Baptisms aren't planned this way! :) :)

Sister Jensen, Sister Leavitt, Me, and Sister Bray 

(I came out with Sister Jensen)

We are emailing in the lobby/office of our apartments.

Hello hello!!! 

It was so fun talking (Skyping) with y'all on Mother’s Day yesterday!! Thank you so much for making my day so special. I sure do have the best family, and the most AMAZING MOM in the whole wide world!!! I am so grateful for the amazing support and love that I receive from y'all. Thank you :)

This week has been very good. Monday we had a baptism and oh boy... It was literally the funniest thing. Almost everything that could go wrong did. But it all worked out and Marissa was baptized!! Marissa is 14 years old. Her dad married a member a few years ago and last September the dad was baptized and around February, her little brother Thomas was baptized. So she was the only one left, but her parents wanted it to be her decision. So, our ward mission leader was supposed to go fill up the font around 5:30. The Baptism was at 7:30. We were going to head over around 6:30 and start setting things up. We don't have a font at our building so Sister Bray starts driving to another church building about 20 minutes away. As we drive there, I'm trying to call and text our ward mission leader to see how things are going and tell him we are on our way... But no response. We get there and Sister Bray said, "Oh no, I drove to the wrong church building." We got in the car and start heading to the other building. Our phone battery is flashing, we start freaking out because we still have to get a hold of people. We call our ward mission leader’s wife, praying our phone doesn't die, and she starts freaking out and told us he went to take a quick nap after work and still hadn't woke up! Well, the baptism starts in about 30 minutes and it takes about 2 hours to fill up the font. Our ward mission leader finally called us and said he could not get a hold of the elders, they are the ones with the keys... So we called a few of our sisters (Sister Tadd saves the day)  and they had keys and opened the church for us. But, (haha) they didn't have keys to the font. Our ward mission leader called a few people to have them come open it for us. Well, long story short, we had to feel garbage cans with water to help the process go faster. The baptism ended up starting around 8:00, thank goodness, because Marissa and her family were late. Marissa didn't tell anyone she was being baptized and wanted a really small baptism. We were walking to the font area and we passed the boys bathroom and heard water going. We walked inside and a trash can was in the sink and the bathroom was FLOODED!!!!! No one told us they put a trash can there. So we had a nice mess to clean up afterwards. We started the baptism and at the last minute, Marissa freaked out and told us she was too nervous. We didn't take that for an answer. We talked to her and jokingly (but we were dead serious) told her we would pick her up and take her if we had to. Haha but in the end, she was baptized and was confirmed yesterday!! I am so proud of her :) After the baptism we got in the car and looked at our phone, thinking it would be completely dead because it was beeping for 2 hours saying low battery. Well it wasn't, it had two bars... We don't understand that one. All I know is God has a sense of humor. Hahaha, it definitely is really funny now!! Good memory. 

Wednesday we had MLC (missionary leadership council). It’s when the STLS and the Zone Leaders get together and get trainings from President and Sister Wilson, the AP's and we had a special guest! President and Sister Wilson's daughter arrived home from her mission on Tuesday night, so she was able to come to our meeting on Wednesday morning, and she was still a missionary (she had not been released yet)! She is so darling and way way fun to talk to. The trainings that we were given were the topics we would be training and giving at zone meeting. So yay me, I got to train at zone meeting. I talked about the importance of working with members. I have come to realize how important it really is on my mission. Members are EVERYTHING in our work. As missionaries, we are here to help the ward do THEIR missionary work. We have been trying get a lot of members out to lessons and have them tract with us. Our ward is VERY receptive to coming out with us. It's so amazing! 

It's a tradition to play speed at lunch during meetings. 

The girl holding the ball in the middle is "Sister Wilson" President's daughter. 

She got home from her mission on Tuesday night. 

I GOT TO SEE SISTER SQUIRES AT MLC!

 IT WAS THE HAPPIEST DAY EVER!

 The sisters I went down to the meeting with. 

Of course we had to stop by Cafe Rio on the way home. 

I was able to go on my first exchange as an STL. I was with Hermana Schmactenberger and we stayed in MY area. She is darling. She has only been out for 2 weeks now and holy, you wouldn't even be able to tell! I had way too much fun with her and got to know her more. I love getting to know all these new sisters and learning from them. You really gain so many relationships and new friends! 

We received a call randomly one evening as we were trying some potentials. It was a gentleman in another ward calling us and telling us about this middle aged couple, probably in their 40-50's, Bob and Lori Hoyt. They aren't members but they have family who is and a nephew who went on a mission and they know that people feed the missionaries and wanted to know how they could do that. He passed our number to them and we arranged to have dinner with them on Saturday. Holy cow!! It was a feast and SO good. They are the sweetest people ever and will do anything for us. They aren't interested in learning about the gospel right now, but hopefully they soften their hearts soon, and it sure didn't stop us from sharing a message :) they are one of our good friends now. They even sent us home with a big bag of food!! 

We have been able to see a lot of wonderful miracles and teach many lessons this week. I am so grateful for the wonderful blessing I have to be out on a mission and serve my Heavenly Father and help others come and learn more about Him and our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Scripture of the week: 1 Corinthians 3:16-17- God has given us each amazing bodies. We need to treat them like a temple, well because they are, and let the spirit of God dwell in us. Don't harm our body, take care of it and show God how much you truly appreciate his wonderful creation! 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH!!!!!!!! Have a wonderful week. 

Love Sister Brooks :)

Sister Bray and I before the rain and. . . .

. . . . after us being in the rain for probably 5 seconds. It's been raining all week. 

Mom wasn't this a nickname of yours?
 I swear I remember Uncle Glen calling you this!

New Area! New companion! New Experiences!

Hello!! Happy May!! 

Thank y'all so much for all your sweet emails on Friday (my hump day). Definitely made me so happy and grateful when I saw them. Thank you for thinking of me, I really have the best family ever. I sure love y'all :) 

Transfers were on Tuesday.  We met at the Stake Center.  I would not be meeting my new companion until I arrived in my new area.  It's too far for her to drive to meet me at the Stake Center.

Sister Sylvester (Sister Bray's old companion), she came out the same time as me,
and Sister Dawdy(she is now Sister Sylvester's companion)

Well, I am sure y'all are so curious where I am and who my companion is. I am in the Aquia Ward up in Stafford, Virginia- it is northern. It is fun being up north and experiencing more city. It's sure different from Powhatan, but I miss Powhatan like crazy already.  My companion is Sister Bray. She is hilarious. 

Get this, she is from England!!! (Leicester, Cornwall, and Sheffield) I'm sure grandma had something to do with this ;) it is a little tender mercy and I know grandma is watching over me. It's so fun talking with her about England and just knowing my grandma grew up there. She is 23 years old, but you wouldn't be able to tell. She is so funny and fun to be around!  Aquia is great, I get probably triple the amount of lessons and investigators then I did in Powy, so it was quite a shock for me to teach 5 lessons in one day, which we would normally get in a week. Ha ha it's so fun though. In our area, it's mostly army, marine, navy, police officers and FBI for occupations. I haven't met one person who hasn't had one of those jobs. So we have a really big and nice family ward. There are a lot of "single" moms because their husbands are on active duty. It's fun to see so many little kids too.  It's cool and fun to meet so many people who have defended our country and talk to them about their experiences. It makes me so grateful for those who go out and serve our country and protect our freedoms. We are so blessed and I'm beyond grateful for all those who are or did serve in the marine, army, navy, etc. 

My new area:

My new address is:

6 Davenport Drive #104

Stafford, VA  22554

Anyway... We have had tons of miracles this week. This week I've just been trying to learn the area and learn all of our investigators. We have some pretty solid ones and a few who are working toward baptism, so we are hoping they continue their progress and want to know more. This ward is SO willing to come out with us and our ward mission leader is so great too. He goes around asking people to go out with us and they all are so willing!! We had our ward mission leader’s daughter, Skylar who is 18 and planning on serving a mission, with us last night and our Relief Society president a little later that night. We tried some potentials with them and were able to teach them and answer so many questions! I never realized how important it was to have members out with you as a missionary and for the ward to help with the missionary work. I've learned so much that it's all about the members. As missionaries, we are here to assist the MEMBERS in THEIR missionary work. They should be the one doing the finding and we should be the one doing the teaching. It's so cool to see this ward put that into action. It's so great!! We have a baptism tonight for a girl named Marissa. I think she is 14 years old. Her family has all been baptized and she is the only one left. She wanted to do it on her timing and do it for herself without the pressure, which is really cool. She doesn't want her baptism to be big or have a lot of people come, so only about 10 people know about it and she will surprise all of them when she gets confirmed next Sunday! I am so grateful I have been able to get to know her and teach her a little this week. She is so dang cute and I am so happy and excited to be a part of her baptism. :) 

Being an STL is great. It's not much different but you just have tons more meetings and you get a lot less sleep. (I know, you're feeling bad for me and scared for everyone around me, but thank goodness for lunch break naps) We will start going on exchanges this week with the Sisters and Hermanas, so I'm really excited for that.

Here are some cool facts- 

·  There is a Hermana that is in my zone and in the same apartment complex as me and she went to Dixie and is the same age as (Barry) Elder Snow and knows him. Her name is Sister Stewart. We go and work out at the gym every morning with them and another set of sisters and talk about Elder Snow and how cool he is!! Literally I have the coolest family/cousins. 

·  I finally have a washing machine, dryer and dishwasher in my apartment. 

·  My apartment is the bomb and has a free Starbucks hot chocolate machine in the lobby, a super nice gym and... A tanning bed!!! Haha J

·  It has rained for the past 4 days and won't stop until next Sunday 

·  Sister Bray and I had a "slumber" party and slept on our couches last night ;) (They are almost exactly like our leather couches at home) and a HUGE thunderstorm was going on in the middle of the night. (Totally thought mom would love it) It sounded like it was RIGHT outside our window. It was pretty cool. 

·  Sister Tadd is in my zone so I will be going on exchanges with her and seeing her a lot now. I'm so excited I can't wait :) 

·  I will be seeing Sister Squires at MLC on Wednesday and I can't wait to see her, literally almost started crying of happiness. 

·  Last cool fact, two of my areas, Mechanicsville and Glen Allen are now STL areas so I could maybe be called there again. 

I am so so grateful to be out on a mission, I seriously love it so much and I know this is where I need to be. I love it so much!!!!! EVERYONE should go on a mission and experience and see the wonderful blessings our Heavenly Father has given us and of course you get to see and meet so many wonderful people and gain relationships and have friends forever, like Lisa Cox!! (Hi Lisa) 

Scripture of the week: Alma 8. I have been studying and reading Alma for my personal study lately and read Alma 8 the other day. It's when Alma is preaching to the people of Ammonihah and they are rejecting him, spitting on him and casted him out of the city. So he leaves, but an angel came to him and told him to go back and continue to teach them and HE DID!! Alma was seriously the best missionary. He was so obedient and followed all the promptings that the Lord gave him. We all need to be like Alma and be obedient and follow God and the promptings that are given to us. 

I love y'all so much, have an amazing week!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SKYPE YOU ON SUNDAY!!! 

LOVE Sister Brooks :)

Last pictures with Sister Mailata:

Saying Goodbye to our Bishop

Saying Goodbye to our Bishop's wife

Sister Montrose, our ward mission leader's wife

Our Investigators Lizzie  and Delta Rae.

Lizzie and Delta Rae.
She said she was not happy so she would not smile.

The Andersons- a new family that moved into our Powhatan ward.

Sister Bray and I

Slumber party!
My Mug is from Aunt Kalynn.  She gave it to me for Christmas!
Thanks Aunt Kalynn!

On my hunt for streets named after my brothers.
This one is the best I can do for now Mike!

We found a bunny when we were contacting some potentials.

The bunny was shivering, so we put a blanket (napkin) on it. Hee hee

Rocks will help hold down the blanket. :)

This was the BEST TWO MINUTES OF MY LIFE!
A less active told us she had a hairless cat. . . . . . 

. . . . . I had to see it and hold it.  I FELL IN LOVE!!!

I'm transferring and going to be an STL!

Hello!

Holy cow time goes by so fast!! I can't believe it's almost May and this transfer is already over. It seriously is so crazy and I never believed missionaries when they said that time goes by fast, but boy they are right. It's flying.

Well.. I'm sure you're curious about transfers. Let me give you the background story... On Saturday nights from 6-9 the A.P.'s or president will call you. If you get a call, that means you're being transferred. But, if President calls you, you're going to train or get a leadership position, so it's scary when he calls. We were visiting this less active and talking to her. It was about 7:30ish and we decided to head out. We got in the car and we had a few missed texts so we went over those. We were driving down the street and Sister M said, “oh no... we have a missed call from President. We called him back and he started some small talk with Sister M so I was thinking it’s for her. Then he asks to talk to me... Long story short, I have been called to be an STL (Sister Training Leader)! I'm excited for this calling and to see all the amazing sisters in other areas of our mission. I'll find out Tuesday where and who my new companion is. I seriously will miss Powhatan so much. I love it here. It's definitely been the most challenging place I have been so far, but it has been so amazing to see and meet all these amazing people. I have learned that even the smallest things that happen are so appreciated and I am so grateful for. I said goodbye to some people yesterday like James and Lisa, I have become really good friends with Lisa and it was so hard saying goodbye to her. But, thank goodness for airplanes and coming back to visit ;) 

This week has been pretty good. We didn't have a very good week last week, so we decided to work our bums off and work like crazy!!  The week started out with just tracting and trying to find new people for our teaching pool. When we were tracting Tuesday night, we were getting very discouraged. We had 3 more houses on this street we were tracting and were ready to get them over with so we could do something else. We knocked on the 3rd to the last door. This SUPER cute girl named Kaycee, (I was totally going to hook Chris up with her until she said she was a senior in high school) answered the door. She was so happy and said she would love to hear our message. We shared the restoration with her and she thought it was so cool and was way excited to read the Book of Mormon. She has (I can't remember the exact wording) some qualifying meet for swimming soon to get into the Olympics for swimming. She could be the next Michael Phelps, who knows. It was a cool miracle because she said she is never home until 9 but she came home today because she hurt herself during her practice as they were lifting so they sent her home. She recognized how cool it was and how God really must want her to listen. 

Super hyped about how cute Kaycee was and how we finally got a lesson and met someone cool, we were in good spirits now. The next house was a potential that the elders that were in Powhatan met about 2 years ago. We decided to just "tract" into him and talk to him. We walked up his driveway and we saw a guy sitting in the porch. He came over to us and we explain who we were and what we were doing. He invited us over to his porch and explained he has met with missionaries before and his name is Zach. He is probably in his early 30's late 20's. He then told us he has had a terrible day and it's been really hard for him. He said we could share a quick message. We knew we didn't have much time so we wanted to get the main points down, but the Holy Ghost was definitely with me and knew what Zach really needed to hear. I just started telling him about how much our Heavenly Father loves him and knows him by name and Sister Mailata was testifying about it as well. We looked over and he was in TEARS. He explained how he needed to hear that and was really doubting God and if He knew him. He was sobbing at this point and was really embarrassed; I thought it was super cool (his emotions not his embarrassment). He invited us to come back another time because he didn't want to keep crying in front of us. But it was so cool. It was such a testimony builder about how much the Holy Ghost is with us. He knew exactly what Zach needed and made us speak the words. As we were leaving his driveway, we knew the spirit was with us and it was us relaying the message through us. 

One more house to go, we are super pumped. At the last house, this guy answered. He said he had a few minutes to talk with us and wanted to hear our messages, and it was an excuse to get away from his crying baby. We shared the restoration with him and he really enjoyed it. He is a Baptist, but was so amazed about Joseph Smith. You could tell her was really touched and could feel the spirit, because we definitely could. Let's just say we ended that night very happy!! 

We were able to do some service for a less active this week. Her husband was in a car accident about 4 years ago and has had major problems with his leg since then. He went in for surgery and had his femur fixed and a knee replacement. He has been on bed rest, in hospital and getting worked on for about a year now. That makes our less active, Sister Wilton, having to do ALL the work. She is working about 12 hour days and doesn't have time to do anything for herself or even clean her house. She is the busiest lady ever. We have been trying to reach her almost this whole transfer. She finally reached out to us the beginning of this week and asked us if we could come over and help her. So we did. She said she hasn't deep cleaned her house for over a year and it was really starting to gross her out. We helped clean her bathroom, vacuumed, and dusted. She was in tears as we were leaving and was so happy we came and helped. 

Seriously, being a missionary is the best thing in the world. Seeing people's face light up, being able to help people in need and doing the Lord’s work is amazing. I couldn't ask for anything better. I am so grateful to be out here on my mission and to serve the people of Virginia. I know this is where I needed to be. I know I am in the right place and couldn't be doing anything better in my life right now. 

Yesterday, we had dinner with James and Lisa and they had the Despains, and the Nalders over-the Despain’s daughter. We had a little feast together and took lots of pictures and were able to say goodbye. I love all of them so much. It was fun and nice of them to all come together and as they called it, have a goodbye feast. I sure will miss them. 

 The Despain Family- in their cute matching shirts.

The Nalder Family

James and Lisa :)

My best friend, Lisa. 

James is doing wonderful. He is slowly but surely getting towards baptism. He is to the point where he has to work and try for himself to know if it is for him or not. But, thank goodness for Lisa. She is the biggest help and example to him. He has changed SO much since I have met him and I know he feels the spirit and God’s love for him. He just needs to have the faith in himself that he can do it. 

I am so grateful I had the chance to serve here in Powhatan.  I have grown so much since I have been here and know I needed to be here. I'm sure going to miss it. 

Scripture of the week: Doctrine and Covenants 84:85- I know the Holy Ghost will give us the things we need to say. We shouldn't be afraid of talking to people or sharing what we people, because the Holy Ghost will put words in our mouth and will not leave us alone. He will always be there to help us and testify of this wonderful gospel. To us and those we are talking to. 

I love y'all so much. I can't wait to tell you my new area and companion next week. I hope y'all have a fantastic week. Y'all definitely deserve. Always remember that you're a child, a son or daughter of God. That he knows you by name and cares so much about you. I LOVE YOU!!!!

Love Sister Brooks :)

(I just found out I was the only "English sister" called to be an STL. There was one leaving and out of ALL the English sister I was called.... Wow, I feel so honored!)

Me, Bro. Noe, and Sister Mailata.. 

Yes they are dark, I am white, but I had a disadvantage, 

the flash was right on me. But yes, I'm white. 

With Dan. I'm not crying, I just got done sneezing. Dang pollen. 

Terri, Lisa's mom. 

She is currently writing a book right now. 

She read us a few parts, it's super good. 

The following is a picture put together by the Despains and emailed to Sister Brooks' family with a message below.  (We think the world of you Despain Family!!) 

We are sad to learn that we will be losing our dear Sister Brooks this week because of transfers.  We don't know where she is going; just that she will not be in Powhatan anymore.  How sad for us.  We really love and appreciate the time that you have shared your daughter with us in this part of the Lord's vineyard.  In many ways, we consider her our daughter too....we hope that you don't mind.  We know that the Lord has more to teach her in other areas so we send her away with love. We really look forward to having you in this neck of the woods next year.  Your family will always be welcome in our home.  Sis. Brooks asked us to be all ready to serve you a "special" dinner so we can't let her down. See you next year. Again, thank you for sharing; we love all of you too.

Ron & Kathy Despain