Golden Week

October 6, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has probably been the best week of my life. On Monday we got a referral from the office for a 'part member family' who wanted to know what ward they were in because they had just moved into the area and want to be involved in the church. We called the number that night and he called back the next day and we set up to go over. We went for our scheduled time Tuesday night and it was AMAZING! These people are so perfect. They have been looking for a church and wherever they have been going just hasn't felt right, but everything they look up about our church has just felt right. We figured out that yes, the husband has been baptized, but he hasn't been confirmed, so he has to get baptized again! So we picked up two GOLDEN investigators! We invited them to our weekly activity on Friday night and they came, we watched 3/4 sessions of conference with them and they are SO excited for their baptismal date of November 22! I am sure I will have more stories about them as I go through the rest of this e-mail! Pray for them! They are amazing! Kevin and Amanda are their names.

So, today is the first day of a new transfer! Unlike all of our predictions, Sister Edwards was transferred and is now up in Hesperia in a bike area! She is freaking out, but she will be fantastic! I am still here in Rancho and my new companion is Sister Packer! She goes home in December and is amazing! I am excited to be with her.

We have been pretty busy this week and have had so many miracles happen. Kevin and Amanda was the first one, but we also had the amazing opportunity to watch Meet the Mormons! It was soooooo good! It was fun to be in a room full of missionaries watching this movie because we all got so emotional and the Spirit was so strong. You will all love it! We also had some great days just being out trying to invite everyone we could to watch Conference. We were able to make contact with members of the ward that we don't see very often and some we had never met and invite them to conference. This also reminds me that we found out yesterday that we will be getting a new bishop in the ward this Sunday. We had dinner with our current bishop and he told us last night that he is going to be released.

We had our Friday night activity again this week, we played Human Battleship. Only our investigators and our ward mission leader showed up but it ended up being perfect because we were able to play the game for a little and then give them a tour of the building. They are so excited to come to church! They are so amazing!

Conference was fantastic! We watched it mostly with our investigators (we only watched Sunday afternoon at the church so we could say goodbye to some other missionaries). We were able to answer all of Kevin and Amanda's questions as they came up and we were able to sort of distract their little 2 year old son for a little so they could pay attention. I feel like I learned so much and I feel so excited for the coming months where I will get to grow and learn so much more. On Saturday night we decided to walk around the mall that is in our area to see if we could talk to anyone. Two women and their two daughters who are members close by stopped us outside Cheescake Factory to talk to us for a minute and then invited us to join them for dinner! It was great. They said that they were taking Elder Holland's advice and feeding the poor :D. After we got out from dinner we ran into another less active couple from the ward that we haven't seen in awhile. It was definitely a miracle night!

I feel so blessed right now to have God pouring out miracles all around me. I am excited to do my best these next couple weeks and show God that He can trust me with these people that He has dropped into my lap.

I love you all and I am so grateful for all you do and your wonderful support and encouragement!

Love,
Sister Cook