sister Shirley, a member in our ward, and I went around with Jessie. It was so much fun. They didn't find much success sadly, but Jessie and I taught a lot of lessons! It has been so fun to have members out with us. And it makes the nights go by WAY faster!!

Jessie is my Virginia little Sister :)

We had our last Zone conference with President Wilson. This is his last week. It is so weird to think he is leaving this Friday. I sure am going to miss him. We had wonderful trainings that were given about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can teach and help our investigators. As missionaries, we need to be converted first in order to go out and share it to those around us. We can't teach and preach something we aren't sure about ourselves. When departing missionaries leave, the elders have given President a tie and the sisters give Sister Wilson a scarf. So at zone conference all the sisters brought scarfs and the elders brought ties. We wrote our name on them and they will be making quilts out of them. I think that is so cool and they will have every missionaries tie or scarf they have ever served with. President Wilson has been so amazing and has given his whole heart and soul to the mission. He has taught us all to not only become great missionaries, but to be great members, spouses, parents, and good people in general. We are such an obedient mission as well because that's what he teaches and expects of us. I am grateful he has encouraged obedience so much, because when you're obedient, you find success and the Lord blesses you tremendously. I sure will miss him. I am excited to have President Smith and see the wonderful ways he can help our mission grow.

We were able to go on Exchanges right after zone conference. I went with Hermana Sanchez in their area. I may not have known anything that was said or going on in the Spanish taught lessons, but I could still feel the spirit so strongly. The power of the Holy Ghost is so real and so strong. As missionaries, we really rely on the spirit. If the spirit isn't in lessons, we aren’t teaching correctly. The Spirit needs to always be there so he can't testify of truth to our investigators. Even though I had no idea what they were saying half the time (I can pick out some of the words and guess what is going on) I know the spirit was there and their investigator was very touched. Hermana Sanchez is so amazing. She is such a powerful and wonderful missionary. She is a convert and has such a strong testimony of this church. I sure love her and learned a lot from her. She is also way cool because we have the same name. :)

Alexis was a big miracle. We only had a few more minutes left until we had to go home, but we decided to try one more. It’s amazing, it's always the last house! We were tracting with our member and she pointed out her house, so we went and knocked on it! She answered the door and explained she was religious but worked on Sunday's so she could never go to church. We started talking with her about what we believed and how the gospel has blessed each of our lives. She was embarrassed because she didn't even have a bible in her home but tried to raise her children knowing about Jesus Christ. We told her about the Book of Mormon and how it was another testament of Jesus Christ and more revelation from our Heavenly Father. She loved it! She told us she was so happy we came over. She said it felt like we brought church over to her and felt there was something special about it. She told us we could come by this week! It was so cute, after we got home, our member texted us and told us she had such a great time with us and knows Alexis has something special in her and wants to go with us to her lesson this week. I love when members come out with us and get to experience things like this because they get to see the power Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost have when we go out and teach. Plus, our member is just amazing all around. She comes out with us each week and bears such a powerful testimony and says the most perfect things in each lesson.

We were walking around some town homes yesterday and saw this girl walking her dog. Of course, we went over and talked with her. Her name was Tasha. She is living with her mom for a few months because she is studying for some lawyer test she will be taking at the end of July. We were talking to her and she explained that she is starting to get closer to Jesus Christ and gain more faith in him because she went down the deep end in college and was very rebellious. We gave her the Book of Mormon and explained what it meant. She was excited to start reading it and learning more. We then invited her to be baptized and talked about the significance of being baptized and what it means. She explained that she was baptized when she was little but didn't have control over it. She wanted to be baptized again so it could mean something. She invited us over to her house on Tuesday and we will teach her a little more.

God really is so good to us. He puts people in our path each and every day that are ready and prepared to hear the gospel, we just need to be obedient, diligent and talk to everyone in order to find them.

Scripture of the week: Alma 37:37. I have grown and have learned so much about prayer and the importance of it. I evaluate and think about my prayers before my mission and then now and I have seen such a great change, thank goodness. I was so rountine before my mission and just said the same things over and over. But really we are talking to our Heavenly Father personally. We need to pray to Him every night and tell Him how our day went. We need to pray to Him each morning and tell Him what we are grateful for and what we want to accomplish in our day. He wants to hear from us, always. I like to picture Heavenly Father sitting right next to me or being in my presence as I pray and I am able to pray with more sincerity and it's way more heartfelt. I am so thankful for prayer and the chance we have to pray whenever and wherever we want. I have seen great blessings and many answers to my prayers. Always turn to our Heavenly Father. He is ALWAYS there for us, even when we think no one really is.

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

Love Sister Brooks :)