Sister Kaylee Brooks: Sister J is transferring! :(

We're having a lot of fun emailing from the church today.
We can't stop laughing!
We had to make the best of our last day together!

Hello my dearest family :)

I hope y'all had a wonderful week! I know I sure did. Every week of being a missionary is the best week ever. I can't tell you how lucky and blessed I am. I am amazed every single day. I am so lucky :)

Here is the really sad news..... Sister Johnsen is getting transferred. We didn't really see it coming, it totally blind sided us. When we got out of our lesson on Saturday evening and saw a missed call from the AP's, we weren't very happy. I sure am going to miss her. I have learned so much from her and truly love her. Thank goodness she is coming down to Dixie again for school, so we can hang out all the time.

Our investigator Shaquan is doing so amazing!! We have had some really good lessons with him. He had a problem with the Word of wisdom, but when we saw him on Saturday, he told us he had been sober for almost 4 days! He then went to say that he didn't need drugs to get high, because he never realized or remembered how happy you could be when you are sober. That definitely is amazing to hear as a missionary. I love when people receive answers to their prayers and can feel they need a change in life and then see the blessings that come from the change! Shaquan is still trying to receive answers about if he needs to be baptized, but we all know he will get there and receive his answers. Every time we see him, our lessons get more productive and we can see that he is grasping the principles we teach more. We probably had the funniest and best law of chastity with him this week as well and that NEVER happens. That lesson is such an important lesson, but boy is it extremely awkward sometimes. Everybody loves Shaquan. He came to church yesterday and it took us forever just to see him because so many people were talking to him. I love this ward because they sure know how to fellowship our investigators and bring them in.

This is everyone who attended the lesson with Shaquan.
After the lesson, we went out for ice cream.

We met this guy named Moin on campus. This particular day, I feel like we ran into a lot of Muslims. Muslims have a strong belief that Jesus Christ was a prophet and they are very firm in that belief and try to convince us sometimes. We were kind of getting irritated because no one would listen to us. We then ran into Moin. Moin has a Muslim background, but hasn't been too involved. He is super open to learning about Christianity. He told us he would meet with us and wanted some of his questions answered. We had an amazing lesson with him the other night. We had one of our members come with us (another great thing about this ward is that most of the people are return missionaries, even the girls!! Moin came with lots of questions for us and wanted to know a lot about the godhead. We were able to explain it and help him understand the difference with Christianity and Muslim faith. We even explained how our message is unique to the world. He seemed very involved and wanted to learn more and more. He is very intelligent. It was cool to see how open a Muslim person was and be open to other faiths.

We have been able to find some really amazing and solid people while contacting. Now that school has started, it's a lot easier to find people, but there are SO many people. We really have to follow the promptings of the spirit to see who we really need to talk to. It's cool to see these people make life changes and want to gain a better relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ. I am so happy to be building my relationship with Him and our Father in Heaven. I can honestly say I feel so much happier now because I have developed more of a relationship with Him. I know I don't understand how much He REALLY does love me, but the love I feel from Him each and every day is overwhelming!! I know we have a loving Heavenly Father that loves YOU so much. Don't ever forget that.

Funny things that happened this week:

-Before every lesson, we like to sing to bring the spirit in. As we were doing so, Sister J's voice cracked real loud. The song stopped there. Haha

-We were on VCU campus talking to someone and having a lesson and a squirrel fell out of the tree behind us.

-People's road rage here is ridiculous. This guy cut someone off and they beeped at him. So at the stop light, the guy who cut the other guy off put his car in park and ran over to the other guy’s car and started punching it and yelling at him.

-During our law of chastity lesson with Shaquan, he randomly looked at us and said "oops, Sisters I just broke the law of chastity, I looked at a girl." We then explained it all over again.

Those are just a few things that we thought were funny this week.

Scripture of the week: Doctrine and Covenants 90:24- "Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another." I truly know if we read our scriptures, pray and believe that God will answer us and watch over us, that things will work out for us. It all starts with the simple and easy things. I have come to see and realize on my mission, that once someone starts slacking off on the simple things, saying prayers every day, reading and attending church each Sunday, that's when life starts getting bumpy for them. It takes time to sit down and read your scriptures, but you won't regret it at all. You can receive answers, learn more about the gospel and just show God that you care.

I love y'all so much. I hope you have a fantastic week :) ahh, I can't believe it will be September. CRAZY!

Love Sister Brooks :)