Sister Kaylee Brooks: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Emailing at the church with Sister Wastlund

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

It was so fun to see and talk with y'all yesterday. I sure do love y'all so much! This week has been incredible. I LOVE being a missionary everyday but being a missionary during Christmas is absolutely amazing. I am so extremely blessed. I am so grateful I was able to spend one more Christmas on the mission.

We had our Christmas conference this Tuesday. It was so awesome!! Our whole mission got together. It was so fun to see my friends again and make more friends! The mission has truly given me so many blessings and meeting so many wonderful people has been one of those blessings. I have gained so many friendships, I absolutely love it. Our mission was just introduced to using iMessage, Skype and FaceTime to interact with our investigators. We are able to Skype members in to lessons and Skype our investigators to try to make daily contact with them. It's going to be such a huge blessing. I am glad I was able to be a part of it for a little bit. Because it's such a big thing, we were able to have 3 people Skype in our conference. The first one was someone from Salt Lake missionary department. He gave us some training on how we can better use Skype and daily contact out investigators. The second one was Justin Anderson; he is University of Virginia’s football recruiter. He is helping coach with Bronco. It was super cool to hear from him and have him help motivate us. Then the best of all, President and Sister Wilson (previous mission president and wife) skyped in. AWESOME! It was so fun to see them. I sure do love and miss them so much. The rest of the conference was so great. We had over an hour worth of musical numbers. We and four other sisters in our zone, performed. It was such a fun day full of the wonderful spirit of Christmas.

President and Sister Wilson

With Sister Mooney

Hermana Sanchez

Sissy

Hermana Stewart (she's from Dixie)

Christmas Conference with the whole misson

Our investigators Brian and Justin are doing so well. We have been able to see them a lot this week. We had a skype lesson with them and have been able to meet with them as well. We talked about the Plan of Salvation in one lesson and they LOVED it. They were asking so many questions and they loved how God has mapped it out so wonderfully and beautifully for us. I love being able to see the light bulb moments in people's minds and to see the peace and comfort the Plan of Salvation can give to them.

I love Christmas as a missionary. It seriously is the best time to be called as a missionary. Being able to have Jesus Christ the complete center and focus on Christmas is absolutely amazing. To see the love that our Heavenly Father has for each of His children is breath taking. Sometimes it's so hard for me to comprehend. I love these people so much, but He loves them 1000 times more! We are so lucky/blessed to have someone who loves us no matter what. Even with all of our faults!

We have been able to go caroling a lot this week. We went with the elders to an assisted living place. They LOVED us. Even though we didn't sound very good, they wanted us to keep singing. I think they liked the company as well. We were able to meet so many wonderful people and hear some amazing stories. Two ladies fell in love with one of the elders. One even danced with him. It was such a fun night. We then went to downtown Harrisonburg and sang in the "square" it was fun. I love being a missionary!

I am so excited; I am able to go to the temple tomorrow!! The only time we get to go is when we are returning home, so I've been waiting 17 months for this!! I can't wait. It's going to be a blast. I'm sure I'll have tons of pictures for y'all next week.

There's not too much to say this week. I talked to the family yesterday and told them a lot already! Next week I'll make up for it.. haha

Scripture of the week: Luke 23:34- we have been talking a lot about forgiveness this week with investigators and recent converts. My favorite story of forgiveness is when Jesus Christ is on the cross and he forgives those who have done him wrong and have hurt him. His example is incredible. Sometimes it's easy to hold grudges and be mad at people. We just need to know that being mad at someone isn't going to get us anywhere. It's only going to bring us down. How do we expect God to forgive us if we can't forgive others?

I love y'all so so so much. Have such a wonderful last week without me See you next week.

Sister Brooks :)