Cleaning, training, and Miracles :)

Emailing-We are at the mall with Kayla and Josselyn.
 Kayla is Josselyn's friend and now wants to be baptized. She lives in Mississippi. 

HAPPY NOVEMBER!!! 

    I can't believe it’s November, October went by so stinking fast! It's crazy!! We have had a really good week! I'm just going to jump right into this wonderful week: 

   On Monday, because of Halloween, we had to be in our apartments by 5pm because our president didn't want us out on the streets! We did a hallo"clean" where every missionary had to deep, I mean deep, clean their apartment. We spent from 5-10pm cleaning our apartments. We bought a big bottle of bleach and just bleached our whole apartment. We realized that was a terrible idea because we don’t have any windows in our apartment, except a little sky light on the top that doesn't open. So... we ended up having to take a few breaks because we were getting extremely light headed. But, it was all worth it because now our apartment is free of mold and nasty smells.

     This week was full of meetings. They were all so amazing and wow did I receive many personal revelations and ideas on how I can be a better person and missionary. I wish I could tell you word for word what everyone said. Tuesday evening we had a Sister training leader meeting. All the STL's got together in the mission home and slept there. Talk about big slumber party! We had some senior missionaries give us some training. It was really fun to be with all the sisters again and bond more. 

Wednesday we had MLC. We all got up and drove over to MLC, and of course had another wonderful meeting. We talked a lot about baptism and how important it is!  As missionaries, we talk about it all day and sometimes lose sight of how important it is. We went over what baptism does for us and how we need to be more sincere and remember the importance as we invite others. It was a good reminder. I am so grateful for baptism and the opportunity it gives us to- 1. Repent of our sins and have them washed away. 2. Is the first ordinance that we receive so we can continue to receive and go to the temple. And- 3.  Makes us a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints :) Baptism is such an important gift.  Then on Friday night, we had our Zone meeting where we and the zone leaders gave trainings. It went very well. 

MLC Clan

Sister Trainer leaders

Us sisters at the mission home for STL meeting.
 It was sister Farnsworth's, an office missonary, birthday. 

We went on another mini exchange with Powhatan missionaries, but instead we stayed in our area this time. I was with Sister Johnson again. She is a greenie and has been out for 3 weeks now! She is so darn cute. We were able to meet this really cute and nice girl named Jade. She has a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ, but was really excited to meet with us again and talk about how she can strengthen it a little more. I love seeing the greenie fire in Sister Johnson. She wants to help everyone she can come closer to Christ. She isn't afraid to say hi to people as we contact. I was terrified to say anything to anyone when I first came out, so it's so cool to see how excited she is about doing the work. 

Miracle time: 

I talked about the miracle we saw with Sarah in my email home last week. How we found her late Sunday night and she said she really needed to hear that God loved her. Well followed up on her. We had a return appointment with her and we got to know her a little more. She was flat out honest with us and told us she didn't want to come tonight because she was tired and not very religious. But, she knew she needed to come and felt like it would be the right thing to do. We talked about the restoration and she seemed to really like it and enjoy it. We started introducing the Book of Mormon to her and used the pictures in the front of the Book of Mormon. We got to the picture of when Jesus Christ came to America. She cut us off and said, "oh my gosh, I've seen that picture before, but I have no idea where." It was SUPER cool because only we as Latter Day Saints have that picture. It was definitely a really cool miracle :) 

    We had a lesson with Jessie and we figured everything out for her baptism!!!! I seriously can't wait. I am so excited and so extremely grateful I have been able to be here for her baptism and to meet her. She had her baptism interview yesterday after stake conference and of course passed because she is amazing!!! Her baptism will be on Friday. We are so excited for her.

   Stefano is still doing great. He still is figuring out if he should be baptized this weekend or if he should wait a little. I know it will be all the Lord’s timing, so whatever happens, it will be wonderful :) He came to a baptism with us on Sunday night. One of the sisters in our zone had a baptism so we invited him to come with us. He seemed to really enjoy it. So hopefully he will feel better now that he has seen it. 

Scripture of the week: 3 Nephi 28:23. I talked about unity in my training on Friday. I used this scripture as I explained being united as a mission but made my own little thought out of it. "And it came to pass that thus they did go forth among all the people of Nephi (Virginia), and (the Virginia Richmond missionaries) did preach the gospel of Christ unto all people upon the face of the land; and they were converted unto the Lord, and were united unto the church of Christ, and thus the people of that generation were blessed, according to the word of Jesus."

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

Love Sister Brooks :) 

I love Fall in VA

Morgan and Lindsay.
They are in our ward. I love them.

P-day fun! Emma-Claire and I at Jumpology 

At Jumpology

Going to get Chipotle after Jumpology

We were contacting on campus and the catholic ministry people
were out handing out candles. They gave us one and told us to put it
on the steps for a loved one that has passed away. It was a nice excuse to
go into the cathedral. There is a really cool cathedral right on campus.
 The picture doesn't do it justice. It was pretty cool. 

Josselyn (she was baptized with Marcus and then moved to PA
to be with family and came down for the weekend to visit)
and her friend Kayla (she is from Mississippi) after stake conference.