Week of Changes!

Well...this week was really crazy. In the best way, of course! We were able to find some new investigators, and plan a baptism! :) Ann's getting baptized on Saturday! HOORAY! She's so great! She's doing well, and is still very excited! Betty is still progressing. Slowly but surely she'll get there. :) She's having a hard time giving up her Catholic traditions, and is scared of what her family will think of her. We'll keep moving forward! :)

So craziness...yeah...transfer meeting is tomorrow! I still have no idea what mission I'm going to be in! Last night Sister Ott got a training call...for a brand new missionary...so she won't be training me anymore. I was kind of sad, and a little overwhelmed because we really aren't sure where either of us are going to end up or what's really going to happen! I could end up with another 1/2 trained companion, or a whole other trainer. We find all of that out tomorrow! I know that everything's going to be okay, and that I'll end up where the Lord wants me to be. :) It's just a little stressful, but it will be great! It's such an exciting time to be a missionary!

Wasn't that Missionary Conference AWESOME! I loved every minute!!! Really pumped us up! It was so great, and the spirit was so, so strong! I loved the focus that they had on member-missionary work. Seriously, members do not realize how desperately important they are to this work! We can't be very effective without them! Do you know what would be cool? You guys should make a plan to do some of your own missionary work. Whether it's with actives, less actives or non-members a missionary's purpose is to bring others to Christ! So you guys should try that out, and tell me how it goes!!! :) :)

Yesterday was super awesome, because an Area Seventy came to our ward to speak! His name was Elder Hiam, and it was super cool to be a missionary because he came and talked to Sister Ott and I. :) He gave us encouragement, and told us to work hard. His talk was amazing, and I hope it brought the spirit of missionary work more into our ward. So between that, and the missionary conference, yesterday was awesome!

Sorry this letter was kind of scatter-brained, we don't have a ton of time. Thanks so much for all that you've done to help me. I'm feeling a lot better! I think I'm finally over that beastly cold. :) Thank you so much for all of the love and support! How are your personal studies going? I'd really like to hear what you guys are studying! I love you all so much. I miss and love you, and I'm working the hardest I can! Can't wait to hear from you! I hope you have an awesome week!

6/17/2013

We had some wildlife visitors this week. We were heading to church yesterday, and all of the sudden Sister Ott says, "Was that Raccoon Cat?" (Raccoon Cat is one of the many wild cats that lives in our apartment complex. He has a raccoon-looking tail, hence the name "Raccoon Cat") Anyways, I looked over to where she was staring and from around a car comes out a GINORMUS raccoon! Seriously, he was huge. And then he started coming toward us! If any of our neighbors were watching out of there window, I'm sure we were an amusing sight as we shrieked and scrambled into the car. It was fun. :)

 

Well, I'll give you an update on what's been going on! It was an awesome week! Ann is especially doing well. We had a lesson with her (first time I ever taught the law of chastity hahaha) but she prayed at our lesson, out loud, for the first time! It was probably one of the sweetest, most heartfelt prayers I've ever heard. She thanked Heavenly Father for sending the sister missionaries to her and "for opening my eyes, because they were really closed." :) That was probably one of the best moments of my mission so far. She keeps telling us how she just can't wait to be baptized! It makes me super excited every time I think about it! Betty is doing well too! She also prayed for the first time, out loud in our lesson this week. That was such a powerful lesson. She really opened up about how she's looking for a family. She told us a lot about things that have happened to her in her past. Our member that was present was an all-star! It was definitely inspired for her to be there. Betty really just needs to feel loved and needed. That's what this church is all about!! :) We're hoping we'll be able to set a date with her soon! Thank you for putting her name in the temple!

 

I had a little bug this week. Nasty little cough, but I'm doing alright! I had quite the cough attack on a less actives doorstep yesterday. Pretty sure he thought I was dying. It was hilarious!  I also got to speak in church yesterday...It was good. Haha I still need to work on my public speaking skills, but I was really glad that I got to talk on Father's day! I got to tell everyone about how awesome Dad is. :) I actually went over my time speaking, can you believe it?! I hope I continue to get better at speaking.

 

So, I still don't know what mission I'll be in. This is how it's going to go down (It's kind of crazy). So they're having a mission-wide transfer next week, which means the WHOLE mission is going to go to the mission office, but they aren't doing transfer calls. This means that Sister Ott, and I, and every other missionary won't know which mission we are going to be in until that day. Most likely I'll be staying in Ontario, which means that I'll be in the Rancho Cucamonga Mission, but you never really know! They've had a trainer and their greenie white-wash an area before, so we'll see. It's super exciting!

 

Our District Leader made a promise to us this week. He promised that if we are exactly obedient the Lord will bless us to be able to find one more person ready to be baptized than we have planned. We're ready to put it to the test! :)

 

I've learned a lot this week. Time seems to blur together as a missionary, but I can see every week how I'm becoming a better missionary and growing closer to the Lord. I feel such a better connection with my Heavenly Father, and it means a lot to me. How's everyone's personal prayers and scripture study going? I'd love to hear about it! Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week! I love you all so much!!! Thank you for all of the support, and the prayers. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family in my life, and I'm so grateful for all that you do! Remember who you are and why you're here! It's so important! I LOVE YOU!

 

Love,

Sister Cook

Fast and slow at the same time.

I'm doing really well! Another week gone by, it goes fast and slow at the same time. Haha!

 

Our investigators are doing great! Ann is for sure set to be baptized on the 29th, and when we met with her this week she was even more excited. She kept telling us how she couldn't wait. :) I was so happy. She's not that much older than us, and we're all starting to feel like true friends. She isn't getting a ton of support from her family, but she's still going to get baptized. It's amazing. After that lesson we were kind of like, "Hooray! Ann's getting baptized! Woohoo! ....wait...how do we even plan a baptism?" Haha that's what you get when companions are both still pretty new. I've learned so much from Ann and from Betty. They are such strong, wonderful people. Betty is doing well too! Still no baptism date, but I think we're getting closer. She opened up and told us how she doesn't have a problem believing Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true. She says that she's really looking for a family feeling. Well we've got a family for her, it's called a ward family! :) We're really going to try to fellowhip her like crazy. Which won't be hard, because she's amazing and I'm sure everyone will love her. :) We haven't met up again with our drunk friend, but we're still trying! :) haha

 

Fun story of the week, we were just leaving a less active's house when I saw a lady getting out of her car across the street. I felt a prompting that we should go talk to her, so I told Sister Ott, and across the street we went. We started talking to her, and she told us that she was actually on her way in to a Bible Study. She invited us to go with her...right then. So we did. :) When we walked in, the lady that we'd first spoken too announced to the other ladies something like, "I was outside and these ladies were trying to bring me to Jesus, and I told them, honey you come with me!" Hahaha It was pretty cool! I still have no idea what church they're from, but they were really nice. Sister Ott and I didn't get the chance to say much, but afterwards we both felt like we'd done what we were supposed to...whatever it was. :) Haha! I can now say I've been to a real Bible Study.

 

Something else awesome that happened this week was a lesson with a Recent Convert that we have. He got baptized in the winter, and has had a hard time staying active. He opened up to us about how he felt like he'd maybe jumped in too quickly, and he was feeling overwhelmed. It was crazy, because the spirit completely guided us on what to teach him that day. We'd been planning something else, and about a half-an-hour before we went to the lesson Sister Ott felt like it wasn't right. We ended up planning a lesson super quick, and it was exactly what he needed. The spirit was so, so strong. It was amazing. I felt like I needed it just as much as he did.

 

Being a missionary is hard, but I feel like Heavenly Father gives me the strength to do what I need to every day. I've felt my relationship with Him improve so much. I still have so much to learn, but I'm not feeling overwhelmed. I know that I can trust God, and that everything will be okay. This work makes me so happy. Feeling so much closer to the Savior makes me so happy. I know that when we study PERSONALLY and as a FAMILY we can all have that happiness together. It breaks my heart sometimes because you see people or families dealing with things that you know the Gospel could fix. We have been so blessed to have the Gospel in our lives. PLEASE take advantage of it!!!

 

I love you all so much! Have a fantastic week!!!

 

Love,

Sister Cook

1 Month?!

Well, I'm doing really good! I can't believe it's been a whole month since I reported to the MTC. It seems much longer then that, but also much shorter than that if that makes ANY sense...Things continue to move forward in Ontario! I don't even know where to start really.

I'll start with our investigators. They're doing awesome! Ann is still committed to be baptized, and our lessons with her continue to go really well. She's so great. We've all become good friends! The only problem is, is that she's attending a different ward (looonnng story) so we're trying to get her fellowshipped into our ward, but it's been a little difficult getting people to her lessons that she might be able to relate to. We're still working on it. :) Betty is doing awesome as well! We haven't been able to commit her to baptism yet, because she's really taking this very seriously. Which is good! She got to go to a baptismal service in a different ward this week, and she really liked it. She just needs to feel the witness of the Holy Ghost. Once that happens, nothing will hold her back. Sometimes these two are so awesome, I think they're undercover Mormons or something...they've just been so prepared by the Lord! :)

I don't know if I told you guys, but our Mission set a goal of 350 people being baptized by July 1st (The end of the San Bernardino Mission :( haha) They set this goal back in January and we're all trying so, so hard to reach it. I know we can get there! I also found out that since there are SO MANY sisters coming into our mission that by the end of my training, I'll probably be training a greenie myself! I'm a little nervous about that, haha, but I'm sure it will be great! We also found out yesterday that on Thursday we're getting a two-week missionary! Let me explain what this is (haha, it's SO COOL) So when guys are priests, and girls are 18 they can go on a two week mission. They get set apart, called to an area and everything. Then they get to be a real missionary for two weeks with us. So yeah, we're excited! I'm guessing they don't do this in Utah because there would be way to many youth that wanted to do it, and not enough missionaries. But it's really cool!

A lot of our appointments this week fell through...kinda makes me grumpy. :) But we were also able to meet a lot of great people, and we found some great potential! Sister Ott and I have set some challenging goals that we feel like we can meet. We're going to be pushing ourselves and working hard. We're really trying to get our ward excited about missionary work. We've come up with some things we want to do, but do you guys have any ideas? We also have A LOT of less-actives in this ward. So reactivation is also something we're working on.

A couple funny/cool experiences, this week we met a guy named Dustin. He was really nice, and open to talk with us. He kept saying that he wanted to make changes in his life. We told him that we knew this could change his life and really help him out. He kept giving me kind of funny looks throughout our conversation and then he finally said something like, "I can tell you really believe this. And I'm believing everything you say." It was cool! He was feeling the spirit! We did end up figuring out that he was somewhat drunk at the time (hahaha) but he was feeling the spirit! So we'll see where it goes.

Yesterday we met another really awesome potential! We had, had an appointment to meet with someone that we had tracted into earlier that day, but they didn't live at the house, and he wasn't there when we went back. BUT THEN, we met Tim, the owner of the house. (haha!) He was really open to learning more! He told us that he'd actually been looking for a church to go to, and that he was going through some hard things and looking for peace in his life. Funny how we meet people like that. ;)

This week we had my two-week "greenie meeting". It was cool to see all of my MTC buddies again, and share stories of all that's been happening. What's kind of sad is we're not sure when we'll see them again. :( Except, in a couple weeks we're going to have a MISSION-WIDE transfer meeting, where we find out for sure which mission we will be in. It's going to be crazy. Haha so I guess there's a chance I still could end up in Redlands.

Well, I hope everything's going well! I love you all so much! I'm so grateful for the love and support that you guys give me. Not every missionary has that. I'm truly grateful for all that you do! I hope you all have a fantastic week!

May 27th (Memorial Day)

I’m doing super good! It seems like last p-day was an eternity ago. So much has happened! So many miracles, I don’t even know where to start.

I’ll start with Betty! Last Monday we got a media referral for Betty. She had gotten on Mormon.org and requested missionaries to go and see her. We were so excited! We got there and started to get to know her. So apparently she had submitted that referral the Saturday before we received it, and she went to church that Sunday!! All by herself! Before we’d even met her!! She went to a different ward, so we didn’t meet her until our appointment on Wednesday, but HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! She really liked it and was excited to learn more. She told us the story of how she decided to contact us. A few months ago Sister Ott and Sister Heward (the sister here before me) actually street contacted her. They left her a pamphlet on the Restoration, but didn’t set up a return appointment or anything. Betty said that the pamphlet was on her mind all the time and she didn’t forget about it. She had been feeling like she was missing something in her life. She found a pass along card on her door one day. She kept it, but didn’t do anything with it. One day she was praying earnestly for guidance in her life. She went and opened the door and there was a Mormon.org card. :) :) Apparently the Tongan ward Elders AND the Spanish Elders tracted her street within a couple of weeks. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! :) So she got on Mormon.org and requested missionaries. She was crying as she told us that story. She is so awesome and so prepared. That Wednesday we left her a Book of Mormon and asked her to read and pray about the introduction. When we went back for our next appointment on Saturday we asked if she’d read, and she said, “Yes I have, but I wasn’t able to get very far. I’m only on chapter twelve.” HOLY COW! WHO IS THIS LADY?? That’s what I was thinking. :) She pulled out a little study journal, and she’d been marking scriptures too! Sheesh. She’s awesome! We asked her to be baptized later that lesson and she said, “I really want to be sure about this. I don’t want to be ashamed. You know, like in, what’s his name, Lehi? Yeah, Lehi’s dream and there were people who ate the fruit and then they were ashamed. I don’t want to be like that.” She’s already relating scriptures to her life!! We’ll work on the baptism part. :) Yeah so, she’s great.

We also got to meet with Ann again! Remember her? She’s also amazing. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, and she was really receptive. She loved how families are supposed to be together forever. She went to church on Sunday (a different ward…long story) but she called us after and said she had an amazing experience, and that she’s recognizing the Spirit!! :) I like this thing called missionary work. She’s committed to work towards getting baptized on June 29^th! :) :)

Another miracle that happened this week involves weekly planning. Funny, right? So every week we set goals for next week. We also set a goal for the number of baptisms we feel is right for a weekend four weeks out. Well, at weekly planning we felt very strongly that we are going to find a family to teach. So we set a pretty high goal…which was a little scary. But guess what! On Saturday we tracted into a family that’s interested in learning more… :) We’ll see how it goes!

Within this past week we’ve found more investigators than Sister Ott says that she and Sister Heward found in a single month before! The ward is being prepared and getting more excited, as are we. :) There is so much potential here, we are really humbled, and grateful. We’re relying a lot on the Lord because technically both of us are greenies. Sometimes we feel like we don’t know what we’re doing.  Haha but that’s okay! It makes us rely on the Lord.

The ward here is awesome. They are strong people. There are many women here whose husbands aren’t members, but they are determined and have such strong testimonies. They’re a huge example to me.

One of the biggest things I’ve realized since I’ve been out here is how blessed our family is. We meet people all of the time who haven’t heard of Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. Some people talk about hard things they’re going through, themselves or with family, and you can see how the Gospel would completely fix the problem if they lived it. With all that we’ve been blessed we have a responsibility. Read the scriptures every day. Personally and as a family. I’ve always been grateful for the scriptures, but now I can see how God will hold us accountable for what we do with what we have, and we have so much. Pray every day, multiple times a day, as a family and personally! So many people I’ve met don’t’ really know how to pray. So do your best with what you have!