Out with the old, In with the new- Mission President that is- hard to say goodbye!

Happy Fourth of July!!!! 

I hope y'all have a great night tonight. Take lots of pictures for me :) I hope your week was wonderful and you were able to get everything done that you needed to! 

Today is going to be fun, we had a breakfast with our ward this morning, we are having sister p-day later today and we have a cookout and fireworks supposed to be really cool, but we will see if they can beat the Brooks show ;) 

This week has been great, we have had quite a few meetings and of course AMAZING miracles and things happen!! 

We had our Last MLC with President Wilson and Sister Wilson on Wednesday. Also, it was the last time I was going to see Sister Bray :( it was a really sad day, but really so fun to be with the leadership all together one last time. Of course we took tons of pictures, so beware for the picture overload! I really am so thankful for President Wilson and everything he has done for me and the mission. He was such a great leader and example to each of us. He expected so much out of us so he was really motivating. He never backed down. I'm sure going to miss him. 

Goodbye President and Sister Wilson :(

I'm sure I'm staring at some huge bug on the ground :)

Goodbye Sister Bray.
Have fun in Washington, D.C. South mission. 

All Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders 

Sisters won in basketball

All my companions so far, minus two.
Sister Tadd (2nd), Sister Burgess (5th and now), ME, Sister Bray(5th), Sister Squires (3rd)
My companions that are not pictured- Sister Mailata (4th), and Sister Fuhriman (1st)

With Sister Squires.  She is awesome!

STL's take over Cafe Rio!
Don't let the Olive Garden Sign fool you.

Our new mission President came on Friday morning! We had a Meet and Greet Saturday morning! The new mission presidents are encouraged to meet all the missionaries in the first 48 hours of being there. So he went and did Meet and Greets all day Saturday to meet everyone. Let me tell you, I LOVE President and Sister Smith already! They are so down to earth, SO FUNNY, and are so motivated and want to help the work push forward. I seriously love them already! Of course there will be changes, but we are in a little rut right now as a mission, so this will be good to get us out and have some change. I was lucky and was able to see him at one of the stake meetings I had yesterday and talk with him and got to know him a little bit more. We have zone conferences with him this week. I am very excited. 

President and Sister Wilson welcome President and Sister Smith

       Okay now for some awkward and embarrassing news.... So last preparation day, the Hermanas, Sister Burgess and I, mimicked this funny video called "Jesus is my friend",  that has been going around our mission. We decided it would be funny to do our own little music video... So we did. Well long story short, Hermana Rodriguez was going to the temple last week, because she is heading back to temple square soon, and was showing the video to one of the other sisters she was with. The sister wanted it so she started to air drop it, (it's like Bluetooth, where you can send pictures and videos to other apples devices) and accidentally pushed on one of the AP's names. Well he has the video of us now, makes fun of us every time he sees us and passed it along to other elders in our mission. Hahahaha just wait until you see it, you'll be embarrassed for me!!! 

We love P-day!

Preparation Day Fun!

       JAMES COX WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!! Sister Squires and I were able to go down to Powhatan and attend James' baptism. Holy cow it was one of the greatest days of my life!! I am so so happy for James and the progression that he has made. James and Lisa put us on the program to sing, so we were able to sing at Jame’s baptism. It was so fun to see so many people from Powhatan again :)  We got a lot of pictures from that too. We also surprised Dan, one of our investigators and he was SO surprised. I got it on film. We went down with a senior couple Elder and Sister Eliason. They are so sweet for taking us around Powhatan and letting us see people and also dealing with the ridiculous traffic!! I was so so happy I was able to go and witness such an amazing and spiritual baptism. Man, I love James and Lisa!! 

James' Baptism

I love Lisa and James!

We saw Dan!!!!!

Surprising Dan!

     Okay,  miracle of the week for us is in Aquia area. Let me tell you about Desmond. He is the funniest, sweetest, goofiest and most down to earth guy. We met him and started teaching him when I was with Sister Bray, but honestly didn't know how serious he was. We set him on date and were praying and having faith he would be baptized. This week, we were able to see him almost every single day. We taught him each lesson, committed him to do things and told him to continue and pray for his baptism date. Well, this week when we stopped by, we asked how he was doing and if he was praying to know if this was true and if he received answers. (We taught him the law of chastity and the word of wisdom a few weeks back. It's been hard for him, but he has pushed through.) He sat there in silence for a minute and then told us that he has been praying and getting answers. Trying to be nosy, I was trying to get him to tell me what his answers were. He finally said, "I know I need to live the word of wisdom and law of chastity. I was tempted one night and God told me to read my scriptures." We were so amazed and so surprised!! Then Friday, we went and saw him, he said he would need a ride to church so we arranged a ride. Desmond's phone doesn't work right now, so we texted his brothers telling him we had a ride for him and when he would come get him, but we had no response. We didn't see Desmond Saturday because I didn't get home until late from the baptism. We decided to stop by Sunday morning to make sure he received our text and was ready for church. He opened the door and said he was ironing his clothes and couldn't wait to come. He then expressed to us that he knew this church was true and he needed to be baptized!!! He came to church and LOVED it. Everyone loved him as well. The elders even told us he announced he was going to be baptized next Sunday! We are so excited for him. We have his interview Wednesday so we will see if he passes the test ;) 

Scripture of the week: John 4:35- "the field is white all ready to harvest" you hear that a lot as a missionary. One thing I have really come to know and realize in my mission is that God prepares people and puts them in our path or gives us little spiritual promptings from the Holy Ghost. We need to talk with everyone and be obedient and diligent in everything that we do so we are able to find those who are ready. There are people ready EVERYwhere we are or go. We just need to go out and find them. 

I love y'all so much! Have a wonderful week and always remember that I love you so much :) 

Love Sister Brooks :)

Ice Cream run!

I love Thomas and Jessie!

Caught in the rain!