Sister Kaylee Brooks: Happy Father's Day!

Emailing with Sister Burgess

Happy Father's Day to my amazing and wonderful Dad, grandpa and brothers. I will never be able to express or thank you enough for the wonderful example and love you have shown to me throughout all my 20 years. I am so grateful to have such wonderful men and father in my life. Thank you so much. I sure love y'all to the moon and back!! I hope you were spoiled yesterday. If not, I'll spoil you when I get home. Hehe. I'm also so grateful for my Heavenly Father and the wonderful opportunities and blessings that He gives me each and every day. I know He loves each of us more than we will ever be able to comprehend. He is aware of each of us and our situations and will never leave us alone.

It's so crazy to see how many different types of emotions you can have in one day as a missionary. One second you'll be on a spiritual high and so grateful for the miracle that you were able to see and then about 30 minutes later you could be almost on the verge of tears. In each hour, you never know what is going to happen. But in all honesty, there is no better calling than going out and being the Lord’s representative. The good, the bad, the ugly, I wouldn't trade what I am doing for the world. I love being a missionary and wearing His heart on my chest. It's such a privilege and honor to put my name badge on every morning. Talk about a whole new level of confidence! It's awesome :)

This week we have been doing a lot of finding. We have been able to find a lot of cool people and of course dropping (deciding not to teach them anymore) a lot of people as well- which is always really sad. Some days have been super long just because it has been so crazy hot and we are contacting people all day. But we had a few tender mercies where people gave us some nice cold water. I've never been so happy to see water in my life. Side note: we have a pool in our apartment complex and of course it’s RIGHT behind our house so when we come home for lunch we just hear people having so much fun and then they decide to have a luau party for the whole complex until 10 at night one night and boy... I miss swimming, especially in this nasty humidity. Anyway... Haha I'm done with that rant.

Here are some cool, funny, sad and weird things that have happened this week:

We were able to go on Exchanges this week with Sister Halls and Sister Erickson. I stayed in our area with Sister Erickson. She is from St. George so it was fun to talk with her and be with her. We were able to have a few lessons and find some little cool miracles. Last transfer we had 5 sets of sisters, but they took two sisters out and replaced them with elders so we only have 3 sets now. It's nice because we don't have many exchanges, but it's sad because we don't have as many sisters. But exchanges were really fun and I love being able to get to know the sisters more and learn from them. :)

Exchanges with Sister Erickson

We met with Desmond before Sister Bray left. He is seriously one of the funniest people I have ever met. But we challenged him last Tuesday to decrease the amount of cigarettes he has in a day. He went to the hospital to have an emergency surgery, so we weren't able to see him until Saturday. But he told us, since Tuesday, he only had 2 cigarettes!!! We were so happy and excited for him. Then he told us he has been reading the Book of Mormon and he really likes what it has to say. He said he was praying about baptism and he feels like July 9 would be good for him! It was a really cool miracle. He didn't come to church yesterday, so we definitely need to help him realize the importance of coming to church, but hopefully he will work towards being baptized and continuing to not smoke. We brought him over some suckers and cinnamon gum, (those are really good to give people to help them stop smoking) and he was really appreciative and excited that we thought of him and bought them for him. He is awesome.

Joseph was definitely a big miracle. It was Friday night and we were so done with the day. We pretty much tracked all day, not finding success and we were so hot. But thank goodness to our Heavenly Father for giving us strength and not letting us back down. We went to go see a potential, but her son Joseph answered. Every time I have gone to that house, I have met someone new. We started teaching Joseph the restoration and the Book of Mormon. We gave him a copy and he was so excited. He then opened up to us and told us his story. He just turned 21 and he got out of jail on Wednesday. He was in there for 2 years and he knew when he came out he was going to change his life. He was praying and asking God what direction he needed to take and what he needed to do. We then met him 2 days later from coming out of Jail. It was so cool to see the testimony and knowledge he had that God really was aware of him and knew exactly what he needed. He was so excited to finish cleaning up the bathroom in his house so he could start reading it. We stopped by last night to see how he was and you wouldn't guess, we met someone new! His name was Nikki. Haha so of course we started to share the restoration with him. He had met with missionaries before and was given a Book of Mormon, he just never read it. But once we got done talking to him about it, he said he couldn't wait to sit down with Joseph and read it with him. He said he was really busy and we wouldn't be able to meet with us for a while. But we asked him if we could come by Tuesday for 5 minutes and he agreed. We had a young woman out with us named Jessie, and she thought he was so cool. She begged us to let her come out with us on Tuesday for his appointment, we didn't complain ;)

Thursday night we had this CRAZY rain storm! It was crazy lightening, thunder, and pouring rain. When it rains here, it pours!! We were heading home and we got stuck in it, we ran from our car to our apartment and didn't have one dry spot. It looked like we just got out of the shower. We were lucky we still had our power, half our ward lost their power!

The Elders had a baptism on Saturday night and we were able to go! Her name was Tamia! She is the sweetest thing ever. She just got out of a nasty divorce, has 4 kids from ages 5-2 and they are the sweetest things. We always sit by them in church and color with them. I am so excited and happy for her. She was so ready and prepared. The elders found her because they had an appointment near her house, but when they got there, their appointment cancelled. They were walking back to their car when they saw her sitting on the curb. They went and talked to her and 2 1/2 weeks later she was baptized. That's why our mission president tells us to talk to everyone!! She isn't very well off with money right now, so between us and the Hermanas that live by us, we gathered clothes from our apartments and closets we didn't want and gave them to her. When we gave them to her after church yesterday her face lit up and she was trying not to cry. I sure love her.

Last week, we dropped every single person we had on date. I had a goal yesterday that everyone we came in contact with and taught I was going to be brave and bold and extend a date to them for baptism. We had a few minutes before dinner and we tried this former investigator name Adam. He answered the door and we talked about how it was meeting with missionaries in the past. He loved it. He has been out of town for 3 months for work and couldn't meet with them. He was excited that we were back to see him. We talked and answered a lot of his questions. We talked about baptism and how he has never been baptized before but he wants to. We extended a baptism date for him and he said he would love to. That was another miracle placed in our path. I just hope he continues to work towards it and doesn't back down or let Satan get in the way.

Crazy news, we were on conference call on Thursday night, it's where all the leadership (zone leaders and sister training leaders) have a conference call with president and we talk about the work every Thursday and Sunday night. Anyway, President dropped the bomb on us that he received a letter from the first presidency saying that the Woodbridge zone, the zone right above me... We barely missed the cut off by a ward, would be starting July 1 in the Washington DC South Mission. I quickly looked to see who the missionaries were in that zone and guess what..... SISTER BRAY IS IN THAT ZONE AND WILL BE LEAVING ME :( :( I was so sad. I seriously hope Sister Grace Walton gets to be with her because they would be the best and by far the funniest companionship in probably the whole United States. I get to see her one more time a week from Wednesday. Literally so sad she's leaving :(

Scripture of the week: Doctrine and Covenants 6:36- we should never doubt or fear God. He knows what the best is for us and knows exactly what trial and blessings we need in our life at each moment. Don't ever doubt him. He knows and has a plan specifically for each of us.

I love y'all so much!! Have a fantastic week!! Don't forget our Heavenly Father loves you!!

Love Sister Kaylee Brooks!!