Happy Father's Day

Dear Family and Friends,

Angela got baptized!!!!! It was a wonderful baptism!!! She was soooooo excited. We went by before the baptism on Saturday morning and she said that she didn't sleep all night because she was so excited. She is amazing. After church on Sunday she seemed so comfortable there and she really just seems to fit in. I am so excited for her. Her mom wants her to one day serve a mission, and I am excited to see if she chooses that option. She has a couple years to decide (she is only 13), but it would be so cool to see her progress in the Gospel that way.

We had a good week along with the baptism on Saturday. We spent some time on Friday morning visiting all the new sisters that we do exchanges with and it is so fun to see new missionaries excitement.

I have been having a lot of fun Physics freak out moments this past week too. On Wednesday night after our lesson with one of the families in the ward we went outside and he pointed out Mars, Jupiter and Venus in the sky. It was fun to spend some time just looking up into the sky and imagining all the wonderful creations of God. He told us that next week (this week) he would get out his telescope and we could see them up close! I am so excited.  Sister Price and I have also been talking a lot about keeping an eternal perspective and it reminded me of studying Einstein and how we know that time is only relative. It is cool to think that we can understand God's perspective a little bit more when we use laws of Physics.

I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day! We were able to spend some time visiting some of the members and showing them my favorite Mormon Message Earthly Father, Heavenly Father. It is such a wonderful knowledge to have, that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us more than we can even comprehend. I am so grateful for all He does for me and all I can learn from Him every day.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Cook

BARSTOW!!!

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy first week of June! This week has been incredible. A lot of miracles and fun things have happened! On Monday we had a lesson with a family and they are interested in learning more, it was an incredible way to start off the week! Then we stopped by another investigator who we haven't seen in awhile and she was home and welcomed us right in. It was about 8:15pm and she still hadn't fed her family dinner yet, so she invited us to stay and have dinner and cake with her and her kids to celebrate her sons birthday. We had already had a huge dinner earlier that afternoon so it was an adventure trying to not be rude and eat her food while also being stuffed! Sister Price almost threw up when we got home, it was crazy!

We had MLC this past week on Thursday. I always love MLC and learning from President and Sister Hobbs, and feeling the Spirit in these meetings. We are focusing this month on Christlike Attributes and how to obtain Christlike Attributes. Sister Hobbs talked a lot about prayer and using prayer to connect with God and learn from Him. I was studying from the April General Conference Brother Teh's talk titled "Where Your Treasure Is" and it mentions that we can make sure we are following the Lord when we are seeking to obtain Christlike Attributes. When we desire to become more like Christ, then we are more willing to obey and follow His counsel.  I am excited to focus on becoming more like Christ and putting Him first so I can become a better disciple and missionary.

As you can tell from the title of this e-mail I also spent some time in Barstow this past week. I was on an exchange with Sister Richardson up in Barstow and we had a great day. We did service in the morning then went to In-n-Out for lunch. We had a really cool experience at In-n-Out where the two people behind us in line asked a lot of questions about us as missionaries. The line was really long so we were able to spend probably about 20 minutes talking to them about our role and what we do. It was really cool. Then we spend a couple hours out walking around Barstow trying to find new investigators and meet less active members of the ward. It was a great day.

We are excited for Angela. Her baptism is still scheduled for Saturday. She is excited and nervous. Pray for her and her family, please!

My testimony of this Gospel gets stronger and stronger every day. I know the Lord is hastening His work, and I am so excited to be such a large part of it.

I love you all and I would love to hear about what you are learning in your scripture studies and how your testimony of Christ is being strengthened.

Happy Father's Day on Sunday!

Love,
Sister Cook

Achieving Goals (Plus Pictures!)

Sister Price and I on the ride at Scandia last Monday.

My district this past transfer: From the left Top: Elder Verelia, Elder Cuellar, Elder Hair, Elder Schmidt. Bottom: Elder Robbins, Elder Sheppard, Sister Cook, Sister Price

Me and my hedgehog fairy house made by Shanna and Sister Koopman

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope you all have had a fantastic week. Mine and Sister Price's has been incredible. We started it off by getting Angela excited about baptism and we ended it with her as well. It has been such a great week to spend time with our investigators and finding some new ones and just helping them feel God's love. Angela is always so happy whenever we talk about her baptism and it is just contagious. The Gospel makes people happy - that is why I do what I do every day, and that is why this all works.  We have a lesson scheduled with a new family tonight and I am just so excited to share with them the hope that can come from believing in Christ.

Today marks the beginning of a new transfer and I am excited to report that Sister Price and I will be staying together here in the Silver Lakes Ward. We were so nervous for the call from our district leader on Saturday and so relieved when it came and we learned we were both staying. So, I will be here until about the middle of July and hopefully I won't die from the heat. (Pray that I will stay cool, please). In other news with transfers I learned that Sister Ott is coming up here to Hesperia to train a new missionary so I will get to go on an exchange with her sometime this transfer! I am so excited :D I am really looking forward to everything that we will be able to accomplish over the next 6 weeks.

I have been focusing a lot over the last couple of weeks on the Book of Mormon and I wanted to be able to strengthen my testimony in receiving answers to my questions from the Book of Mormon. I want to share some experiences I have had over the last couple of days that has allowed me to do this. First, I set a goal this past week to place a copy of the Book of Mormon. I hadn't had a chance all week until yesterday. We had a referral from the elders in our ward and we went out to try to contact them and right after we said the prayer before we left the car I knew that this would be my chance to place my copy of the Book of Mormon. I grabbed one from the trunk and Sister Price and I walked up to the house. The kids were playing outside and we asked if their mom was home. One ran inside and got his mom and we were able to talk with her for a minute. She was busy right then, but we scheduled to come back the next day (today) to teach them more. I asked if the elders had given them a copy of the Book of Mormon and she said no so I was able to give her the copy I had grabbed. The cool part of the story is that as we were leaving one of the little boys asked if we knew who Jesus was. The mom told him, yeah they know about Jesus and they are going to teach us about him. He responded and said, I want to know who Jesus is. It was a really cool experience to see this family want so much to learn about Jesus and I am so excited to share with them more of the Book of Mormon to really teach them who Jesus is and what He did for us. This relates really well to the other experiences I had this week with really feeling and knowing who Christ is to me from reading the Book of Mormon. I think I have mentioned before that we are reading with one of our recent converts, Vanessa, through the Book of Mormon and right now we are reading with her in the Isaiah chapters of 2 Nephi. Sister Price and I have been studying a little every day so we can be prepared for our lessons with her. As I was reading one day this week I was so touched by the power of Isaiah's words in describing Christ and all that He has done for us. The song "The Messiah" by Handel has been playing in my head all week, and I love all the titles of Christ - Wonderful Counselor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Christ is there to help us with EVERYTHING. There is nothing in our lives that Christ can not help us with. My testimony of Him has grown so much over the past month, and I am so grateful for all that He has done for me.

I hope you all have been having wonderful experiences with the Book of Mormon and I would LOVE to hear about them.

Thank you for all your love and support!

Sister Cook